(a story by Paolo Quadrini/S4C NYC)

On May 11, 2026, a demonstration titled “Shut Down the Illegal Sale of Stolen Palestinian Land” began in the Midwood area of Brooklyn, near the Young Israel of Midwood synagogue, where a real estate event connected to properties in Israel and the disputed West Bank territories was taking place. The protest brought together pro-Palestinian activists, local residents, human rights organizations, as well as groups of ultra-Orthodox and anti-Zionist Jewish activists from New York, who attended to express opposition to the policies of the State of Israel and support for the Palestinian cause.

During the demonstration, participants carried signs, flags, and banners while police set up security barriers and monitored the area to maintain public order. As the evening progressed, tensions escalated between protesters and counter-protesters, and several individuals were detained or arrested by law enforcement following clashes and the throwing of objects.

The event unfolded within the broader context of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an issue that continues to generate strong reactions far beyond the Middle East.  

Join us for an evening of inspiration as we celebrate the opening of the first photo exhibition by a group of talented young Ukrainian refugees in Brussels!

Over the past months, Shoot4Change, the atelier ciné-photo de la Maison des Cultures de Molenbeek and the Ukrainian Civil Society Hub joined forces,  with the support of AT&T and others, and provided these children with free Photography classes, allowing them to express their emotions and overcome the stereotypes and traumas associated with war.

Through this exhibition, these young photographers aim to showcase a new reality, beyond the images of Russian aggression in Ukraine that dominate the media and social networks.

Next Monday we will present some inspiring portraits of their families, shot by this new generation of storytellers.

The result is a powerful testament to the transformative power of photography and the resilience of these young artists.

We invite you to join us at the Ukraine Civil Society Hub at the Station Europe in Place Luxembourg (in front of the European Parliament) on Monday, April 3rd at 18:00, to witness the creativity and resilience of these talented young artists

Working with these talented kids has been truly exciting and inspiring. There is nothing better than unleashing kids creativity!

Let's come together to celebrate the power of photography and the voices of these young storytellers, then.

Remember, some stories disappear without anybody to tell them. But storytellers are nothing without anybody listening to them.

See you there!

Antonio Amendola

 

(la versione in italiano e la gallery completa sul blog di Edoardo. Clicca qui)

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SUMMARY:

Edoardo Agresti's new reportage is about the history of Abkhazia and the displacement of over 200,000 Georgians due to the conflict that arose in the region after its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Many of the displaced Georgians settled in Tskaltubo, a once-popular Soviet-era spa town that was a favorite among Eastern Europeans seeking rest and relaxation in its thermal waters rich in radon and nitrogen. Stalin himself had visited the town in the 1930s and established a spa of excellence where Soviet citizens could benefit from 20 days of free treatment each year. Today, many of the Soviet-era spa buildings are in a state of disrepair and have been occupied by refugee families, many of whom have been living in the crumbling structures for three decades. Despite government efforts, many families remain in these unsafe structures due to the lack of alternative housing options.

In the years in which the USSR ceased to exist under the blows of Gorbachev's perestroika, secessionist sentiments were fueled in some regions in the north of present-day Georgia. After the latter declared its independence from the now dissolved Soviet Union in 1991, the region of Abkhazia proclaimed itself an independent republic.

This ignited, the following year, a violent conflict with the newly formed Georgia which claimed its territoriality.

The war ended in 1993, with the conquest by Abkhaz secessionists, aided by the Russian military, of the capital Sukhumi and the signing of a peace treaty in Geneva, which however never led to a definitive cessation of hostilities. In 1994, the Sukhumi parliament proclaimed the sovereignty of the Republic of Abkhazia recognized however only by 6 sovereign states including Russia, Venezuela and Cuba.

In those years, dramatic phenomena of "ethnic cleansing" followed one another: in the spring of 1995 the Georgians present in Abkhazia - who in 1989 still constituted 45% of the population - were now reduced to only 35,000.

 

Partly victims of the persecutions carried out by the Abkhaz, partly refugees in the face of the climate of violence and massacres - officially recognized by the international community - over 200,000 Georgians were therefore forced to abandon their homes and undertake a long journey across the Caucasian mountains. Many of them, for the past thirty years, have settled in Tskaltubo, the Georgian city once crowded with Soviet oligarchs, Lenin above all, who spent the winter in the sumptuous city 'sanatoriums' amidst massages and therapeutic treatments thanks to the healing properties of the thermal waters rich in radon and nitrogen.

 

Here, until 1989, hundreds of thousands of people came every year from all over Eastern Europe to rest, have fun and treat respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, thanks to the therapeutic qualities of the local spas.

