Red thistle by Davi Demo

Red Thistle Davide Monteleone Text by Lucia Sgueglia Afterword by Renata Ferri Extended captions by Davide Monteleone

dewi lewis publishing

Abkhazia, 2008

Before dawn

The village has been there for a thousand years, clinging to the cliff like an eagle. A cluster of houses and men, trapped between peaks sharp as teeth, and arid canyons as dusty as dunes. So inaccessible that the people and languages of neighbouring valleys are a foreign land. The old man climbs to the summit, puts his hands to his mouth and shouts. He shouts with all his might, towards the valley plunged in a milky haze, in the hope that he will be heard in the town, where he knows who is in control. Anger rises to his throat, his eyes fill with water, tears streaming through his white eyelashes, and he empties his lungs to drive it away. But his cry falls into the void. “So the saying only applies to the wicked,” says the old man to himself. The saying that: “In the Caucasus, the echo of a gunshot can be heard for centuries.” The echo of vengeance.

Russians like us left here a while ago. Not me, I won’t go: after seeing the mountains, you cannot leave them. Even when the guns thundered in the south and the Russians came from the north, with their tanks and their planes, through the mouth of the dark tunnel, to free us. Since then, we have no longer been brothers with our neighbours. The mother is at the window of the concrete building at the foot of the highest mountain in Europe. The chairlift squeaks, and as it moves up it disappears into a cotton-wool fog. “My son is a champion alpine skier, he is nearly six foot tall. He was given the medal and the trophy that sit in the living room.” It is too long since she sent him out to the shop, her son who converted to the God of Mecca. She is anxious. On the black slope a large red ‘M’ flickers, like the Moscow Metro: the entrance to a secret tunnel. They used it for nuclear tests. Today, in the old mine where convicts once worked, soldiers and their tanks are hunting bearded young men – our sons. But they hide higher up, in the woods – and they are right to. From the windows next door, neighbours are screaming: “They took him away in a car!” The mother rushes down into the street. On the pavement is a trail of red, a woollen beret and a glove, apples roll to the bottom of the ravine.

At the bottom of the valley, the boy with the gun lifts his nose in the air, towards the snowy peaks, in the hope of seeing a sign. His grandmother said that when it rains, the water runs off the ridges into the valley, taking all the mud with it, and washing the souls of men. But here, even the great flood would not be enough to take us back in time. Those from the border villages all disappeared in one night, when it was decreed in the capital; in our land, there is no longer any place for foreigners and traitors. Some have left their doors open, the light is still on in the porch. The boy knocks on the door of his best friend, but only a goat remains, tied to the fence. She bleats like a newborn, she is hungry. Now there is only us ready and armed, he repeats to himself. To take over the village the enemy would only have to try again. But no one comes. They left the distant mountains when dark night had fallen, not long before dawn, reads the man who lives in the five century old stone tower. He looks at the ruins of the old pill-boxes on the high plateau, once they were a civilization, today they are just inert stones. “Look how beautiful they are, our mountains,” he says to his son, in the tower, “they are the most beautiful in the world. Too bad that we cannot go there: up there are the Russians.” On the ridges, looking like pieces of coal from here, they hunt the enemy. The man seated on the worn sofa, in his hut beyond the river, stares at the wall. He doesn’t speak. On the wallpaper, is the portrait of Sveta, his wife, who didn’t have the chance to see the mountains. Also born in Russia, in the north, on the plain. Soviet Russia had everything except the mountains. And it wanted them, it wanted to take them, to conquer them. It never succeeded. The other

Ingushetia, 2010

South Ossetia, 2008

Chechnya, 2010

Karachay-Cherkessia, 2010

Kabardino-Balkaria, 2011

Abkhazia, 2008

The City of K

Rosa muscosa – (Rosa centifolia). Variety of rose native to the Caucasus, also known as Rose of Provence, Damask rose, Moroccan rose, or Rose of May. It is a hybrid that was developed between the seventeenth and eighteenth century, perhaps even earlier, on the initiative of Dutch growers. It has a mossy stem and pink or white, or purple petals. They are cup-shaped, extremely fragrant, and from them you can draw a pale-yellow, distilled liquid with a very sweet, intense, and lasting scent. Its essential oil gives emotional tranquility and balance, without any sedative effect. By order of the President of the Republic, thirty thousand rose bushes will be planted in the city by the end of this year. The capital must regain its old reputation as the “City of Roses” and become the greenest in all of the Northern Caucasus. For this, the local population – citizens, government workers, and shop workers – must help the agencies charged with this task. “How beautiful they were, you can not imagine ... a carpet of pink, red, white ... everywhere ... soft as velvet, wonderful!” Maxa, who has five wives, sits at a restaurant table near ours, and is constantly interrupting to tell us what his city was like before the war: “Today, it is not the same ... Although it has been completely rebuilt,” he says, smoothing his moustache with a complicit sparkle in his eyes, as if talking about a voluptuous woman. The City of Roses was full of dance halls, those in their forties remember it well. There were shady avenues, gardens full of flowerbeds, elegant stone buildings decorated with friezes. Emancipated and educated women lived there. Like Elena Suhanov, a Red Army paratrooper and a heroine of the People: she flew fighter planes when she lived in Kazakhstan, she passed an exam to become an astronaut. In town, she trained every day with her squadron, an entire battalion of female paratroopers. Today, the runway of the former airfield near the old airport, is a field of weeds and brambles. In town, people no longer wear trousers. There is no longer a dance hall. Alcohol is prohibited. The streets are covered with smooth asphalt and are illuminated even at night, and the traffic lights have a seconds counter with a little man flashing green-red, red-green. There is a new international airport, but not a single tourist. Department stores, a Japanese restaurant, skyscrapers, statues and marble. In the ‘city’, an English lawn, fake rocks, plastic trees, illuminated

fountains and an ice rink. “Peace and Renaissance: we must all stand together and move forward” is repeated all the time on television, in broadcasts of dancing and singing. During humid summer evenings, teenagers stroll in the renovated park. The curfew has ended. They are out courting. The boys are sunburnt and have large muscles. They follow the footsteps of girls of marriageable age who sway their hips, tightly moulded into fancy dresses, or swinging skirts and high heels. As required by law, their long hair is hidden by a scarf. On the avenue dedicated to the Benefactor, guards ensure that the headscarf is worn correctly. The statue of the murdered father has gone, but his portraits and those of his son are everywhere. One of them is framed in a red heart that flashes and bears the inscription “We love you”. In another portrait, the son is wearing a Father Christmas hat. “Thank you for the city!” says the red neon opposite the grand, new mosque. In the new public gardens in the central square, in a riot of red roses, dozens of children are playing, splashing water in the fountain. “Here today, it is the normality that is a miracle,” whispers a mother, as if she is admitting a dangerous secret. But it is a strange normality. From time to time in the centre, mechanical diggers installing water pipes discover bones. Piles of bones. Thousands of missing. “Yes, it even happened here at the university … two years ago I believe, or four? I do not remember very well,” says Mel, who dreams of becoming an actress like Rita Hayworth. “They came into the courtyard of the campus, and they took one of our classmates hostage. They beat him severely in front of us, then dragged him away somewhere else. They said he was a ... what do you call it? An Islamic extremist.” All around, everything is dark and silent. The parallel city begins, behind the curtains of the houses. Our people are like cockroaches: the more you crush us, the more we will appear.

