Stas Shectman

born	Stas Shectman was born in Kiev, Ukraine and grew up in Los Angeles, California.
work	He is a freelance writer, ethnographer, and in-debt graduate student currently completing a Ph.D. in cultural and visual anthropology at Temple University. His research, funded by the Fulbright Foundation, examines entrepreneurs and the emerging middle-class in post-Soviet Moscow. He recently lived in Moscow for two years, where he conducted research and worked as a freelance writer and a deputy editor and staff writer at The Moscow Times. An essay based on his research will be published by Indiana University Press in 2009 in the book, Food and Everyday Life in the Postsocialist World. Before his current life as a graduate student, Shectman received a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley and worked on several award-winning documentary films with an independent filmmaker in the Bay Area.
life	Shectman also occasionally shoots photography and music videos for a production that pays him in boxes of wine.

“Your life is full of energy,” says the voice on the television. “But you want even more.” On the screen, a stylishly dressed young man sprints through the streets of an empty city to a pounding techno beat. Fueled by a can of Jaguar energy drink, he races down an alleyway, busting through a brick wall and transforming into a jaguar on the other side...

The man thrusting fliers at passers-by outside of the Kievsky train station wears two wooden planks strapped over his shoulders, transforming him into a walking billboard for a “VIP mobile-telephone-repair” service. While you’re waiting for your Nokia to get the royal treatment...

Beauty pageants are about more than good looks — they can have a message, too. Stas Shectman and Marina Kamenev report.

Whether its a sweltering summer’s day or frigid winter’s night, inside the temperature-controlled La Maree warehouse the air is always cool, crisp and tinged with the briny scent of the ocean...