#and bullet holes were found in two jewish schools today

[sizablelad]

the amount of antisemitic events and violence that’s occurred in mtl over the past couple weeks is INSANE

[guessimjoiningthespidermanfandom]

Blessing in Disguise

Peter Parker x bisexual!reader

Peter Parker x fem!reader

Peter Parker x black!reader

Peter Parker x villain!reader

Warnings: Hospitals, Explosions, depictions of pain, allusions to mania and depression, self harm/unhealthy coping mechanisms, mentions of death and the dead, gambling, potential underage drinking, theft, guns, gun violence, depictions of bullet wounds, and drunk people. 

Word Count: 3.4k

Songs: All the kids are depressed- Jeremy Zucker, Everywhere- Chloe x Halle, Middle Child- J. Cole, She Knows- J. Cole, Breezeblocks- alt-J, Pussycat Doll-Flo Milli, It’s Been So Long- The Living Tombstone, Take me to Church- Hozier, Good Kid- Kendrick Lamar, Death of a Bachelor- Panic! At the Disco, Them Changes- Thundercat, Detention- Melanie Martinez, Recess- Melanie Martinez, Something for your M.I.N.D- Superorganism 

A/N: I actually hate this chapter because I feel like the writing doesn’t flow. I feel like it’s to jampacked with things that don’t do anything to push the story forward. Anyway I hope you still read it anyways. 

Series Masterlist   Previous Part   Next Part

I did the hand sign stating I’d stand. I knew I won for sure this time because I had a perfect hand of 21. The two other people playing against groaned as I was declared the winner yet again. 

Swiping the chips for the 3rd time since I’d been at the casino. I decided to take my wins and make my way to the bar that our “target” was residing. 

I had a hunch on where Carmen was but had no actual idea. I’d just text her. In the meantime I had this grown ass man to make a move on. 

I was like 97% sure I had the right guy anyway. I looked much older than usual tonight due to Carmen being a makeup goddess and I gotta say flirting can get you a long way. 

“Hey,” I spoke, sitting on the bar stool next to the man.

He looked up at me mumbling a quick hey.

“You expecting someone?” 

“Nope,” He popped the ‘p’ “What about you?”

“Same as you,”

“Now I don’t believe someone as beautiful as you is here alone,” He moved his arm that much closer to mine. I pushed out a smile and giggled. 

“I could say the same about you,” We made eye contact for a second “But no seriously, I’m just here with a girlfriend. It was my birthday yesterday but she wasn’t free so we came out today,” I lied. 

“How old did you turn?”

“Twenty Two,” He nodded seemingly content with the answer. 

“So you’re not around here are you?”

“Either you’re a genius or I’m just very bad at blending in, no I’m from New York,” 

“Ah, I have some friends in New York, which part?” 

“Harlem actually but I recently moved to Queens,” I lied again. 

“Oh I don’t many from those cities,”

“If we're being honest I don’t know many people from Queens either my life’s been more hectic ever since I moved,”

“I hear you,” He informed me, leaning on the small backing the stools had. 

We talked for about 15 more minutes, him explaining the switch between New York to Nevada. Then Carmen walked up to me and feigned drunkenness signaling she was done with her job. I made my way back. To the man who’s name I still hadn’t learned. 

“As much fun as I was having talking to you, my friend is way too drunk to be out in public so we should probably head back to the hotel.” I sat back on the barstool turning my legs towards the man batting my eyes 

“Could I possibly use your phone to call an Uber mine is dead?” 

“Yeah of course you can…” His sentence fizzed off at the end in place of where my name would be.

“Ciara,” I filled in “And you are?” 

“Jim” He started handing me the phone.

I used his phone for an entirely different reason than I’d claimed. The project Carmen had been working on was melting the wires together to fix the flash drive that works inside of phones. It hadn’t worked in years.

It took about a minute to duplicate the phone's data. I stuck the flash drive in my bra before going to give the phone back. 

Just as I started moving a loud argument broke out, by the drunk accents I could tell it would soon get violent. Seeing as I had many experiences with an aggressive drunk. I wasn’t going to take my chances and began turning towards the main exit.

 I heard the first shot echo followed by another. Soon everyone was shooting. Including Carmen who I think just wanted an excuse to shoot at people passing it off as “protecting her friends”. 

She was closer to the exit than I was so she slid me the gun and I was able to ward off anyone shooting in our general direction. Not for long though. A bullet lightly grazed my dominant arm’s shoulder; it still dug in enough to do some sweet damage. 

Fuck

What’s up with me? I haven’t been on my A game lately. 

We were also out of bullets. Mostly because we weren’t actually expecting to have to fucking shoot at people. I ducked back down behind the bar trying not to get caught on the broken glassware. 

“I think it would be a good time to do that thing?” I asked. 

She rolled her eyes 

“You know I hate doing it,”

“Well I’m literally bleeding out,” I dramatized pointing to my shoulder. “So if you want to get out of here not in body bags, do the thing,” 

“Alright, just this one time,” She begrudgingly made her way out from behind the bar and away from me. 

I covered my ears and closed my eyes as the glass around me rained down and the bar shook. I could slightly hear the cries from beneath my hands. Once she moved back over to me 

“See that wasn’t so bad, birdy,” I scrambled up to my feet ignoring the pull in my shoulder. 

I made my rounds grabbing Jim’s phone, cash, wallets, watches, and anything else that looked expensive from pockets and the ground. 

I stood awkwardly staring at my feet as I slid from side to side with my butt planted on my skateboard. 

“Hi,” I heard squinting my eyes looking up revealing a equally nervous looking Peter

“Hey,” I nodded at him. 

The conversation wasn’t as awkward as I thought it’d be he’d apparently asked Liz to prom and he said yes. Which I was definitely super happy about because why wouldn’t I be? 

Anyway who cares about that anyway. Props to Peter for not bringing up the whole ghosting everyone thing for like a week thing. Because if he didn’t bring it up I was going to act like it never happened. 

We talked about everything and anything. From favorite candies or colors to our beliefs about life after death. I’d found out his favorite candy were skittles, favorite color: red and that he was Jewish but not necessarily religious and didn’t believe in heaven or hell but he believed in the eternity of a soul. 

I’d told him that my favorite candy was F/C, my favorite color being pink and that I didn’t know what I believed in. I believed in a higher power but not that they were inherently good because of all the suffering on earth. I’d told him if they weren’t good and had abandoned us while alive. Why would they care or have any plan for us into the afterlife? I think that part is up to us, and what we believe. I’m trying not to think about death.

Then like clockwork he had to leave before 9 which is funny because it’s like he wasn’t even trying to hide his secret identity. He’d told me he lost the internship and normally his excuse to leave was the internship. 

I just guess that means he no longer has Stark’s backup. He only had it for a while anyway he’d be fine without it again. Actually when I think about it,  from his behavior he’d exhibited as Spiderman in the short few months I’d had the displeasure of knowing him as ‘Thorn’ he’d be weak. He was unconfident, relied on his tools far too much. Couldn’t see himself without the suit. So maybe he was really just going home. So he’d be fine. 

I’d also be fine. No matter how much it didn’t look like it at the moment. I’d be fine. I was always fine. I was fine without my mom, without Rose, without my dad, without Olivia and any one else I’d ever been stupid enough to get attached to. I’d bounce back. I always did. 

It’d taken Carmen much convincing to not sit around and babysit me 24/7 because of my shoulder. She was sure that I’d do something dumb and it would get infected. 

 I was sitting on MJ’s bed getting ready for homecoming. My neck jerked again as Bri attempted to detangle and braid my hair. 

If I hadn’t spiraled into the Vulture, Kingpin and SHIELD, rabbit hole I probably would have taken better care of myself and my hair. 

“Stop moving,” She tsked.

“Stop trying to rip my head off my neck,” I hissed back. 

Bri did my nails back when we were still at her house waiting for MJ to pick us up. She actually did pretty good. I think she would do great at a cosmetology school. She's pretty much into everything: hair, nails, makeup the whole nine yards. She did all of that for me. 

The make up was very simple, but I was still able to get my signature winged eyeliner. Winged eyeliner is something very dear to me mostly because Rose was the first to put me on it and I wore it everyday since. It kinda felt disrespectful to stop at this point.

The only thing left was the dress MJ had gifted me. Her mom bought her a dress but she still refused to wear dresses so she returned it for this one, she opted for a very nice pantsuit she already had. Then Bri's outfit of course matched her boyfriend’s. 

I’ve never really liked school dances they’re always so overhyped, but I go to them all anyways, because then I get in on all the drama. It helped me build up my arsenal of knowledge about everyone. 

I was sitting at one of the round tables near the entrance with MJ, Bri, and Olivia. We had a bottle of “Gatorade” open and out for anybody who wanted to drink it. I was about to drink from it when I saw Liz enter alone. 

I made my way over to her.

“Where’s Peter? I thought he asked you?” 

“I don’t even know he just ditched me,” She let out a deep breath. 

“Aw I’m sorry,” I wrapped my good arm around her shoulder.

 “Well don’t think about that asshole, you’re way out of his league anyway,” I assured her to which she let out a weak laugh. 

“Come sit with me and my friends,” 

 A girl with knockers dancing all along her head came up to before speaking 

“Why are you crying?” 

I sniffed pulling my head from my arms. 

“I miss my mom,” 

“I miss my mom sometimes but I like my grandma too,”

“Where’s your mom?” I asked.

“I don’t know my grandma says she’s sick,” She shrugged. “Where’s your mom?”

“Well my grandma says she’s in a better place now but I know that just means dead,” 

“Yeah my dad is dead too so I know what you mean, I’m Rose. What’s your name?”

