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My Quest of the City Council: Playing the rule-changing game

Publicerad:

April 26, 2010

Läsningstid: 7 minuter
[Part II of Olga Karach’s adventures in the local election in Belarus]

‘Off with her head!’ the Red Queen shouted at the top of her voice.  Nobody moved. ‘Who cares for you?’ said Alice,  (she had grown to her full size by this time.) ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’  At this the whole pack rose up into the air,  and came flying down upon her.

Two cards from two different packs… Sorry, two members from two different commissions called me on Tuesday and informed me that they cancelled my registration for the coming elections to the City Council. The pretext they found was the distributing of green balloons to children. The balloons were given out outside my election precincts, and naturally they did not carry my name or any other names. Apparently, the commissions were running out of time (the elections are due in five days), so they were ready to declare a violation any action of mine. If not balloons, I could have been banned from the elections for a green scarf.

Vitebsk from 1912. From wiki commons.

The three persons who signed the petitions urging to punish me are not from my precincts. I also strongly doubt that they wrote the petitions themselves, not just signed the ready-made text. One of them is the Chief Manager of Municipality Branch #9 in Vitebsk.The second is a woman named Tatiana Tadeushevna Andreieva living at 68-4 Pravdy Street. As for the third person, we know only the last name (Starikovich) and partially the residence address (76 Moskovski Prospekt). However, in the court we will surely learn the full information about the signers and will publish it.

So now authorities consider me not eligible for the elections. But how much ‘elective’ the elections have become, how much of fair elections is left in this staged cricket game? The pro-governmental candidate, Mr. Bashmetov, has shamelessly been making use of his administrative position. Being the Rector of a government-controlled university, he used its premises for meetings and its faculty for organizing the meetings. The students were forced to go to the meetings, sometimes instead of classes. For high-school graduates Mr. Bashmetov was promising almost free admission to the university, if only he becomes one of the ‘deputies’. To crown it all, with the term exams coming many female students were ‘strongly advised’ to take part in concerts and cheer actions for Mr. Bashmetov’s promotion.

The government-staffed commissions reviewed his slanderous complaints against me practically immediately. At the same time only one out of my six complaints of April 14-20 was reviewed. The resolution signed by Mr. Miadelets, the Chair, read ‘a number of solutions have been found which now satisfy all the parties involved’. Besides the fact that no real solution was found, the resolution definitely implied that I am not a party involved. Needless to mention, the other five complaints of mine have never been reviewed.

‘That’s not a regular rule’, Alice remarked, ‘you invented it just now.’
‘It’s the oldest rule in the book!’ cried the Red Queen.
‘Then it ought to be Number One,’ said Alice.
The Red Queen turned pale, and shut her note-book hastily.

Why the officials are changing even their own rules so hastily? What are they scared of? I have no doubts the reason was the number of my representatives. Suddenly the packs (sorry again, the Commissions) got it right that our team will do everything necessary to properly monitor the counting of votes. Their hopes to reach their own goal set from the top were suddenly jeopardized. Fair elections would definitely mean failures of pro-government candidates.

I am addressing to all citizens who were going to support me: show your attitude to this staged game which officials call ‘elections’. You can do it in two ways:
1. You can just ignore the game. Do not come to the election precinct. Why waste time, if the result is fixed and forged anyway? To give officials an opportunity to give their decisions a label of ‘working people’s will’? To let them reduce social security, to raise taxes and utilities, to do nothing about real needs, and call it ‘fulfilling the working people’s orders’?
2. You can come to the election precinct and cross out all the names, then write ‘For Karach’, and put your ballot into the ballot-box. This way you will show the Red Queen and her packs that you are not a pawn in their games, where rules are being changed at will (maybe even as a result of a schizophrenic reaction). You will show that you are a human, and you demand the right to choice. Both ways are good, though they differ in openness, of course.
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My Quest To the City Council: Beginning

Publicerad:

April 21, 2010

Läsningstid: 9 minuter
‘Curiouser and curiouser!’

I love quests. Otherwise I would have never become a politician. At the same time I never play computer quests, because I am very positive they are quite dull if compared with real political life in contemporary Belarus. Can you get a puzzle to solve just at the very beginning, when you are just registering for the game? Unlikely. In most cases, for introduction you get a long text of the License of Agreement, written in regular Legalese.

