Inside the ‘Back Office’ of War: Nothing Personal, Just Business

Between hyperrealistic simulators and bullet-shaped finger food, photographer Nikita Teryoshin reveals the behind-the-scenes of the arms trade—one of the biggest economic sectors in the world

What do we fail to see about war?

Daily news reports keep the conversation about war alive, broadcasting destructive scenes from Gaza or from the Ukrainian front. Yet these images represent “only” part of an organized and commercialized system, which begins with the production and trafficking of weapons.

Nikita Teryoshin (b. 1986), a photographer born in St. Petersburg (Russia) and raised in Berlin, has created a project that unveils the environment of major international arms fairs—settings far removed from the usual images of war. His series, Nothing Personal: The Back Office of War (2016–2023), is a visual and almost humorous documentation of arms expos and their surreal, bizarre atmosphere.

Nikita Teryoshin explores the strange allure of weapons

Teryoshin’s research began around 2015 as a general project about trade fairs of all kinds. During a visit to a hunting fair, he was struck by the fascination that firearms exert on everyone—adults and children, families, casual enthusiasts, and not just industry professionals.

War and weapons often prove seductive. Not only in the news but also in cinema and video games, an element of entertainment and attraction has been built around the idea of conflict and violence, making it part of shared culture. Teryoshin thus decided to focus on arms expos, or the “defense industry” (as it’s euphemistically called). The first one he managed to enter was the International Defence Industry Exhibition in Poland, one of the largest events in Europe dedicated to military equipment and technology.

“My initial idea was tied to the image of war and destruction conveyed by television, without really considering what lies behind it—for instance, how weapons are marketed. Then I started looking up videos of these fairs—there are quite a few—and expected something interesting. What I found was even more bizarre.”

Arms fairs as amusement parks for adults

Inside these expos, you can sense an enthralling atmosphere—a place where you can spend your time sampling good wine and finger food shaped like guns. These fairs are worlds away from real battlefields; they look more like amusement parks where visitors can admire the “art of defense,” sometimes even trying it firsthand during scheduled demonstrations.

One Russian fair, “Patriot Park,” has been nicknamed “Military Disneyland” because of the personalized experience it offers: you can ride in tanks, test weapons, and sample military-style rations. This is a war with no bloodshed in sight: casualties are mannequins or pixels on simulator screens. It’s a staged battle performance in an artificial setting, played out before a grandstand of high-profile guests: ministers, heads of state, generals, and merchants.

Teryoshin exposes the contradictions of defense expos

Using various formal and informal press contacts, Teryoshin managed to enter and document these contexts, never indicating the country where each photo was taken. The project’s images come from over fourteen defense exhibitions across Europe, Africa, Asia, and North and South America. “Using flash was a way to make my presence feel more ‘official’ at these events, where I didn’t always manage to get an editorial contract.”

Press teams are usually selected with great care, involving only magazines and collaborators tied to the arms, economics, or trade sectors. The humorous imagery Teryoshin creates, however, reveals a deeper reflection on the (global and human) significance of these fairs. His shots capture handshakes, aerial shows, exploded mannequins, and cakes resembling bombed-out landscapes.

All of this is made even more grotesque by company slogans (especially from American giant Lockheed Martin) promoting their products with phrases like “70 years defending peace” or “Engineering a better tomorrow”—words that could market any other type of merchandise. “They sell weapons as if they were selling vacuum cleaners. It’s pretty funny and banal at the same time, but in the end, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” the photographer adds. “Nothing Personal (the project’s title)—nothing personal, it’s just business.”

The arms trade drives one of the world’s most significant economies

In this glossy, enticing environment, one of the most vital parts of the global economy operates. In 2023, worldwide military spending was calculated at around $2.44 trillion.

The project’s title—along with the decision to obscure the faces of participants—acts as a metaphor for how this business operates in the shadows. Countries like Iran, Russia, or North Korea, being under dictatorship, must find alternative ways to bypass the risk of embargo and continue illegal dealings. Fairs organized in these countries generally close themselves off to the media.

Teryoshin’s ultimate goal, while highlighting differences between democracies and dictatorships, is to show how this phenomenon—part of human history—spans the entire globe. “The people in the photos (politicians, powerful merchants, or simple expo employees) remain anonymous, so we don’t know who they are or what their role is. It wouldn’t be fair to blame the individual. The real question is why we, as humanity, make choices like these.”

Nothing Personal: Editorial choices

Nothing Personal: The Back Office of War was published as a photobook in February 2024 by London-based publisher GOST. The images—accompanied by flash effects reminiscent of Martin Parr’s shock aesthetic—alternate with slogans devised by the companies’ marketing offices, weaving a narrative of optimism and alliance around the business of war, supposedly geared toward a “better” future.

At the end of the book, there’s a list of the most powerful companies and their annual earnings reports: “The data on the war industry speaks more than any image, as does the contrast between the photos and those messages.”

At every defense fair, there’s a prevailing sense—paradoxical when you consider what truly happens in actual conflicts. Interspersing the manifestos (six appear in the book) among the photographs makes the gap even clearer between the feel-good tone of certain slogans (it’s hard to believe anyone in the system really buys into them) and all the negative, corrupt factors operating anonymously in the illegal arms trade.

The book is structured in double-page spreads, placing images side by side without necessarily being connected, to create new contexts and paradoxes. Even in book form, Teryoshin avoids indicating which country or expo he was in, thereby creating a universal portrayal. The cover photo, he explains, shows an abandoned coffee cup next to four missiles (valued at around one million dollars). At a glance, you might not recognize the bombs, while the cup—a universally familiar item with negligible cost—could be from any exhibition hall. The triviality and absurdity of these two elements together is the key to reading Nothing Personal.

Nikita Teryoshin

Born in Russia in 1986, Nikita Teryoshin moved with his family to Dortmund, Germany, in 2000. He describes his photographic approach as street, documentary, and “everyday horror,” focusing on backstage areas set up by media, industry, or politics, and the relationship between humans and animals. His long-term project Nothing Personal – The Back-Office of War won the 2019 PhMuseum Grant and first prize at the 2020 World Press Photo (Contemporary Issues category). In photobook form, it received the 2024 PhotoEspaña Book of the Year award and was shortlisted for the 2024 Rencontres d’Arles Book Award. Teryoshin works as a freelance photographer for German magazines such as SZ-Magazin and Der Spiegel. In 2020, he founded pupupublishing, a publishing house dedicated to small editions of photobooks and zines.

Claudia Bigongiari