|
|
|
|
|
|
Dear reader,
This is the second part of our exploration of the Family issue. Our decision to divide the newsletter into two parts stems from our desire to give more depth to each topic, more room for visual exploration, and more words for each written piece. Sometimes less is not necessarily more. If in the first part we provide a general overview of the concept of “family”, in the second part we look at three particular cases which reflect on the connection between family and homeland.
On the one hand, we have Ramin, who now lives in Chișinău but originally born on the left bank of the River Dniester in the Moldavian Soviet Republic, and who decided to go back and document his place of birth which most of his family still calls home. On the other hand, we have Rusłana, Janinka, and Zosia, who were forced to flee Ukraine and leave family members behind. The last part, a project by Karolina Jonderko, contemplates the remaining traces of missing persons in Poland: how their memories are kept alive by their loved ones and how presence is felt despite absence.
Laura from Kajet (Bucharest)
|
|
Top Image: Katrine and Alexander during his day of military service. Ribnita, Transnistria, Republic of Moldova.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recovering family memories from my hometown of Transnistria
by Ramin Mazur
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Katrine with her mother Angela in their courtyard. Ribnita, Transnistria, Republic of Moldova
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Casa Mare or Velika Hata, a traditional room in village homes where people keep all the precious belongings and family memorabilia. Ghidirim village, Transnistria,
Republic of Moldova
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Katrine and Alexander rest in the room at Katrine's parents house in Ribnita, Transnistria, Republic of Moldova.
|
|
|
|
Nikita seats by the river bank after his skateboard ride through the city. Ribnita, Transnistria, Republic of Moldova.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sisters and daughters of Maria, mourn on her body. Ghidirim village, Transnistria,
Republic of Moldova
|
|
|
|
Lunch setup on the table at summer kitchen in Ghidirim village, Transnistria,
Republic of Moldova
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I grew up in my hometown in the north of Transnistria and never knew anything about the outside world, apart from a few memories from Ukraine, where I spent a short time in my childhood. Long enough - after moving to Moldova, I never thought about my hometown. When I started to practise photography, apparently the first thing I wanted to document was this split of unrecognised land that finds its identity somewhere between the war for independence and its Soviet past. But soon enough, I faced the fact that I was framing my narrative in the same clichéd manner as the "other" media did. From that moment on, I tried to understand what this piece of land means to me. It brought me back to my hometown. I thought it would be a good idea to understand myself and the people living there, through memories and parallels with myrelatives, who still lived there. But apparently, there was no vivid memory that could shake my feelings. So I started to go there more often and spent time with my family, to retrieve those memories and understand this bank of childhood that was separated from another world, just as it is now separated from me, being on another side. I was curious to understand why it is left by its people even more than Moldova (where the population is shrinking faster than anywhere else in Europe) and what it is to be on the verge of choosing. I can't pretend to give answers, but at least I hope to touch the feeling of the place that once allowed me to feel the air while running through the apple gardens.
Ramin Mazur
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
How do you pack your whole house into one suitcase?
|
|
|
|
This impossible question was what Polish reporter Michał Szczęch asked what he called his heroines - refugees who, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, had to leave their country and settle in Poland. The author accompanied them for many months and describes in his reportage the experience of being torn between the place they once called home and a new place, where life must go on. Here is an excerpt of the text devoted to Rusłana and her children, which was published in the February issue of Pismo Magazine.
|
|
As her friends were fleeing from Ukraine to Poland, Rusłana, a kindergarten teacher and mother of nine-year-old Janinka and fourteen-year-old Zosia, could not decide whether to leave. “I was afraid to leave my husband in Ukraine. I was afraid that he would return to Lviv, home, and we would not be there. I was convinced that if we left, it would be forever” she says.
