Clever PR or an art installation?

Yesterday, on the first anniversary of the war between Russia and Georgia, Rustaveli Avenue, the main artery through Tbilisi, was blocked off. A government-sponsored group, RE: action, installed various displays on the street, showcasing 226 years of the chequered history of the relations between Russia and Georgia. The open air exhibition opened with a display of documents detailing the Russian assistance for Georgia against a Muslim assault in 1783 and closed with images from the recent war.

It also included a mock Russian checkpoint and a simulated occupation of the Georgian Parliament by Russian forces. A somewhat original way to commemorate last year’s war…

Nachklang (Part 3)

Return to Gori

Yesterday, I was revisiting Gori, somehow this town “speaks” more to me than Tbilisi… the visit and in particular some encounters with its people was (again) very instructive…

What surprised me most at the outset when talking to people through my interpreter was the apprehension, almost fear of a new war with Russia that came through in some people’s remarks… Many people I spoke to expect some resumption of hostilities around the first anniversary of the beginning of the war this coming Friday…

So far it has been fairly quiet, apart from the - one has to say almost “usual” - posturing between Georgia and Russia and some minor skirmishes in South Ossetia…

Thinking about it, I should not have been surprised about these comments and fears… most of these people have been living with the results and the reality of war ever since it took place last year – displacement, no-go zones around Gori due to the inadequate security situation, even their apartments still show the scars of war…

Despite efforts by the government and especially some aid agencies to give some of the displaced people at least temporary housing, most of the families I had the opportunity to speak to, feel left alone, not given enough help by the government, and if given help, not enough or only inadequate relieve… One woman from Tskhinvali showed me stacks of macaroni and sacks full of beans in their crude and improvised dwelling – but nothing else, not even oil, onions, some vegetables or fruit – so what to cook if you have just macaroni and beans?




The government and some aid agencies (notably one from Germany) continue to build prefab houses for the families who still live in former kindergardens, former ministries or other makeshift buildings… most of the families expect to get one of the new houses by September… But one gets a barrage of words when inquiring about this outlook: they don’t want new houses, they want to go back to their native regions and villages… and many feel and realise with resignation that this will be next to impossible… some speak these words quietly, but with an equal sense of desperation…

A few of the families will not be given new houses, as they don’t qualify for this kind of resettlement. One family I spoke to came from the village of Mereti, a few kilometres from Tskhinvali (which is now firmly under South Ossetian/Russian control). De jure (which law?), Mereti is “proper” Georgian territory, so displaced families should be able to return to the village. However, de facto Mereti is controlled by marauding South Ossetian gangs which operate beyond the control of the Georgian police and which would make it hazardous for these families to return. For obvious political reasons, the Georgian government wants these families to return to their villages: it cannot accept a de-popularisation of these regions of ethnic Georgians. But would you want to return to this kind of environment and risk the life and health of your children?





Those displaced people and families that already have been given new houses – for example in a new settlement with umpteen exactly similar houses on the road from Tbilisi to Gori, now dubbed “New Gori” – are equally unhappy with the situation. They once more call for help from the government. Most of them had a farm, a few houses on it, vegetable and fruit gardens, arable land, chickens and cattle… now they have literally a few square meters of land with limited fertility around their makeshift dwellings. Are these people ungrateful for all the efforts of the government? Are they demanding the impossible? Are they caught up in the old socialist notions of that the state has to provide for you? Where is their own sense of can-do and initiative for self help?



Or is this kind of behaviour and these kind of demands understandable from people who have lost their roots, their sense of belonging, their hopes of ever going back, of ever having the same kind of stability and abundance in their lives?

Despite the (international) help that these Georgians receive, many feel abandoned by the international community, feel that they don’t receive enough assistance from the US and the EU in their struggle to reassert themselves towards Russia. If you ask what kind of help they expect beyond the substantial material and (maybe more limited) moral support, you draw a blank. Weapons? No, they don’t want weapons or a new war… But beyond that there are no answers…

Georgia remains in limbo…

Nachklang (Part 2)

Nachklang (Part 1)

I am now back in Georgia, and started working on a series which attempts the highlight the situation as it represents itself to me now, on the first anniversary of the war between Russia and Georgia.

When I have been visiting and reporting on the situation in Georgia a year ago - in August 2008 - when the war was at its height, I was focusing on the situation of internally displaced people (IDPs) during that time. In a sense I am still doing that this time (I have been revisiting two of the camps for IDPs today – but more of that in a later blog).