Unlike in computer gaming, my quest for becoming a People’s Representative in the City Council started with a whole range of puzzling tasks even before I could get the official registration. When I was registering for candidacy, I was solemnly given a letter from the Tax Inspection office. Why at that very moment? Why only me? Why not via regular mail, but via personal delivery of the Election Commission Chair? The most plausible answer coming to my mind is that the authorities are trying to put pressure on me and the Election Commission members. However, a quest is a quest, so I also sent an official request to the Tax Inspection office and asked them the same questions. They are still keeping silent about their own official motives though. Evidently they are not so experienced in questing…

Just like Alice in Wonderland, I can only say that subsequent events are getting ‘curiouser and curiouser’. Now, Vitebsk region has the one and only independent newspaper, that of VITEBSKI KURIER (Vitebsk Courier), and the newspaper has never been in favour with the authorities. Actually, we will probably soon have to re-brand it as ‘Vitebsk Phoenix’, because the newspaper team now has a lot of skills in ‘rising from the ashes’ (is there a skill like this in WORLD OF WARCRAFT?). So the authorities never liked the newspaper, but with my registration as a candidate the repressions just rocketed up. The newspaper team has violated no law, from the Election Code or any other, but now it is being considered ‘enemy #1’, and the number of enforcers from the local police who are hunting it down can definitely make a bystander think that the police are dealing with nothing less like Professor Moriarty, Vitebsk City level. Why so? Again, the most plausible answer is that in the official scenario for the coming elections there is no place for independent sources of information. But what can be explanations from the police and the authorities? Anyway, VITEBSKI KURIER will be published and will be delivered to the readers no matter what. Just like before, we will outplay the authorities in this quest as well.

‘When I use a word,’  Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,  ‘it means just what I choose it to mean— neither more nor less.’

Last week the cars my relatives own turned out to be included in the Road Police list of vehicles reported stolen. How come? Another puzzle to solve. Apparently, when enforcers from Vitebsk police see a car, it becomes just what they choose it to become. Humpty Dumpty did the same with words, but never with private property. The culmination of this logic was the case when on April 7 the car officially owned by my husband was arrested and delivered to a Police precinct on the suspicion that it had been stolen. The fact that I myself was sitting in the car and the owner was personally driving it definitely was not enough to clear the suspicion. The sad thing is that while a police platoon was hunting down, arresting, and escorting my husband’s car, some real criminals could be stealing cars at will.

This new type of logic invented by Vitebsk police is sometimes incomprehensible even for their colleagues. When Mogilev Region police officers found a car from the official list of vehicles reported stolen, they also had their piece of quest. They could not figure out why there were 10 000 copies of an officially registered newspaper in there, neatly packed and ready for distribution. They had seen many things in stolen cars, but a complete circulation of a newspaper issue was really something very new. When they called Vitebsk police, Vitebsk enforcers solved their problem immediately. The ‘stolen’ car presented no interest for them, they just asked to confiscate the newspaper copies. Have you already guessed that the newspaper title was VITEBSKI KURIER? If yes, you are also beginning to collect points in this quest.

By the way, the issue reached the readers anyway. The newspaper team fulfilled the civil duty, is spite of the hindrances developed by the authorities and their enforcers. We never forget about our main quest and its mission: to provide people with free unbiased information.

‘Now, I give you fair warning,’  shouted the Red Queen, stamping on the ground as she spoke;  ‘either you or your head must be off,  and that in about half no time!  Take your choice!’

Arranging a meeting with my voters was a whole new part of my quest, and there I had to use a lot of my ‘skills and points’. On April 10 my representative sent an official letter to the Administration of Oktiabrski District of Vitebsk notifying them that on April 12-14 I was going to hold meetings with my voters on the territories near their apartment houses. Knowing how ‘creative’ the Red Queen can be in putting obstacles for people who want fair representation, we also sent another copy by registered mail. The royal reaction was fast and furious. The official reply #01-19/19В signed by Mr. V. A. Galanov, the first deputy of the Administration Head, read that ‘… based on the information above, you are not allowed to hold meetings with information and entertainment elements on the territories near the apartment houses of Klinicheski Election District #51… the only place you can use is the open-air scene located at 63-1 Pravdy Street.’

In my election precinct there are a lot of places fully suitable for an open talk with voters. Why didn’t the authorities mention them? Another puzzle… Anyway, I am a law-abiding citizen, so I answered that if it is ‘the open-air scene located at 63-1 Pravdy Street’, let it be so. Let us play there, and let us play fair.

