Times were tumultuous in post-Soviet eastern Ukraine when Alexander Chekmenev started out as a young photographer in his home city. “Like the whole country, Luhansk in the mid-1990s was suffering from economic collapse and the rise of crime. Those times were called the ‘evil 90s’,” he says.



But amid the turmoil there were opportunities, and not just for the criminals. “In 1994, all old passports from the Soviet Union had to be changed to new Ukrainian passports,” he says. “People were lining up at photo studios. Photographers could earn a car in a season.”



But, unlike many, Chekmenev wasn’t interested only in money, and he was attracted to an out-of-the-ordinary passport assignment. “I got an offer – which was refused by all others because it was for very little pay – to go to the homes of lonely and sick people who could not walk on their own,” he explains. “When I saw the first person, and the surroundings in which that old lady was living out the end of her life, I was ready to shoot for free. Their houses had no amenities: no water, no gas, no toilet, no phone.

Luhansk, Ukraine, from Passport by Alexander Chekmenev (1994-5). Photograph: Alexander Chekmenev

“An old woman who lived in one particular house had prepared a coffin for herself. She lived in one room, while the coffin inhabited the other one. She was basically ready to leave for the other world at any moment,” he says. “I also took photos of people with mental disorders. They did not know what was going on, why they were being seated or why I was taking pictures of them. There was one bed-stricken person who had to be lifted from his bed. Two social workers were holding him in an upright position, and the other two were holding the backdrop.”

When visiting these people, Chekmenev wanted to capture much more than bland black-and-white head-and-shoulders passport portraits: he wanted to create a wide-angle, full-colour view of their dire circumstances. “The small frames of passport photos were like the small frame of Soviet television, which showed propaganda of happy living,” he says. “But I saw that the real lives of people were not nearly as happy as the press described. Beyond the frame of the passport photo a true reality – without retouching and censorship – was concealed.”

But to record his subjects’ lives as he wanted, Chekmenev faced obstacles. “Generally speaking, I seldom had any money back then,” he says. “For this job I was provided with enough black and white film, which I had in one camera with a portrait lens.” But as this would be useless for photographing the wider scenes in tiny rooms in colour as he wanted, he needed an alternative – and costly – solution. “In my other camera with a wide-angle lens I had C-41 colour film, which was equivalent to gold to me back then. So I shot almost no duplicates. There was no money for colour film.

Luhansk, Ukraine, from Passport by Alexander Chekmenev (1994-5). Photograph: Alexander Chekmenev

“I did not count how many people I photographed with black and white film,” he continues. “There was one day when I photographed almost 60 people.” But over the many months he spent shooting the monochrome passport headshots, he slowly and carefully selected the wider scenes he really wanted to show, parsimoniously taking just a single colour shot of each one.

By the end of Chekmenev’s passport assignment, he had shot just one roll of colour film: 36 images. “I came to an understanding that they would never be published and that nobody would ever know how these old people lived what was left of their lives.”

This pessimism about the fate of his photographs was born out of the cold reality of circumstances. “I realised that for the pictures to live I’d have to publish a book,” he says. “Back then I didn’t dare to dream of a book. I just wanted to become a real photographer.” So in 1997, Chekmenev moved to Kiev and pursued a career in photojournalism, which in recent years has seen his images published by the likes of the New Yorker. And eventually, over 20 years on, he has realised his dream: Passport, a book of his powerful and deeply affecting colour pictures from 1990s Luhansk, is about to be published.

Things never got any better for the elderly in Luhansk, and – with the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine – they are now even worse. But just as he had the breadth of vision to create a bigger picture of people’s lives in 1994, Chekmenev sees the timeless and wider relevance his harrowing photographs still have today. “The theme of old age and loneliness is one for the whole world, no matter what language or country,” he says. “The important thing is how each country is treating its retirees. It indicates the quality of life in that country. For me, this is the true passport of a country. There is no future for the countries where millions of old people live in poverty. Passport is like a reminder or an appeal to all that there are people who need our help, our attention and our psychological support. And they can be living right next to us, just behind the wall of a neighbouring apartment or house.”

• Passport by Alexander Chekmenev is published by Dewi Lewis.