“A FAMILY BUSINESS: STORIES OF CHOICE”

This is not an exhibition about “successful success”.
Nor is it a set of right answers about how one should live.

These are stories of people from different towns of the Ivanovo region who also once had to choose: to leave or to stay, to continue the family business or start their own, to take a risk or choose stability, to meet the family’s expectations or listen to themselves.

The heroes of this exhibition are representatives of family dynasties, family projects and local businesses. But above all, they are people who doubted, made mistakes, changed their decisions, searched for their own path and tried to understand what really matters to them.

We often hear that “real life” is somewhere else. That success necessarily means moving away. That family history is about the past, not the future.
But what if family experience is not a limitation but a resource? What if there are already people around us who have built their lives here, building on their family’s path?

This exhibition is an attempt at an honest conversation with young people about choice.
No moralising. No perfect biographies. No ready-made scripts.

Perhaps among these stories you will recognise your own questions.
And realise that it is normal to have doubts.

We thank the people who entrusted us with their stories: Artem Abrosov, Maria Babaytseva, Anastasia and Maxim Voronin, Roman Gusev, Andrey Danilov, Yulia Dogadkina, Elena Kondratyeva, Irina Kryukovskaya, Dmitry Makeev, Nikita Pantsurkin, Alexey Pigarev, Dmitry Smirnov and Svetlana Sokolova. Thank you so much!

The exhibition team:
Polina Sazonova, sociologist, researcher
Marina Sazonenko, designer-illustrator
Maria Murashova, founder of YAMUZEY
Raisa Veselova, research fellow at YAMUZEY
Sofia Klepikova, curator of museum programmes at YAMUZEY

The exhibition is supported by the ANO “Ivanovo Region Development and Hospitality Centre”.