Post Soviet Blues

Booked a sleeper train from Tbilisi to Yerevan in the coming weeks. A trip I'm rather looking forward to. Weather as of late hasn't been the most wonderful, feeling more like autumn and winter more than spring going into summer. Rainy days and strong low hanging clouds. A sour feeling mood for a sour feeling city. Outside the train station were the remains of the usually popular street markets that have been attempting to thrive outside since the fall of the Soviet Union. These dense areas in which people walk through daily ending up being the ideal place to try to catch a few Lari on the odd item: books, fruit and vegetables, stationary, or various bits of secondhand clothing from all areas and ages. To describe the place I combined two images in one. A double exposure that shows the remaining people like ghosts in the image.

Under the blue light not much is to be seen beyond the remaining artificial light in the area. Few people walking by. Mostly empty stalls and environments, it felt sad in a comforting sort of way. Perhaps that was some of the feeling from knowing I'd be leaving soon, though I have a stronger leaning more towards the fact that my own energy had been trained over the course of many grey days and poor sleeping habits. Tiredness setting in with a the mixture of a lingering migraine, something that refused to disappear throughout the day. Coffee didn't help. Water didn't help. Nothing helped. Just one of those days. And the environment certainly portrayed that feeling. A coldness, the blue, the feeling of the after rain that felt like something ended with nothing to replace it. One of the few places on Earth where Bob Dylan's lyrics of "The Times They Are A-Changin'" don't really relate.

Though I do feel that this area lives on borrowed time in some ways, the many footsteps that pass through have led to urban decay. The steps are withering. The tunnel above that tracks crumbling. Cardboard boxes on its side to hide the holes. And those times have already changed quite significantly. Frescos of the former USSR on the side of apartment buildings that look like they're unoccupied and couldn't stand a strong breath of air. However, very much silently lived in. It was dark, and the fresco of yester-year couldn't quite be made out with the poor lighting and at this distance. I was also shooting on a Helios 44-2, a lens that isn't the sharpest but has its own charm, another relic of that former Union.

I'm not sure I'll step foot in these environments again once I leave Georgia. Part of me would like to believe I will run through it a few more times and capture it. I usually don't have much attachment to places, but in some ways both Armenia and Georgia have had lasting impressions on me. The two sharing similar pasts but still being vastly different. Particularly in those Post Soviet blues.