My election precinct is special, because there are four candidates. In most precincts throughout Belarus there is just one. To make the election quest simpler? Well, I and my activists are sure that ‘no selection—no election’. The citizens’ choice must be educated, people must know their candidates, their backgrounds, their programs. The candidates must meet in fair verbal battles, so that people will see who is who now and who is going to be who after the elections. That is why on April 14 I personally called all my rivals and invited them to come to the meeting in the evening to the one and only ‘open-air scene located at 63-1 Pravdy Street’. All the other candidates confirmed receiving the information, and none of them said that they were organizing their own events at the time.

However, the Red Queen had her own views on how candidates must compete for votes. At about 6pm, just one hour before my arranged meeting with voters, I got a call to my mobile phone. A male introduced himself as ‘A. K. Kondratovich, a deputy head of Oktiabrski District Administration’, and then immediately revealed his true nature of being just a playing card in the authority pack. He said that they banned my meeting with voters because another candidate earlier applied for the same place and time, and the candidate does not want my presence there. I felt just like Alice again—I had to be off, and that in about half no time. Needless to say that the candidate was one of those whom I was calling at noon, and he said not a single word about his own ‘planned’ meeting. Had the Red Queen turned him into a zombie? Or was he a zombie from the very beginning?
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Ukraine write Freedom of Information Act with help of German experience

Publicerad:

April 19, 2010

Läsningstid: 2 minuter
In today’s issue of Deutsche Welle Olha Wesnjanka writes an interesting article about the situation for freedom of information in Ukraine. Ukraine has a freedom of information legislation from 1996, but it does not include a specification on general right of access to information. The law therefor needs to be improved.

The head of Center for Political and Legal Reforms in Kyiv, Mariana Demkova, implies that to introduce a Freedom of Information Act in Ukraine will take a considerable long time, and this is due to that fact that processes like this are complex. Demkova refers to how the situation was when Germany implemented the Freedom of Information Act. Germany experience number of complex problems that Ukraine can learn from. “For Ukraine it is certainly important and useful to investigate the German experience: what stood in the way of difficulties in developing, how did it go to implement bill and to enforce the law in practice”, Demkova says to Olha Wesnjaka.

Will Ukrainians be able to get more information about
their rulers online in the future?
Photo: Sophie Engström

A group of Ukrainian specialists, headed by deputy Andriy Shevchenko, will therefor go to Germany to meet German collegues and ministers to discuss and learn about the implementation the federal law on freedom of information in Germany. Since the Ukrainian Federal commissioner for data protection and freedom of information will visit the Ministry of Economy, which takes care of telecommunications issues, the Ukrainian Pirate Party should feel some concern. ACTA traditionally works very close to ministries in Europe that handle questions like freedom of information.
A Missing Gaze

Publicerad:

April 6, 2010

Läsningstid: 3 minuter
Melody for a Street Organ (2009) by Kira Muratova compensates for the 20 years-long absence of social cinema in Ukraine in a strikingly unexpected way. To capture the social reality of Ukrainian society is not an easy task, since, like any other post-Soviet society, it avoids a direct look at its basic manifestations (like marginalization of large social segments and dissolution of interpersonal links) by rendering them invisible for the mass media apparatuses. In order to assemble the mosaic of unrepresented society, Muratova has chosen the vantage point that is generally repressed in contemporary Ukraine. Her latest film is set in public spaces where taking pictures is usually prohibited for reasons that are neither explained nor questioned, in spite of availability of those spaces for the general public: the train station and the supermarket.

The first part of the film follows a couple of homeless kids through a railway station, where they are confronted with a series of unfavourable circumstances, while the second part takes them to a supermarket, where the penniless protagonists, hallucinating from hunger, are trying to get some food. Still, those areas – the railway station and the supermarket – are only seemingly excluded from democratic representation, since they are subjected to numerous surveillance apparatuses that not only passively collect information but also actively constitute the social relations at the observed territory, producing the subjectivities of those under surveillance. By entering this domain of monopolized representation with her camera, Muratova gets an opportunity to spy at the members of contemporary society reduced to their purely functional, mechanical identities – those of the train passengers or supermarket clients.