“Y/N,” 

“Y/N, that's a pretty name,” She smiled. “You wanna come sit with me and my friends Y/N?”

“Y/N!”

I jumped a bit at the voice before matching it to MJ

“What?” I asked in a harsher tone then necessary.  

“Jeez sorry,” She reeled back “Someone is asking for you named Carmen. They said it’s important,” She waved her phone around. 

My face dropped and I hoped no one caught it. 

I grabbed the phone exiting the auditorium.

“Okay what’s up?” 

“You know Liz’s dad whatever her name is but yeah, He’s gonna rob that plane that’s moving everything from the Avengers tower,” She rushed

“What!?”

Holy shit 

That must be where Peter’s went. So he figured it out too. Kid’s smarter than I give him credit for.

“I’ll send you the location on your phone,”

“Why didn’t you just call me from there?”

“Because you never answer it,”

“True,” 

“Y/N?” She whispered.

“Yeah?” 

“Be careful,” 

“Always,” I smiled. 

I rushed out of the building not thinking about how I could get caught. Near the buses there was the new Shocker lying unconscious. 

I took the webshooter I found next to him. Then made a run for it. Stopping to hot wire the nearest car, I sped to one of the locations that I knew Vulture’s team kept their weapons at. I was throwing everything in the same pile. Getting ready to destroy them. 

Then the door creaked open.

I felt the bed dip as my brother sat next to me. 

“Are you coming?”

I pulled the cover off my face 

“Why should I?”

“Because you’ll regret it if you don’t,” 

“No I won’t leave me alone,” I pulled the cover back over my head. 

“You gotta eat something,” 

“No I don’t leave me alone,” 

“Y/N…”

I knew what he was going to say and I didn’t wanna hear it. 

“She would want you to eat something,”

“Fuck you! How would you ever know what she would've wanted? No one here knew her and now one will ever get the chance to again so just leave me alone,” 

“Y/N-“

“Don’t Y/N me, get the fuck out of my room,” He sat there for a second, stunned “NOW!” 

As soon as the door closed and I flipped back over

I was shaken back into the present only to find that I was pinned under the man who’d entered the room before I zoned out. He reached for the nearest weapon. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. Which is rare. I have a whole weapons catalog in my brain. Unfortunately for him he couldn’t grab it without giving me leeway to get from underneath them. 

Unfortunately for me I put too much pressure on my arm in the seconds I took to grip my shoulder recuperating myself. The man had fired the weapon he had at the pile of weapons that I stumbled back towards. 

The weapons then emitted purple light before exploding leaving me caught under some wood and concrete as the ringing in my ears only got louder and louder.

The fire around me crackled loudly and I bit my lip.

The smoke was only getting more plentiful.

I started coughing which only got more and more painful.

When I came to myself, I wasn’t choking anymore and the fire around me had died down. I was able to push myself from underneath the rubble holding me down. Not without lots of pain though.

The dress I was wearing was torn completely, holes big enough to see what I was wearing underneath it already. 

So I just took it off.

It wasn’t like I was completely naked I was wearing boxers. Not like I haven’t left the house in a bra and shorts before. Also who gives a fuck I just almost died. 

It was like 35° but I wasn’t cold in the slightest. I was actually kind of hot.

If my phone was accurate the plane had already made it near the edge of Queens and Staten Island. Rushing there I was seconds late as I saw the plane crash after I saw two figures fighting along it. 

There was fire everywhere but I wasn’t thinking. I was just running because I couldn’t make out Peter’s shape and if he was dead- 

I swear to fucking God if he was dead. Not again. I couldn’t handle another death.

Peter was saying something. No, pleading as the Vulture stood tall with his wings still intact. He was talking about how it was a nice try and he doesn’t know what he’s messing with.

Peter might not but I knew what this was. I also knew I wasn’t letting him get away with it. 

The wings started producing visible waves of heat. Then it hit me, what Peter was trying to say. The wings were gonna blow.  I got a head start and lunged towards the man. The element of surprise was on my side. That was until he used the wings to lift himself off the ground. 

Now I was fine with parkour and other activities, but being lifted off the ground by someone else, someone who’d never interacted with me ever, is where I draw the line. Then Peter was shooting a web at the wings. To which Vulture dropped me to go after him.

Oh hell no.

“Give it up Peter,” He continued to get closer and closer as the webs were continuously cut through. 

You know how people say they see in red when they get angry? Well the opposite of that happens to me I just see black. Remembering very little to nothing.

Last thing I remembered was fire just fire. From my fingertips, arms, head. It destroyed the wings in seconds, before they had a chance to blow up on their own. 

Peter webbed up the man before moving out of my sight. 

How the fuck do you get fire coming from your body. 

 Literally what the actual fuck. 

I couldn’t breathe. 

That’s what it was, I was dying, I was probably in some coma and this was a weird hallucination my brain pushed out in its final moments.

Okay this is it. I was dying suffocating in some coma.

Or even worse this wasn’t a coma and I was going to die with my body lit on fire literally.

“Oh my God,” I gasped trying to get air into my lungs. 

I closed my eyes and when I opened them Peter was in front of me in a torn up ripoff suit. 

“Y/N,” He moved trying to catch my eye.

“Y/N, Y/N breathe…”

I couldn’t really process his words. My mind was clouded with fear, fear and anger. 

Before I knew it I was hitting my head so I wouldn’t hit anyone or anything else. It’d been a coping mechanism I used ever since I was 3. 

Peter reached for my arms reeling back after his hands came into contact with my boiling skin. 

“Y/N you have to calm down,” He moved in front of me.

I stopped moving my hands but it was still difficult to breathe.

The monitors beeped all around me and if I closed my eyes  and concentrated hard enough. I could convince myself they were birds. 

I could tell from the patter of the knock on the door that it was Rose. 

“Come in!” I called out.

She picked up the clipboard examining it. As she did every time she visited. Luckily for everyone there was no nurse she could bombard with questions and criticism. 

“How are you feeling?” She asked. 

“Itchy, like my guts are on fire,” 

To which she replied by singing the chorus to Girl on Fire. 

“Anyway,” she brought us back after our laughter. “I got you pizza today since I’m sure you’re tired of McDonald’s,”

“I don’t mind McDonald’s actually, anything is better than hospital food. Well actually, their chicken strips aren’t that bad,” 

She placed the box down on my lap. I lifted up the lid and was hit with the smell of the many herbs. I pat by my legs signaling she could sit down. She wiggled into the spot that the bar of the bed allowed. 

“What are we watching today?” 

“Uh…” I clicked on the TV “Vampire Diaries?,”

“That show is still going?

“Yeah, I don’t think it’ll ever end,” 

Somehow the show turned into us dancing around the cramped hospital room.

We spun like the ballerinas in the broken jewelry box I got from my mom. Arms flailing around. The air conditioner made a rattling noise and a half eaten pizza on the bed. The situation was probably extremely weird or unpleasant from any other perspective, but because it was her it was perfect. 

It was like the moment in rom coms where the camera zooms into the main characters dancing as the rest of the characters are put out of focus and they stare into each other’s eyes. I closed my eyes. 

When I opened them I saw Peter’s eyes above mine. 

His hands were immediately on my face making my look straight at him. 

“Are you okay?” He breathed out. 

I sat up feeling a pounding in my head and a pull in my lungs. I was met with the fact that I was definitely not on the ground. I was actually very far from the ground on some ride on the pier. My mouth was dry so it took me a minute to get the words out and when I did it hurt my throat.

“Yeah ’m okay jus’ tired,”

“Okay, well don’t go back to sleep because I think you have a concussion,” 

“You’re acting like I died or something, how long was I out dang,” I joked I always hated when things got too serious. 

“Uh probably...30 minutes? I don’t know I don’t have a watch,” He sniffed and that's when I realized he’d be crying. 

“Were you crying? I knew you cared about me,” I smiled “It was only a matter of time before you fell in love with me, I’m irresistible” 

He laughed weakly wiping his eyes “This isn’t funny,” 

I looked up at him and started uncontrollably giggling. Soon Peter was laughing too.

The moment was interrupted by a squad of police cars pulling up. I absolutely did not want to get down but my tired muscles betrayed me. I was extremely exhausted.  I literally could not move. I just had to go wherever Peter decided to take me. I honestly think I might have a few broken ribs. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before though. We stood off to the side watching as Vulture was stuffed into the back of one of the cars. 

“So Spiderman?” I smirked.

“Uh.. no?” He said as if he’s questioning himself. 

“It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone I’ve known for a while now,” I twisted my body to face him hissing as a sharp sting shot through my body “You're not very good at hiding it,”

“Hey!” He cried out “But seriously you can’t tell anyone,”

“I already said I wouldn’t, but if it makes you feel better I’ll pinky promise you, and everyone knows you can’t break a pinky promise,”

“Alright,” He sighed.

I tried to move closer again and was stopped by the pain in my sides. 

“Okay well, the offer still stands, you’re just gonna have to come over here,”

Taglist:

@tomdiddlyumptious

[renegadesrpg]

Paladin, Part 13: Forrest Rossi. Forrest.

I was born 1945 in Roma Italy as bullets flew in the air above my mahmens head and my Sire was dragged away by German Nazis in broad daylight killing him instantly. My mahmen only survived long enough to give birth to me in the hidden basement of an old cotton factory. Italy has fallen to the allies as Hitler killed himself as he realized that he lost the war. That was the story I told all my life to all the other children as I grew up in an orphanage in Savannah, Georgia, USA. When I was asked by older peers how I ended up in Savannah when born in Italy. I told them all the same lie that I had snuck on a ship from a harbor in Italy that was heading to the Americas.

