ukraine
Dnipro from a biplane, Kyiv under December snow, and then the Zone: Pripyat, the pool called Azure, a kindergarten where grief has been arranged on a bench for forty years. I was there in the winter before the full-scale war, photographing what catastrophe leaves standing. Rereading these entries now is its own lesson in what a record is for.
23 entries, newest first.
2022
Colour Comes Back
· The last frame of the Zone series: a self-portrait at the edge of Pripyat, and the drive home to saturation.
The Monument and the Dogs
· The liquidators' memorial with its permanent honor guard of strays, and feeding what the Zone left behind.
2021
The Trumpet Angel
· The Third Angel of Chornobyl: a wormwood monument in welded steel, blowing its trumpet over the snow.
The Windowsill
· Small things left on a broken sill, the view through empty panes, and the Zone's genre of accidental still life.
Hotel Polissya
· The tallest ruin on the square: the hotel that watched the evacuation, letters still on its roof.
The Cot by the Window
· A mesh-sided cot in the nursery light, and standing in the doorway rather than entering.
The Doll and the Primer
· A kindergarten bench, an open alphabet book, a doll someone posed years ago, and what to do with arranged grief.
The Pool Called Azure
· Lazurny: the swimming pool that outlived the town by a decade, its diving blocks waiting in the cold light.
The Wheel That Stopped
· The Pripyat ferris wheel under snow: an amusement park that never opened, and yellow the frost cannot mute.
The Alley of Lost Villages
· A snowy path lined with name signs, one for every village the Zone erased, and walking it to the end.
Pripyat, 1970
· The town sign in the snow, the nuclear atom in concrete, and a city that got sixteen years.
The Machine at the Checkpoint
· Dityatky checkpoint: a Soviet contamination monitor older than my mother, palms flat on the sensors.
The Chapel on the Embankment
· A small golden dome against the black Dnipro, and the last quiet evening before the trip north.
Thirty Seconds for the BBC
· A microphone with a famous cube on it, one question about why I came, and the strange mirror of being the story.
The Field Kitchen
· A blue gown, a ladle, and an hour of service in the tradition that fed a revolution.
A Bench by the Fire
· A seat offered at the memorial camp, a young woman wrapped in a flag, and warmth as the oldest form of welcome.
The Barrel Keepers
· December nights on the Maidan: veterans rebuild the camp in miniature, and the fires in the barrels are lit again.
The Square, Lit
· Maidan at night from the upper terrace: the stella, the lights, and a square that is never only a square.
The Lavra, Early
· Golden domes under snow before the tour buses, and a monastery that has outlasted every catastrophe on its doorstep.
Tea at Minus Three
· A plastic cup on Khreshchatyk, steam against the cold, and street tea as municipal infrastructure.
Snow on the Founders
· Kyi, Shchek, Khoryv and their sister in a December whiteout, and a city calmly older than every empire that claimed it.
Down Among the Chandeliers
· Arrival in Kyiv: the deepest metro on earth, marble and chandeliers, and a crowd that carries you like a current.
Kukuruznik
· A flight into Dnipro, a biplane older than my parents still earning its keep on a wet apron, and a borrowed headset that smelled of somebody else's work.