No it's NOT the Black Sea! Photographer's stunning images take you inside New York's Russian beach community


For a homesick Ukrainian in the U.S., there are not that many places to go for a taste of the life they have left behind.



But when Emine Ziyatdinova , a 25-year-old photographer living in Ohio, visited New York's Brighton Beach she felt instantly at home again.



These amazing images capture the essence of the large Russian community living on the strip of land in Brooklyn besides the Altantic Ocean.



Entertainment: Russian families watch the cabaret performance at Rasputin Restaurant in New York's Brighton Beach

Celebration: Carolina celebrates her mother-in-law's birthday alongside a friend at Chateau de Alik

Good luck! A bodybuilder tries to pick up 16-year-old model Anya Ushakova as he works out on the sands of Brighton Beach

Treatment: Misha, nursing shoulder pain, visits Yuriy's Russian Sauna for a reminder of how things are done in the Motherland

Tradition: 17-year-old Stephen prepares to be baptised into the Russian Orthodox Church

Ms Ziyatdinova, who submitted the collection as her master's thesis at Ohio University, was amused to find that many residents of the area were 'just mean', adding: 'I missed that about my country, people not being polite on the streets.'

But she also saw signs that the community had changed from its European origins, as many immigrants 'have very high expectations and they don't have a real idea of what it is'.



She even encountered resistance from Russians who were afraid that her unsparing depiction of their everyday lives would undermine the exaggerated stories they tell friends back home about how they live in America.

Throwback: The television at Uzbek restaurant Kashkar is showing films about notorious dictator Joseph Stalin Chilly? A Russian woman tentatively wades in the Atlantic dressed in a colourful outfit

Exercise: Vadim, who is enrolled in an English language class, does pull-ups in a corner of the local playground

Music: Popular songs are played on the accordion as a musician wanders up and down the Brighton Beach boardwalk

Embrace: Rosa and Grigoriy huddle together on the beach after staying there overnight following a party

Relax: Many of these extraordinary photographs feature Yuriy, a healer who claims to have cured two people of cancer and now offers massages Faith: Yuriy's personal altar, decorated with icons of Jesus and Mary - though he also claims to be able to tell the future

Damage: Yuriy's Soviet passport - the only one he owns - and other documents drying out after Hurricane Sandy

Flooded: The 61-year-old lives in a basement surrounded by all his possessions, paying rent by giving massages to the super and his wife