In truth, I was a 3rd generation Italian in the USA, for me then my mother, had been killed in a car accident when I was 4 years old and with no living relatives and an unknown father I had been put in the system and grown up at an orphanage for boys. The staff at the orphanage weren’t cruel, not the loving doting parents but they were ok. Bad behavior was punished, good behavior awarded. I was something in between and even though I did well in school, always was bright and my teachers and caregivers tried to reward my good academics. They didn’t have the money or the interest to make sure I got a higher education. The day I turned 18 I was kindly but firmly shown the door with a packed suitcase and a hundred dollars in my pocket. Hating the city I headed south until I found a more permanent job in northern Florida. While working for a Jewish shoe maker he taught me how to mend shoes and showed me how to make leather shoes from scratch. It was through him as a human man I learned that I was more than a quick learner I had a photographic memory. He was also the one who got me thinking of medical school.

At the age of 18 I had no idea who I was, more than the fact that I had become an orphan at the age of 4, because my mother died and my Sire was no one I knew who he was. My mamhen never talked about him or mentioned him. I learned quickly that she wasn’t interested in talking about him and therefore I stopped asking. Dedicated to finding away to get into medical school I started to take courses at night to get my grades up and also get grades in classes the teachers at the orphanage hadn’t taught, like physics and chemistry only to apply to medical school but being shut down because I didn’t classify for student loan and I wasn’t what they were looking for to hand out a scholarship too. I decided that I wasn’t going to let that be my downfall and moved to Savannah to be closer to the school I wanted to go too and worked both 2 and 3 jobs to pay for living but also try to save up money to go to med school. I did for years by the time I was 20 I hadn’t even been able to save up for a full year's tuition and it was the first time I got demotivated questioning whether or not I could do it. That was the year of 1975 five years before I went through my transition and about 3-4 years before I met Rehn.

After that I got depressed and went on a downhill spiral using some of my hard earned cash to party, buy myself lap dances and even a few nights with a companion in bed. Luckily enough I managed to get myself in shape before I spent it all and I got back into working hard finding another job to help fill up the hole partying had put in my savings account. For years I worked, slept and studied. I self studied whatever books I could get my hands to help myself learn as much as I could to make medical school easier. I loved learning about human anatomy and with my head for learning I was like a sponge. It was 1979, and at one of my self imposed study sessions, I was sitting in a diner drinking cold coffee reading about the human heart and arteries that I met Rehn. I had the table covered with notes and books reading and writing till my eyes and fingers bleed. He came from out of nowhere sliding into the booth on the opposite side of me ordering a coffee and two burger plates with extra bacon. I thought he was weird to the point that I almost cut and ran. Rehn was and still is pretty intimidating, even very intimidating if you don’t know him. When he was younger he also had the cockiness to go with the intimidating persona. I am not a small guy, I am 6’6 broad shoulders, well built but as a pretrans I wasn’t really the same. I could handle myself in a fight but I relied more on my charms and charisma rather than my fists.

I remember my first meeting with Rehn like it was yesterday, we sat there staring at each other across the table of that booth for what felt like an eternity. When Rehn said “I’ve been watching you” it was just his don’t fuck with me tone that kept me from hauling ass out of there. I wasn’t dumb though, as Rehn proven he wasn’t an immediate threat I allowed him to buy me the burger. I wasn’t dumb after all a free meal was a free meal and I lived off ramen noodles to keep my food costs down. It was that meeting and joining him after that had lead me to one week later be invited to his home for dinner that I found out what I really was and within a year I was going to have to change my entire way of living, avoid the sun, drink blood, get mad cravings for bacon dipped in chocolate (as fucking if). He said he could smell the change in me and that it was coming. At first I thought he was mad for real and I told him as much too. Even though Rehn was, and still is, intimidating I was never not even then afraid of him. I think that is why we are such good friends to this day.

Rehn is my family, besides my mahmen he is the only family I have. I would lay down my life for him and that isn’t just because he is the one who helped me get through med school. Kicking and screaming yes because I hated taking his money but at the time I had only been able to save up to half the tuition myself, but in the end it worked out really well. I was his to-go-to and he was mine. We were like brothers and the race could never have too few doctors and other medical staff which became a win win for us both. Without Rehn I’d never have lived through my transition. Because of him I was prepared and had what I needed to live through it both for the moment but also in knowledge.

I would never be where I was today with my own clinic serving the race living in Savannah, Rehn’s people. Standing up I walk over the large set of windows in my office that is in my brand new clinic and look out watching the people walking down the streets, humans on their way home, and vampires just starting their day. Yeah, life was good, the buzz of the phone in my pocket catches my attention and I pull it out grinning as I see Rehn’s name on the screen. I swipe my finger over the screen “What did you do now? Paper cut?” I tease. There’s a long growley speech about how I should watch my mouth ending with him asking to meet him for the first meal. “Well, my friend you are in luck there’s no one on my table bleeding… but I guess the day is still young.” We laugh and hang up. Grabbing my coat as I leave the door click shut behind as I head to meet my best friend for first meal.

#ForrestRossi #Renegades #RRPG #BDB #AU #Vampires #Witches #Reapers #Wolven #Ghosts #Angels

[amdoca-blog]

McCullin at Tate Britain - 5 February 2019

My initial feelings today were that I did not feel like travelling to Vauxhall to spend a relatively large amount of money. I also felt unease about consuming images of atrocities as a leisure activity; a security guard cheerily said to me as I approached the rooms, ‘Enjoy the exhibition’.  

Compared to other exhibitions I have attended at the Tate, visitors do get to see a lot for the entrance fee. There are ten rooms in this retrospective exhibition, which spans sixty years of Don McCullin’s career as a photographer.  

When I found out that the exhibition was at Tate Britain, I wondered why the work of a photo-journalist is being shown in an art gallery. I noticed from the start that there was no information accompanying the prints about how they were made, just titles and dates.   Only at the end of the exhibition was there a small sign displayed on the wall, easily overlooked, which read,

“All photographs are gelatin silver print, printed by Don McCullin”.

The caption entitled ‘Printing’ describes how McCullin repeatedly returns to his negatives, in an attempt to “..produce the perfect print.  In doing so he hopes to do justice to the perpetually harrowing content of his images..”

 A caption on the wall entitled ‘Photojournalism and Art’ states,

 “…McCullin has always avoided the term ‘art’ when discussing his work. Yet through careful, intuitive composition and framing he creates images that have a formal clarity and even an uncomfortable kind of beauty…”

 The caption describes, throughout the history of photojournalism as a genre, the ethical dilemma involved when tragedy is made to appear beautiful;

“..But McCullin hopes that his skilful composition helps these images stick in people’s minds.  He attempts to make it impossible for us to ignore the atrocities taking place in the world….”

 Another caption, ‘Photojournalism in the gallery’ states McCullin’s belief that, “..as newspapers won’t publish these images, they must have a life beyond my archive..”

Considering some controversies regarding sponsorship of major exhibitions, for example BP, I also wondered who is sponsoring this one:  Tim Jeffries, ‘heir to the Green Shield Stamp fortune’, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/10465550/Tim-Jefferies-Im-not-a-playboy.html (accessed 9 February 2019) and owner of Hamiltons Gallery in Mayfair; The Mead Family Foundation, a US organisation describing itself as ‘philanthropic’ https://meadfamilyfdn.org/about-us/foundation-history/  (Accessed 9 February 2019) and Tate Patrons - individuals and corporations.  

One quote from McCullin I noted on the wall is, “..it’s not a case of, ‘There but for the grace of God go I’; it’s a case of, ‘I’ve been there..’  McCullin grew up in Finsbury Park, in a poor neighbourhood. He left school at 15 with no qualifications (http://www.johnjones.co.uk/news/2015/09/don-mccullin-eighty-at-hamiltons-9-september-3-october-2015/  Accessed 9 February 2019).  His National Service was as a photographic assistant  with the RAF, and he was posted in Egypt, Kenya and Cyprus.  On returning to London he took photographs of his friends, members of The Guv’nors gang.  There is one from 1958 of The Guv’nors in their Sunday Suits,

https://artlogic-res.cloudinary.com/w_1000,h_800,c_limit,f_auto,fl_lossy/ws-hamiltons/usr/images/artworks/main_image/items/9a/9a43d6f4fad744e8b958532af7226da1/don-mccullin_the-guvnors-in-their-sunday-suits-finsbury-park-london-1958.jpg  (Accessed 5 February 2019)

These young men appear neither “...second-rate, clumsy, uncouth..” nor “..defensive..” in their suits (Berger, J 2015, About Looking, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [27 January 2019]) but at ease with themselves and the camera.  If they had been standing around a conference table, all bar one could have been mistaken for members of the professional ruling class. 

McCullin showed these photos to the picture editor of the Observer, and earned his first commission.  https://donmccullin.com/don-mccullin/ (Accessed 5 February 2019).

