In 1958, the USSR constructed a remote Siberian town, Akademgorodok (Academic City), where scientists were placed to advance Soviet scientific research. Since its creation, top Soviet scientists worked there on theoretical genetics, the Soviet space program, and the development of nuclear weapons directed at the United States, until the crumbling of the USSR in 1991. Today, they devote their skills to the former enemy, capitalism, by providing technical support to Western firms.

[What] makes this human race of ours a family[?] We may differ in race, color, language, wealth, and politics. But look at what we all have in common - dreams, laughter, tears, pride, the comfort of home, the hunger for love. If I could photograph these universal truths, I thought that might help us better understand the strangers on the other side of the world - and on the other side of town.
-Wayne Miller