Selfie with Christ: Visitors to the Olympics Take Photos to Remember
Born and raised in Moscow, spent the past five years in South America. Worked as a sports photographer and photojournalist in the Russian media, currently freelances, works with Bigpicture.ru.
— The interior of the main Olympic press center in Rio is decorated with many amazing sports photographs from the previous Games. With one exception — a photograph of Cristo Redentor, who looks at the mortal world from the Corcovado mountain. Why the Christ? Not Copacabana, not the sunset at Ipanema, not even Sugarloaf? Not all journalists are Catholic, are they? In fact, there is no subtext here — it’s just that the statue of the Christ is the most beautiful sight in Brazil, if not all of South America, its symbol and its calling card.
To come to Rio and not go to the Christ, not take a selfie with him is a touristic mortal sin. So, two million tourists a year climb up Corcovado. Almost all the national teams at the Olympics had group tours to the Christ, the famous refugee team included. The Christ calmly observes all this indecency 365 days a year.
