Igor Samolet takes us in the life of a group of young Russians, whose days and nights revolve around alcohol, acting nonsense and sex, adrift in some apparently derelict project buildings.
They have fun and go wild at night under the influence of alcohol, and the days just seem to linger in the expectation of what the next night is going to be, and time passes in what seems like long, desolate and hopeless hours.
be happy! is a book about the two opposite faces of the life of this youth. In a very straightforward manner, Samolet brings us the simplicity, carelessness and frivolity but also - and quite bluntly as well - the harshness, the sadness.

“I started working on this project after I graduated from university in a small town in Northern Russia. I suddenly realised I had not made enough pictures of my friends, and I wanted to go back to that period of endless fun. But by that time, all of my friends had moved to other cities, so I met a group of young people and started to shoot them instead.
I wanted to show this special period in the lives of my ‘heroes’ – which is how I see the people I photograph – and that’s their youth. It’s a time when you want to feel everything. There is no goal. The most important thing is the process and your feelings; love and friendship are the main source of these feelings. To be able to take pictures of my heroes I need to feel them, to love them. And if this feeling ends, I stop shooting.
This group of friends, who had been standing on a street drinking, piqued my interest. I was inspired by their energy and asked if I could photograph them. They agreed. We hung out, I ran around with them and had fun. I didn’t behave as a documentary photographer might – someone who keeps their distance and hovers over a situation. I was interested in being with them; I wanted to be part of their world and not just take pictures. I wanted to record my experiences, but I didn’t really think too much about what I was doing. The wish to be happy was always on their minds, and it was my wish too that they might find happiness. There were relationships, sex, and it became clear to me that it was pointless looking for sense.
I worked on the project for four years and mostly shot in the summer or at weekends. They were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. There were two main members of the group who I became close to, but the group would change – people would come and go. The youthfulness, openness and eagerness with which they lived their lives appealed to me. These kids had parents, they went to school and to university, but their families could not provide them with what they needed to build a happy future. As a result, they decided to live in the here and now – in a state of permanent celebration.”
“Youth is an age of trial and error, where the action itself is the aim, and feelings are a reason to behave in a certain way. As adults we often lose the ability to do something without thinking about the consequences. We try to do everything ‘right’, depriving ourselves of unexpected and unplanned adventures – and ultimately, of happiness. But working on this project reminded me that walking aimlessly around the city is sometimes the starting point of an amazing story and friendship.”
- Igor Samolet

This book is listed in "The Photobook: A History volume III" by Martin Parr & Gerry Badger.