A day late on this one but here’s a pic taken in Lombok in April last year.
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A day late on this one but here’s a pic taken in Lombok in April last year.
Last week I travelled 26 hours by train to the town of Pyatigorsk in the South of Russia. Pyatigorsk is famous for its mineral springs and has been a health spa since 1803. The town therefore has lots of sanatoriums where people from all over Russia travel to in order to receive treatment. Think of them as hotels for old people where you have daily exercise classes, massages and that sort of thing. Disabled people also come here to receive treatment and there is a dedicated military sanatorium for recovering soldiers. I’d had the idea of trying to photograph inside these pretty mysterious sanatoriums a while ago but hadn’t been able to find out anything about them. I still hadn’t had any luck by the beginning of last week but I had found someone to stay with on CouchSurfing and he was happy to show me around for a couple days. This was my first time couch surfing and, after a good experience, I’d definitely recommend it. I was completely self funding this trip so it saved me a lot of money and my host Roman was really helpful in showing me around the town. Usually the further South you go the warmer it gets; not in Pyatigorsk. It was -25 my first day there and even colder than Moscow.
One particular place in Pyatigorsk I had read about was the грязелечебница (Gryazelechebnitsa) which literally translated means ‘mud bath’. This is a sanatorium where they use mud from a local lake as a form of treatment. You’re covered in this mud and then wrapped up in a canvas for 15 minutes after which you rinse it all off. Apparently its good for you. The first day I turned up it was lunchtime and the place was already closing for the day. However, the lady in charge showed me around and, after describing what they did there, asked me if I wanted to try it out? To her my lack of towel was no excuse and so 5 minutes later I found myself naked and being covered in mud by a rather lovely old Russian woman. It was as scary as it sounds. Anyway, the next day I went back in the morning and was allowed to photograph in the treatment hall. It was quite challenging as a lot of the patients and most of the workers didn’t want to be photographed but then others were more than happy. I had no luck getting into any of the other sanatoriums so I’m very grateful to the lady in charge of this one who was extremely kind and hospitable. So below are my favourite pictures from that 1 hour in the Gryazelechebnitsa, enjoy!
A quick pic from the very cold and uneventful protest in central Moscow today. Despite the temperature being around -20 turnout was estimated at around 100,000.
I can’t really remember where today’s ‘Once upon a time’ picture was taken but I think it was just as we were leaving Paris on route to Vienna. In September 2009 I went interrailing around Europe with a couple of friends. In 3 weeks we visited Paris, Vienna, Prague, Munich, Berlin and Amsterdam and it was honestly the best travelling experience I’ve had. I took an old nikon film camera along with me and it was (perhaps I shouldn’t admit this) my first experience shooting film. Returning back to England I processed the B&W film myself and as you can see I didn’t do the best job with this roll!
Bit of recent work from Moscow. It was amazing weather all last week so most evenings I headed out to find some pictures. The man in the first portrait is Vassily. Despite having just been swimming in a frozen lake and the temperature outside being -15, he was more than happy to pose for a picture. The same day I came across the 2nd man who was running in just shorts, gloves and a hat. Mad. But I’m very grateful to both as its not often Russians will pose for portraits.