Chechnya, 2008

Dagestan, 2009

Abkhazia, 2008

Ingushetia, 2010

Kabardino-Balkaria, 2011

South Ossetia, 2008

The invisible line

Today, Nikolai Dimitrevitch Mindiashvili is a little on edge. His doctor gave him pills, but he has had these problems with his nerves since he was sixteen years old, since the end of the first war. Even though his name is different, he is not afraid to stay here in a place that has made war on his people. “This is where I was born, where I’ve always lived. I will not leave. There was never a problem with the others: they are our neighbours.” He says this standing right in front of his dacha, between the sleepy streets that feel like countryside in the small state capital of a state that no longer exists. The August war lasted five days, it has just finished. When the tanks from the south entered the town, Nikolai took refuge with his neighbours in the cellar: “We stayed there for days without food or water, without electricity, without understanding what was going on or who was shooting, which brought us together ... it was so good between us before. Here, there are many mixed families, everyone speaks each other’s language, Russian is the lingua franca.” Galina was also in the cellar, “I was curled up there with all the neighbours, like a little mouse in the dark. Packed like sardines. We just waited it out. Some died there. It is the fault of your president, he is mad, he attacked in violation of agreements. Fortunately the Russians saved us.” Independence? For Nikolai, “It is not a problem. It’s enough that the shooting doesn’t start again.” But further north, the villages of his people were burned, the vegetable gardens charred – to ensure that no one would return. “Yes, but that happened later, after their tanks crossed the border at night, by surprise; they devastated our villages in the south, and killed us like rabbits,” says Galina. In the middle of a courtyard, eight women sit around a wooden table and peel potatoes, onions and peppers. “Finally, you’ve arrived. Now, you will write the truth?” A youth wearing a cap is smoking, sitting on his heels. “You have a very dear friend? A friend with whom you share your bread at breakfast, every day. If one day he kills a member of your family, what will you do?” Every day at the border, there are exchanges of civilian prisoners – five exchanged for five, they return in dribs and drabs. Yes, the border, but where is it? The international community has not yet decided. For now, no one crosses that invisible line. If you approach it, there are the Russians – with two rusty tanks. They’re standing guard in

front of a village, blackened by smoke and deserted; a village, whose name is written on a blue panel, in Georgian and Roman characters. A little further on, a block of houses remains intact: an Ossetian village. Finally, the ‘check point’: twenty young people sleeping in the shade of a pear tree, their heads resting on a tank that serves as a pillow. They wear uniforms stolen or borrowed from the Russians, without badges, and carry dilapidated weapons. “We are special troops under orders from Moscow. You cannot go any further; on the other side is Georgia, a foreign land.” An old woman pokes her wrinkled face through the bars of a gate: she lives right next to the imaginary line. The soldier at the foot of the pear tree, greets her in her own language. From there, you must continue on foot. The road is not tarmaced, not a soul can be seen. Suddenly, a group of men emerge from behind a hill chasing a pig, trying to catch it, but it zigzags away, grunting like a devil. They eventually capture it, pushing it forcibly inside a hut. But a moment later, to their annoyance, the animal jumps through the window. In the garden of his dacha, destroyed by grenades, M. Georgi, history teacher, rests in the heat of the afternoon under a pergola covered with vines, lying amongst lace cushions on a bed of iron. He was sleeping the night when his people entered the capital. He will not reveal their names, he is afraid. His grandmother was here, his grandfather on the other side. For him, Georgia is one country. “In the village, only us men stayed,” he says. The women and children were sent to safety in Tbilisi, on the other side. The school was burned down, as was most of the village. “It was our neighbours who did this. We are not afraid of the Russians, but Moscow wanted this war.” Here, in a buffer zone of several kilometres, the Russians have deployed their own peacekeepers. “You bet! They are occupiers. And what is behind you is not a border.” But where are they? “Up there on that hill,” he points. “And now what’s going to happen in the middle of this no man’s land?”

Abkhazia, 2008

South Ossetia, 2008

Abkhazia, 2008

Chechnya, 2010

Dagestan, 2009

Dagestan, 2010

Dagestan, 2009

Life in the woods

19 Sha’aban, year 1432

Dear Diary,

Today is the big day. This morning at breakfast, after the prayer circle, Brother Hamza, the emir of our sector, said: “Today is for you – As Salaam Wa Rahmatullah Wa Aleykum Barakatuh. You have long prepared on the right path as shown by the Prophet, and now you’re ready.” I, and my seven brothers of Jamaat, nodded. Some of them, I knew from the university in town. At the time I was still far from the right path. Hamza is a smart type. He has graduated, he knows Arabic. He studied abroad. When he speaks, he is inspired, and he can use an automatic rifle better than everyone else. We wake before dawn. The route is long, and we must arrive before daylight. This is not a suicide mission, but the risk is high: we need to blow up two pylons of the power plant in the valley, which provides light to half of our Republic. There are many blockades. If something goes wrong, we will die. Better to die a martyr than to live without justice. “You must know your enemies,” says the Koran. Our enemies are the murtadi and the kafirs, apostates and puppets of the pro-Russian government. The cruel and the unbelievers, such as the minions of the miscreant puppet-president Dzhokar. Corrupt, sectarian and heathen: they adore the saints, the skeihi, unaware that there is only one God. They go to the soothsayers. During prayer they dance like fluttering animals. They drink, smoke, swear. For money, they torture and kill those who believe in Allah and profess the true faith. And they say they are Muslims! It is even the case with some muftis and imams. For a kopeck, they sell their souls, shaitani. They sell alcohol, the source of all evil and sin. That’s why we punished them by blowing up the drinks’ kiosk. And the brothel with all its prostitutes, and the casino ... We have cleaned things up: there is no sanction unless there can be one against those who are unjust to men, and who, without cause, spread corruption on earth; they will suffer a painful punishment. In the camp, I recognised several brothers like me, young people from the villages. Islam doesn’t divide us into ethnic groups, it is universal.

