Boris Shvartsman Photography Collection

 The photographs capture iconic sites such as the Summer Garden and Peter the Great’s Cabin, the Peter and Paul Fortress, Kazan Cathedral, St. Isaac’s Square (including the monument to Nicholas I), Kamenny Island, and the Neva River, as well as views of the Rostral Column, the Bronze Horseman, Mikhailovsky Castle, and the bridge to New Holland. Other images include the the Mikhailovsky Garden with the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, the Singer House, the Sheremetev Palace (Fountain House), the Pushkin monument on Arts Square, and the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery. Together, these works reveal a sustained attention to urban form, historical memory, and the poetic textures of the city. Shvartsman also assembled a gallery of portraits of his distinguished contemporaries, including the poets Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, and Anatoly Naiman. Born in Leningrad in 1935, Shvartsman experienced wartime evacuation and postwar return, formative events that shaped his sensitivity to place and loss. Though initially trained in mechanical engineering, he devoted himself to photography from an early age, later working with archaeological expeditions in Central Asia and producing experimental films before establishing a long career at a graphic arts institute (1963–1990). His work, exhibited in Russia and the United States after his emigration in 2003, reflects a quiet documentary ethos — observing the city not as spectacle but as lived space, layered with history and personal resonance.