Discovered by chance in the family’s apartment in Saint Petersburg in the 1990s, the Henkin brothers’ thousands of negatives compose an exceptional photographic archive. Their images offer us an intimate portrait of 1930s Russia and Germany. Although their lives were vastly different – one in Berlin and the other in Leningrad, the brothers shared the same passion for photography. With astonishing artistic freedom for the era, they brought their cameras to places where people let their hair done, practicing sports or other leisure-time activities. Far from political tension, the rise of Nazism and Stalinist terror, their images portray cheerful, healthy aspects of everyday life. Without cropping out the portraits of Stalin in Leningrad or the swastikas in Berlin, they chose not to do utilitarian or propaganda photography.

These often-joy-filled photographs are now shaded with unexpected meaning. We are struck not only by the crowds’ insouciance, but also by the photographers’ unfailing love for the human figure and for ordinary people.

Taken separately in Leningrad and Berlin in the 1930s, and having languished for decades on shelves in a Russian apartment, the Henkin brothers’ photographic archives form a unique and precious dual-eyewitness account of a turbulent era.