Description of Incident: Mikhailov was fired from his engineering job when the KGB found a nude photograph he had taken of his wife. Nudity in photography was forbidden by the Soviet government. It was deemed antithetical to the goals of Soviet Realist art - to champion the honorable proletariat. The nude was only allowed in museums in Old Master paintings.

Results of Incident: Mikhailov went on photographing nudes as an act of defiance and a celebratory representation of freedom and self-expression. In 1997 he moved to Berlin.