{"word_count": 220, "character_count": 1449}
"Northern Caucasus is a mix of stereotypes as well as surprises. For centuries it has been a country of political, religious, military and expansionist rivalry, a struggle between opposing states, and also between allied states. Ever since the beginning of the 19th century, this region has been part of the tsarist Russian Empire, later absorbed by the Soviet Block. With the 1991 radical transformations involving the entire Warsaw Pact coalition, and the storm caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union, new and ancient disputes resurfaced, and in some cases worsened, and revived political and economic aims of supremacy in the area" (Davide Monteleone, Burn).Yesterday, it was announced in Charlottesville (Virginia, USA), during the Festival LOOKbetween, that Davide Monteleone is the winner of the Emerging Photographer Fund in 2010, an initiative of Burn Magazine. Since 2003, he lives both in Italy and Russia and started working regularly with major national and international newspapers such as D, Io Donna, L’espresso, New York Times, Time, Stern, and the New Yorker.&#160;Davide Monteleone, an Italian photographer born in 1974, will receive $15,000 from Burn Magazine through the Magnum Cultural Foundation to continue his work in the Northern Caucasus. The jury award was established by Alessandra Sanguinetti, Michael "Nick" Nichols and Bruce Gilden [Nazran, Republic of Ingushetia, during a wedding, January 2010, photo from Burn].