A year before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Rusłana’s husband Władysław enlisted as a contract soldier. Previously, he had been a tram driver. “I didn't want to let him join the army. He was stubborn, persuaded me for a long time. He reads a lot of books and is interested in history. He is forty-two years old and has the mind of an old man. In 2021, he went to eastern Ukraine, where the war had been going on for eight years.” Władysław argued that Ukraine must be defended against Russia. When he came to Lviv on leave, he needed an operation on his knee. They didn't make it on time. Rusłana then described how, when the Russian troops crossed the border, he put on a black sweater buttoned up to the neck, waterproof socks and left. "He called us in mid-March: 'You must flee to Poland,' he said. I had no problem leaving furniture and carpets. I felt sorry about the gifts from my loved ones, the little things I had seen all my life."
|
|
|
|
| |
|
"I had no problem leaving furniture and carpets. I felt sorry about the gifts from my loved ones, the little things I had seen all my life."
|
|
|
|
| |
Rusłana's and her daughters' backpacks could hold two blouses, two pairs of trousers, and two T-shirts each. They also decided that each of them would take two items that they felt most connected with.
Zosia took cuddly toys the size of an apple. “The small teddy bear. I got it from a friend for my birthday. I want to remember her,” says the girl.
It was the first time in her life that Janinka had to make such a difficult choice. “I took a giraffe I got for Christmas, and a bunny from my dad,” she says about her two stuffed animals. Rusłana took a medallion depicting the Mother of God (a gift from friends), a basket she had crocheted, and a lot of medicines. “I was sorry to leave my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, who didn't want to leave, but I was afraid of air raids,” she says. She put on one of Władysław's military sweaters and got on the bus with her daughters to cross the border into Poland.
On the journey, she thought about her husband the whole time. "He said he might not call us again," she says. She and her daughters arrived in Nowa Sól in the voivodeship of Lubuskie last April.
“Władysław’s uncle picked us up from the train station and drove us to a small town – Kożuchów. My husband has Polish roots.” They slept in their clothes for a week. “We were afraid that suddenly, at night, we would have to run away again,” continues Rusłana.
Now they are slowly settling into their temporary home. The kitchen is not Rusłana's kingdom, but her daughter Zosia enjoys cooking. She recently baked a cheesecake. She inherited her talent from her father. “He made pancakes for us in Lviv, pelmeni (traditional dumplings), he made soups, baked cakes…” The daughters come to life when they hear the word "dad". They talk about making dumplings together. "Dad can make two hundred, with potatoes, cheese and meat," says Zosia. In Poland she started to drink bitter tea with lemon. "That’s the way dad drinks it."
|
|
|
|
| |
|
The daughters come to life when they hear the word "dad".
|
|
|
|
| |
Rusłana, like many Ukrainian refugee women, installed the Triwoga app on their phones, which has a map of Ukraine that highlights air raid alerts in red. When the rockets come in, a voice from the app tells them to go down to their basements. When the sirens in Ukraine go silent, people breathe a sigh of relief. At night, they are often afraid to fall asleep. They check the app to see whether another rocket is approaching. And Ukrainian women who have fled cannot sleep either. Last October, rockets again hit Lviv. There was no internet, the app stopped working there, so Rusłana's mother-in-law was afraid to fall asleep. “Lie down, rest,” Rusłana pleaded with her over the phone. And she stayed awake all night, looking at the app to warn her mother-in-law in time.
In March 2022, Rusłana learned that her husband had been taken prisoner. They haven't had contact with him for almost a year.
Rusłana hugs Władysław's sweater, the military one in which she fled to Poland. "Sometimes I wear it. Sleep in it," she says.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Every year, Polish police file 15,000 missing person reports. Every day, the faces of missing people gaze out from posters designed to attract our attention; yet, every passing day, they are noticed less. We become as immune to these posters as to the faces featured on them. Only those who have lost someone in these circumstances can begin to imagine the pain these families are going through. Their feelings teeter between loss and hope. Often the rooms of the missing lost ones are left untouched, for months, years, and even decades. This project seeks to reinvigorate the efforts to find the missing, and to create awareness of the immense pain caused by the loss of a loved one who one day went missing, by highlighting the plight of those who are missed and those who miss them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE LOCATIONS OF THIS ISSUE
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If you like the publication, please follow us on the European Images Instagram account!
This is the econd edition in 2023 of European Images, a project by n-ost, in partnership with Kajet Journal (RO) and Pismo (PL) supported by Allianz Kulturstiftung and the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
initiated and coordinated
by n-ost
|
|
You've received this email because you are a member or a friend of
n-ost, Pismo, Kajet or Ramin or subscribed to European Images
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
