On the very outskirts of northeastern Poland, there is a group of elderly Orthodox Christians who are said to be particularly powerful.
With the help of conspiracies, they can heal the sick, drive out evil spirits and even … stop the heart of the enemy. Living at the mystical crossroads of the Christian faith and popular prejudices, they consider themselves members of the church, although the church itself does not recognize them. They are called "whisperers".
Warsaw photographer Kuba Kaminsky had heard of the "whisperers" before in stories that looked more like ordinary legends. Yet their lives seemed so mysterious that they simply required research. “I love filming the invisible,” says 28-year-old Kaminsky. “That is why I wanted to visit there, to touch things that are incomprehensible to people with my own hands.”
Cuba is not familiar with the language and region of Podlasie, which is adjacent to Belarus, Ukraine and the Kaliningrad region. Therefore, he included his friend, a young ethnographer Tomas Sulima, in the expedition.
Tomasz speaks in the dialect of whisperers - an incomprehensible mix of Belarusian and Polish. He served as a guide during a two-week journey to these people, who are very wary of strangers. The camera only increased suspicions, and it took a long time to persuade them to shoot.
Whisperers don't call themselves that. And they don't necessarily recognize themselves as Poles. Their nationality does not bother them: when you ask who they are, the usual answer is: "We are hereishyya."
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And yet they are of the Orthodox faith, and they say that God ordered them to perform supernatural rites. But this, in turn, prevents the church from fully accepting them into its fold.
Not the least of the reasons for this is that some of the conspiracies are aimed at causing harm or death. But the whisperers claim that their power is still directed at healing.
“The whisperer is more important for those who come here than the doctor treating cancer,” says the photographer himself.
Together with Tomasz Sulima Kuba, Kaminsky is going to continue this expedition, now on the territory of Belarus, according to the Linza blog on the New York Times website.