The Passing Of A Master: Russian Photographer Yury Abramochkin 1936-2018
The photojournalist described by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as "a master" was on hand to document many of the Soviet Union's most historic moments.
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"Birth of a ballerina," a famous image captured by Yury Abramochkin in 1966
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Abramochkin photographed in 2017, at the end of a photojournalism career that began in 1957
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The waltz of war veterans during a reunion on Theater Square in 1999. Abramochkin wrote that success of a photojournalist depended on "a sense of the moment.... One has to be able to foresee what is about to happen."
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American peace activist Samantha Smith (center, with satchel) in Crimea in 1983 as photographed by Abramochkin. The young American girl became famous after exchanging letters with the Soviet leader at the time and receiving a personal invitation to visit the U.S.S.R. Two years after this photo was taken she was killed in a plane crash in Maine.
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Pioneers and schoolchildren in a convention of trade unions of the U.S.S.R. in 1982
![Children at a health resort in Crimea in the summer of 1979. In the foreword of Abramochkin's book on Russia, a friend notes: "If somebody feels [Abramochkin] is too enthusiastic about the Soviet past and critical of post-perestroika times, he may be right up to a point. Well, the author is entitled to his own opinion. He has seen a lot during the 50 years that he has been on the front line with his camera and I take my hat off to him." ](https://gdb.rferl.org/26bf46f0-384f-4e70-85cb-e47db9f3020c_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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Children at a health resort in Crimea in the summer of 1979. In the foreword of Abramochkin's book on Russia, a friend notes: "If somebody feels [Abramochkin] is too enthusiastic about the Soviet past and critical of post-perestroika times, he may be right up to a point. Well, the author is entitled to his own opinion. He has seen a lot during the 50 years that he has been on the front line with his camera and I take my hat off to him."