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Yeah, just let people enjoy whatever frame they enjoy. I (used to) do urban exploration when traveling, especially in frozen conflict areas, unrecognized state
by Uberphallus 8y ago
Yeah, just let people enjoy whatever frame they enjoy.
I (used to) do urban exploration when traveling, especially in frozen conflict areas, unrecognized states and similar, so I do tons of photography of stuff most people isn't interested in, can't comprehend, and potentially illegally.
You talk to locals, do homestays, and hike? Cool, I do that too, but my goals are my goals, yours are yours. I move quick and fast because the spots I'm interested in are far in between and will require time and study to explore safely, evade surveillance and the like.
One of my coolest trips I only knew long after the fact. I travelled to Abkhazia, a breakaway state from Georgia. There was a war between them in the early 90s and there were plenty of things to have a look at for me.
Among them, I visited an abandoned beach resort hotel in Sukhumi. I have plenty of pictures and footage from inside. As I usually do, I collected some kind of souvenir, in this case, a check-in form, because yeah, back in the day they were on paper. From that document, I got to know that it was called Hotel Tbilisi, a very bad name for the Georgia-hating Abkhazia, so it doesn't even appear on Google with that name (or any name, for that matter).
Fast forward a few years, and my wife starts explaining my weird travel kink to my mother-in-law (they're Ukrainian). So I start showing some pictures, and bam, full front picture of the hotel. She was like "that's in Sukhumi, right?". Yeah, right. It happened that my in-laws had their honeymoon in exactly that hotel, before the war and the collapse of the Soviet Union; she recognized the interiors, the check-in form, the surroundings. It was a sad, happy, and powerful moment that made us feel closer.
- tasuki 8y agoPictures and more info please :)
- Uberphallus 8y agoDon't have access to the pictures (I'm at work), but I have a video[0] I recorded on my way out (missing the rooftop, unfortunately). The biggest trouble I had in Abkhazia was regarding the visa. You first have to obtain an entry permit, and with it collect the visa at the Ministry of Interior (IIRC) up to 2 days after entry. Mine was a 3 day visa. The problem was that I arrived on Saturday, and it was closed, Sunday, closed, and Monday that I wanted to leave it was some national holiday as well. So I had no way to collect the visa, nor the visa would be valid if I stayed until Tuesday. So on my way out they didn't want me to leave. Fortunately one of the soldiers was understanding and let me through, but only after about 4 hours of questioning and inspection of my stuff. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSi88CLRuZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSi88CLRuZE (around 6:30 for the moment I collect the check in form) Edit: found a picture [1] of the border checkpoint. This is illegal, they spotted me and made me delete the picture. I kept that SD card aside the rest of the trip so I could recover the deleted files. They reason there are horse cars is because no motor vehicles are allowed to cross in/out except for certain people. Enjoy! [1] https://i.imgur.com/7uWzera.jpg https://i.imgur.com/7uWzera.jpg
- tasuki 8y agoSuper interesting - thank you! Also quite brave.