To Kaspi, Gori and the Ateni valley...

Finally today, I managed to get on a car with the UN and join them for a humanitarian mission to distribute food, check on internally displaced people (IDPs) and to discuss logistics with local governors.

As I mentioned before, my main focus is on the humanitarian side and to give IDPs a face and hear their story.

Our first stop was a food distribution centre at Kaspi, south of Gori and just before the first Russian checkpoint.






Then we got to Gori itself, which is still firmly under Russian control. You have to pass at least three Russian checkpoints to get there. Incidentally, there was a pro-Gerogian demonstration in front of the first one which went unpunished by the Russians...




I was lucky to be on the UN car, which managed to pass the checkpoints with no problems (the BBC which wanted to join us later was held up at one of the control points and could not enter today).






Entering Gori, you see scorched earth, looted buildings and an almost empty town before you reach the city centre …and some pretty stomach-churning scenes of people desperate for food, desperate about having lost their homes and desperate about the current situation…










Two elderly people who found refuge in an abandonned kindergarden in Gori...




Later in the afternoon we moved on to the Ateni valley (a beautiful valley set in a lovely landscape) where about 8,000 IDPs from Gori found refuge… most of them have found refuge with relatives or simply good-hearted people who provide shelter for them…










Coming back in the evening, I saw no signs of the Russian army leaving, they were still up the hills on both sides of the roads, their tanks firmly entrenched, and soldiers digging new positions… I wonder how they want to fulfil the promise to have withdrawn by tomorrow…

Tbilisi today

This morning I wanted to join a UN aid mission to check on the humanitarian situation and to deliver food to Akhalgori, an Ossetian town some 50km northwest of Tbilisi, inhabited by “Georgian” Ossetians… Just when we wanted to get on the cars, the UN got news that the Russian army is moving in and the villagers are fleeing. The trip was called off as it was considered to be too dangerous.

More and more it becomes apparent why there have been these delays in the withdrawal of the Russian army. (NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer expressed some consternation and astonishment about the delay in the withdrawal yesterday after the meeting of the North Atlantic council).

It seems that the Russians want to establish a generous buffer zone south of the former South Ossetian borders, which includes “proper” Georgian territory. The Russians will most probably want to control this buffer zone via Russian “peace keeper” troops after the official withdrawal which is scheduled for this Friday…

One cannot but feel a sense of helplessness, incensement and dismay about such blatant injustice and complete disregard of humanitarian principles…




So this afternoon, I went to another UN run centre for displaced persons (which incidentally used to be a Russian “генштаб” general headquarter) a bit further out of Tbilisi. I wanted to make some sense of the abstract number 127,000 of displaced persons… that number does not mean anything unless you can put faces and stories on at least a few of them…


Portrait of Lia and Leila, two sisters from K, Abkhazia. Their houses were bombed by Russian planes; they fled and were brought to Tbilisi by the Georgian army. It is unlikely that they will ever be able to go back…




Portrait of Vera, her son Joni and her mother from Gori. They expect to be able to go back when the Russians have withdrawn.







Portrait of Lali with her daughter Anna, displaced from Gori

Small acts of defiance...

Georgian film students are placing a piece sign made of candles in front of their university...



Georgians place heaps of rubbish in front of the Russian embassy in Tbilisi...

A UN camp for displaced people in Tbilisi

This afternoon I had the chance to visit one of the refugee centres in Tbilisi for displaced persons, run by the UN. It is obvious that with 127,000 displaced people, there is a humanitarian crisis in the making in Georgia. Most of the displaced people shown in the images are either from Gori or Tskhinvali. The sanitary conditions are pretty bad as there are not enough bathrooms and facilities for the number of people living in this centre.

Arriving in Tbilisi...

I have arrived in Tbilisi early this morning at around 4 am and have made my way to the hotel… As expected, the Georgian capital was quiet at this time of the morning… as there are – again, as expected – no visible obvious signs in the capital of a war with Russia going on.





In the morning I had the chance to attend a briefing by the UN resident coordinator and the Prime Minister of Georgia, Vladimer Gurgenidze who reported on the number of displaced people. The estimated figure is at around 127,000 displaced people all around Georgia, with about 30,000 in the capital Tbilisi alone. So far the UN has had access to Gori (since Saturday) but not yet in Southern Ossetia.

