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Object 221

Take yourself back 20 years. On a rocky hill of Soviet (now Ukraine’s) Crimea not far from Sevastopol, there is a mid-sized nondescript building. At least that’s what it looks like.

It’s not.

While giving all appearances of a normal building from afar, walking up to it you realize that it is simply a giant concrete block on the side of the hill. The windows are fake, painted on. There are no rooms inside. Only one small entrance tunnels through the concrete and enters the rocky mountain behind it, burrowing 200 meters deep into the rock.

Welcome to Object 221, the ultra-secret Soviet Black Sea Fleet Command Complex. Now entirely abandoned and looted of all furnishings, only a few even today know of its existence and whereabouts.

Armed with simply head lights and a guide (Soviet history buff Adam Contra http://www.lacontra4x4.webs.com/), we make our way deep into the chilly, pitch-black tunnels to explore the multi-leveled command bunker hidden deep inside the mountain…

Secret Soviet Subs

Twenty years ago, had I come anywhere near this facility, I would have been shot. Well, probably interrogated for months by the KGB, then shot.

A few miles from Sevastopol, one of the most restricted cities in the former Soviet Union, lies the even more restricted town of Balaklava. It is here that the Soviets carved into the Crimean rock a secret nuclear submarine base, capable of withstanding a direct nuclear hit and subsequently opening its massive blast doors to release its subs and unleash from the waters of the Criman Black Sea a devastating nuclear “second-strike.”

Times have changed, the Soviet Union is no more, the last Russian submarine departed in 1996, the base in what is now Ukraine has been decommissioned and opened as a museum, and tourists can now put their Tom Clancy book down and marvel at the sight of the real thing: what once was one of the most secret and dangerous locations of the Cold War arms race.

Odessa Mama!

No doubt about it: Odessa rocks. In southern Ukraine on the Black Sea, this port and party town is both beautiful and seductive…

Kamyanets-Podilsky Beats Disney

Sure, Disney World’s got the rides and goofy guys dressed up as cartoon characters, but this castle in western Ukraine is the real deal. Plus how can you argue with a village name like Kamyanets-Podilsky?

Philosophy of Fountains

After spending time doing street photography by one of Lviv’s fountains, I came to the realization that a fountain serves three essential purposes in life:

1) Can happily distract even the most ADD-afflicted kid for hours
2) Provides a great excuse for people to pose for pictures and “strut their stuff”
3) Serves as a massive cuddling aphrodisiac for couples

Behold:

Stalking the Square

Street photography definition: a type of documentary photography that features subjects in candid situations within public places such as streets, parks, beaches, malls, political conventions, and other settings.

The setting here is the central city square of Lviv…

Lviv in Streets and Churches

Ukraine’s western city of Lviv, just shy of the Polish border, is one of the few lucky cities in the region to have survived both WWII and subsequent Soviet occupation with its historic city center intact (unlike, say, Warsaw, which was reduced to a pile of rubble and had to be completely rebuilt).

In completely unrelated news, my sister Sylviane and I spent the day roaming the streets like the mad photographers that we are, hehe. Here is the first installment:

Chicken a la Kiev

I picked my little sister Sylviane up at the airport in Kiev and she shot out of there like a bat out of hell, snapping pictures at everyone and everything like the world was going to end in one hour. Shocked and awed into stupefied silence, I eventually came to the conclusion that I, too, should take a few pictures of Kiev.

And voila.

Veni Vidi Vilnius

Vilnius is the capital of southernmost of the three Baltic countries, Lithuania, which during the 14th century was the largest country in Europe. Unlike Russia and its Baltic neighbors to the north, Lithuania is predominantly Catholic and Vilnius boasts a surprising amount of churches and cathedrals.

One fascinating tradition is for newlyweds to attach a padlock to a bridge, symbolizing the planned permanence of their union.

Love in Lithuania

So while in Vilnius, Lithuania, I decided to round up a Lithuanian couple and shoot a few images…