My mother doesn’t know I’m here. She thinks that masked men took me away. Once, I called her from the wood, I told her that all was well, she was crying. Mariam, my wife knows: along with my brother, they help me from there, however they can. They send parcels of pasta and bread, even if it’s dangerous – if they get caught, it will end badly. Mariam and I write to each other via text messages. I tell her that I love her and to trust in God. And she does the same thing. Sometimes at night, I go down to the village to spend time with her, a few hours in the darkness of a room. Then I go back to camp. Mariam agrees with me: the only solution is the Emirate. There is no alternative to this dirt and violence that stifles us. The Koran and the Sunnah: We do not need anything else. We cannot live with Russia: we are two foreign bodies. Here in camp, the air is pure and rarefied. You don’t hear the everyday noise or complaints and you can’t smell the stench of the city. Beyond the wood, the ridges touch the stars of heaven. I imagine paradise being like this. Here, high up between the trees and the sun, where the snow is fairytalelike in winter, I feel free at last, even though the kefiri are stalking us day and night with their guns and tanks. I do not miss the ‘normal’ life. In my bag, I have everything I need. Even so, we often suffer terribly from cold and hunger, especially in winter. It is us who are ‘normal’ men, men who have chosen to live as men. Them, they are animals and sheep. Lying on the floor of the cabin tonight, I can’t sleep. Tomorrow is the big day. Tomorrow is now. Before leaving, we shave off our beards and wash from head to toe. Immaculate before God. I am not afraid. I am not afraid. I am not afraid.

Every believer in Allah who obeys His command, feels healthy in his body and has a healthy spirit, is in the Jihad here. Insh’allah. This is the true grace oh Allah, which the Almighty has given us! Peace and Blessings oh Allah be upon you!

Dagestan, 2009

North Ossetia, 2008

South Ossetia, 2008

Abkhazia, 2008

South Ossetia, 2008

The list

When I woke up, I looked out of the window, down the street. These days it’s become a habit. It was still dark. The December mist clung to the windows so thick that it seemed about to break them. In the orchard, the last apricots lying on the ground had dried up, like the skin of my grandmother the day I went with her on her last journey, to the plain. My face cream had also frozen in the small pot. Today, they will not come, I said to myself, turning towards the pillow next to me. Mourad was sleeping, breathing gently under the sheet. Then I heard a knock. Loud, then immediately after, an enormous din. They broke down the door with a kick, and entered. There were a dozen armed men. Faces hidden by black hoods. But I recognised one of them from his voice, he had been amongst those who had already come to arrest him, a month ago. The men with shoulder epaulettes. They had said: “This is a simple check.” But from the window, I had seen them, I had seen them pushing him into a car with his hands tied behind his back and crushing his head against the seat. They had no search warrant, but they searched the house from top to bottom, opened all the drawers, copied the files from the computer, knocked all the books off the bookshelf, took the DVDs with the preaching of the wise, ‘as evidence’. They call them ‘extremist literature’: they are on the list of banned books in Russia. A week later, Mourad returned, I couldn’t believe it, it was a miracle. His face was swollen, his back bruised. They told him: “You’re lucky, someone high up has intervened. But now, you must stay quietly at home, and every Monday, you must come and sign in at the barracks.” Today they came back. It’s all over. From behind their hoods, they shout and tell us not to move. I’m still in my nightdress, they will not let me put on my dressing gown. Fatima, our daughter who is two years old and just walking, wakes up; I take her in my arms, I put my hand over her eyes. They lead us, Malina – Mourad’s mother – and myself into the kitchen. They force us to lie on the floor, face down on the ground. I can’t see where Mourad is. I hear a cry: “Hurry up, dog!” Then several shots, nine. And the smell of alcohol. Underneath me, the little one is crying, I am covering her to protect her, careful not to crush her. I whisper: “Have mercy, there is the little one.” “Shut up, if you don’t want to die as well, you who have married this terrorist ... Aren’t you ashamed?” Me, no, I’m not ashamed. My mother told me: “You’ll end up a widow.” But we really loved each other, since school days – it was not an arranged marriage. We

always went to the mosque, always said the five prayers every day. Mourad also attended the madrasah, sometimes staying there until night-time. He didn’t smoke, never drank, never raised his voice – he was respectful to everyone. Today in our country, all that is a mistake. Like the veil I wear on my head: they say it covers too much, is too restrictive, too long, too black. They want to decide how I should dress. And how I pray. They don’t fear Allah. But Allah will punish them. Then they leave. We hear the roar of the engine. You could say that the war has passed through the house. But I tell myself that we have been lucky: they have not burned it down, as they usually do. I get up. On the living room rug, there is a red stain in the shape of a flower. This time, I know: Mourad will not return. Mourad is dead. Malina hasn’t lost hope, she says that her sons are like the fingers on a hand, and she has already had two fingers amputated. If I pray hard, she says, his life might be saved. But in her heart, she also knows that Mourad will not return. They will not give us back his body. Sometimes they sell them. But for us it’s too expensive. We no longer go to the mosque. From now on, we are ‘dead’ to the village. The neighbours no longer say hello to us; in the street they cross over to the other side. Now, our names are on the list – the list of wahhabites, as they call us. Because we only obey God. And there is only one God and one true law, whereas their laws are numerous, and fallible. But if even men of the state do not respect these laws, why should we respect them? Now that I have nothing more to wait for, I want to be up there in heaven. Mourad is waiting for me, I know.

Kabardino-Balkaria, 2011

Dagestan, 2009

South Ossetia, 2008

Ingushetia, 2010

South Ossetia, 2008

The lamp and the moth

Ilyaz told me that the guy that he was going to sell his car to, the guy with pocked cheeks, vanished into thin air. It was a good deal, a good price, but the man was trying to negotiate the price down again. He boasted of having important people in his family, of speaking in dialect ... he was almost threatening. Then he vanished, poof! … like dust. I tell Ilyaz that it’s full of crazy people here. Once, I saw one that had a hole in his forehead. He had made up his mind to become a cosmonaut. He went to Moscow on foot, to take the exams. Of course, it was a war wound, but the shrapnel was still stuck inside. Ilyaz and I chat away to kill time during our night-time guard duty. I have known him since school, school Number 1 in the town centre. The USSR still existed, and pioneers, parades and all those things. Another world. There was no shadow of wars and shootings. My father was also a policeman. We had always been on the side of Russia. We are so small and poor, my father said, that alone we will never be successful. Even Imam Shamil was unsuccessful. We did not unite with Russia voluntarily, and we will not leave voluntarily. Tonight we are patrolling the road which leads from the capital to the villages in the south. My knees are soft as butter because of sleepiness, and we are cursed with a bitter cold. Standing for hours on end for the crap salary they give us ... A few miserable roubles, to risk our lives every day. Then they say we take bribes ... it’s true, we do take them! How could we survive, if we didn’t? I have five children, my wife doesn’t work. In the darkness, we hear a loud buzzing like a bumblebee in a cage. A Lada Niva appears, driving very fast. It doesn’t stop when we order it to, or at the barrier. It speeds up and crashes right into the wall of the barracks. There is an explosion, then a fire. Where is Ilyaz? He had gone to get a flask of tea, I can’t see him anymore. Near the wall, a shape is moving on the ground, amongst the flames. Then it stops, like a moth in a lamp. These pieces of garbage have killed my friend Ilyaz. He was a nice guy, he didn’t want to work in the police. Here, a bomb explodes every day. But there is no other work.