I was exploring of going to Gori on my own with a driver, which is supposedly being cleared today by withdrawing Russian troops… However, I was told that due to marauding gangsters (who are protected by the Russian army), the route to Gori has become quite dangerous (the car rental company has already “lost” three cars in the last two days) …and there is now a $5,000 deposit required from anyone renting a car… that makes it prohibitive to get there on my own… It seems that the Russian army is not only destroying Georgian infrastructure to harm the country but also resorting to other means to destabilise the country…

So I will be trying to get there with the UN tomorrow/or the next few days – if I can get on one of their trucks…

On Georgia...

I have been thinking about this story for a while… I wanted to go to Georgia and do a photo essay on what life is like for the Georgians with a very dominant, economically important, threatening and increasingly belligerent neighbour… (which incidentally also ties in with my interest in the Ukraine). …I have started to make some contacts in Tbilisi and thought of going to Georgia at the beginning of August for a first research trip… Well, and then the hot war started… As an unaffiliated photojournalist it became very difficult to get there and I could not find any affordable flights (most flights were suspended altogether)… And above all, I also had my doubts whether I was capable of creating meaningful images in a real war like situation… and whether I could cope and find my way around in a real war – after all, I was interested in the “soft” and psychological story, not so much in being a war photographer; the bigger newspapers and CNN are much better at that anyway - …now, with the ceasefire in place I have decided to go… So if Lufthansa does not cancel the flight, I will be flying to Tbilisi this evening… I have no real idea what to expect and whether I will be able to move around (for example get to Gori) and take some meaningful images …but hopefully I will be able to talk to a few people, observe and understand a bit more… and with a bit of luck come back with some images that tell a story…

Goethe/Faust I

…
Faust.
In jedem Kleide werd' ich wohl die Pein
Des engen Erdelebens fühlen.
Ich bin zu alt, um nur zu spielen,
Zu jung, um ohne Wunsch zu sein.
Was kann die Welt mir wohl gewähren?
Entbehren sollst du! sollst entbehren!
Das ist der ewige Gesang,
Der jedem an die Ohren klingt,
Den, unser ganzes Leben lang,
Uns heiser jede Stunde singt.
Nur mit Entsetzen wach' ich Morgens auf,
Ich möchte bittre Thränen weinen,
Den Tag zu sehn, der mir in seinem Lauf
Nicht Einen Wunsch erfüllen wird, nicht Einen,
Der selbst die Ahnung jeder Lust
Mit eigensinnigem Krittel mindert,
Die Schöpfung meiner regen Brust
Mit tausend Lebensfratzen hindert.
Auch muß ich, wenn die Nacht sich niedersenkt,
Mich ängstlich auf das Lager strecken;
Auch da wird keine Rast geschenkt,
Mich werden wilde Träume schrecken.
Der Gott, der mir im Busen wohnt,
Kann tief mein Innerstes erregen;
Der über allen meinen Kräften thront,
Er kann nach außen nichts bewegen;
Und so ist mir das Dasein eine Last,
Der Tod erwünscht, das Leben mir verhaßt.

Mephistopheles.
Und doch ist nie der Tod ein ganz willkommner Gast…

(Goethe, Faust I)

Like mother, like son...

An M.

An M.

Der du meine Wege mit mir gehst, 

Jede Laune meiner Wimper spürst, 

Meine Schlechtigkeiten duldest und verstehst - 

Weißt du wohl, wie heiß du oft mich rührst? 



Wenn ich tot bin darfst du gar nicht trauern. 

Meine Liebe wird mich überdauern

Und in fremden Kleidern dir begegnen 

Und dich segnen. 



Lebe, lache gut! 

Mache deine Sache gut!

Joachim Ringelnatz (1883-1934)

Summer in the City/down by the river Main...

Kiev - non sequitur

Oligarch City [Oleksandrivka], just outside Kiev

UKRAINE. KIEV. 31/07/2008. A half finished villa outside Kiev, in Kiev's most exclusive Oleksandrivka district, usually reserved for oligarchs and serious billionaires. Construction on this villa has been halted for a year now due to the credit crunch.