Abandoned places get overgrown; the town of Pripyat is no exception. But there is simply more here, a case where a quantitative difference leads to a qualitative one. When hundreds of square miles are left untended, the result is that these once-inhabited areas don’t just feel overgrown, they feel submerged. The place where I felt … Continue reading Submergence
I have, as of this writing, been doing urban exploration for a decade. I have traveled across the American rust belt and beyond specifically to photograph the old, the decayed, and the abandoned. I have also felt, in recent years, that I have been pursuing diminishing returns; after a while, each ruined building begins to … Continue reading Where Words Fail
There runs, under Kiev, a vast network of tunnels. Built over a century ago, they provide water drainage for this hilly city and thus protect against landslides. It isn’t entirely illegal to enter them, but neither is it quite legal. It is, as the guide intones before guiding you down through a manhole at the … Continue reading Subterranean Pastoral
Pecherska Lavra, or the monastery of the caves, sprawls across one Kiev’s many hills. Unfortunately, the day I was there, the caves were not open to tourists. The churches, however, made for great photos, until a stern lady shooed me and my camera out. In general, Orthodox churches are more photogenic than others. Catholics, too, … Continue reading The Monastery of the Caves
Three years ago, a wave of protests against a corrupt government washed across Ukraine. The epicenter of the movement was Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square. (A good summation of those events can be found on Wikipedia.) When the dust had settled, the president had fled the country and pro-democracy activists had gained the upper … Continue reading The Maidan
For many Americans, any and all former Soviet republics get lumped into a nebulous mass of geographical uncertainty, authoritarianism, and Borat-type culture. Ukraine is a bracing tonic against these stereotypes; a nation whose rich culture belies its relatively brief geopolitical history. The region of what today is called Ukraine has been at a political and … Continue reading The Crossroads of Ukraine
T A B U L A R A S A photography 