Two photographs from the early 1960s depicting London street scenes, ‘Sheep going to the slaughterhouse early morning near the Caledonian Road 1965’,  https://www.artsy.net/artwork/don-mccullin-sheep-going-to-the-slaughter-early-morning-near-the-caledonian-road-london#!   (Accessed 5 February 2019)and ‘Horses delivering beer Cable Street 1962’ are, I think, romantic, soft focus , painterly portrayals of everyday events, and there is tenderness in ‘Hessel Street, 1962’, https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2019/02/04/09/Hessel-Street-Jewish-District-East-End-London-1962.jpg?width=1368&height=912&fit=bounds&format=pjpg&auto=webp&quality=70 (Accessed 5 February 2019)

Some of the northern England photos made me think, ‘It’s grainy oop north’, and I asked myself, do grainy photographs equal ‘realism’? Did McCullin set a standard visual language?  The caption under ‘Volubilis, Morocco 2007’ states,

“…People say my landscapes look like war scenes because I do print them very dark.  But… I suppose the darkness is in me, really…”

In 1964 he was commissioned by the Observer to cover the war in Cyprus. In the commentary, McCullin describes this time as the,

“…beginnings of self-knowledge…empathy.  Able to share other people’s emotional experiences, live with them silently, transmit them…”

In ‘Murder in a Turkish Village’, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mccullin-murder-in-a-turkish-village-ar01186 (Accessed 5 February 2019), a young woman lies over the body of a man, and looks directly at the camera. The image looks posed; the position of her body and direct gaze is self-conscious and deliberate.   There is a comment from McCullin later under ‘A young dead North Vietnamese soldier with his possessions 1968’, ‘..I only ever played with the truth once…” https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mccullin-a-young-dead-north-vietnamese-soldier-with-his-possessions-ar01195  (Accessed 9 February 2019). He describes this image as “..the only contrived picture I’ve taken in a war..”. McCullin was disgusted by some of the US soldiers he was following taking souvenirs from the soldier’s dead body.  McCullin rearranged the dead soldier’s belongings around him and took the photograph.

A number of titles of the photographs in this exhibition use the words ‘murder of’, which are more emotive than the more neutral ‘death of’.  A quote from McCullin on the wall at the Biafra section states,

 “..it was beyond war, it was beyond journalism, it was beyond photography, but not beyond politics…"

However, at the Northern Ireland section, in comments on the wall entitled ‘Neutrality’,  McCullin describes himself as a “..totally neutral passing-through person…”  Reading the captions on his Northern Ireland photographs, contrasting people going about their everyday lives surrounded by abnormal events and circumstances, as in:

https://d2jv9003bew7ag.cloudfront.net/uploads/Don-McCullin-Londonderry.jpg

(Accessed 9 February), I felt this statement to be disingenuous;  they tell the viewer that they were taken in, ‘Londonderry’. But McCullin also describes British troops’ hostility towards him when a soldier was shot and accusations that he was helping  the rioters and ultimately”… the terrorists…”.     

 The title of this photograph is ‘Local Boys in Bradford, 1972’,  https://d2jv9003bew7ag.cloudfront.net/uploads/Don-McCullin-Local-Boys-in-Bradford.jpg (Accessed 9 February 2019)   

In the course of his work, McCullin put himself at personal risk.  In the Congo he disguised himself as a mercenary working for the government.  We see torturers posing for the camera. “..I was trying to photograph in a way Goya painted or did his war sketches…I found it hard not to burst into tears…” One woman near me did just this; my eyes welled up when I read the caption to Albino Boy, 1968,  https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2012/12/29/19/16-ontheedge1.jpg?width=1368&height=912&fit=bounds&format=pjpg&auto=webp&quality=70 (Accessed 9 February 2019)  holding an  “…empty corned beef tin..”

I noted small details and gestures in several of his images; a sheep going to slaughter turning in the opposite direction, a blonde child on a truck full of Kurdish refugees in ‘Fleeing Kurds from Saddam Hussein's aerial attacks, 1991’.  The pathetically small placard held by a protestor facing a phalanx of police officers,  ‘Protester, Cuban Missile Crisis, Whitehall, London, 1962’, https://www.artsy.net/artwork/don-mccullin-protester-cuban-missile-crisis-whitehall-london#!  (Accessed 9 February 2019), is comparable to a young man wielding a stick against armed British soldiers in ‘The Bogside, 1971’ https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mccullin-northern-ireland-the-bogside-londonderry-ar01189 (Accessed 9 February 2019)

The commentary states that McCullin was “..deeply affected by the trauma of reporting some of the most violent conflicts..”  The Sunday Times Magazine, the first colour supplement to be published in the UK. (‘Projection Room commentary) commissioned the Biafra photographs.  In December 1969 the British Government supported the Nigeria federal forces fighting Biafra and, as Berger pointed out, the Sunday Times “…politically supported the policies responsible for the violence…” Berger, J 2015, About Looking, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [Accessed 27 January 2019].  McCullin worked for the Sunday Times for eighteen years.     

In 1968 he spent 11 days with US troops fighting in Vietnam.  The exhibition displays some of  McCullin’s possesions he had with him in Vietnam,.Biafra and Cambodia.  Alongside his Nikon F with a bullet hole in it, is his passport stamped with a 1969 Vietnamese tourist visa, as if he were on holiday.  At this point in the exhibition, I wondered whether McCullin’s sense of empathy for his subjects was losing focus.  The wall in the Cambodia, 1970 section displayed this quote from him,

“It could have so easily been my dead corpse rattling.  I thought, he’s gone instead of me…”

In the early 1970s, McCullin took photographs in the East End of London, in particular portraits of homeless people.

 “..There are social wars that are worthwhile.  I don’t want to encourage people to think photography is only necessary through the tragedy of war…”

A thought came into my mind; how did McCullin, world famous photographer, approach these people?  In ‘Homeless drunk man on Brick Lane 1971’, a woman breezes past, apparently oblivious to this man.  I wondered who this woman was.  Did she consent to be displayed in this photograph, perhaps be seen in a negative light?  Some of the people photographed in Bangladesh appear to have angry expressions on their faces; where are these people now?  The child looking directly at the camera in ‘The Murder of a Turkish Shepherd, Cyprus Civil War, 1964’, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mccullin-the-murder-of-a-turkish-shepherd-cyprus-civil-war-ar01183  (Accessed 9 February 2019) looks, perhaps, accusingly at the photographer.  McCullin comments,

 “I feel guilty about the people I photograph. It’s true, I do.  Why should I be celebrated at the cost of other people’s suffering and lives. I don’t sit comfortably with laurels on my head” (Caption under the photograph ‘A boy at the funeral of his father who died of AIDS, Kawama Cemetery, Ndola, Zambia 2000)

I thought some of the people in the British Summertime, Bradford and India photographs appeared grotesque.  McCullin uses the word, “..eccentric…”, but some of the images, such as ‘Bradford City Centre, 1970’,  made me wonder if we are “..laughing at ourselves..” or whether McCullin was laughing at other people?

Some of the Bradford photographs, however, do present the viewer with extreme poverty of a British kind, and I felt there was tenderness in the photograph of a couple with a child and a pile of clothes. We are not told much about these people; only Jean, a homeless woman in London, has a name.

“…I want to create a voice for the people in those pictures. I want the voice to seduce people into actually hanging on a bit longer…so that they go away not with an intimidating memory but with a conscious obligation...’

My thought was, if it is McCullin who creates a voice, whose voice is it? How can this obligation be fulfilled?  Do people passing through this exhibition do anything more than look?

‘Bradford, 1970’, shows a stripper in a pub bending over; we cannot see her face.  The focus is on the leers and, perhaps, bemusement, of the male onlookers.  A solitary woman in the foreground looks as if she is looking beyond the stripper. It occurred to me that a lot of what I was seeing, images designed to stimulate and seduce, published in the glossy lifestyle and entertainment Sunday supplements and £25 catalogues for the purpose of making money, made remote from the actuality of the lives of the people depicted, could be regarded by some as ‘the horrors of war porn’.  Some of the related events advertised on the Tate website include, wine tasting and dinner;  https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/don-mccullin/wine-tasting-dinner-don-mccullin. (Accessed 9 February 2019). I wonder whether corned beef will be on the menu?

[jonjost]

Drawing: Stephen Lack

Following the conspiracy lead of Steve Bannon and Breitbart, Donald Trump has grumbled and tweeted often about the Deep State, the purported nefarious grouping of hidden government persons lurking in the depths of the massive Federal apparatus of myriad acronymic masks.  ICE NSA FBI CIA and on through to lesser known but equally evil entities.  These are alleged to be conclaves, variously, of members of the Harvard elite, Yale’s Skull and Bones, Jewish cabalists, covens of Christian Fundamentalists, or whichever cluster-fuck you wish to designate, surely there will be a website or more devoted to reading the tea-leaves of the signals emitted from these organizational black holes and their swirling galaxies.  Right and Left wing chatterboxes selectively cherry-pick whatever political tid-bits they wish and construct fabulist narratives around them, from the assassination of JFK to that of MLK to 9/11 and on to the Boston Marathon bombing.  The existence of the internet gives wide berth for these to spawn, however false or true they might be.

Extracted from these events come tomes from scholars, Hollywood movies, novels and the rantings of Limbaugh, Hannity, Alex Jones and a host of lesser names.  There’s millions to be made from these, and those mentioned have made theirs and more.  Like America’s religious hucksters, there’s a lot of money to be made preying on the gullible and fearful, with which it seems our country is plentifully supplied.  Welcome to the world of QAnon.   It’s American as Apple Pie.

The Lakewood Mega-church, Dallas TX

For decades – well actually far longer than that, for centuries  – America has been awash with conspiracy theories, reaching back to its founding.  There were always traitors loose in the land, lluminati, the anti-christ, double-agents for foreign powers, the entire gamut of customary political war-horses, broad-brushes with which to paint your enemy. Today’s landscape is nothing new, just that for brief periods we like to pretend it ain’t so.

But, myths aside, it’s all the same old same old.  As is governance itself.

Two deep-state members, John Brennan and General Michael Hayden, former chiefs of the CIA

Conspiracy theories, to take root, need soil, and the United States government has been rich tilling land for as long as its been around.  Within long-term living memory those range from major matters, such as the concept that FDR and the government knew Pearl Harbor was coming, and let it happen.  Jump ahead half a century, and the same it true of 9/11.  In both cases there is ample evidence to suggest they are true, though the makers of American mythology adamantly insist that only a tin-foil hatter would believe such malarkey.  After all, who could believe that our own government would allow such events to occur when their job is to protect us?  Only a true nutter could believe such a thing, regardless of the massive evidence and logical reasons for such a thing to fit properly into a narrative.

