In 1991, the Soviet Union – and so the centripetal force that had bound together its assorted republics – collapsed. The peripheral states found themselves suddenly cut loose and communities had to redefine their identities and draw new borders. For many, the withdrawal of the dominant Soviet influence created new problems and old ethnic, religious and ideological fault lines reopened; disputes led to civil wars and unrecognised states; economies faltered. Nearly 10 years later, Jonas Bendiksen, a young Norwegian photographer, was kicked out of Russia for a “bureaucratic misstep”, and set out on a five-year journey through these lost worlds strung around Russia's margins.