Anna's Blog: Georgia

Where to start?

I am in Georgia. I left the capital Tbilisi last Thursday (August 8th) to spend a few days at the Black Sea and to photograph a mental hospital there for an NGO that I have been doing my work placement with over here. It was sunny, the air was sweet, the clear sky promised adventures and happy days. Who would have thought that only 5 hours later I would in fact be in the middle of an escalating war - stuck at the black sea without a passport with no way back or out!

In the beginning we all thought it would be better the next day. Just sleep, wake up, have a cup of tea - and voilà ... all back to normal. But in fact things got worse. The second night of the war, on August 9th, people started getting tenser. News of bombing were becoming more frequent, the most alarming fact being that the Russians were bombing not just in and around South Ossetia but all over the country. We decided to go to the city of Batumi, a port town on the Black Sea, in the evening to have a drink and calm our nerves when things suddenly started moving very fast. We sat down around 10 pm in a very nice modern beach front bar when our friends phone rang - silence - then the news: the port town of Poti had been bombed. This was about 300 Km away from South Ossetia and about 30 minutes drive from where we were. Confusion - is it really true? No it can't be! Then black out. All lights on the coast - gone. Now running, screaming - looking for children - accompanied by the light blue glow of mobile phones trying to cast light on the black night. Crazy! We managed to fill our gas tank that was running on empty and made it out of there, along with thousands of other cars heading in all directions.

The proceeding day we managed to get a couple of family members who had cleverly taken along their passport along out of the country. The turkish border is right there - so they walked across and took a bus to Istanbul to catch a flight from there. All flights from the local airport were already completely sold out.

Me, my husband and friends were stuck however. In order to get back to Tbilisi we would have to pass the heavily bombarded town of Gori, which also happens to be Stalin's birth place, and is supposedly doted on by Putin, who has great admiration for the Soviet dictator. There is only a single road connecting all of Georgia that passed through this city! The only other way back would be with some sort of Jeeps over the mountains.

Two days later we received news that friends of ours had in fact made it through Gori and back to Tbilisi - so we decided to leave immediately and try our luck too. En route, about 1 hour from Gori we received news of renewed bombings while simultaneously seeing an increasing number of overcrowded cars, trucks and busses all heading the same way. These were refugees from the town of Senaki and Poti in Georgia's west (why was there bombing there? That part of the country has no relation to South Ossetia!). What to do? It is so absurd to suddenly be stuck in a situation where your decisions could really mean life or death! We opted not to risk it and returned to try again at a later point when things seemed calmer. When we awoke that night to the sound of war planes flying directly over head and heard in the morning that Russians were advancing inland from Abchazia - we decided that things were not getting better and to get the hell out of there. The German embassy, whom i had been in touch with advised us dearly not to go. But the urge not to get stuck in Batumi without any papers and no way out of the country - and no way back due to a possible Russian blockade - was stronger than logic or safety. So, after having said our goodbyes to our friends for a second time and telling our landlady not to change the sheets until evening, just in case we came back again, we set of the next next day, leaving the black sea at full speed. I have never scrutinized the skies more closely than that day to see if fighter jets were close.

But things were really calm. We heard that an EU Envoy was in the country and Sarkozy was on his way the same night ... the crisis seemed close to an end .. joking and laughing we approached Gori. I think in situations in which your nerves and imagination are overpowered by reality, silliness is an instinctual reaction. Slowly we entered the town of Gori, which has been heavily scarred by war. There was military personnel everywhere - and no inhabitants. The town was completely empty and seemed nothing like the place we had passed only a few days before. We saw a lot of burned out and bombed residential houses. I even got out for 20 minutes to photograph some of them. I have never seen anything like this in my life. Children's bedrooms torn to bits, bathrooms hanging on the outside of buildings due to the outer walls being blown off! Crazy. Still feeling nervous about being there I decided not to photograph further (even though I would have loved to go into the houses and photograph interiors) we left quite quickly, passing the Georgian President and the EU convoy en route to the town to examine bomb sites on the way. 30 minutes later the president and the envoy came under attack in exactly the place I had been taking pictures! There is footage of this on the BBC website. So we finally made it back to Tbilisi on Monday afternoon. A journey that normally takes about 5 hours took us only 3 that day.

Again things seemed to be coming to a close. As we were preparing to go out and meet friends - things really got out of hand though. CNN announced (before Georgian TV) that the town of Gori had been taken by the russians and that they were advancing towards the capital. We were indeed one of the last people to have made it through that day! I had been really calm and handling the situation quite well until that moment - but now fell into a major panic! What to do - where to go? The German embassy was urging me to go to Armenia. But what was I to do there? Could my husband come with me - he obviously wanted to stay and make sure that his family was OK. I packed an emergency bag with all necessary clothing and papers (put on all the jewelery that was precious to me - am still wearing it and sleeping with it in fact)- then went to buy emergency food supplied (along with the entire town I realized). The bank machines were all out... no more gas! I managed to get 6 Twix and two loafs of bread and Vodka! Then we headed out of town to a friends country house. It just could not be true that the russians would come. I felt reminded of what people in Eastern Europe must have felt during the cold war when Russia was annexing their countries. How do you decided what to take and where to go?

The russians did in fact not come that night. They still haven't - and now there is a fragile cease fire, which i think will not hold. Constantly there are rumours of russians advancing, turning towards Tbilisi and then back to Gori and South Ossetia and then again. So that is the situation. Nobody knows if they will come - or if they will indeed leave as promised. I am not too hopeful to be honest - but can also not imagine that they could possible do such a thing as invade another country and conquer its capital. The German Embassy has told me that they have been told that even if the Russians come there will be no threat to German citizens - not exactly reassuring.

I have started to photograph refugees arriving in Tbilisi from Gori and South Ossetia and have found a new and very passionate cause for being here. It is atrocious what is happening in this country, inflicted by the russian military. This story has to be told. Personal ambition has absolutely faded and only the desire to do justice to the plight of these civilians remains. But suddenly i feel very inadequate as a photographer. How can i possibly do this situation justice?

I have attached a selection of photos that i have taken so far. Tomorrow I am off to another refugee camp in town.

So here I stay for now - longing for the good old safety of the west and the feeling of looking at the sky to see only adventure and happy days written in its endlessness. If the embassy officially evacuates i will leave but until then document as much as I can.

Love and see you soon I hope!

Anna

Refugees from Gori and South Ossetia in Tbilisi - 13.08.08