Black Sea of concrete

“The first thing you notice by the sea is the concrete. Kilometres of grey blocks sometimes painted in blue and yellow – the national colors of Ukraine. You can feel the Soviet past at once. It looks surreal and doesn’t match the beautiful landscape that surrounds you. Industrial zones and iron waste by the sea doesn’t remind one of a harmonious idyll between nature and man. People have changed the landscape in a very brutal way. But the sea fights back for its natural shape and territory. The locals seem to respect the power of the sea. Nevertheless they thoughtlessly devastate it. This weird symbiosis makes that piece of land fascinating. I went to the Ukrainian Black Sea coast to explore the mutual influence and the relationship between a man and the sea. Ukraine is a country in transition which for the past few years has been looking for its new identity. So has the Black Sea coast.”

Intro and photos:
Rafal Milach www.rafalmilach.com from DeepSleep Issue Five: The Sea
via wood’s lot

Not only the pictures are precise and tightly edited, but also the whole series, the inventory of destruction proceeding from the sea to the tombstone of the sea, one of every kind, like in a Noah’s Ark doomed to extinction. But what really makes them beautiful and raises them above the photo dumping of contemporary industrial ruin cult is the life that permeates them, the breathing of the clouds and of the sea, the goats, the faces which, despite so much brokenness, have remained humane, open and hopeful, and give reason to hope.