The zine documenting unseen, sun-drenched pockets of Eastern Europe

Ukraine, Romania, Belarus, Albania. These are the countries photographer Hazel Gaskin travelled to between 2016 and 2021, while slowly putting together her zine of the same name. The result? Images of sea-soaked kids lighting cigarettes after a dip; vest-induced sunburns and (sorry) Brat-coloured short-shorts; a group of girls dressed to the nines, presumably on their way to a night out, bodycon skirts and lace-up espadrilles marching down the street.

These photographs paint a much more ebullient image of Eastern Europe than what we’re used to seeing portrayed on the news or online; Hazel’s lens is compassionate, romantic and captures the true essence of teenagehood in that particular slice of the world.

“As a teenager, I was always interested in ideas around communism and socialism,” Hazel says. Growing up in Dublin and watching her country’s own ideological shift first hand has, naturally, also had a huge influence on her work.

“I was so enamoured with the architecture; it’s not all grey and brutalist at all. There’s a mix of neoclassical and people’s style. People there were casual and unassumingly charming.”

Eight years ago, Hazel made her first proper trip to Ukraine and Belarus – Odesa and the city’s prevalent beach culture seemed like the right place to start. Armed with a friend’s Grindr recommendations from ​“insiders”, this initial visit was the catalyst for the entire project. And capturing Ukraine before Russia’s invasion has resulted in some especially moving images. ​“It’s sad to think of what Odesa looks like today given it’s been bombed so heavily in the war,” she says. ​“I feel lucky to have gotten the chance to visit such a beautiful place.”

In the years following her visit to Ukraine, Hazel took on Albania and Romania, as her focus honed in on capturing the region’s youth culture in all its glory – that is, in the sunshine. ​“Minsk in Belarus was the most surprising place,” she says. ​“I definitely felt a shift to a more authoritarian world, but people know how to have a good time there. Despite the discrimination and persecution gay people feel in Belarus, there was a scene.

“We met an amazing guy who spent every day with us, showing us around and taking us to gay clubs and bars, drinking straight vodka until 6am. The night before we arrived, he’d spent the night in a cell for drinking outside or something minor. Minsk had this juxtaposition of a massively conservative society and young people who went wild.”

Then came Bucharest in Romania, whose beaches Hazel compares to those in Blackpool. She was fascinated by the city’s commanding buildings and how music would blast from houses at night before people spilled out onto the beach, ​“waiting to watch the sunrise. I love places where the energy has the potential to create chaos,” she says. All of these experiences and their unlikely beauty have been packaged up into a gorgeous, scrapbook-like zine designed by Patrick Waugh.

What does Hazel hope those who pick it up will get from the project, then? ​“A sense of warmth and affection for these places,” she says. ​“There’s a romanticism there, and I hope the audience feels that, too. This is me, alone, photographing what interests me. I had complete autonomy. That’s freeing.”