This reduction is obvious in numerous film scenes where the kids appeal to occasional strangers with a cry for help only to get a standardized, artificial, ‘cinematic’ reaction from the people who cannot transcend their prescribed social roles. In a crucial episode of the film, the kids occasionally witness the extrinsic child beggar telling their own numerously repeated story verbatim to a stranger and getting a generous reward. The shock that children experience in the course of the scene is quite similar to a shock of the viewer confronted with Muratova’s numerous episodic characters that despite of their constructed, unnatural behaviour (or, maybe, precisely owing to these features) are strikingly recognizable in their representation of post-Soviet social identities. Rather than reproduce “reality as it is”, Muratova focuses on fiction underlying the reality itself, a fiction that is deconstructed from an ‘impossible’ viewpoint of the camera sneaking after the people who unconsciously perform their prescribed identities.

Oleksiy Radynski is an essayist, editor and scholar of film theory. He is a postgraduate student at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and collaborator at Visual Culture Research Center at the same university.
viewpoint-east.org now with google reader

Publicerad:

April 3, 2010

Läsningstid: < 1 minut
Check out viewpoint-east’s new google reader bundle!!

I strongly recommend you subscribe to it ; )

And are you in it? If no, send me your URL and I will probably add you : )

[contact-form 4 “network”]
Boris Ryzhy – The unwilling survivor

Publicerad:

March 30, 2010

Läsningstid: 5 minuter
How do you describe a suicide, what it implies in loses and sorrow for people close to you? How do you describe the devastating emptiness and hopelessness that the survivors need to live with? I would say that in many aspects it is not possible, but if you have an interest in understanding, without exploiting, there are a possibility that you will be able to describe both the cruelty in being left behind, and how survivors find their way out from the labyrinth of sorrow.

In the documentary Boris Ryzhy, about the poet with the same name, made by the dutch filmmaker Aliona van der Horst, you can actually feel the sorrow in your own breath while watching it. van der Horst has managed to find the special situations, when words has no use and life itself seems to be more grim than ever.

In the introduction we see a woman wondering around in a suburn district. She is trying to get a hold on somebody that knew Boris Ryzhy. After being reprimanded by a babushka, she finally finds somebody that wants to help her and let her enter a staircase in one of the houses. The woman explains that she and her brother lived in this house when they were small. She starts to ring the door bell to the first flat in the house. She does not present herself to the lady that opens the door, but tells her about the film that Ailona van der Horst is making. She says it is a film about her brother, the poet Boris Ryzhy. She asks the old lady if she remember him, and the old lady does not remember him. The woman, the sister of Ryzhy, starts to recite a poem that Boris Ryzhy wrote, but her voice cracks, and finally she starts to cry. The woman that opened the door starts immediately to ask her about why she is crying: “Is he dead? What happened to your brother?” she asks. “He is dead. He committed suicide”, answers the sister. I believe most spectators literary can feels the pain in her voice.

The trailer for the documentary by Boris Ryzhy by Aliona van der Horst.

The documentary then continues with, as it seems, an endless desire to try to understand why Boris Ryzhy decided to end his own life. Was it because many of his friends died already? Was it because he and all his friends lived in a violent world, with gangsters that lacked empathy for suffering? Did he feel alienated or was he just a mad genius that took suicide as a desperate wish to be accepted as a poet? Aliona van der Horst investigate and gets self-disclosure and fearless help from Boris Ryzhy’s family – the wife, son, sister and mother. But even so, she never comes close to explain why, except that it is necessary to accept the unacceptable. The death of somebody you love. This is however not a failure by van der Horst, but actually a strength to a story, that could have became extremely pathetic if it was made in a less intelligent way. To tell the truth, this is actually one of the best documentaries I have ever seen, and I have seen quite a few.

Boris Ryzhy, born in 1974, grow up in Yekaterinburg. His family was well-educated family and his father was a geologist, unknown what his mother did, though. When he was rather small his family moved to a rough area in Yekaterinburg. There Boris had to learn how to survive in the tough environment. He started to boxing in the same age as writing poems (14 years old) and violence and poetry seems to be utterly connected for him. Boris Ryzhy’s poems often depict and describe the neighbourhood that he and his sister grow up in. It seems like he never left the area in his soul. One of his very old friends, that Aliona van der Horst managed to track down, describes Boris as rootless and very lonely man, even though so many loved him.

Boris Ryzhy committed suicide by hanging in May 2001, 26 years old. It is impossible to tell how his talent would develop, because his poems mostly describe the Jelstin years during 1990s. How crime and gangesters are more usual than ordinary jobs and loving and caring situations. Even so, Boris Ryzhy was not a gangster all though, but was also a PhD in Geophysics.