And the same goes for lesser items from the assassination of JFK requiring magic bullets, and on down to such trivial things as using members of the military as guinea pigs for “scientific” experiments, or, well, hell, using whole cities like San Francisco to experiment with some new biological dispersal weapon.  Or letting St. George, Utah, knowingly be a nice down-wind recipient of nuclear bomb test radiation and then spending decades denying the cancerous downside.  In fact, the more one knows about Uncle Sam the more fertile the soil one finds for tin-foil hat thoughts.

Enter Donald, the wanna-be Queen’s tough guy sporting a giant borough-wide chip on his shoulder.  A self-made man, so he insists (that million buck starter kit from Dad don’t count), he broke into the hard-as-nails world of Manhattan real-estate and built a solid gold (well, at least gold-plated) reputation as a party-animal, womanizer, builder of garish towers, possessor of serial-wives and of serial bankruptcies.  And despite all that he wasn’t welcomed into the fold of the Manhattan elite, and here, decades later, bearing a grudge that deforms his face and body, and weighs on him like a WWF wrestler, he’s out to let them have it. Descending his golden escalator but 3 years ago, met by his adoring rent-a-crowd, he tossed his hat in the Presidential circus ring, and to wide amazement and laughter promptly vanquished the supposedly serious Republican candidates with school-yard taunts, and thereafter sent the world into shock when Hillary Clinton lost to him as well, if not in the general vote, then in the dubious Electoral College. The world has been aghast since, as The Donald charges like a raging bull, upsetting one institutionally rooted apple-cart after another, shredding the polite decorum and language of our traditional politics, and causing serious harm to the status quo.  Just like he said he would.

Well, almost.

  Having promised to “drain the swamp” The Don instead stocked the beltway with more alligator sleaze than anyone thought conceivable, stacking his Cabinet with grifters ready to dismantle their respective departments, and to feed at the Federal trough as quickly and mercilessly as possible.  Having reduced his GOP Congressional majorities to the quivering sycophants they always were, our gangster godfather trashed protocols, ripped up treaties and obsessively uprooted anything having to do with Barack Hussein Obama while loudly bellowing his utterly unmasked racism.  Supposedly serious Republicans held their silence while the Tea Party wing cheered lustily and the Don’s racist base went bananas.  Doubtless never having actually read it, the man sworn to uphold the US Constitution, did, as G W Bush had suggested, and treated it as “a goddam piece of paper.”   Toilet paper in this instance.

All of this behavior has transpired with little more than murmurs from the official opposition, the Democrats, who hide behind their minority status in the House and Senate whimpering there’s nothing they can do, their hands are tied until November, the mystical season of voting when the Great American Public is allowed to choose between corporately approved specimen A or B. And besides, they are as beholden to their corporate masters as the GOP, and should they speak too loudly the full depths of both-sides-of-the-aisle corruption would be fully exposed.   Until then the pages of YouTube and Facebook are awash with videos of virulent racists yelling and screaming on camera, police killing blacks for being black, ICE round-ups of alleged illegal aliens, children stored in ex-Walmart boxes converted to instant prisons, and other pleasantries of the present American mental landscape, the ugly id of the nation having been exposed by Trump’s tearing off of the band-aid of PC politeness imposed by the prior administration.

Faced with this rupture of politics-as-normal, the nation has contorted itself into the unimaginable:  the liberal-left now looks upon the FBI, the CIA and NSA as potential saviors, while the right, formerly the supposed champions of fiscal and moral rectitude, law & order, balanced budgets, goody-two-shoes ethics and virulent anti-Commie/Russiaphobes morphed instantaneously into Russiaphiles, haters of the deep-state combine of the FBICIANSA, and rabid pigs at the trough of corruption and racism.  And not only trickle down economics, but also trickle down ethics, in this case in the form of terminal corruption.  Hence the plague of YouTube racism and cop-killer videos.

You’re Fired!  Former FBI Chief Comey

Enter the deep rumblings of the Deep State.  Famed for having intervened in an attempted Richard Cheney machination during a breathless hospital visit to then Attorney General Ashcroft who lay seriously ill, while Cheney-Bush henchmen sought to secure his signature for a program of dubious legality, wearing his cloak as Ashcroft’s chief assistant, James Comey, life-long Republican, became a belated liberal hero, as did fellow Republican, Robert Mueller, then head of the FBI.  See this for the full story.    And now, a decade and some later, these two emerge from the deep bowels of the government yet again in tandem.  As FBI chief, appointed by Obama and retained by Donald Trump, Comey was pressed by his new boss to swear a certain kind of loyalty, mob-style. Declining, he was summarily fired, though in a manner in which in the arcane convolutions of government he was able to secure the naming of a special counsel to investigate Russian skullduggery during the 2016 election. The Special Counsel named was none other than Robert Mueller.  And not only that, but Comey also also did so in a manner which required Trump lackey Richard Sessions, Director of the Justice Department, to recuse himself from the investigation.    All this served well for Trump to loudly complain that he was being undercut and back-stabbed by the Deep State, of which Trump cohort Steven Bannon and his program Breitbart had long complained.

Drawing by Stephen Lack

The news of the day of late swirls with the constant word of criminality in high places – the current Manafort trial pealing the skin off the fancy-suited world of business and politics, with fantastical numbers, a litany of off-shore banking havens, and enough moral sleaze to last forever.  Or until the next, around-the-corner, trial to reveal still deeper depravity.   Or Avenatti’s latest lurid spill of The Don’s hushed-up sex-capades.

James Clapper, former head of the NSA

Legally, lying to a Congressional committee is a crime, whether under oath or not, punishable by up to five years in prison, or in some instances more.  James Clapper was head of the NSA,  (whom it turns out went to Annandale HS, Fairfax VA, 1956-60, same time I did, though I do not recall knowing him then, but my sister does), in testimony to Congress lied.  Caught at it, he recanted in a Clintonesque manner, parsing the exact meaning of “spying” etc.

John Brennan, Ex-Director of CIA

Mr Brennan, former director of the CIA, outspoken of late regarding Donald Trump -saying his comportment in Helsinki was “treasonous” – is himself in a problematic position, having also lied to Congress, just as did Clapper.  In his case regarding torture and such nice things.

And of course Mr Comey, fired director of the FBI, is also accused by some of lying, or at least fudging regarding leaks from his office.  All in all, a charming cluster of characters, all deeply enmeshed in governmental agencies which traffic in secrecy as a part of their function.  Naturally a good setting for conspiratorial actions.  So small wonder that thoughts of a Deep State tend to focus on this area, along with the military.

That this nexus of fellows engaged in the sordid arts of secrecy and executors of the dirty deeds of the US government should all re-emerge in unison, though this time wearing super-hero cloaks for some liberals, indeed raises a peculiar stench, the smell of something rotten deep in the bowels of America’s government: Yes, Virginia, there is a secret Deep State.

  And yes, it seeks to defend its institutional status and powers, just as do almost all bureaucratic institutional organizations.  In this case, these institutions (and 14 other “security” organizations under the umbrella of the Unites States Government), all seek to carry out their jobs as protectors of the corporate/business powers for which and on behalf of which that government exists.  And when by some quirk of circumstance, something or someone inimical to those interests occurs, it is their function to work together to challenge and defeat that intruding force.  And such, in the instance of Donald John Trump, is the case.

Were the Republican Party a healthy political party in American terms, it would have never allowed Trump to emerge as its nominee for President.  In a “healthy” state it would have vetted him, researched his background, and done whatever was necessary to assure he did not become their candidate.  But the Republican Party, like the rest of the society it is rooted in, is, exactly as is the Democrat Party, utterly corrupt, and has been so for some decades, steadily rotting away until it became a steaming fetid swamp of oligarchism marinated in All-American racism. The Democrats were equally corrupt, utterly owned by corporate powers, and utterly out-of-touch with what neo-liberal policies – their policies – had done to broad areas of the American public.

And as were and are the political parties of the USA, so too all its institutions are corrupt:  the Congress, the Courts, the Executive Branch, the 5th Estate, the corporate world, Wall Street.  Every. Damn. One. Of. Them.

So it is little wonder that along with all these pillars of American society that the Deep State is likewise corrupt.  Any decent working Deep State would have some time ago arranged a plausibly deniable accident, be it on the ground, Air Force One, or a berserk White House Guard, and Trump would already be fodder for further conspiracy theorists to figure out who done it.   But thus far, confronted with the Keystone Kops of the inept, obvious, utterly corrupted government of the most comical Don imaginable, the hard-men of the Deep State have thus far fumbled the ball, and the Trump gang, though snookered by their own glaring stupidity, is still standing.

So yes, Don, yes there is a Deep State, and it is certainly out to get you.  But it is just like you, and is inept and as flaccid as your butt is, unable to shift from the SOP of the Cold War to a world in which Tweets shift the market up and down and idiocy rules the White House, and few care if the President consorts with prostitutes and stuffs his government full with nepotism and cronyism.  After all, most of them are doing exactly the same things.

Meantime America burns.