You talk about the regime, of corrupt justice ... I’ll tell you about it, these kids have all had enough of this story! Come here, those of you who think you know everything, and are able to judge. On one side evil, on the other good. For you, our government is evil, ruthless, it doesn’t care about human rights ... it’s true. But those people who kill police officers? We also have a family, children ... we are not creatures of God, perhaps? These guys have lost their heads, they have let themselves be captivated by badly intentioned people, very clever, those who employ Salafist propaganda on the internet, in forums ... There are hundreds of them, have you read them? Everything is written in Russian, faithfully translated by the Arabs. What do we have to do, with those cursed Arabs? We have our traditions, we have always been moderate. But young people allow themselves to be taken in. I would like to see them if they lived in Iran! Oh, how happy they would be there! Yes, ‘human rights’ exist there, don’t they? And their leaders, up there in the mountains? Some people really believe in the struggle, they are inspired, or crazy, maybe they have lost their minds after years in hiding, or because their families have been killed, and they want revenge. Others are bandits in search of money: they extort the shopkeepers, the rich ... and drug young people to make them swallow all their stories. In their view, if you blow yourself up, you’ll go to heaven ... they turn them into children. And the others listen to them, and they blow themselves up. They send them to their deaths as if it were nothing, they use them as butcher’s meat, a shield against their crimes, while telling them that it is for Allah. But they do not risk their skins, these cowards. I later learned that the two guys who crashed their Niva, were the same age as me and Ilyaz. We were pitted against each other: our people against our people. The attacks in the Moscow subway ... all that blood ... maybe Putin takes the subway? His officials? No, it’s the poor people who use it. People like us. And Muslims. But they will burn in hell for their sins.

South Ossetia, 2008

Dagestan, 2010

Kabardino-Balkaria, 2011.

Chechnya, 2010

Chechnya, 2008

South Ossetia, 2008

Chechnya, 2010

Abkhazia, 2008

South Ossetia, 2008

Waltz

He approaches me, bows and takes my hand. He brushes it with his lips and gently leads me to the centre of the room. All eyes are on us. The music starts and we begin dancing. We move around the dance floor for hours without ever stopping, pressed against each other. With each spin, his eyes plunge deeply into me. Our heads aren’t spinning, we’re just drunk with love. I dreamed of him so much, it was like in the movies. But today, my wedding day, I can’t take a step. I’ve married him, that man sitting there at the centre of the table – talking with the old people – that man in the elegant suit with a white carnation in the lapel of his jacket – the one with the bulging eyes like a frog. Because I can’t choose who I want. My family are poor, and I need a dowry. Because I’m twenty-eight years old and I’m old by the standards here: I risk being an old maid for life. I married him because he has a look of kindness, and even if his pupils, pressed up by his cheeks, seem about to burst, he has a good job and earns a good living. He doesn’t drink, and he treats me with kindness: it is not nothing. Today, after the wedding ceremony, after having been standing for hours with no one interested in me, he asked me to sit down. He asked several times, he said that my cheeks were pale. Even though he knew that it wasn’t allowed. Yes, we have this tradition during the wedding feast, that the bride must stand in a corner of the room where the banquet is taking place – alone in her corner, silent. She mustn’t talk to anyone, nor even look up, it is the rule – at least not unless one of the guests offers her money – then, yes, if that person asks a question, but only one, she can respond. If he wants to ask another, he must give more money. She is like a jukebox. If she has an urgent need, the bride may whisper this to her closest friends, the bridesmaids, and if she is about to pass out, similarly, she may have a glass of water. The feast can last three days. Always standing, without eating. In fact, I can eat, but only when the guests have left. And them ... they never leave! People come and go until night-time, no-one is refused a chair and a plate. With us, it’s how things are done. And so I stand there, alone in my corner, and I have to watch the men gorging away and toasting my health. At my wedding. Initially, in the room where

the feast takes place, my husband wasn’t even there. He was home with my parents, and, as is the tradition, I was home with his parents and his male friends, in a strange house, with strangers. Strangers who pretend to welcome me as a new girl, but I see them whisper, saying “she’s no longer a kid ...” meaning “she’s old”, and eyeing all my faults: they even look at my teeth, to see if I am healthy and robust, capable of housework. He is a fairly well-educated man, which is rare here. And if not handsome, perhaps, at least, he will not go with others, God help me. He is not a bigot or a hypocrite. He chose me because he knows that I am an adult and I have a brain: I studied languages, I am an English teacher, although I’ve never worked in a school. In our village, no one knows English. God grant that he doesn’t take another wife, as so many men do ... and that he doesn’t leave me. If he leaves me, it’s over – even though here there are many separated women. But it’s like saying: “She’s not worth much, broken, rotten.” After that, no one wants you any more. And your ex-husband steals your children: they go back to him. In the room, it’s time for dancing. The guests are arranged in a circle, the men at the centre. In turn, they jump on their feet and hit the ground with their heels, until they are tired out. They wave their arms as if possessed, to show off their virility. If they are invited, women enter the circle. With their hands, they draw imaginary arabesques in the air, their feet skimming the ground with small, almost imperceptible, steps as light as the legs of birds. Not me. Another time, perhaps.