The poem “Show me, Gypsy woman” read by Boris Ryzhy.

In the documentary it is perhaps Boris Ryzhy’s wife that says the most devastating words. She tells about her and Boris childhood, how they were encouraged to believe in the communist future, and they thought they lived in the perfect socialist society. But when they finish school in 1991, the Soviet Empire fell apart. It didn’t come as any surprise for them, but after the fall of the empire, the “first generation of perestroika” was abandoned by the society itself. The only way that far too many saw, was the road of criminality. “We are the generation of body guards”, she says when she stands at Boris grave at the cemetery, and around her we see hundreds of graves for young men born in the beginning of 70s that dead in the mid 90s.

It is obvious that Boris Ryzhy felt as a survivor, and to survive in this “war”, like one of his friends remarks in the documentary, is “a shameful business”. We can only hope that Boris Ryzhy’s legacy will survive, because his poems is not only violent but alos beautiful. And they are a legacy from a time that we all must try to prevent to return.

If you want to read Boris Ryzhy in English you can find some here.
The Russian-Chechen-conflict: A reminder

Publicerad:

March 30, 2010

Läsningstid: < 1 minut
The motto “violence begets violence” seems, sadly enough, to be confirmed a day like this, the day after the bombing in Moscow metro. While my thoughts goes to all those innocent victims that this conflict seems indefatigably rearm, I would like to remind you about the essay The Russian Chechen Conflict factors that triggered the conflict to become an armed conflict in 1994-1996 and then again in 1999 (divided in two part) that Anders T Carlsson published here previously. Part I and Part II. To deconstruct and get a deeper understanding, can actually imply a better possibility to defeat anger and fear!

Photo from Georgia, near the Chechen border. Thank for photo from cinto2.
Cha-Cha-changes – S:t Petersburg 1995/2010 with a new perspective

Publicerad:

March 24, 2010

Läsningstid: 1 minut
Last week viewpoint-east.org introduced a new element, a virtual gallery. After Maria Magnusson’s set S:t Petersburg 1995/2010 was published, I thought to myself that it would be nice with a reply, from today’s Petersburg. I started to search and I found Ekaterina Khozatskaya, an Urban Sketcher for S:t Petersburg.

Here is her set cha-cha-changes and below you can read her own thoughts.

I was born in S:t petersburg 23 years ago and lived there for all my life. I was only 9 years in 1995, so I don’t remember much from that time. I remember my school, coffe with buns, women selling “Pribaltic”-sweaters and wool hoods in front of DLT (Leningrad trade house). Illegal, I suppose.  

15 years have passed, Life differents much, but it seems that it has always been like that.  People moved from kitchens and backstreets to bars and cafes. Sushi restaraunts on every corner, coffe shops, and italian restaraunts, english pubs and swiss bakeries.

 Hypermarkets, and shopping centers: “Red triangle” boots replaced by hundreds of foreign companies.   It’s not a problem to go abroad any more.   In the 90’s it was hard to imagine that computers, internet, mobile phones would exists in almost every house.   But today it is a fact!

Of course it’s not for everyone and you can still meet lots of people like on Marias photos, which are not victims of fashion, and lots of shops without food, still.

But a lot of things have changed. As you can see in my sketches.
Dza in London at RBMA

Publicerad:

March 22, 2010

Läsningstid: 2 minuter
The annual Red Bull Music Academy in London has just finished and one of the participants was Sasha Dza, the how2make frontier that previously been highlighted here at viewpoint-east.org. So I connected to him, in London, to ask about impressions from the two weeks long experience at RBMA.

Dza – † Dance With Me ( preview ) by DZA

Sasha Dza: RBMA is a really heavy and nice experience for all participants. Every time, when I’d meet some one who has been a participant at RBMA before, they have told me to remember only one thing, Get a lot of sleep before academy! Because while you are there you will not get any sleep in two weeks!. And that was really true! Every day implies intensive studio work, lectures and live chatin’ with famous musicians like Hudson Mohawke, Roots Manuva, Busy P, Dj Zink, Marco Passarani, FlyLo (Flying Lotus) and many more.

It was also very cool to collaborated with another participants, such as Ad Bourk, Homeless Inc., Los Macuanos, Nando Pro and Hudson Mohawke. This guys gave me crazy energy and new inspiration!

RBMA has finished last week, but I have stayed in London for a few day to enjoy new places, museums and people.

