Some people travel to visit museums or to make religious pilgrimage. I travel to experience other cultures in all their diversity and to discover the different ways in which people live. In fact, the more I travel, the more I realize that photographs of people tell me more about the country than pictures of architectural edifices or scenery. On the street, what drives me to photograph is the desire to capture a different world and to observe people in their habitats, which may be foreign to me.

I usually find older people more interesting to photograph, as they often adhere to traditional customs and have been largely unaffected by globalization and mass culture.

To see more of Ilya Genin's work go to www.pbase.com/ilya4