The Informant

Incoming Editorial Team·Verified October 21, 2026

Eighty-two-year-old Juris Kalniņš has found his name in the archives of the Committee for State Security of the Latvian SSR, where he is identified as an informant. Both during the Soviet era and today, he remains an uncompromising free thinker who has devoted most of his life to photographing people and documenting the spirit of the times. With the camera now turned towards Juris, he is ready to delve into his past to understand how his name could have ended up on a KGB file. What makes a person an informant – a piece of paper, mere suspicion, the opinions of others, or one’s own actions?