Maria Natalyuk is a PhD student in the combined Slavic and Film and Media Studies program at the University of Pittsburgh.
Shortly after the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a retrospective of Alexei Balabanov’s films opened in Moscow and St. Petersburgh. In an article published soon after the event, film critic and historian Maria Kuvshinova noted that the only film not included in the program was Cargo 200 (2007). When Cargo 200 was originally released, Kuvshinova argues, viewers imagined the female lead to be Russia, helpless in the hands of a maniac who is synonymous with the state. Today, however, Russia more closely resembles the character of the TV-obsessed mother, so fixated on her twin addictions of alcohol and media that she fails to notice the violence unfolding all around her.
With Russia’s image being dominated by masculine figures—particularly since 2022—what can one make of Kuvshinova’s conception of Russian motherhood as a monstrous woman glued to the screen? The metaphor effectively describes the large proportion of Russia’s adult population that has succumbed to televised state propaganda. But what about the younger generations? The niche for male role models has certainly been filled: The Boy’s Word (Slovo Patsana, Zhora Kryzhovnikov, 2023) and Anora (Sean Baker, 2024) both present idols of masculinity, either problematic and collectivist (but with a soupçon of danger) or tender and apologetic.
What about maternal figures—do the youth even need them in this new environment? One of the most prominent figures in contemporary Russian teenage media and representation, the filmmaker Valeriya Gai Germanika, offers a starting point for considering how depictions of motherhood have changed over the years. Germanika’s short film Sisters (2005) focuses on a dialogue between the director and her stepsister as they discuss their relationship with their mother and its gradual deterioration.
As they converse, the camera travels around the apartment, revealing the dysfunctional state of Germanika’s stepsister’s family: a man who is presumably her husband is screaming and swearing in an alcoholic daze, while her children are running around neglected. Adding to the visual cacophony is their cluttered Khrushchevka apartment. The kitchen window looks out over a typical residential district (spal’nyi raion) on the outskirts of a metropolis, with the bleak lights of other buildings scattered sparsely throughout the skyline. The film echoes many conventions of chernukha: the dialogue about the neglectful mother, the no-good father, the traumas, and the constant expectation of violence. Like the mother in Cargo 200 (2007), who is glued to her TV set, Germanika’s subjects are ambivalent about the chaos around them.
The only time their passivity recedes is when the camera’s gaze confronts them directly. The stepsister refuses to be filmed, and her resistance almost turns physical when she asks Germanika to stop and put away the camera. Similarly, the husband is irritated with the director’s presence in the apartment, perhaps afraid that the camera will somehow expose their failure as a family unit.
Meanwhile, the mother figure is absent in the film, both symbolically and literally. Germanika’s mother is an abstraction; she exists only within her stepsister’s hostile description. As for the stepsister herself, although she is physically present, she, too, fails to fulfill her parental role. She neglects her children and repeats the very cycle of abuse that she hesitantly narrates to the camera. The only ones who are not afraid of the camera are the children, who curiously investigate the lens and start performing for the camera the second it finds them.
In Germanika’s other documentary, Girls (2005), the camera carefully follows a group of teenagers as they experience arguments, break-ups, and other emotional turbulence. Like the kids in Sisters, the teenage subjects here eagerly engage with the filming process, letting the director record their day-to-day lives. The camera passively records the girls smoking and drinking in the staircases of apartment buildings. At the very end of the film, the camera, like a dutiful mother, follows the group to their first day of school. Lingering on the figures as they enter the institution's doors, Germanika’s camera watches as they join their teachers, and then the credits start rolling.
Germanika’s camera emulates the parental gaze as the director surveils her subjects. Kids and teenagers cling to the lens, wanting to be seen in their “coolest” guise, while adults hide from a gaze that could reveal their limitations as parents. Germanika observes and listens, but never intervenes, instead silently zooming in and out at the unfolding action. In this sense, she is a “cool mom,” allowing her symbolic children to smoke, drink, swear, and talk about sex. By observing their “boy troubles” and conflicts without interfering or passing judgment, she validates their experiences.
Germanika’s films date to the early 2000s, a period much different politically and socially from today. What maternal figures exist in today’s Russia who might help young people better understand themselves and guide them as they grow? The state itself has positioned itself as a father figure, providing paternalistic guidance through, for example, the extracurricular Conversations About Important Things (Razgovory o Vazhnom).
As a female counterpart to “Putin the father,” we might consider Ekaterina Mizulina. The daughter of Russian politician and traditional values advocate Elena Mizulina, Ekaterina has become an internet sensation during her tenure as the head of the state-sponsored Safe Internet League, a censorship organization.
Since her mother stepped away from her political career, the younger Mizulina has frequently visited schools and spoken to teenagers about “the right way to live.” Teenagers, in turn, actively communicate with her, denouncing teachers, rappers, bloggers, and other “questionable” figures, perhaps to win her approval and attention. She frequently communicates with her young followers through daily videos in her Telegram channels, offering positive affirmations while advocating for what the Russian state deems “traditional values.”
While she is certainly not the only figure to promote the state’s agenda in a “hip,” youth-legible way, what sets her apart is the energy that Ekaterina Mizulina’s fan community has created around her persona. Young followers publish countless videos, TikToks, and fan art that praises Mizulina’s work across different platforms. One thing all these tributes have in common is the nickname their authors choose for their newfound idol: Mama.
Mizulina’s popularity marks a shift from the early 2000s style of parenting that Germanika’s films reflected. Germanika not only focused her career on documentaries, but also produced fictional content for teenagers like the film Everybody Dies But Me (2008) and the TV series School (2010), which gained a cult following among then-contemporary audiences. Yet her recent turn to religion and focus on more adult-oriented content (e.g., Consent, from 2022) has rendered her passive and silent camera gaze no longer relevant to today’s teenage audiences.
In Ekaterina Mizulina, the younger generation has found a new outlet for their parasocial confidences, a mother figure who treats their troubles and concerns with a heavy dose of regime ideology. And now that Mizulina and Shaman, a pro-Kremlin pop star, have consummated their union in marriage, Russian teens have switched their attention from Germanika’s “cool mom” —the dysfunctional model of absent parenthood—to the prototype of the squeaky-clean nuclear family actively invested in their ideological upbringing.
