Photography: Come and meet the restaurant singers of Russia's Sochi region

We’re very late in the day introducing you to this particular project, but with the Sochi Olympics very much on the horizon we’re prepared to make a concession. Dutch photographer Rob Hornstra has been documenting the sub-tropical region of Sochi in Russia since 2009, after it was named as the 2014 Winter Olympic host city. His interest in the area is born from a long and complicated history of political and military unrest and the ongoing insurgency hanging over from the Second Chechen War.

Despite these political motivations much of Rob’s photography serves simply as documentation of the region’s population and their cultural quirks. This is particularly the case in Sochi Singers a book produced in collaboration with Kummer and Herrman that focuses on Sochi’s longstanding tradition of restaurant singers. It’s a lighthearted look at an otherwise troubled area, but was still sufficiently inflammatory to have Rob’s Russian visa denied recently. Make of that what you will.