Trump supporters, Florida

Painting by Stephen Lack

California forest fires seen from above the clouds

The Deep State and the Don(ald) Drawing: Stephen Lack Following the conspiracy lead of Steve Bannon and Breitbart, Donald Trump has grumbled and tweeted often about the…

[nataliesnews]

Israel this week 28.2.2020

Today I will go with Women Make Peace who want to make chains of women calling for a return to the peace process. As I have said before I don’t go with them a lot as I feel they are well meaning and good that there are people like them but groups like Machsomwatch or the Combatants are actually active. They phoned me and offered me a lift which makes a difference. And even though they are not militant in any way as the former are it is horrifying to hear, as we did in Sederot, the anger and hatred against anyone who some people think are against the government.

 Election day I am going with Ellen to the Negev where she will be taking Bedouin women to vote who find it difficult to get to the polls.

 For light relief before you start reading this. The thought that if Netanyahu is successful we will have to put up with this woman for another period is almost worse than thinking of what will happen to the country. There was a report on tv last night of the family doctor speaking to the woman and referring to Sarah not by name as “the lady” and explaining that he is apologizing for her but that the employee is harming Netanyahu. Unbelievable

: https://www.timesofisrael.com/another-former-employee-at-pms-residence-sues-sara-netanyahu-for-abuse/

  Whenever we have a demonstration I see the police or soldiers photographing us. I do not think that I saw them photographing the riff raff of Jerusalem who tried to stop our protest. Or the settlers who attack Israeli leftists or Palestinians with impunity. I don’t know if I am correct but I must check this out next time. I am sure I will have the chance of doing so before long. This is the demonstration after a young boy of 9 lost an eye in the village of Issawiya. I am the hole in the crowd. Yesterday I visited another 14 year old in Hadassah who is from the same village and is now partially handicapped on the right side of his body. Neither child would be treated in Hadassah had the army not been responsible.

  Mai was waving a Palestinian flag when she was hit in the eye by a “rubber” bullet. Muhammad was near the fence looking for metal items to sell when a tear gas canister was shot in his face. Saed’s eye was removed after a soldier saw him throwing stones and shot him.

Over the last two years, 19 people have lost one eye and two became blind having lost both eyes when they were shot during protests near Gaza’s perimeter fence. Each of these personal tragedies adds to the alarming casualty count in the protests: more than 200 people have been killed, some 8,000 wounded by live fire, about 2,400 wounded by rubber-coated metal bullets, and almost 3,000 wounded by tear gas canisters. All of these injuries are a direct result of Israel’s illegal and immoral open-fire policy.

Many forms of treatment are unavailable in Gaza, and Israel abuses its control over the crossings, refusing to allow the wounded to travel so they can receive proper medical care outside the Strip. Hospitals that can provide critical treatment and rehabilitation are located just several dozen kilometres from Erez Crossing, yet Israel sees no urgency in saving the eyesight of Gaza youths who dared protest against it.

 Don't Say We Didn't Know 685

On Wednesday, February 19, 2020, Israeli soldiers came to the Palestinian village Susya in the South Hebron Hills, and confiscated a caravan that had served as a classroom in the village school. That day, Israeli soldiers confiscated a caravan that served as a home for two elderly sisters in the Palestinian village of Birin, south-east of Hebron

 And in Hebron they are preparing the honour the memory of the Jewish terrorist, Baruch Goldstein, who killed innocent Palestinian mourners at prayer. Don’t forget he took the lives of innocent Muslims at prayer.  The following words are inscribed on the tomb: "He gave his life for the people of Israel, its Torah and land." 

 I suggest you open this link. Does anyone remember Rachel Corrie who was killed by a bulldozer and the driver claimed he did not see her? The army has claimed that the video was set on high speed but that is not so.  No

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-bulldozer-filmed-clearing-stones-at-high-speed-during-west-bank-clashes/

 And the body of a man shot by the army which was dragged by the bulldozer. People, or at least some of them were disgusted, but one politician said that this was not the first time but the first time it had been filmed. There is so much that  is hidden  even  from those of us who are pretty much in the know. One of the army who was interviewed said that they dragged the body away for information…what information does one get from a dead body.  

  Now this is for light relief

https://www.timesofisrael.com/lost-1000-year-old-hebrew-bible-found-on-dusty-cairo-synagogue-shelf/

 And this is some more of Israeli judges. The judge claimed that even after they closed the window they should not have been looking out of it because there had been a disturbance. Only thing is the disturbance had been the previous week

. I guess you don’t know you are not allowed to look out of your home window,

 An update on developments in a lawsuit from a Issawiya couple that a police officer intentionally shot in the direction of their head through a closed window:

On 1.11.2015 around 11:00, Mazen and Nadia Abu Hummus were together in the nursery at their home in Issawiya Bm. Outside the house were Border Police officers on the other side of the street.

Which of the police shouted to Balance and Nadia to close the window and so they did. Immediately after they closed the window and without any justification, one of the policemen fired a black sponge ball toward the window. The bullet passed through the window grid, breaking the glass, resulting in many pieces of glass penetrating their faces and both being filled with blood.

 And this is some more of Israeli judges. The judge claimed that even after they closed the window they should not have been looking out of it because there had been a disturbance in the street. Only thing is the disturbance had been the previous week and if you heard a disturbance in your street you would not look out

[sailorrrvenus]

Rare Photos Inside the United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus

In September 2018, I was asked to travel to Cyprus and photograph the Buffer Zone (or Green Line) in Nicosia. It was an exclusive opportunity since this area is not accessible for civilians — it’s a demilitarised zone (DMZ), patrolled by the United Nations.

The goal of my visit was to take photos of the endangered architecture within the zone, and also bring the social aspect into the frame. In an attempt to bring the divided parts of Cyprus together again, the photos will be exhibited in the Center of Visual Arts and Research in Nicosia. This exhibition opened on the 23rd of October 2018.

The Buffer Zone in Nicosia is part of the 7 Most Endangered Programme from Europa Nostra. My visit to Cyprus has been made possible thanks to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, United Nations, and Europa Nostra.

This article is a documentary of the current situation of the Buffer Zone / Green Line with mostly exterior shots. The historical and architectural value is very high, and I’m thrilled to share this exclusive view with you.

The Buffer Zone has now literally become a ‘Green Line’. The trees you see in this photo are in the Buffer Zone. The buildings around it are mostly outside of the Buffer Zone.

Walking by the Buffer Zone

Before I was escorted by the United Nations through the Buffer Zone, I had time to walk by the Buffer Zone in the center of Nicosia. One of the first things I noticed is how weird it feels that all the roads, with a few exceptions, have been closed with barrels and/or barbed wire in an attempt to keep you from crossing over to ‘the other side’ or into the Buffer Zone.

Some of these roadblocks are even guarded by young soldiers. These posts and soldiers were not to be photographed.

Road block.

The roadblock you see on the photo above is close to Ledra Street. Ledra Street is the major shopping street in Nicosia. It is also the site of the former Ledra Street barricade, across the United Nations buffer zone. The barricade symbolized the division of Nicosia between the Greek south and Turkish north. The barricade on Ledra Street was removed in April 2008, and thus became the sixth crossing between the Southern part of Cyprus and the Northern part of Cyprus.

As a foreigner, I had to show my passport on both sides to be allowed access. By the way, the first crossing for Greek and Turkish Cypriots opened in 2003. Just imagine that you’re not able to see ‘the other part’ of your country and city for 30 years.

This is a road block right around the corner of my hotel. Forcing me to walk around it for 20 minutes to cross to ‘the other side’.

Houses and workshops built on the border of the Buffer Zone.

While in and around the city, I talked to locals from around my age. In the meantime, I had already crossed the border to the Turkish part of the island. The locals I talked to, never had. They started asking me questions how it’s like on the other side of the border. That just felt so strange. They didn’t want to cross. Because of for example principle, or even their parents not allowing them to go. Nicosia, also known as Lefkosia, is the last divided capital in Europe.

The most striking thing I experienced, is that you can see and feel that both sides have developed separately and you’re in different countries. Architecture, food, culture, people. Everything was different.

An unmanned guard post at one of the road blocks in the city.

The Escort Through the Buffer Zone

The United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus is a demilitarised zone, patrolled by the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), that was established in 1964 when Major-General Peter Young was the commander of a “peace force”, a predecessor of the present UNFICYP. After stationing his troops in different areas of Nicosia, the general drew a cease-fire line on a map with a green pencil, which was to become known as the “Green Line”.

The zone extended in 1974 after the cease-fire of 16 August 1974, following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, and de facto partition of the island into the area controlled by the Republic of Cyprus (southern Cyprus save for the British Sovereign Base Areas) and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the North.

The zone, also known as the Green Line, stretches for 180 kilometers from Paralimni in the east to Kato Pyrgos in the west, where a separate section surrounds Kokkina. The zone cuts through the center of Nicosia, separating the city into southern and northern sections. In total, it spans an area of 346 square kilometers, varying in width from less than 20 meters to more than 7 kilometers. Some areas are untouched by human interference and have remained a safe haven for flora and fauna.

Buffer Zone east entrance.

I met the people from the United Nations at Ledra Palace. Once this was one of the largest and most glamorous hotels of the capital city. The hotel was designed by the German Jewish architect Benjamin Günsberg and was built between 1947-1949 by Cyprus Hotels Limited at a cost of approx. €410,000 (~$467,000). It now serves as the headquarters for Sector 2 United Nations Roulement Regiment part of UNFICYP. It’s a very important location, and I was lucky to have a peek inside.

The state of the building is still very good. After that, we drove to the east part of the buffer zone where we entered through the gate you see on the right. This is where the walk through the Buffer Zone starts.

Within the Walled City of Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, the buffer zone is a strip of land that runs along the east to west axis, forming part of the United Nations-controlled green line. This line divides the island of Cyprus and the city of Nicosia in two, keeping the two major communities – Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots – apart, for more than three decades.

