The magazine of the art-form of the photo-essay “A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine.  Fabulous!” Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker Aug 2013 BACK ISSUE by Dina Oganova The place where people spend most of their time can tell us so much more about them than they can. Keta - It's always hard for me to start, it probably has something to do with my laziness but I if I start, I take it to the end. I was about 7 when a beauty contest was organized. I did not understand what it was in the beginning.  I became ‘Miss Smile’  - the only reason why I remember this is because I did not have any teeth at that time.  I am very happy I was born in Georgia.. the 90s are great but I have always wanted to live in another time with no TV, phones, Internet. I would have loved to have been born in Georgia in 18-19th centuries - I would write letters to my family and friends and wait days for them to answer back.  These days you write to somebody on Facebook and they answers back straight away.  I love the Woody Allen film, Midnight in Paris - I feel like I’m the main character! Qeu - There is a feeling of aversion and a feeling of affection. Tbilisi is the city where everybody wears black and at the same time make themselves believe that they look good in it. If people were to wear what they like, be who they really are and show themselves as much as possible everything would be perfect. No-one ever has any desire to do something new, create something, they don't want to because they know what follows. They'd better fit the usual role. They are afraid of other people, they don't have what it takes for trying, they can’t take risks, they'd better be like everybody.  It might be that when they stay alone, they think about it, think about what they want and love but they will never say it out loud. I am handicapped by this environment, I am not able to show the best of what I can do but at the same time the same environment, everything that is happening gives me inspiration to do something. It was as if I was not supposed to be born at all, I almost died when I was born and I'm like a walking dead, half dead half alive. Martha - You should exist only to read, only for art, and you should be a creative artist if you want to live in Batumi during the winter. It's not a city where you can give and share emotions that convey the opposite. I grew up very difficult, so childhood, as presented to others as a colorful world, with all regretting why they must grow up, I was rather glad that I grew up, because I did not have a childhood. I grew up in a difficult family. I grew up with a stepmother. She was a hard person with a lot of psychological problems, which she always dumped on me. It was very hard for her to recognize me, personally as a child. She adopted me just to keep the family, but ineffectually... So I grew up having a lot of traumas, a lot of pain, but still you find your happiness in something. I do not regret that it happened. If I had gone to another family, now I could be an ordinary girl; but this has given me a lot of strength and I am very glad that I have everything that I was destined to have. If you want to feel the power of love, you should start with the people who hurt you the most; you have to love them. This is the first step. After that you can start to love people. Tamar - I have been painting since I was 3 years old. At that time, it was my hobby. During my school years I was doing my own exhibitions, painting family members, and they enjoyed it very much. My profession does not give me a lot of income because it's not so easy to sell art. I've had the opportunity to sell my paintings, but my work means a lot to me, so I never sold them. Now, I have changed my mind and so if anyone offered to buy my paintings again, I would probably agree. I had a regular childhood; I had the pleasure of smoking sometimes. When there were no cigarettes, me and my sister would take small parts of a broom and use them as cigarettes. Because of that, nowadays I smoke too much. Salome - I got a scholarship to study in Germany for a year. I don't really want to go back to Georgia honestly. I will have to go back, I don't have a choice but I don't want to. Nothing is developed enough in Georgia, I am not even talking about art. It's not a priority in Georgia now; and because of financial problems the interest in art is not as big and therefore it's only natural that we have no progress or achievements in art. A lot of people from my generation have an illusion that they are great but how? When there is no simple culture of critique in Georgia. And in the end it happens so that no one can do anything. There are a lot of young people in Germany who are very successful. Our "successful" artists can't even dream about exhibiting in exhibition halls where German young people have their work. Megi Piso - When I was little I always wanted to be an adult. I live in Germany and it was because of my family that I came here. I am studying the language, visiting the countries that you can literally walk to from here. I’ve been here too short a time to start thinking about going back home but sometimes I miss everything so much.  