As early as the 1930s, the chemical composition of Tskaltubo water - the very high levels of radon and nitrogen keep the temperature stable at around 35°C - was the focus of extensive hydrogeological studies by Soviet scientists.

No other source on the entire Eurasian continent had similar characteristics.

When Stalin first visited the area in 1933, he was struck by the fact that just 200km from his hometown of Gori, there was a place where the water had the same temperature as the human body and was able to fight over sixty different diseases.

He therefore established that the thermal city of the people would be born there and in just nine months a gigantic marble palace was built connected to the "miraculous" springs.

Thus was born one of the first great wellness centers in the Union, a spa of excellence where Soviet citizens could benefit from 20 days of free treatment every year.

 

In the "Stalin's bathroom", as the imposing white building in the center of the area is still called today, all the top leaders of the Union and the most important allies relaxed. Stalin resided for several weeks a year in the current Legends SPA Resort which has kept intact over time - it was built in 1947 - its original structure thanks also to a profound restoration.

On the side of the central body is the building that housed the Soviet dictator's study, living room and personal bedroom, whose original furnishings have been left as they were at the time he stayed.

 

A few hundred meters from the shiny white columns of the "Stalin's Bath", there is an old hotel with blackened walls and cracked windows. Rotten wood on the balconies, makeshift curtains to cover the holes and some battered satellite antennas that emerge from the terraces. In its heyday it was a "sanatorium", now refugee families live there.

2023 represents a dramatic anniversary for many of them who have been living in a situation of total degradation for three decades, continuing to occupy the old 'sanatoriums' now reduced to crumbling and unsafe structures. The Georgian police do not want people to visit these places, perhaps to hide the partial inefficiency of the government which has not yet managed to find alternative housing for the remaining families.

Entering the park and climbing the stairs in front of the main entrances, one can imagine how beautiful these buildings were. Powerful architectures with arches supported by huge marble columns. Elegant stairways that converge in large colonnaded halls. Walking through the corridors now destroyed by time, you come across objects that underlie stories: a worn suitcase, an elegant woman's shoe, a pair of broken glasses.

Who knows what stories behind each of these things.

Like that of Gucha, one of the few remaining occupants in the old houses that were the lodgings of the athletes of the large sports hall: 'I was a soldier and I fought against the Russians during the war, but then I had to flee and take refuge here with my wife in Tskaltubo.' He proudly flashes his war veteran's ID card, scant consolation after fighting to defend his homeland. His wife, Tarejan, has not lost her smile and sense of hospitality.

In many buildings life is perceived, but not observed. In the morning the 'rooms' remain empty. A few clothes hanging on the walls, perhaps the only clean change. A book on Florida (perhaps an impossible dream), calendars that mark a time that never seems to pass. A few illustrations on the peeling walls where the wallpaper has now worn out.

The image of the Madonna and some saints so as not to lose hope for a better future. Someone has found a job as a taxi driver, but doesn't have enough money to find new accommodation. Local photographers take a newly wed couple to do the 'exteriors' in these decadent places, a sort of unaware of Dark Tourism.

 

On September 30, Abkhazia celebrates "Independence Day". On that day, in 1993, the entire region (with the exception of the Kodori gorge) came under the control of the independence activists. In Georgia, on the other hand, September 27 of the same year is remembered with particular pain, the day of the fall of Sukhumi, the last Georgian bastion in Abkhaz land.

Edoardo Agresti/S4C

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Note of the Editor:

I have discussed at length with Morteza, the author of this article, and we decided not to publish the images of the persons mentioned here in order not to expose their (and their families) safety in these dangerous times in Afghanistan. Morteza showed me a large amount of beautiful photos but publishing them would make the authors known and, hence, target of the taliban fanatism against creative visual communication and expression.

Unfortunately, in Afghanistan all forms of art are currently prohibited. Musicians, artists and photographers have destroyed everything they owned and live in hiding or have already left the country and live in an unstable condition in neighbouring countries.

For example, of those mentioned in this article, Reza is in Iran and Morteza tries to help him organise an exhibition in Tehran and at the same time teaches photography to young talents in different cities of the country.

Feel free to reach out to me or Morteza if you want to learn more about these incredibly courageous photographers in Afghanistan. 

And this is a message to them: You are not alone, guys. Keep telling your stories and we'll share them here. Keep expressing yourselves through Photography. You are not alone.

Let us know how we can help. We’ll do our part.

Antonio Amendola/S4C

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A story by Morteza Khaleghi

August 15th was a day no Afghan can forget. We had known for days that something big and bad was happening in the country, a change that was frightening us, the return to power of the Taliban seemed imminent. That day what felt like a distant memory became reality again. The regime returned to Kabul.