South Ossetia, 2008

Abkhazia, 2008

South Ossetia, 2008

Abkhazia, 2008

Ingushetia, 2010

Babel

“I

“Islam is peace, rejection of all violence”, says the Master to the students of the new spacious madrasah, behind the Babylonian arch decorated with foliage. All of us here, we want to follow God’s law, the Sharia. And we can do it at home, among ourselves and with others. But we are a secular state. Meanwhile those young people up there want a Muslim caliphate, preach Jihad, and the amputation of the hands of those who do not think like them, who are their enemies. They do not respect any law or tradition, or the authority of the elders. You, you’re lucky, you enjoy freedom of worship. Me, I studied in an illegal monastery: at the time, it was forbidden. One prayed at home, the living room served as the mosque. We never stopped praying. Wahhabi? That means ‘one who gives’. The Deputy Mufti said on television that whoever kills one will go to paradise. “Russia, yes, but the East,” mumbles the mayor at the foot of the statue of Lenin in the central square, near the giant panoramic wheel with flashing lights, the colours of the rainbow. The city, whose fortress faces the sea, is five thousand years old and is the southernmost of the country. In the historic centre, in the winding streets and the ochre clay houses reminiscent of Aleppo, Shiites and Sunnis pray together. In the Philharmonic Theatre of the Emperor, tapestries flaked like rose petals, statues and friezes smooth as candy, a piano in the background. Dressed in miniskirts and with their midriffs exposed, Madina, Elmira and Elona are attempting to breakdance. “The Imams. Bigots. The language of Moscow is our Esperanto. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to understand each other.” In Memory of the Sheikh who defended the freedom of the mountain people of the Caucasus. The inscription, in Arabic and in the Avar language (one of 34 languages in the Republic) is engraved on the plaque sited on the highest peak overlooking the U valley. Tied to the railing, hundreds of votive flags dance in the wind. At the top flutters the green flag with the crescent moon, as twilight begins to fill with the calls of the muezzins. Russia today. Here, the legend of the Imam who fought the Czars is still alive. In summer, hundreds of pilgrims come by bus. In the living room of every house, of every family, there hangs a portrait of the hero, bearded and stern. Stalin had taken over government and replaced it as the Father of the Revolution.

They are stubborn, the mountain people. They do not want to surrender. For nine months, the road to the rebel town, famous for its filigree jewelry, encrusted with stones, and its leather slippers hand-sewn by artisans, is closed, accused of ‘fundamentalism’. To be safe, the Russians are encamped in the courtyard of the town hall. Behind the trees – you see them? A half-collapsed wall serves as a military encampment – those squiggles painted on the wall, their colours faded, remind you of the frescoes in Pompeii … look carefully, it’s a Soviet map of the region, there are still the old names. At the entrance of the village stands a decrepit, large stone arch: on the top, as corroded as an archaeological fossil, is a hammer and sickle, made of marble. After this arch, you find yourself in an ancient world of dust, dirt, loose rocks, of winding mule tracks with an eighty degree slope, of wooden houses with verandas festooned with flags that look as though they have been there too long, and may disintegrate at any moment if you look at them too long. Five thousand years old, it looks like a Paleolithic site. On the street there are no women visible, especially today with this autumn fog that engulfs everything. But what is the dark shadow that has suddenly appeared? It appears from the fog, a silhouette wrapped in a Saudi niqab, passing by you and looking briefly at you before disappearing again. The young girls of G. are reputed to be the most beautiful in the Republic. In order to keep their pearl-like complexion, they apply a face mask of chalk each morning; in the evening they remove it with water. Among the peaks of S. night has already fallen, but no one is sleeping. Men hurry to leave the fields and return to their houses, they leap like goats on the boards and on the wooden stilts suspended over the cliff, and miraculously, they never fall. A hut of mud and lime, inside you can see very little; there is also a stove. Sixty women squat on the ground intoning a strange litany. For hours, they recite in the language of this valley, mixed with Arabic words. Their heads and shoulders swaying at the same time: right to left, top to bottom. Until the lament turns into a trance.

Abkhazia, 2008

South Ossetia, 2008

Dagestan, 2009

Ingushetia, 2010

Stolen kisses

In the morning the city wakes numb from explosions. On the beach smoothed by the warm waters of the Caspian Sea, the freestyle Greco-Roman wrestling champions, immersed in a dusty amber light, are jogging in front of the villas of the nouveaux riches. Muscles tensed and jaws clenched, one by one, at the hour of prayer, they slip into wooden cabins placed along the shore. At first glance, they look like changing rooms for swimmers – though they are turned towards Mecca. Lovers enter the shells of large houses on stilts, driven into the wet sand, perfect for protection from the wind, and for stolen kisses. The beach, miles of barren and partly abandoned coast, tells of a long history of decline and lost opportunities: it was the southernmost outpost of the Soviet oil industry, which never took off. After the boom of the extraction period of the 1970s, came the wars in the region to kill it off. In the distance you can still see the wells, rusty. A few kilometres from the water, dozens of sites are partially abandoned, neglected, until a bribe comes along to grease the palm of the right official. As soon as you walk away from the shore, a multitude of grey concrete parallel pipes, barely softened by the touches of pastel of Greek and Asian decorations – remnants of the USSR – remind you where you are. Up to here, it is Russia. On the opposite shore are the steppes of Central Asia, the oil rigs of Baku, the Iran of the ayatollahs. You are surprised by this expanse of silver, muddy but sparkling, even in winter. Seen from above, from an improvised viewpoint in the car park, where young brides and grooms come to be photographed, it looks like a huge metallic grey chessboard. Like a white ship, wrote a local poet. Every street, every building, every block is covered with a uniform patina, the colour of rain. Towards the east, the scene ends abruptly, cut by a straight line. From here, at noon, even though the bed of oil is not clear, with its industrial waste and black caviar, it looks like a prairie of jade. After the suffocating sensation of the inland towns, ghostly after eight o’clock at night, you have the impression of being able to breathe deeply. M. is alongside the sea, yet it seems to turn its back on it. It is almost nothing like a coastal town. On windy days, you can breathe the salt in the air. At nightfall, young people come and go, the exhausts on their motorbikes backfiring. But the heart of the city, one feels, is facing a different direction. At any time of day the shore line is dead, asleep. As is the port. Real life begins only when you move further away. Things such as business. And the settling of scores.

103

Basically, it is written in its name and its name is its destiny: “Land of Mountains”. This is not a place for sailors. The old man on the beach, pulls up his coat to his chin, to keep out the wind. His mountain busby is so heavy that his head is bent over his stick, while he moves slowly on the sand. He looks out to the sea and beyond it, to the other shore: Once, everything was ours, a single country, he whispers to himself. No borders. And religion, skin colour, the village you were from, made no difference. In the city there lived a crazy visionary: his name was Evgeni Alexandrovich Gvozdyov. He made it into the Guinness Book of Records for having gone around the world three times by boat, and was the first post-Soviet man to succeed in it. He was born in Belarus, where there isn’t even the smell of the sea. On the balcony of his apartment on the second floor of an old khroutchovka, he built a small boat made of plastic. He never became a hero, neither for the Republic or for his country, even though there was always a thirst for heroes, true or false.

