The book features a unique blend of contemporary photographs of Veles alongside fragments from the enigmatic 'Book of Veles,' a collection of 40 wooden boards inscribed in a proto-Slavic language, unearthed in Russia in 1919. This interplay between modern imagery and ancient text invites readers to explore the cultural and historical significance of Veles, offering insights into its heritage and the mysteries surrounding the archaeological find.
Wie wohnen und leben die Menschen in den Armutsvierteln der Welt? Wie sieht ihre Unterkunft aus, worauf sind sie stolz, und welche Probleme beschäftigen sie? Der Fotograf Jonas Bendiksen hat mehrere Monate in den Slums von Nairobi, Mumbai, Jakarta und Caracas verbracht. Seine einzigartigen 360-Grad-Aufnahmen bringen die räumlich und sozial Ausgegrenzten und ihr Zuhause eindringlich nahe. In kurzen Berichten schildern die Bewohner selbst, wie sie Not und Gewalt, aber auch Arbeit und sozialen Zusammenhalt erleben. Dieser Band gibt den am Rand der Metropolen ums Überleben kämpfenden Menschen eine Stimme und ein Gesicht
This culmination of a fascinating seven-year photographic journey takes viewers through the countries and enclaves once held in orbit by the immense gravity of Moscow, the nucleus of the Soviet empire. Now each region is on its own in a chaotic political environment, sometimes without diplomatic recognition from neighbors, much less the international community. Abkhazia, an unrecognized country on the Black Sea, was once the natural pearl of the empire, where bellicose generals and productive factory managers came to relax. The spacecraft crash zones between Russia and Kazakhstan reveal a Soviet-inflected version of the entrepreneurial spirit. In Transdniester, a breakaway region of Moldova that survives by functioning as a giant black market for illicit traffic in all manner of goods, from leftover Soviet munitions to bootlegged booze, Bendiksen was expelled on the grounds that he was a "protagonist in an international spy ring." These 62 hauntingly beautiful and often arresting color photographs unsentimentally reveal the often grim circumstances in these half-forgotten regions, uniformly poor and polluted, and often politically unstable. We may not hear much about them today, but we will certainly hear more as the fall of the Iron Curtain continues to reverberate throughout the region.