Jonas Bendiksen: Untitled, 2000, from the book Satellites

In 1991, when the USSR dissolved, its satellite states were sent into free space—and uncertain futures. Jonas Bendiksen, a prodigiously talented photographer, has explored six gray areas in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and far eastern Siberia for seven years. In the process, Bendiksen reveals that the Soviet breakup is continuing today. Many of these outposts are ostensibly state-less states, places where Soviet nostalgia looms large, self-styled brands of capitalism have emerged, where bloody insurrections have scarred cities, and entire populations have fled in search of better lives.

Hauntingly beautiful, the sixty-two arresting color photographs of Satellites: Photographs from the Fringes of the Former Soviet Union (Aperture, 2006) unsentimentally reveal the often grim circumstances in these half-forgotten regions that are uniformly poor and polluted—and often politically unstable. We may not hear much about them today, but we will undoubtedly hear more from them in the near future as the fall of the Iron Curtain continues to reverberate throughout the region.

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