The fish rots from the head: everything comes from Moscow, even our problems, ponders the old man. Young people today no longer have anything in which they can believe and so they cling to God. Me, all I know is that I want to be buried up there, in my native land.

Dagestan, 2010

104

Chechnya, 2010

106

107

Dagestan, 2010

109

110

Chechnya, 2010

ÂŤNot even a piece of this Chechen land eludes us. We are here for eternity.Âť General Aleksey Ermolov (1777-1861)

112

113

Dagestan, 2010

Afterword Davide Monteleone’s journey has been a long one: from muscovite Russia to the edges of the Empire, where Europe becomes Asia, and the birch trees give way to redwoods. The mountain range stretching from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea traces the restless, misunderstood mosaic of the Northern Caucasus, which features in the media predominanty when the endless sporadic wars turn into massacres or genocides. In this inaccessible and inhospitable land, enclosed between two seas, Monteleone has found his theme. A scrupulous narrator, he follows the line drawn by “concerned photography”, and by linking images he constructs a narrative of places and people. In a geographic area as large and rugged as this, the morphology disappears into the fragments of a photograph formed in the perfect square of the medium format: it is forced to share the vision of the author, with no possibility of escape. The desire to tell a story is clear, far from being left to chance, there is a perfect coherence and continuity. And it’s not a coincidence that the work is shot mainly on film: the moment that the shutter is released is distinct from the moment of selection, dilating the need for narrative and releasing it from a sense of urgency to allow it to follow the pace of the journey. Meticulous, attentive to detail and interiors, Monteleone opens his vision to the landscape allowing natural light to define the nuances of colour and the changing seasons. An invisible presence inside the houses, he describes a private world and alternates it with the vision of a scarred and desolate landscape, in a balanced dialogue between the individual and his environment. The photographer knows that it is not enough just to travel for miles, it is necessary to have a centre from which to explore; he goes to Grozny and, over a three year period, in addition to Chechnya, he travels to South and North Ossetia, Abkhazia, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Karachay-Cherkessia. He lives in the places he talks about, interested in the people, he learns to understand their words and their behaviour. Each image in this book contains a complex story in which the photographer plays the difficult role of being a witness of events and the guardian of memory, weaving together the stories of the Caucasus and the stories of these men and women. In the best of cases, when an artist photographs he is searching for himself. Witnessing events, he digs into his own feelings. That is why the work is not just a fresco evoking the political and social nature of conflicts and their dramatic

117

consequences. He goes further, achieving a powerful lyricism through his ability to evoke, and to show more closely, a painful world, never just simply chronicling it or describing the geography. And so, the reverence of the author can be seen in the portraits of women – resigned protagonists – in the images of tombstones and shrines as well as in the buildings destroyed by the explosions of yesterday or today, and the memory of the war finds its place between private tragedy and collective drama. As with every story, that of the Caucasus is also full of puzzles, of questions without an answer. That is why from time to time, open to doubt, Monteleone lets himself give way to surreal images, which are able to hold on to the small mysteries, and to disrupt the conscious balance with which he has built this work. He returns to the magical power of photography, which doesn’t confirm things, but continually proposes new questions. Renata Ferri

Captions ABKHAZIA Abkhazia, one of the most popular tourist destinations during the period of the former Soviet Union, is struggling to revive its economy and revitalise its tourism following the war and the embargo in which it was involved during the 1990s. Although the process of reconstruction has begun, signs of the separatist war of 1992-1993 are still evident, in particular the abandoned houses of more than 200,000 Georgians who once lived in the region. In 2008, as a result of tensions between Russia and Georgia in South Ossetia, Abkhazia was recognised as an independent state by Russia, with which it has military and economic agreements.

RUSSIA ADYGEA Cherkessk

INGUSHETIA

KARACHAYCHERKESSIA

Nalchik KABARDINOBALKARIA

Nazran NORTH OSSETIA

ABKHAZIA

Vladikavkaz

Sukhumi SOUTH OSSETIA Tskhinvali

BL AC K SEA

C A SP I A N SEA

CHECHNYA Grozny

DAGESTAN

p.2 an Abkhazian soldier on patrol in the Kodori valley; p.12-13 soldiers in the central square of Sukhumi celebrate the anniversary of victory in the 1992 conflict; p.19 A boy and his father at a funeral; p.20 Georgian grave near Gali; p.21 an abandoned building, once inhabited by Georgians, near Gali; p.22-23 People reach out to the President at a military parade during celebrations for the recognition of ‘independence’; p.30-31 view of the upper Kodori valley; p.34-35 an Abkhazian soldier in the woods of the upper Kodori Valley; p.48 in the days of celebration of the victory against Georgia and recognition by Russia, men play cards in the market in Sukhumi; p.49 a traditional dance performance in the theatre in Sukhumi; p.77 in the countryside near Pitsunda; p.78 abandoned house near Gali; p.86 meat market in the centre of Sukhumi; p.89 a wedding in the countryside of Ochinchira; p.94-95 men from the Turkish Abkhaz diaspora in a bar in Sukhumi.

Makhachkala

GEORGIA Tbilisi

TURKEY

AZERBAJAN

CHECHNYA Chechnya. After the bloody wars of the 1990s, and despite the end of the state of emergency, Chechnya is a country where you still cannot talk about peace. According to leading human rights organisations observing the Caucasus, the same soldiers and Chechen police – mostly former rebels and now controlled by pro-Russian President Kadyrov – are responsible for incidents of violence, abuse and political abductions which have led to civilian deaths.

121

p.8 the house of Maila, the mother of ten children. Two of them, Muslim and Murad, 18 and 20 years old, studied at a madrasah in Grozny, and were considered good Muslims. One August night, they were abducted by car from outside the mosque. A month later Maila received a call from Muslim saying, “We are in the forest, Mother”. Local police believe that the young men have joined the armed Islamic guerrillas. Maila does not believe this and still leaves the door open at night hoping for their return; p.16-17 Grozny, in the old central market; p.36 soldiers patrol the road from Grozny to Shatoi; p.71 Zony, families from different clans come together to make peace after a murder that happened 53 years ago. Forging peace between different clans is an Islamic tradition strongly supported by President Ramzan Kadyrov; p.73 girls in traditional dress dance at the inauguration of Grozny’s new airport; p.76 Shalai, inside a traditional courtyard; p.106 a family reunion in Stary Atagy p.110-111 celebrating Dhikr (a mystic Sufi ritual involving abandonment to a form of trance).

wife, was one of the women who blew themselves up in the Moscow subway on March 29, 2010, killing 39 people; p.41 in the mountains on the border with Chechnya; p.44-45 the sacrifice of a bull in the village of Gimry, where there was a fierce offensive of 3,000 Russian government forces against a group of 30 armed rebels, following the attempted assassination of the deputy head of the Ministry of the Interior. The village was blockaded by federal forces until the end of 2008 and has been subjected to numerous incidents of abuse, torture and violation of human rights; p.59 a woman during the celebration of Maulid; p.68-69 along the Mozdok-Kazi Magomed pipeline. On 12 January 2010, a bomb exploded at the 496 km point causing an explosion visible more than 10 km away; p.98 training to wrestle; p.99 training to wrestle; p.104105 group of men at prayer; p.107 along the Mozdok-Kazi Magomed pipeline; p.108109 members of the SOB, special forces used in anti-terrorism operations, prepare for a mission; p.114-115 mountains on the border between Chechnya and Dagestan.