I have been feeling very nervous and restless for the past months. When the city fell, I tried to call my relatives and friends in Kabul, no one could believe it! Everyone was speechless. The terrorists conquered the city and were driving through the streets of the capital with their pickups.

I experienced a feeling of existential helplessness and uselessness. I kept thinking about all the people that had their life in danger and that were looking for help. I was trying to find a way to support people I knew who were risking their lives. My artist friend Nazir, who had called me from Herat a few days before the city fell into the hands of the Taliban, had told me that his city was going to fall, artists like him, who are committed to educating young artists, particularly women, would be persecuted. He asked me for help and moved to Kabul with a group of his students to look for a solution to get out of the country: that same day a bomb exploded in the airport of the capital, killing more than 100 people. 

He had to close his art gallery and hid all the works because the Taliban destroy any form of art, from paintings and miniatures to musical instruments. They are the greatest enemies of art and culture because they know the role they play in people's education.

I felt responsible to my artist friends who have been on the front of the war against ignorance for years, so with the collaboration of the Afghan community in Rome we organized an artistic event. We decided to organize “Afghan Rewind” to create a sense of community for the diaspora in Rome and, at the same time, raise awareness of the Italian public opinion. I invited Shahab Eslami, a kabul-based artist, and founder of an art collective “Induction”. 

I’ve been keeping up with their work for a few years,because the way they live the reality of Afghanistan was a source of inspiration for me, and I found very unique the way they express and present themselves in the artistic sphere of the country. 

They use photography as a way to express their inner self and to explore the context in which they exist, on the other hand most of Afghanistan's artistic community describe the afghan society in the way the external world wants them to.

For “Induction”, cameras are not only an instrument to describe the tragic reality, but a device that gives them the possibility to be free to imagine, experiment, play around, explore their environment.

The group is composed of young members that had put a lot of fate in the future of the artistic scene of Afghanistan. They dreamt of a richer and more dynamic cultural life in their country and worked restlessly toward this goal. somehow they revolutionised afghan photography, by taking some distance by big NGOs and international institutions that lure them into producing a kind of work that was useful for their philanthropic and political agenda: they had enough of the same old monothematic narrative of poor and a war devastated country and they wanted to talk about themselves and more personal thematics like philosophy and psychology through e new representation of Kabul. 

They soon realized that the society was not ready to recognise their talent and at the same time the Taliban took power. The collective fell apart, some members managed to save their lives and fled the country only to find themselves surviving in difficulty in the neighboring countries, while others are still stuck there. 

The other photography group I contacted was “Everyday Golshahr”. The collective was born in Golshahr, a marginalised neighborhood in the periphery of Mashhad, the second biggest city in Iran, very close to the Afghan borders. 40 years ago this neighborhood was repopulated by the afghan refugees that escaped the soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and nowadays 80% of the area population is of Afghan descent. The girls and boys who funded the collective are second generation afghans. They found in Photography a medium they can use to narrate their daily life. the majority of their work is captured by simple smartphones which makes it accessible to everyone, especially young people. 

 

Reza Heidari is one of them, he fell in love with photography.

The first time he approached photography was when he left as a volunteer to help the victims of the Bam earthquake in 2003. This was the occasion that inspired his first photo report.

Reza understood the importance of storytelling and decided to teach photography to people who lived the same conditions as him, Afghan refugee boys who lived on the fringes of Iranian society.

With the collaboration of some other youngsters from his neighborhood he founded the Everyday Golshahr project and they started doing workshops and photographic walks with the community, inviting their Iranian friends, creating moments of conviviality between the two distant and separated communities and sharing experiences and learning from each other. 

By not having regular papers in Iran, Reza's life in the country where he grew up was very difficult and he was never recognized as an integral part of that society. So he decides to return to the country where he was born, Afghanistan. He was only three months old when his family fled the war. After more than three decades he returned to his country of origin empty-handed but with a great desire to share his knowledge and experience with his Afghan compatriots. He started to teach photography courses and workshops and lead a photography course as a visiting professor at the university in Kabul. 

Everything vanishes with the tragic death of his brother in a terrorist attack west of Kabul, where the Hazara minority resides. Dozens of people lose their lives in this attack, including Mostafa, Reza's younger brother. Reza continues to work but no longer feels safe in Afghanistan, as attacks against his community increase, and he begins to receive personal  threats. He has no choice but to leave Afghanistan and return to Iran. He now lives in Iran where he has no rights but continues to work for the community. The future of his sons is a cause of great concern for him: he does not want them to live like him without documents. He dreams to see them grow up in a free society, far from wars and persecutions and the constant fear of getting deported

Morteza Khaleghi/S4C