Absurd in Dagestan

Barbariga / Fort Forno / 23 / 9 / 2022 / Film

Cer­tainly not a new face at Vladi­mir Film Fest­iv­al, Kir­ill Korob­kov, prom­in­ent Rus­si­an scene and Absurd Skate­boards act­iv­ist, is wel­come among us this year, once again; and — in addi­tion to what has now estab­lished itself as a tra­di­tion of a secret photo exhib­i­tion — he brought a new five-minute video edit with him. We’re talk­ing the Absurd crew’s latest trip to Dagest­an, at the very south bor­der of the coun­try, a region about which Kir­ill recounts: Dagest­an is a land of moun­tains. Dagest­an is a land of war­ri­ors. Dagest­an is a land of very spe­cial people who live by the Caspi­an Sea. It’s beau­ti­ful. It’s con­tro­ver­sial. It’s very tra­di­tion­al. Some­times it’s hard to under­stand it and you got to take it the way it is. It’s very dif­fer­ent from any oth­er part of the coun­try known as Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion. Many people are scared to go there. Oth­ers fall in love with it at first sight. It’s the birth­place to one of the most ulti­mate MMA fight­er invin­cible Khabib Nurmagomedov. It’s the only place I know where loc­al skaters go wrest­ling before skat­ing because later they might have to fight for their right to skate. It’s a place where loc­al min­is­ter might give you a per­mis­sion to skate the main entrance to his min­istry and at the same time you might get in trouble because loc­als don’t like the bright col­ors of your head-wear.
Going to a place that no one has skated before you always feels unique. Being the first team to go Dagest­an for skate­board­ing felt extra-spe­cial. This was the last big Absurd trip before the list of things asso­ci­ated with Rus­sia dra­mat­ic­ally changed in Feb­ru­ary 2022. This video is our one last blast from the good old past.