DAGESTAN Dagestan is the largest, most populous and multi-ethnic Russian Caucasus, with no national group in the majority. The need to balance the ethnic composition of government at every level brings added complexity to the region. It was here, in 1999, that the event that triggered the second Chechen war took place, an offensive by Islamist fighters seeking to establish an independent Islamic state in the Caucasus.

INGUSHETIA Ingushetia, with a population of around half a million people, is the scene of daily bombings and clashes between the authorities and Islamic rebels. In 2009 alone there were over 300 fatalities. Radical Islam is seen as influencing young people because of the difficult economic situation and high unemployment which affects more than 50% of the population. In addition, the region is still suffering the consequences of the huge influx of Ingush refugees (about 240,000) who fled from the conflict in the neighbouring republics of Chechnya and North Ossetia during the 1990s.

p.18 a woman during the celebration of Maulid (an assembly in praise of the mercy of Allah); p.37 monument to Imam Shamil, an Islamic hero of the Caucasus; p.38 Gubden cemetery, where former police chief Abdulmalik Magomedov was killed and buried by Islamic militants in 2008. Many blame the police for organising death squads, and for many acts of violence in the village; p.39 on the way to the village of Gubden, scene of many anti-terrorism operations in which the mujahideen led by Magomedali Vagabov, one of the leading commanders of the area’s Islamic Resistance, were the main target. Maryam Sharipova, Vagabov’s

p.6 in a car in the Prigorodny district: p.24 the Kartoev family. On March 2, 2010, following a special operation in Ekazhevo in the Nazran district, four brothers – Tukhan, Nazir, Ahmed and Magomed Kartoev – were killed and three other brothers arrested. Their house was ransacked and blown up. Initially accused of having participated in the 2009 ‘Neva Express’ train attack, they were then charged as the protagonists of a previous explosion which had taken place in

2007. According to the family, the bodies of the four murdered brothers were never returned for burial. On 3 March 2010, the operation led to the killing of Said Buryatskiy, a major Islamic militant leader in the Caucasus. p.61 Madina Albakova. At dawn on 10 July 2009, a group of unidentified men knocked on the door of her house in Nazran taking away her son, Batyr, without any explanation. Weeks later, Madina discovered through the Internet that her son had been killed on the border with Chechnya, officially during a firefight with the personal guards of the Chechen President Kadyrov; p.90 a bride during a wedding. By tradition the bride is taken to the home of her husband’s family. There she stands in the corner of a room while guests, mainly men, come for three days to pay homage to the couple. The bride cannot talk to anyone other than through the intercession of another woman. A token payment is given by anyone who asks a question and the money, kept in a small silk purse, goes towards the marriage dowry; p.91 guests during a traditional wedding; p.100-101 a Chechen refugee at home in a refugee camp in Nazran. KABARDINO-BALKARIA Kabardino-Balkaria, North Caucasus autonomous republic, has a one-third Russian population with the balance made up of two different ethnic groups, descendants of Kabarda and Balkaria. It was recently recognised by the Interior Minister of the Russian Republic as the second most violent Caucasus, along with Dagestan. Serious incidents took place in the capital in October 2005, and in 2010 violence between armed rebels, the authorities and the various ethnic groups returned with the killing by Russian police of the Kabarda rebel leader Anzor Astemirov, (from the majority ethnic group), demonstrating the critical state in which the different groups still coexist. In the first nine months of 2010, 117 attacks were recorded and it seems unlikely that violence will subside. p.10 Nalchik, on the outskirts of Alexandra, where, in 2004, the local mosque was closed following charges of Islamic fundamentalism; p.11 prison and court in Nalchik, buildings specifically constructed for the ‘Nalchik Attack’ trial and next to the SIZO (pretrial detention centre). Inside 59 men are detained, accused of one of the worst outrages in the country. On the morning of 13 October 2005 more than 200 guerrillas simultaneously attacked around a dozen buildings housing members of the security forces and military. The fighting

lasted more than two days and resulted in the death of 95 guerrillas, 12 civilians and 35 law enforcement officers; p.25 The sister and father of Shogenov Aslan, one of the victims of the ‘Nalchik Attack’, inside the Shogenov family home. The Russian authorities refused to hand over the bodies of victims to relatives for burial, and to this day the Shogenov family have been denied a place in the public cemetery; p.55 inside the Nakane family home. Originally from Georgia, most of its members chose to embrace the Islamic religion. Zalim Jambulat plays with his grandson, whose father, Badjour, aged 22, was kidnapped by masked men and ‘accused’ of being an Islamic extremist; p.56 In the Mironov family home. Zamira, Edik Mironov’s wife, was arrested for complicity in the ‘Nalchik Attack’ of October 13, 2005; p.57 Kudaieva Fatima, mother of Kudaiev Rasul, a former Guantanamo detainee, arrested in Nalchik on charges of involvement in the preparation of the ‘Nalchik Attack’. According to several sources, Rasul Kudayev was at home at the time of the incident, an alibi confirmed by his brother, relatives, neighbours and his lawyer. A national youth wrestling champion, Kudayev travelled to Central Asia in 2001 to continue his sports career and his religious training. Suspected of being a Russian spy, he was arrested in Afghanistan, where he remained until the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001, before being handed over by Northern Alliance forces to the United States. In February 2004 the USA extradited him to Russia subject to the guarantee that he would not face torture. His mother is convinced of his innocence. p.70 Soviet blockade in the mountains. KARACHAY-CHERKESSIA Karachay-Cherkessia is a small autonomous republic of the Russian Federation with a population of 430,000 people. Because of its close ethnic and geographic links with Kabardino-Balkaria, in recent years it has suffered extreme consequences from the the attack on Nalchik on 13 October 2005. It has remained at the centre of aggressive police raids attempting to flush out the culprits, and their associates, and fear and intimidation have often been deliberately employed. p.9 Arkhyz, one of the most economically promising towns of the republic. It is a centre of tourism, recreation and organised sports in the mountains, and is not far from Sochi, the Black Sea resort, where the next Winter Olympics will be held in 2014.

