Cherry plum. Sosnovoye district, Gelendzhik.

The southern cities of Russia are home to the wild cherry plum, which ripens in late summer. Unripened, its fruit is used to make the Georgian sauce tkemali. Ripe cherry plums can be eaten raw, made into drinks and jams, or distilled to make fruit spirits. Aside from cherry plums, you can also gather Cornelian cherries, blackberries, apricots, sour cherries, mulberries, and other fruits to use in jams.

Cherry plum jam. Photo by Petr Skrypnikov.

Picking physalis. Schepkinsky forest, Rostov-on-Don.

Blackberry. Sukhumskoye highway, Gelendzhik.

Cornelian cherries. Gelendzhik.

Sour cherry. Kievskaya street, Gelendzhik.

This work was commissioned for the exhibition “I don’t know whether the Earth is spinning or not...”, curated by Francesca Altamura and Lizaveta Matveeva for the VII Moscow International Biennale for Young Art.