Before the fall of the Iron Curtain, the village of Rosietici in Moldova was once home to hundreds of people. Today, the village’s population has dwindled to a mere 40 people. With its abandoned houses and spacious landscape, Victor Galusca thought it might make an interesting location for his student film. Exploring a house that had long fallen into disrepair, he discovered among the rubble a suitcase of full of negatives. Holding up to the light the 6x6 medium format black-and-white negatives Galusca was surprised to discover remarkable images of life in the village during the communist regime. He took the suitcases with him and set out to learn more about the artist who made them.

Born in 1912, Zaharia Cusnir was the youngest of 16 children. He was fired after his first year of teaching after which he went to work in the kolkhoz removing stones, carrying clay, and feeding cows. At the age of 43, he acquired a Soviet-made Lubitel 2 camera. HIs nephew had learned photography in the army and taught Cusnir how to use his camera and develop the film. Galusca’s research indicates that Cusnir was able to purchase film and chemicals by selling the photographs for identification cards.

From about 1955 until 1970, Cusnir photographed the people in Rosietici and surrounding villages almost compulsively, offering a unique insight into life during the communist regime. In each captivating portrait, one feels a connection with the subjects. Using impromptu settings and props like a scarf or table cloth strung up as a background, each portrait, although posed, evokes a sense of spontaneity.

Galusca tracked down Cusnir’s daughter who described him as a romantic, charming people into posing for photographs with a smile and freshly-picked flower tucked into his lapel. But not everyone was pleased with his unofficial role as the photographer. His wife and four children often reproached him for photographing everyone they met and were particularly critical of his photographing poor people. They believed that poverty wasn’t a good example for the community and thus had no place in a photograph.

Photographing many villagers throughout the day, Cusnir was welcomed by his subjects with a glass of wine or homemade liquor. Late into the evening he would cycle home intoxicated. Although he was not known to be violent, Cusnir’s children, particularly his daughter, blamed his struggles with alcohol on his hobby and came to dread his photographic excursions.

Cusnir died in 1993 just after Moldova gained independence from the USSR, leaving behind nearly 4,000 remarkable negatives of village life. Before her death in 2019, Cusnir’s daughter granted Galusca permission to do with the negatives as he wished, dismissing them as garbage that “no one needs.” Over the last three and a half years, Galusca and his photography teacher, Nicolae Pojoga, have cleaned, scanned, and indexed the nearly negatives. In the summer of 2018 an exhibition of Cusnir’s work was held at the National Museum in Moldova and three exhibitions were organized in Romania.

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