NORTH AND SOUTH OSSETIA Ossetia, the region north of the Caucasus on the border between Georgia and Russia, is divided administratively into North Ossetia, known as ‘Alania’ in Russia and South Ossetia, formally part of Georgia. In 1990, North Ossetia was first to declare independence from the Soviet Union and to address the serious confrontations generated by internal divisions, never really resolved, as well as the flow of thousands of displaced South Ossetians from areas of historically ‘Ingush’ population. South Ossetia has had de facto independence since 1991. On the night of the 8th of August 2008, Georgia launched a military offensive to regain control over the disputed region of South Ossetia. This provoked a counterattack by Russia and led to fierce fighting around the capital. The region was finally recognised as a sovereign state by Russia on August 26, 2008, and shortly afterwards by Nicaragua and Venezuela

Ramzan Akhmetovic Kadyrov 35 years old, married, six children. A former separatist rebel, he has been President of the Republic of Chechnya since 2007; member of the Putinist party, United Russia; hero of Russia (2004). Son of Akhmat Kadyrov, a former Chechen president assassinated like all his predecessors. Kadyrov has survived a dozen assassination attempts. Hobbies: Boxing, luxury cars, weapons. Faith: Sufi Islam. Positives: Grozny rebuilt from the ashes in three years, with funding from Moscow. Amnestied rebels, reinstated local police.

p.27 a group of girls in the main square of Tskhinvali during a concert; p.32 a Russian tank in the Roksky tunnel, the only access route to South Ossetia from Russia; p.33 the exit from the Roksky tunnel; p.46 photographs of the victims of the terrorist attack of September 1, 2004 at Beslan School No.1; p.47 inside an ancient Orthodox monastery near Dampalet; p.50 a child plays in the streets of the capital Tskhinvali in the days following the conflict between Russia and Georgia; p.51 a woman celebrating Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia’s independence; p.60 elderly Russian woman who didn’t leave her home during the Georgian bombings near Dmenis; p.62 a refugee woman who returned to Khetagurovo at the end of the conflict; p.67 boy fleeing from Tskhinvali during the fighting in the area between Russia and Georgia; p.74-75 queuing for bread in the capital, in the days following the clashes between Georgia and Russia; p.80-81 a Georgian woman in bed in her house in the days following the bombing of Tskhinvali; p.84-85 family in the first Georgian village bordering Mugut; p.87 part of a destroyed Georgian tank; p.88 building in the centre of Tskhinvali destroyed by a Georgian bomb; p.96-97 women remember the night of the Georgian attack on Khetagurovo.

Portrait of Kadyrov, Chechnya, 2008.

122

Negatives: gross violations of human rights of Chechen civilians, accused of ordering the murder of at least three opponents abroad, and of being involved in the murders of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the human rights campaigner Natalia Estemirova. Famous phrases: “Our critics are enemies of the Republic and of Russia.”

Acknowledgements This book is the result of four years of work. It gave me the opportunity to discover a new world in which many people have made an important contribution. I want to begin by thanking those who have guided me in these places, accompanied me, told me things, listened and accepted: Heda Saratova, Aznat Getagazova, Iyaz Getagatov, Amir Amirov, Ibraghim Arsanov, Hadjimurad Kamalov, Gulnara Rustamova, Bella Shakmirza, Mogamed Abubakarov, and all the families and the people who gave me their time and their willingness to be photographed. I would not have been able to complete the project without the support of many institutions, colleagues and friends: The Aftermath Foundation, Burn Magazine, Freelens, Balkan Observatory, David Allan Harvey, Gabriele Basilico, Marianne Batrashevsky, Massimo Berruti, Elena Boille, Stephanie Bunk, Giovanna Calvenzi, Ignacio Coccia, Alessandro Cosmelli, Fabio Cuttica, Marion Durand, Ruth Eichhorn, Tiziana Faraoni, Francesca Ferretti, Maurizio Garofalo, Simona Ghizzoni, Roberto Koch, Andrey Kotov, Emiliano Larizza, Alexander Lillenurm, Martino Lombezzi, Alessandra Mauro, Stephen Mayes, Christopher Morris, Anna Nemzova, Enrico Stefanelli, Chiara Oggioni Tiepolo, Gaia Tripoli, Eligio Paoni, Nick Papadopoulos, Mario Peliti, Lorenzo Poli, Vera Politkovskaya, Kira Pollack, Daniele Protti, Simon Rasmussen, Livia Regali, BenoĂŽt Rivero, Antonella Sava, Roberta Senes, Barbara Strauss, Giordano Teddoni, Vanessa Tonnini, Jamie Wellford, Patrik Witty, Anna Zekria. I owe a special thanks to Giulia Tornari for her support throughout my career and Renata Ferri for her continued support, invaluable advice and friendship. I would also like to thank the publishers for selecting my project and for the realisation of this book in its various editions: Actes Sud, Dewi Lewis Publishing, Kehrer Verlag, Peliti Associati. Thanks to Lucia Sgueglia, who shared this adventure with me, wrote the stories in this book and was a great travelling companion. Finally, thanks to my parents for their continued enthusiasm and for their support of everything I do.

This book was awarded The European Publishers Award for Photography 2011 Eighteenth Edition The jury, which met in Paris, comprised: Klaus Kehrer (Kehrer Verlag, Germany) Dewi Lewis (Dewi Lewis Publishing, United KIngdom) Mario Peliti (Peliti Associati, Italy) BenoĂŽt Rivero, project leader 2011 (Actes Sud, France) Leopoldo Blume (Blume, Spain) as an observer John Demos (Apeiron, Greece) as a former group member Michel Frizot, photographic historian, Director of Research at CNRS (Paris) as the guest external juror

First published in the UK in 2012 by Dewi Lewis Publishing 8 Broomfield Road Heaton Moor Stockport SK4 4ND England www.dewilewispublishing.com ISBN: 978-1-907893-16-2 All rights reserved © Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2012 © for the photographs: Davide Monteleone © for the texts: Lucia Sgueglia © for the afterword: Renata Ferri © for the extended captions: Davide Monteleone

Edited by: Benoît Rivero Design: David Barel Proofing: Laurence Catanèse Production: Géraldine Lay Photogravure: Terre Neuve, Arles Translation: Emma Lewis Printed in June 2012 at EBS, Verona, Italy