Near Narva — On the riverbank, a black-and-white post marks the border, standing like a sentry no one dares to cross anymore. Today, this simple sign planted in the landscape recalls everything that has closed off: erased paths, interrupted habits, and a freedom that has become a border.

In a basement with damp walls, Kira rehearses with her band. Her voice, still hesitant as it finds its place, echoes off the concrete as if trying to push back the invisible borders that surround her. “Music is the only place where I don’t have to choose,” she says. In her songs, one can hear a desire to escape, but also a deep attachment — that of a generation seeking to breathe differently.

Narva, Estonia — The grey façades still carry the memory of the Soviet years. They shelter discreet, often weary lives in a city where everything seems suspended between two worlds. Almost entirely destroyed in 1944 and then rebuilt by the USSR, Narva bears the imprint of that period in its architecture and demography: large uniform apartment blocks, the industrial legacy of Kreenholm, streets where the Russian language predominates. Here, the urban landscape reflects both the Soviet past, the immediate proximity of Russia, and the geopolitical tensions that now run through this border city.

At the Rugodiv, Narva’s Russian cultural centre, the corridors echo with accordions, singing, and footsteps endlessly rehearsing the Russian dances of the past. Many come here as one would to a familiar home: to rediscover reassuring sounds, to encounter known faces, to keep a part of themselves alive. Since the war, it has become a discreet refuge for a community still searching for how to stand upright between two worlds that watch each other with mistrust.

Narva, Estonia — An accordionist rehearses at the Rugodiv cultural centre. His fingers follow melodies inherited from another time, a fragile thread linking Soviet memory, attachment to Russian culture, and the uncertain present of a border city.

Narva, Estonia — Vlad, 23, a young graffiti artist, weeps in front of a bouquet of flowers laid on the concrete in tribute to Ukrainian victims. He hides his face in his hands, as if shielding himself from an unanswerable question. He has spoken Russian since childhood, yet does not recognize himself in Moscow’s rhetoric. The war weighs on him like a fault he did not commit, but that is sometimes attributed to him despite himself. “I just want to be allowed to be myself,” he murmurs.

Narva, Estonia — Flowers laid on the concrete in tribute to Ukrainian victims. A silent gesture of mourning and solidarity in a city shaped by the proximity of the war.

Setomaa, Estonia — In the dim light of her kitchen, Maarika carves pieces of wood as one might carve a fragile memory. She still speaks seto kiil, the local language, but her children, who left to study in Tallinn and abroad, no longer use it. Each object she makes is an attempt to hold back time. In a soft voice, she says: “If I don’t do it, who will?”

Setomaa, Estonia — An Orthodox cross casually placed on the exterior wall of a Seto house. A symbol of a faith shared with Russia, it reflects a spiritual heritage that crosses the border.

Narva, Estonia — The former Kreenholm factory rises like a stranded vessel: immense, empty, almost solemn. It was this complex that shaped Narva’s Russophone demography, drawing thousands of workers from across the Soviet Union.

Narva, Estonia — Young Russophone gymnasts in training. In a city historically oriented toward Russia, their sport nonetheless forces them to look elsewhere: since the war in Ukraine, competing in Russia has become impossible, and they now perform exclusively within European circuits. Like many young people in Narva, they grow up with a Russophone identity, but their future — studies, sport, mobility — is firmly oriented toward Europe.

Setomaa, Estonia — Liidia, 70, shows the Seto statue as one would introduce an old friend. She was once “Queen of Setomaa,” in a time when the border stopped no one. Today, her grandchildren live far away and no longer speak the language she still carries like a treasure. She says she keeps the house for them, in case they return. For Liidia, Setomaa once formed a single village — a world slowly fragmented by politics, time, and exile.

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Setomaa, Estonia — Here, three roads open up like three lines of destiny. The one to the left reaches Russia after three kilometres, another after two, and the road running straight ahead meets the border in a single breath of asphalt. In this part of Setomaa, the Seto territory feels caught in an invisible embrace: wherever one turns, Russia surfaces — as close as a breath.

Setomaa, Estonia — On a wall, three old photographs stand watch in silence. In Seto culture, ancestors are not mere memories: they inhabit the home, protect the living, accompany rituals, and sustain the coherence of a people fragmented by the border. Heirs to a world where Orthodoxy coexists with polyphonic songs and even older beliefs, the Seto grant family memory a depth that goes far beyond the frame of images. Preserving portraits of the departed also means keeping open a fragile thread to a vulnerable history, often shaken by exile, the division of lands, and the slow fading of villages.

