Documents of Vadim Arkadyevich Kachan were deposited in BGAMLI

The famous Belarusian photographer and teacher Vadim Arkadyevich Kachan recalls: «The following incident happened to me. A neighbor, old lady Olga, came to my dacha. She doesn’t often come to visit us, so I was surprised: «Olga, what happened?» «Yes, Vadim, I was at Nikolai’s funeral», she began. Nikolai, our common dacha neighbor, was seriously ill and recently died. «And I saw his photograph, a portrait», she continued, «they said that you were taking pictures». I came home, looked at my album, but I didn’t have any pictures, only on my passport. I’ll die, and in six months they’ll forget what I looked like. Take a photo of me. Just like Nicholas».

For most of us, photography is a recorded moment of life, a person’s appearance, an event. For Vadim Arkadyevich Kachan (participant of the project «Photo Manifesto: Contemporary Photography in the USSR», exhibition in the Moscow Manege dedicated to the 150th anniversary of photography, and others, author of a series of documentary works: «Portrait with a Portrait», «City Holiday», «Light and Shadows», «Phototandem» and photo albums «Faces», «People of Egypt», «Minsk. City and People» and «Photos of Past Years», member of the Belarusian public association «Photoart», Belarusian Union of Designers, Union of Photographers of Russia) – this is creative self-realization, without which its existence is meaningless.

On November 30, 2023, Vadim Arkadyevich Kachan transferred some of his documents (photo portraits, collages, booklets and catalogs of his exhibitions, correspondence, photo reports and humoresques for newspapers) for storage in BGAMLI. Most of what was transmitted is a photographic record of the life of Minsk and Minsk residents in the 1970s – 1990s. Now, like our dacha neighbor V.A. Kachan Olga, BGAMLI has its own photos for memory – the memory of the city and the country.