The pictures Putin doesn't want you to see: Photographers capture the poverty and real-life strains of the residents of Sochi in series which has got them barred from the Winter Olympics

Rob Hornstra and Arnold van Bruggen spent 5 years in region photographing ordinary life

Say Sochi is unlikely spot for Winter Games...because there's no snow

Photos include portraits of strippers and children holding Kalashnikovs

Say area is plagued with various problems and that 'There's a big chance terrorists will try to disrupt these Games'

Two journalists who spent five years documenting Sochi, Russia and the North Caucasus have been barred from attending this year's Olympic Games -- but not before releasing startling photos of the city.

Rob Hornstra's photographs, coupled with Arnold van Bruggen's writing, together form

The Sochi Project.The project aims to show what ordinary life is like in the region.



The Sochi Project was largely crowdfunded, according to its website, taking donations from more than 650 private donors btween 2009 and 2013.



Scroll down for video



Olga, twenty-nine, is the manager of a strip club in Sochi

A young boy named Dima gets treatment for his burns in Matsesta, Sochi region, in this 2009 photo

A Sochi beach is seen here - notably, Sochi is called the 'subtropical conflict zone'

Sochi is considered 'the Florida of Russia, but cheaper,' according to van Bruggen -- and is a whopping 37 hours away from Moscow via train.

Hornstra and van Bruggen's work was recently published in their new book 'The Sochi Project: An Atlas of War and Tourism in the Caucasus.'

Photos in the project often capture poverty, lack of resources, and various types of political and ethnic strife. Startling images also capture strip club workers and children holding Kalashnikov weapons.



Two brothers who living in a remote area between Abkhazia and Georgia show off their guns on their grandfathers' couch in this 2009 photo

In 2009, state farm 'Russia' was fenced off with a big blue, Olympic fence -- meaning refugees from Abkhazia were allowed to temporarily farm the land, living in this caravan

The former ballroom on the beach of Pitsunda, Abkhazia, 2009 -- little has changed in the five years since this photo was taken

Striptease dancer Aliona waits outside the restaurant in Zhemchuzhina Hotel, while a mediocre singer entertains the audience with Russian chansons

Hornstra, in an interview with Dazed and Confused, said he and van Bruggen were arrested several times during their adventures covering the Northern Caucasus -- knowing the area is extremely dangerous and full of heated political activity.



'We started working there secretly in 2011, without publishing any stories,' he said. 'But in 2012 we went back and started really digging deep into some sensitive subjects, and – as predicted – we were arrested a couple of times. It culminated in July 2013 when the local authorities told me I couldn't enter Russia for the next five years.'

Van Bruggen, speaking to DNA Info , even said 'There's a big chance terrorists will try to disturb these games.'



As part of the project's writing, van Bruggen says the Winter Olympics are being built right next to a conflict zone, Abkhazia, and that human rights issues in the Northern Caucasus remain to be resolved.



'Stories abound of disappearances, murders by (local) security forces, torture, unfair trials, nepotism and corruption,' he writes. 'Entire villages in republics such as Chechnya have been rebuilt with money from the fines that Strasbourg has imposed on Moscow for these abuses.'