Eastern Estonia — Lydia is a Ukrainian refugee. Her home has become a small Ukrainian museum: photographs, embroidery, a few icons — everything she managed to save before leaving. Since the war, she has been living with a painful paradox: she shares the language and certain habits with her Russophone neighbours, but no longer the same history, nor the same way of seeing the world. She says the border is not only outside — it has also entered conversations, doubts, and sometimes even friendships.

Narva, Estonia — A rug with Slavic patterns dries outdoors between Soviet-era apartment blocks. This ordinary everyday gesture reflects the lingering Soviet influence, visible both in domestic practices and in the urban landscape.

Narva, Estonia — A group of young people lie head to toe, their bodies forming a spontaneous arrangement. A moment of ease and closeness, where adolescence unfolds beyond discourse, in a city shaped by borders and tensions.

Vovan walks through the capital, Tallinn, but it is Narva that still resonates in his voice. For a long time, he refused to stay silent: in Narva, he exposed himself, asserted who he was, and openly claimed space for dissident, alternative voices — despite the stares, despite an atmosphere increasingly charged with pro-Russian rhetoric, sometimes racist, often homophobic, after 2022. His art already carried this tension: loving a city that pushed back against him, fighting for a space that kept slipping away, creating in an environment where every gesture became a political act. “I didn’t flee,” he says. “I did everything I could there. But at some point, to keep creating, I needed a place where the air no longer hurt to breathe.”

Statues of Lenin and other Soviet symbols, now gathered in a museum after being removed from public space as part of Estonia’s decommunisation policy. Once standing in the squares and avenues of the city, these statues carry the echo of a time when the Russophone community still felt visible. But they also bear the weight of an oppressive past whose traces many in Estonia seek to erase.

Borys, 64, Narva, Estonia. He arrived in the city in 1981, when the border with Russia was still an internal Soviet line. Today, living a few hundred meters from it, he watches this once invisible boundary become one of Europe’s most heavily charged frontiers.

Borys, 64, Narva, Estonia. He arrived in the city in 1981, when the border with Russia was still an internal Soviet line. Today, living a few hundred meters from it, he watches this once invisible boundary become one of Europe’s most heavily charged frontiers.

Narva, Estonia — Elena and Lola pose before heading to class, one writing in Estonian in her notebook, the other scrolling in Russian on her phone. They move from one language to the other as easily as from one mood to another, without yet sensing what it represents for their parents: a shift, a gentle rupture, a forced adaptation. They are the first generation to fully experience the language reform — school curricula previously taught in Russian are now taught in Estonian, a change that has sparked significant criticism. For them, it is not a debate. It is simply life moving forward.

Narva, Estonia — Swans glide along the river, in the heart of a derelict former workers’ district. Their silent presence contrasts with the tired façades that surround them. Where industry once set the rhythm of daily life, only a withdrawn landscape remains, bearing witness to Narva’s slow decline and the gradual erasure of a city losing its economic and social bearings.

Olga walks through the streets in bright coats, as if she were repainting the city with every step. A former costume designer at Kreenholm, she has lived through several worlds: the Soviet one, the post-Soviet one, and an uncertain present. She says Narva is becoming too grey, too porous to sadness. So she wears red, purple, yellow. “If the city forgets how to smile,” she says, “I can at least help it a little.” And when she laughs, it feels as though the walls around her grow pale.

Setomaa, Estonia — An old yellow Niva rusts at the edge of the landscape. Left behind like a memory no one had the heart to take away, it embodies Soviet nostalgia, ordinary poverty, and the quiet erasure of the margins.

Narva, Estonia — Olga, 70, was born in Russia and arrived in Narva when the vast Kreenholm textile factory was still drawing workers from across the Soviet space. She grew up with the rumble of the looms, the corridors of workers’ housing, and a Russian-speaking community that then formed a world of its own. Today, Olga lives with a nostalgia she no longer knows where to place. The memory of a time that once felt stable and predictable collides with today’s geopolitics — closing borders, rising tensions, and a “Russian world” she no longer truly recognizes. In her gaze, one can sense both the tenderness of a fading past and the unease of no longer knowing which future she belongs to.