The effects of this separation have been devastating for the city of Nicosia, the last divided capital of Europe, especially for its historic center, which composes a unique core of high archaeological, architectural and environmental values. Within this highly restricted area historical buildings together with newer structures, are suffering from physical decay neglected for more than 30 years. This present situation has negative effects on the old city’s urban fabric and contributes to the degradation of the historic center as a whole, leading to its physical, economic and social decay.

Ayios Kassianos school. If you look closely you can see bullet holes in the wall.

Ayios Kassianos school.

The first buildings I saw and photographed were the Ayios Kassianos schools. Ayios Kassianos schools comprise a very interesting complex of two neoclassical buildings of the beginning of the 20th century and a later one which is known to be the nursery. The two schools, boys and girls, are identical in their original layout but bear later interventions. Their characteristic neoclassical elements recall the architectural style of other examples of schools within the city of Nicosia. Their importance for the area and the city as a whole leads to the urgency for their immediate support and restoration. In the same building complex as the schools, Ayios Georgios church is located.

Ayios Georgios church.

Ayios Georgios church is also a very important monument in the walled city buffer zone area. It dates back to the 17th century, built in ashlar stone, with later interventions. It is part of a building complex including the neoclassical boys and girls’ schools of Ayios Kassianos. Its’ southern wall lies on Ayios Georgios street, where the main entrance to the narthex opens. The internal walls of the narthex bear signs of bright colors and of stone decorations. It is of high importance that this church is documented and restored immediately; otherwise, one of the most important monuments of the area will be lost. Across this church, you will find ‘Annie’s House’.

On the left you see ‘Annie’s House’.

Annie refused to leave her house, which is located in the Buffer Zone, after the Buffer Zone was established. UN diplomacy could not dislodge her. She continued living in her house, and UN patrols regularly escorted her on shopping trips to get groceries and such. When UN patrols hadn’t noticed any movement in her house, they entered the house and found she died. Annie’s family had broken contact, and she had no-one to arrange her funeral. Annie was 90 years old when she died, and UN soldiers paid and arranged her funeral. Her story is still alive.

Ayios Iakovos church.

Continuing the road, I came across Ayios Iakovos church. Ayios Iakovos church is one of the most important monuments, included in the buffer zone area, dated back to the 15th- 16th c. with later interventions, such as the steeple, built in fine ashlar stones. It’s a Byzantine type of church covered with two intersected barrel vaults carrying the cupola, with eight windows. The arch of the Holy Place is semi-circular. Louis Salvator of Austria visited Nicosia in 1873 and gives a description of this church, as “… a small building with four-barrel vaults …The Iconostasis curved of wood, bears the Russian eagle…”. The church is part of a building complex, referred to as the monastery of Ayios Iakovos.

Door of Olympus Hotel.

At one point, we crossed the Buffer Zone at Ledra Street. A very busy crossing, and just a day before I walked through the street and faced the big fences and gates on both sides. Today, these gates opened to cross from the east side of Ledra Street to the west side of Ledra Street. On the corner, the well-known Olympus hotel is located — one of the most important hotels of the Walled City, some decades ago.

The richness of its architectural elements, as well as the grand halls in the interior and its large rooms reveal the importance of this building and its significant role in the heart of the economic and probably the social life of the city. Built in the beginning of the 20th c., (1914–1933) in load-bearing masonry, with classical elements decorating the facades. The ground floor was built for commercial use, with simple elements of decoration while the first floor was occupied by the Olympus Hotel, with much more complicated decoration elements such as pilasters, balconies, and cornices with modillions.

Both the facades are formed according to a combination of the classical Greek ionic order with a Roman-Corinthian cornice with modillions, along with neo-baroque elements on the corner of the building. Since 1974, the building was abandoned to the ravages of time. Today, the part that faces Ledra Street, has been beautifully renovated and looks amazing.

Example corner building.

Throughout the Buffer Zone, there are several corner buildings. This is a special type of building which appears on the corners of commercial building complexes, on the crossroads, in the heart of the commercial center, in the area of Phaneromeni. There are six of these buildings in an area of 500 meters long. These buildings are identical in layout, square in shape, with rounded corner. Neoclassical architectural elements decorate the facades. On the right, you see an example of such a building. Below, you find one of my personal favorite shots of my visit. This is a corner building that’s being completely reclaimed by nature.

Example corner building, being reclaimed by nature.

Maple House entrance.

One of the buildings that I was able to enter, is called ‘Maple House’. Maple House was used as a platoon house for UN soldiers. It wasn’t a very luxurious base and has been abandoned for a number of years as part of the general force reduction. Above is a photo of the entrance to the building. On the wall is a plaque of a former gun shop that was located inside of the building. Maple House was originally a small arcade type shopping center with an apartment block. The building itself has been mostly stripped, yet it is still in good condition. One of the other shops located in this building used to be a car garage. A lot of cars have been left behind in the showroom and the cellar of the building.

The cellar of the building is filled with cars, and some of them even have as little as 40km on the clock. A small number of cars were removed from the basement by the UN and are better preserved, but most of them have been left behind. In 1974, these cars were imported through the gate at Famagusta and driven to the basement in Nicosia, a distance of around 40 kilometers. The drive-in entrance to the basement is in the Buffer Zone. Over the years the cars have been stripped of their internal fittings and smaller engine parts and, although technically ‘new’ can no longer be described as being in ‘mint condition’. Thieves have provided themselves access to this storage area, with all the risks involved, to strip the cars.

Cellar filled with ‘new’ cars.

Cars that have been left behind in the showroom, a floor above the cellar, can be seen below.

Close to Maple House, you find the ‘ten-minute yard’. This is a very sensitive location because there were numerous protests about the amount of time Turkish soldiers spent in the area of this yard. It was agreed with the UN that Turkish soldiers would only be visible in the yard for ten minutes in each hour. However, to make a point the Turkish soldiers would appear at 10 minutes ‘to’ the hour and then continue to stay for 10 minutes of the next hour, thereby visible in the yard for 20 minutes. This was obviously seen as a gesture of provocation.

Right next to the ‘ten-minute yard’, almost attached to it, the remains of a yellow car are lying on the ground. Near the end of the fighting in 1974, this yellow car was destroyed and both the Greek and Turkish sides dispute the exact position of the CFL (Cease Fire Line). The Turkish believe that the CFL should be drawn at the south point of the car, while the Greeks believe the CFL should be drawn at the northern point of the car. The dispute was settled by the UN by painting two lines; one at the northern end and one at the southern end of the car. Thereby, the UN created a ‘Buffer Zone’ within the Buffer Zone.

The Yellow Car.

The photo below gives a good indication of how close the Greek and Turkish soldiers were fighting with each other. Greek soldiers on the left and Turkish soldiers on the right. This is a photo of Spear Alley. It was here that a Greek soldier fixed a bayonet to a long pole and stabbed a sleeping Turkish soldier to death through the window on the opposite side of the road. Imagine that…

Spear alley

Here are some more photos of my walk through the Buffer Zone in Nicosia:

Corner building.

Building remains.

House remains.

Maple House.

Car storage.

Sandbags and bullet holes.

House remains.

About the author: Roman Robroek is a Netherlands-based urban exploration photographer. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can see more of his work on his website, or by following him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This article was also published here.

source https://petapixel.com/2018/10/24/rare-photos-inside-the-united-nations-buffer-zone-in-cyprus/

[pauldeckerus]

Rare Photos Inside the United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus

In September 2018, I was asked to travel to Cyprus and photograph the Buffer Zone (or Green Line) in Nicosia. It was an exclusive opportunity since this area is not accessible for civilians — it’s a demilitarised zone (DMZ), patrolled by the United Nations.

The goal of my visit was to take photos of the endangered architecture within the zone, and also bring the social aspect into the frame. In an attempt to bring the divided parts of Cyprus together again, the photos will be exhibited in the Center of Visual Arts and Research in Nicosia. This exhibition opened on the 23rd of October 2018.

The Buffer Zone in Nicosia is part of the 7 Most Endangered Programme from Europa Nostra. My visit to Cyprus has been made possible thanks to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, United Nations, and Europa Nostra.

This article is a documentary of the current situation of the Buffer Zone / Green Line with mostly exterior shots. The historical and architectural value is very high, and I’m thrilled to share this exclusive view with you.

The Buffer Zone has now literally become a ‘Green Line’. The trees you see in this photo are in the Buffer Zone. The buildings around it are mostly outside of the Buffer Zone.

Walking by the Buffer Zone

Before I was escorted by the United Nations through the Buffer Zone, I had time to walk by the Buffer Zone in the center of Nicosia. One of the first things I noticed is how weird it feels that all the roads, with a few exceptions, have been closed with barrels and/or barbed wire in an attempt to keep you from crossing over to ‘the other side’ or into the Buffer Zone.

Some of these roadblocks are even guarded by young soldiers. These posts and soldiers were not to be photographed.

Road block.

The roadblock you see on the photo above is close to Ledra Street. Ledra Street is the major shopping street in Nicosia. It is also the site of the former Ledra Street barricade, across the United Nations buffer zone. The barricade symbolized the division of Nicosia between the Greek south and Turkish north. The barricade on Ledra Street was removed in April 2008, and thus became the sixth crossing between the Southern part of Cyprus and the Northern part of Cyprus.

As a foreigner, I had to show my passport on both sides to be allowed access. By the way, the first crossing for Greek and Turkish Cypriots opened in 2003. Just imagine that you’re not able to see ‘the other part’ of your country and city for 30 years.

This is a road block right around the corner of my hotel. Forcing me to walk around it for 20 minutes to cross to ‘the other side’.

Houses and workshops built on the border of the Buffer Zone.