Photo: Dan Wilton
Border – Nagorno Karabach 15 Years Later

Publicerad:

March 22, 2010

Läsningstid: 5 minuter
Maria Nilsson has seen the movie Border by the Armenian director Harutyun Khachatryan.

In the beginning of February the award winning Armenian director Harutyun Khachatryans movie “Border” was shown on the Gothenburg Film festival. Border is set against the mountains of South Caucasus and the unresolved conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno Karabach in the south Caucasian mountains. This war stricken parts of the world has suffered greatly the last twenty years. In the centre of attention in this very slow and scarsly spoken movie is a small mountain village and its inhabitants. The camera is slowly capturing the change of season while the conflict is continuously present in the shape of barbed wire and sirens surpassing all other noises.

The conflict
The war in Nagorno Karabach was yet another war that broke out in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union over territories that was close to impossible to pronounce for Western journalists. The war in Nagorno Karabach would however prove to be unusually bloody and drawn out. Between 1991 and 1994 over 35000 is believed to have been killed in the fighting’s and many times more were forced to leave their homes. The background of the conflict is found in historical antagonism, Stalin’s power play and the control vacuum opening after the dissolution of Soviet Union. Nagorno Karabach with an Armenian majority was 1921 by a direct decision from Stalin transferred from the Armenian SSR to the Azerbaijan SSK and consequently during the following years a large number of Azeris settled in the Nagorno Karabach area. During the highpoint of glasnost and perestroika the local parliament of Nagorno Karabach voted for the region to be transferred to the Armenian SSR which was highly opposed by Moscow, a resistance that was keep until the fall of the Soviet Union.

Photo: Maria Nilsson

The independent Nagorno Karabach
Nagorno Karabach republic (NKR) or Mountainous Karabach as the area is also called, declared itself independent in 1994, the same year as the cease fire was brokered. Today the region is not recognized by any other state but still keeps its own parliament, president, currency the cease fire is still only a cease fire and retained by the several thousands of soldiers on both sides of the barb wires. Nagorno Karabach would not survive with out the economical, military and societal support from Armenia and the ties between the two are strong although combined with a sense of a distant and occasionally problematic and stubborn relative. The first decade of alleged independence have not been an easy path for Nagorno Karabach. Not unlike similar regions for example Transnistrien (Moldova), Adjarien (Georgia) the declared independence has brought with it a corrupt, sometimes straight out criminal, domestic politics.

Travelling in Nagorno Karabach means travelling through the landscape that H Khachatryans so precisely paints in the movie Border. The narrow road after turning left on the main road leading from Yerevan to Iran is ironically called a highway but could easily be taken for a village road. Climbing up the Caucasian mountains and further into the Nagorno Karabach area it is difficult to understand how two cars could ever meet. The incredible Caucasian mountain that has not only proven to be highly accommodating for beyond cruel guerrilla wars but also creates one of the most inaccessible areas in the region. The first impression of the landscape and reappearing in the movie is the lack of visible human lives and the breathtaking sights. Houses are randomly placed down the slopes of the mountains, coming closer it is visible that only a fraction of the houses are occupied while the majority of them still appears to have been left in a hurry under fire of hostile troops and often with snipers holes left on the house shells. Judging from the reconstruction process the cease fire could have taken place fifteen days ago, not fifteen years ago.

Photo: Maria Nilsson

As in any war stricken society there are instances coming across as oddly out of place. In Nagorno Karabach it is the BMW cars trafficking the road in sharp contrast to the ladas and muscovite, the giant football stadium right in the centre of the city and the village Vank located a few miles outside of the main city Stepanakert. Vank contained as many others villages a mixed Armenian and Azeri population before the war but in the ethnical cleansing during the war all Azeris left the villages. A now Russian based oligarch was born in the village of Vank and has donated large sum of money to the reconstruction of the school which now must the only school in Nagorno Karabach with an adjoining swimming pool.

The slow moving film border capture both the harsh living conditions for the inhabitants left to the mercy and ever changing conditions of nature. It is cold, it is raw, it is tough and transfers a sense that the people are too preoccupied mere surviving to shed any time on unnecessary small talk. Ending with a devastating fire on the eve of a young couples wedding the movie communicate a message of hopelessness and resignation transcending from the unresolved conflict where the lack of permanent peace agreement is preventing financial and societal improvements. Until this can be accomplished the next fifteen years appear to be following the same track as the preceding fifteen.

Film stills from the movie Border.

You can also read a review of the movie Boarder at Kinokultura.