However, this time, I will be working on a series, which I will call “Nachklang” and will have to some extent a slightly different approach as the traditional photojournalistic approach. I am revisiting the places that I have been photographing a year ago; and through a series of decidedly allegorical and metaphorical composites I am trying to describe the current situation in Georgia: a country still marred by the repercussions and after-effects of the war, a country more than ever torn between denied access to the west and a territorial integrity in tatters, and its people being left with a broken democracy.

My concept is to create composites consisting of one image taken in August 2008 and one image taken now at the same location, not in order to create one “seamless” composite image but one that is clearly and visibly a combined image, the photographic equivalent of a Brecht epic theatre piece, a disturbance to the viewer.

I hope that the result will be a different take on a well covered subject but at the same time a meaningful contribution to the current discussion.

Karl der Grosse

Recent ads from Viktor Yushchenko…

Cynics would certainly say that the placement of his ads aptly reflect his – diminished – role in Ukrainian politics… according to some opinion polls, his approval rating is in the single digit figures…

So seltsam durch die Nacht

So seltsam durch die Nacht

Jetzt fängt alles von vorne an,
der Wind treibt uns fort und dann
reden wir genau wie bisher
von unserem Leben,
das sich immer so weiter dreht
und wir immer noch nichts verstehen
von dem Chaos in unseren Hirnen
und dem Gang unserer Wege.

Und wir rauchen immer viel zu viel,
doch wir sehen gut dabei aus,
ja wir tun das mit Stil
und wir warten auf den Anfang der Nacht,
wenn das Licht aus geht
und unser müdes Herz wieder lacht.

Und wir gehen in die Kinos,
in die Kneipen und wir tanzen und wir hoffen,
dass noch so viel passiert,
doch wir fühlen uns trostlos,
gelangweilt und oh so verprellt,
von der Liebe und von den tanzenden Menschen.

Und wir trinken immer viel zu viel,
doch wir sehen gut dabei aus,
ja wir tun das mit Stil
und wir warten auf den Taumel der Nacht,
wenn das Licht aufgeht
und unsere trunkene Seele erwacht.



Und jetzt fängt alles von vorne an,
der Wind treibt uns fort
und dann reden wir
genau wie bisher
von unserem Leben.

Doch im Taumel da fühlen wir uns wohl,
ein Hoch auf den Alkohol
komm einen noch,
ich kann dich noch sehen.

Und wir labern immer viel zu viel,
doch wir sehen gut dabei aus,
ja was wir tun das hat Stil,
doch ich hab Angst vor dem Ende der Nacht,
wenn das Licht uns fängt
und der Tag uns bloß müde verlacht.

(Gisbert zu Knyphausen)

Sanatorium_23

The Prince and the Butterflies - A Fairy-Tale

The Prince and the Butterflies

Once upon a time there was a handsome prince, living in his castle with two towers. But despite the fact that the prince lived in this beautiful castle and was well liked by his people, he was a sad prince. He was sad because his lover, the princess, lived in a far away country and he could not reach his princess because the evil king would not let anyone come near his daughter. To make sure that the prince would not get to the princess, the evil king closed the borders of his empire and would not let anyone into his country without a special paper, sealed with the blood of the king.

And, as much as the prince tried to get one of these entry papers, he could not get one. He was refused entry many, many times.

So every day the prince became sadder and sadder because he loved the princess so much and the princess replicated his feelings.

Then, one day, after a dream full of longings for his princess, the prince woke up and saw two butterflies locked up in one of his towers. The two butterflies were a couple, king and queen of the butterfly fairy land. The prince went over to them, looked at the beautiful colours of their wings and tossed the windows of the tower wide open, so that the butterflies could escape, yet not without looking back at the sad and handsome prince.

The next morning a butterfly fairy came to see the prince. She said that she was sent by the butterfly king to reward the prince for letting the butterfly couple free. The prince said that all he wanted was to get to his princess in that far away, closed country. At once the butterfly fairy gave the prince some large, blue wings which grew out of his body. The prince rose up, tossed his new wings once or twice and started to fly. He rose up all into the sky, circled a few times over his castle and then flew over the closed borders of the evil king’s empire.

Because he flew so high up over the borders, the guards did not see him and could not stop him. So he eventually reached his princess, kissed her first gently, then passionately, and then even kissed her some more.

And so they lived happily ever after…

Any resemblance to real characters and events is purely coincidental.

John Lennon Quote

John Lennon: "So, as Churchill said, it's the Englishman's inalienable right to live where the hell he likes. So... and as I say to any Englishman, "don't you get homesick and want to come back?". I say, "what, do you think it's going to vanish? It's not going to be there when I get back?"…

… In my opinion, it should be anyone’s inalienable right to go and live wherever he/she wants…