Three years in, the strong and the small survive in Ukraine
Photographing Anna Kurkurina’s animal rescues, Maranie Staab documented the human side of this brutal conflict.
Today marks three years since Russia invaded Ukraine. While talks are ongoing between the U.S. and Russia about the war, Ukrainians continue to live in a state of uncertainty.
After visiting the Ukrainian war zone in spring 2022, photojournalist Maranie Staab knew she wanted to return and report on Ukrainians working selflessly to help the less fortunate survive the conflict. She ultimately pitched what would become Long Lead’s first photo essay, Lifting Ukraine, a striking profile of Anna Kurkurina, a world-record-setting powerlifter who has fought the Russian invasion in her own way, by rescuing and rehoming animals orphaned by the war.
“Anna's story is about the exceptional work of one woman in wartime, but it's also about everyday people and how they survive individually and as a community,” says Staab. The photo essay won a Webby Award and a Webby People’s Voice Award for Best Use of Photography, and its technical development was featured in the Webby Awards and WP Engine’s Crafted With Code Showcase.
For more information on Anna Kurkurina’s animal rescue efforts, click here.
Though Kurkurina’s story is propelled by conflict, what compelled Staab to report it was how human her struggle is. “Anna is very relatable,” she says. “She's very much like you and me, and anyone who might read her story. She just happens to be in Ukraine and her country is under siege, but just like all of us, she's trying to live a meaningful life, in peace.”
Staab is no stranger to putting herself in danger for her work, but this kind of coverage requires research and preparedness. She readies for war zone reporting by taking formal hostile environment and emergency first aid (HEFAT) training, for example. Outside of logistical preparations, covering a war-torn country can take emotional resilience. But Staab says it’s “contagious being around people who can’t leave their homes but are getting up every single day and asking how they can make the situation better for others.”
While Staab speaks about Kurkurina’s “stubborn joy,” even on her busiest days helping Ukraine’s less fortunate, the weightlifter experienced “in-between moments where you can really see the exhaustion.” It happened, for instance, in times of doubt when funding to pay for the food or medical care for the animals was uncertain.
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Staab lived with Kurkurina for just under a month in August 2023, as she documented the world-champion’s life, capturing many facets of her humanitarianism: rescuing animals found on the streets, delivering food and supplies to animals and civilians, teaching fitness classes at her gym, coaching kids with cerebral palsy, and more.
Neither the photographer or her subject shared a common language, so they used nonverbal communication and Google Translator to build a rapport, which has now become a lasting friendship. “Translator became a big part of the way we communicated,” Staab says.
Many parts of Kurkurina’s life were visually compelling and lent themselves to the multimedia treatment developed by Long Lead Creative Director Sarah Rogers and Decimal Studios, which built the Lifting Ukraine website. “It's always exciting to be part of the first of something,” says Staab of reporting Long Lead’s first photo essay.“It was invigorating, and it made me that much more motivated to capture as much as I could,” she adds.
“As a freelancer, too often those stories are never fully realized, but Long Lead was able to take all of these components and put together this incredible multimedia presentation of Anna's story in a final format that I'm still incredibly proud to have been a part of.”
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