While traveling through the Balkans or the collection of countries which
were once known as Yugoslavia, My self and Billy Reeves ended up in Skopje in the former Yugoslav republic of
Macadonia. Why were we in Skopje, well it was a little detour, as we
could not cross directly into the unofficial independent state known as
Kosovo which was once part of Serbia which was once formerly part of
Yugoslavia.
On the first morning walking into the city centre, Billy noticed a vacant house with all the doors and windows taken off or smashed. There was an encampment of Gypsies beside it. There was a trail of photographs on the ground leading inside where all the furniture was cleared, and all that remained was hundreds of photos strewn everywhere.
I can only speculate on the strangeness of the vacant house, the most
plausable theory I can think of is the original owner died without
leaving it to anybody. Other people then move through taking all the
furniture or anything of percieved value, then they dump all the photos
on the ground as worthless.
So many memories frozen in time,and hidden away, although the worth of these memories is subjective to the individual. Such as a photo album of family pictures or a wedding, that the owner would risk their own safety to rescue from a flood or fire, while other so called valuables like a TV or computer would be left behind. Yet when the owner of those photos passes on, what is their worth?
The strangest oddity thrown amongst the ransacked debri was an xray of a skull.
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| This room had a calander from 2010 so this gives a clue to when the house was abandoned. |
I love this photo of the men training, it reminds me of a photo by Jason Eskenazi from his wonderland series. Although it's not even one tenth as well taken but for a photo by an anonymous amateur its still arresting.
On the back of this photo was written a message in Macedonian, back in the hostel we were staying I showed this photo to the hostel owner. He translated the writing it read "to my good friend I'm enjoying the training Sofia Bulgaria 1942. I wonder what the connection is to the owners of the vacant house in Skopje, why so many photos of soldiers from Bulgaria but with messages written in Macedonian.
These sets of soldier photos were some of the most interesting. They all look so playful. My favourite is the three troops with their legs in the air with no hint of military might or harsh training.
Perhaps this guy is connected to all the soldiers photos. I don't know what the message on the back of the photo reads.
These photos of funerals once so important to be photographed and kept with care, with good quality well fixed black and white paper hard to come by I imagine in Tito's communist Yugoslavia. Did the owners keep them for posterity or were they kept as a way to deal with grief.
There was a second portrait of this corpse wisen so much with age it's almost hard to determine the gender if it was not for the hat and necktie. Billy had found a photo of the same body but taken further away with a crowd of people gathered around it posing. I don't know which picture is more disturbing. Documenting funerals and bodies were once common but now culturally taboo, but with the current trend of selfies at funerals it seems it could return.
There were dozens of portraits of this woman taken throughout several decades of time, some professionally made in a studio many more snapshots, I assume she or someone who loved her were the owner of the photos.
Again for a photo taken by a anonymous author it's a compelling street
photo. There is no one to give this photo any context, which gives it an air of mystery. Once these were so precious to an individual, now worthless. Left to gather mold and
rot in a house for demolision. It would be crime to let these go to
waste. If it was not for Billys curiousity this would have been the
case otherwise.
Searching through abondoned buildings is much like searching the internet itself, you must sift through so much virtual debri till you find something worthy of memory.
