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Photo courtesy of Peter Boysen

Peter Boysen brought along the bare essentials: a few changes of clothing, long underwear, two camera bodies, three camera lenses, a seemingly endless supply of batteries, and his laptop for a two week journey to a country Minnesotans rarely picture when considering vacation spots.

And Russia didn’t disappoint.

The 25-year-old Winona resident and freelance photographer remembers reenacting heroic battles between America and Russia as a child, using toy tanks and jets to create epic scenes on his bedroom floor. His interest in the culture and history of the country continued to grow, and his desire to fulfill a lifelong dream of photographing the intricacies of Russia and its people was realized December 28, 2009-January 11, 2010 when Boysen traveled across the globe.

“Some of it was just the fascination with this completely different and foreign place,” he said. “And part of why I went was just to see if I could live through it.”

Boysen’s parents were nervous wrecks about the journey and his friends couldn’t contain their excitement. To raise money for the trip, Boysen presold prints of the photographs he was sure to capture and collected over 70 percent of his entire journey’s budget using this method. He had no predetermined schedule or itinerary and knew absolutely no one in Russia.

Despite his greenness, Boysen did his homework. He learned the basics of the language through audio lessons on his iPod and he searched through dozens of Google Maps to get his bearings and plot general areas of interest for shooting photographs. Upon his arrival, Boysen was overwhelmed by the sites around him.

“It’s just incredibly different than anything we see here,” he said. “The architecture is amazing—you have to make a concentrated effort not to take a cool picture of some of their buildings.”

Boysen would walk the streets of Moscow every day, searching for slices of life and attempting to capture the beauty of a completely different land. According to Boysen, Russia had the least Americanized culture and cityscape of any country he’s visited: the music, food and advertisements were all completely original to the country.

To prepare for the cold, Boysen grew his beard—not only for additional warmth, but to blend into the Russian crowd a little better. The chilly weather affected his battery life negatively, and Boysen would keep additional batteries in his warm jacket pockets and swap back and forth between them to get the most “juice.”

Boysen said he would return to his hostel at the end of each day and upload his images onto his laptop—trying to keep as many photographs on his memory cards as possible to avoid losing them if the computer malfunctioned. Overall, he said he took fewer photographs than he expected.

“I think I took less than 1000 total photos, but the hit rate was really high,” Boysen said.

After returning to Winona early this year, Boysen began the ominous task of editing and printing his images. Twenty of his best photographs now line his apartment tables and counters, as Boysen readies them for display at several events in the Winona area.

The awe-inspiring images of the stark country aren’t the last Boysen hopes to take.

“I’m definitely planning a second trip,” he said. “There is still a lot more to see. I could go back there six times for two weeks each and still feel like I haven’t seen all of it.”

Boysen will present his work and experiences to the public during “Photos from The Curious Empire,” Tuesday, April 20 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Community Bible Church, 69 E. 3rd St. in Winona.