While in and around the city, I talked to locals from around my age. In the meantime, I had already crossed the border to the Turkish part of the island. The locals I talked to, never had. They started asking me questions how it’s like on the other side of the border. That just felt so strange. They didn’t want to cross. Because of for example principle, or even their parents not allowing them to go. Nicosia, also known as Lefkosia, is the last divided capital in Europe.

The most striking thing I experienced, is that you can see and feel that both sides have developed separately and you’re in different countries. Architecture, food, culture, people. Everything was different.

An unmanned guard post at one of the road blocks in the city.

The Escort Through the Buffer Zone

The United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus is a demilitarised zone, patrolled by the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), that was established in 1964 when Major-General Peter Young was the commander of a “peace force”, a predecessor of the present UNFICYP. After stationing his troops in different areas of Nicosia, the general drew a cease-fire line on a map with a green pencil, which was to become known as the “Green Line”.

The zone extended in 1974 after the cease-fire of 16 August 1974, following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, and de facto partition of the island into the area controlled by the Republic of Cyprus (southern Cyprus save for the British Sovereign Base Areas) and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the North.

The zone, also known as the Green Line, stretches for 180 kilometers from Paralimni in the east to Kato Pyrgos in the west, where a separate section surrounds Kokkina. The zone cuts through the center of Nicosia, separating the city into southern and northern sections. In total, it spans an area of 346 square kilometers, varying in width from less than 20 meters to more than 7 kilometers. Some areas are untouched by human interference and have remained a safe haven for flora and fauna.

Buffer Zone east entrance.

I met the people from the United Nations at Ledra Palace. Once this was one of the largest and most glamorous hotels of the capital city. The hotel was designed by the German Jewish architect Benjamin Günsberg and was built between 1947-1949 by Cyprus Hotels Limited at a cost of approx. €410,000 (~$467,000). It now serves as the headquarters for Sector 2 United Nations Roulement Regiment part of UNFICYP. It’s a very important location, and I was lucky to have a peek inside.

The state of the building is still very good. After that, we drove to the east part of the buffer zone where we entered through the gate you see on the right. This is where the walk through the Buffer Zone starts.

Within the Walled City of Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, the buffer zone is a strip of land that runs along the east to west axis, forming part of the United Nations-controlled green line. This line divides the island of Cyprus and the city of Nicosia in two, keeping the two major communities – Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots – apart, for more than three decades.

The effects of this separation have been devastating for the city of Nicosia, the last divided capital of Europe, especially for its historic center, which composes a unique core of high archaeological, architectural and environmental values. Within this highly restricted area historical buildings together with newer structures, are suffering from physical decay neglected for more than 30 years. This present situation has negative effects on the old city’s urban fabric and contributes to the degradation of the historic center as a whole, leading to its physical, economic and social decay.

Ayios Kassianos school. If you look closely you can see bullet holes in the wall.

Ayios Kassianos school.

The first buildings I saw and photographed were the Ayios Kassianos schools. Ayios Kassianos schools comprise a very interesting complex of two neoclassical buildings of the beginning of the 20th century and a later one which is known to be the nursery. The two schools, boys and girls, are identical in their original layout but bear later interventions. Their characteristic neoclassical elements recall the architectural style of other examples of schools within the city of Nicosia. Their importance for the area and the city as a whole leads to the urgency for their immediate support and restoration. In the same building complex as the schools, Ayios Georgios church is located.

Ayios Georgios church.

Ayios Georgios church is also a very important monument in the walled city buffer zone area. It dates back to the 17th century, built in ashlar stone, with later interventions. It is part of a building complex including the neoclassical boys and girls’ schools of Ayios Kassianos. Its’ southern wall lies on Ayios Georgios street, where the main entrance to the narthex opens. The internal walls of the narthex bear signs of bright colors and of stone decorations. It is of high importance that this church is documented and restored immediately; otherwise, one of the most important monuments of the area will be lost. Across this church, you will find ‘Annie’s House’.

On the left you see ‘Annie’s House’.

Annie refused to leave her house, which is located in the Buffer Zone, after the Buffer Zone was established. UN diplomacy could not dislodge her. She continued living in her house, and UN patrols regularly escorted her on shopping trips to get groceries and such. When UN patrols hadn’t noticed any movement in her house, they entered the house and found she died. Annie’s family had broken contact, and she had no-one to arrange her funeral. Annie was 90 years old when she died, and UN soldiers paid and arranged her funeral. Her story is still alive.

Ayios Iakovos church.

Continuing the road, I came across Ayios Iakovos church. Ayios Iakovos church is one of the most important monuments, included in the buffer zone area, dated back to the 15th- 16th c. with later interventions, such as the steeple, built in fine ashlar stones. It’s a Byzantine type of church covered with two intersected barrel vaults carrying the cupola, with eight windows. The arch of the Holy Place is semi-circular. Louis Salvator of Austria visited Nicosia in 1873 and gives a description of this church, as “… a small building with four-barrel vaults …The Iconostasis curved of wood, bears the Russian eagle…”. The church is part of a building complex, referred to as the monastery of Ayios Iakovos.

Door of Olympus Hotel.

At one point, we crossed the Buffer Zone at Ledra Street. A very busy crossing, and just a day before I walked through the street and faced the big fences and gates on both sides. Today, these gates opened to cross from the east side of Ledra Street to the west side of Ledra Street. On the corner, the well-known Olympus hotel is located — one of the most important hotels of the Walled City, some decades ago.

The richness of its architectural elements, as well as the grand halls in the interior and its large rooms reveal the importance of this building and its significant role in the heart of the economic and probably the social life of the city. Built in the beginning of the 20th c., (1914–1933) in load-bearing masonry, with classical elements decorating the facades. The ground floor was built for commercial use, with simple elements of decoration while the first floor was occupied by the Olympus Hotel, with much more complicated decoration elements such as pilasters, balconies, and cornices with modillions.

Both the facades are formed according to a combination of the classical Greek ionic order with a Roman-Corinthian cornice with modillions, along with neo-baroque elements on the corner of the building. Since 1974, the building was abandoned to the ravages of time. Today, the part that faces Ledra Street, has been beautifully renovated and looks amazing.

Example corner building.

Throughout the Buffer Zone, there are several corner buildings. This is a special type of building which appears on the corners of commercial building complexes, on the crossroads, in the heart of the commercial center, in the area of Phaneromeni. There are six of these buildings in an area of 500 meters long. These buildings are identical in layout, square in shape, with rounded corner. Neoclassical architectural elements decorate the facades. On the right, you see an example of such a building. Below, you find one of my personal favorite shots of my visit. This is a corner building that’s being completely reclaimed by nature.

Example corner building, being reclaimed by nature.

Maple House entrance.

One of the buildings that I was able to enter, is called ‘Maple House’. Maple House was used as a platoon house for UN soldiers. It wasn’t a very luxurious base and has been abandoned for a number of years as part of the general force reduction. Above is a photo of the entrance to the building. On the wall is a plaque of a former gun shop that was located inside of the building. Maple House was originally a small arcade type shopping center with an apartment block. The building itself has been mostly stripped, yet it is still in good condition. One of the other shops located in this building used to be a car garage. A lot of cars have been left behind in the showroom and the cellar of the building.

The cellar of the building is filled with cars, and some of them even have as little as 40km on the clock. A small number of cars were removed from the basement by the UN and are better preserved, but most of them have been left behind. In 1974, these cars were imported through the gate at Famagusta and driven to the basement in Nicosia, a distance of around 40 kilometers. The drive-in entrance to the basement is in the Buffer Zone. Over the years the cars have been stripped of their internal fittings and smaller engine parts and, although technically ‘new’ can no longer be described as being in ‘mint condition’. Thieves have provided themselves access to this storage area, with all the risks involved, to strip the cars.

Cellar filled with ‘new’ cars.

Cars that have been left behind in the showroom, a floor above the cellar, can be seen below.

Close to Maple House, you find the ‘ten-minute yard’. This is a very sensitive location because there were numerous protests about the amount of time Turkish soldiers spent in the area of this yard. It was agreed with the UN that Turkish soldiers would only be visible in the yard for ten minutes in each hour. However, to make a point the Turkish soldiers would appear at 10 minutes ‘to’ the hour and then continue to stay for 10 minutes of the next hour, thereby visible in the yard for 20 minutes. This was obviously seen as a gesture of provocation.

Right next to the ‘ten-minute yard’, almost attached to it, the remains of a yellow car are lying on the ground. Near the end of the fighting in 1974, this yellow car was destroyed and both the Greek and Turkish sides dispute the exact position of the CFL (Cease Fire Line). The Turkish believe that the CFL should be drawn at the south point of the car, while the Greeks believe the CFL should be drawn at the northern point of the car. The dispute was settled by the UN by painting two lines; one at the northern end and one at the southern end of the car. Thereby, the UN created a ‘Buffer Zone’ within the Buffer Zone.

The Yellow Car.

The photo below gives a good indication of how close the Greek and Turkish soldiers were fighting with each other. Greek soldiers on the left and Turkish soldiers on the right. This is a photo of Spear Alley. It was here that a Greek soldier fixed a bayonet to a long pole and stabbed a sleeping Turkish soldier to death through the window on the opposite side of the road. Imagine that…

Spear alley.

Here are some more photos of my walk through the Buffer Zone in Nicosia:

Corner building.

Building remains.

House remains.

Maple House.

Car storage.

Sandbags and bullet holes.

House remains.

About the author: Roman Robroek is a Netherlands-based urban exploration photographer. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can see more of his work on his website, or by following him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This article was also published here.

from Photography News https://petapixel.com/2018/10/24/rare-photos-inside-the-united-nations-buffer-zone-in-cyprus/