I really want to have a wedding in Paris. I would wear a red dress and ride a white bicycle with flowers in the streets of Paris. It would only be us and the maid of honor and the best man. Then I would drink in the middle of the street and listen to Nino Katamadze play and sing just for me. Kedi - Usually I have moments in my life when I think that I can't write, but then I ask myself: "if you don't write what else will you do?"  My other activities are also connected with writing, I'm a correspondent, I write about conflicts - specifically about war. I've always wanted to leave Georgia and go somewhere outside of this country, when I have problems I always say "at the end of this year I will leave this place", but then I realize that it's just a matter of that specific moment, and I will not have the same view as I have here from my window. Recently, I've had a fear of meat and in general I have many phobias - closed spaces, elevators, people, sometimes books, new shoes, old things and pictures. Yana - I have been living in Georgia for the past 11 years. I was born in Kaliningrad. I moved here because my dad wanted to. He always said that he had to go back to where he was from. I had to move from one school to another a lot when we lived in Russia. I switched schools 4 times, 3 times in Russia and the last time when I moved to Tbilisi. It was absolutely horrible - changing schools 3 times.  After the last time, I said I would not go to school anymore and that was my first time when I expressed my protest in front of my parents. Children were cruel at school. I train myself not to think about what will happen tomorrow or in couple of years. I want to be able to live now, live only by what's happening today because I want to value each second of my life. Rostom - I live at home with my mother. My father passed away and he never knew how old my mom was. He thought he was 13 years older; I accidentally found her birth certificate and discovered that the age difference between them was only 8 years. She still tries to hide her age; she says: "I am as old as you say." She says, “Rostom is a good guy, everyone loves him, but he annoys me a bit and disobeys when I tell him to go to sleep on time, or wake up early. There are many places he has to go - he's an altar server at church, an Art teacher at school, and he has some business at the Institute of Manuscripts; he walks out of the house hungry all the time... He is very thin, eats very little. It's a problem and I am concerned about this. He is an attentive child, we are friends, but he's not open to me… I do not know if he likes someone or not?! He likes the world, people, all are good, but I don't know who his heart is seeking?! I always ask him, "My son, before you make any big decisions, let me know, introduce me to her, so I can have a say, an opinion on if I like her or not… But anyways, his choice is the most important and she would be for me, like a daughter.” Tekla - I am not constrained by time thanks to my schedule. I don't have to be at work at 9 and get off at 7. I have a free schedule. Giorgi Parajanov's movie was being shot, it was a great project -that's how it all started. My dad worked there and he took me for the first time just to see. That was the first time I happened to be in that environment, met interesting people and I mainly do film painting now. In Georgia it is possible to become a good painter, but there is a problem because it is not a free environment here and so it matters how you present yourself. Mariam - I wanted to become a dancer, because there's character in it. Then I thought I would be a singer but had no skills for that at all. In childhood, Tamo was very jealous of me, trying to hurt me and mortify me. One day we were alone at home, all the others were at the neighbors and Tamo told me that she would give me something to eat. She took a bar of soap, cut it in half and forced me to eat it...She didn't eat the second half. I took painting lessons and I fell in love with my tutor. The difference in age was not so big, I was 16 and he was 27. At the beginning we had a normal relationship; there were 4 people in my drawing class. I didn't even realise when he started liking me.  Once I went for a painting class and he was not there, I was sitting and drawing, he came and sat beside me and we started to talk. I realized that we had a lot in common, he took my hand, we laughed and kissed. Natalia - I exist for myself, and not for the purpose of others or in the hope that someone will be interested in me. I waited every summer, dreamed of the day when we would go to Moscow. I fought all the time with my brother about which of us would get the seat by the window on the plane. My mother was embarrassed by our behavior, because we almost killed each other. Russia has a different culture and we, Georgian children, were noisy and disorderly in their eyes. What kind of artist am I? I haven't held a brush in my hands for a long time. I was a very gifted girl. From childhood, I've painted and drawn and dreamed of going to an art academy. Finally when I got there, all my dreams were shattered. I expected the art academy to be a place where only the best and really talented people got to study. But when I went there I found it wasn’t like that and I was disappointed. Georgia is the country where I was born, raised, and where I live and where I won't leave. It might sound ridiculous, but this is the country where I will always return, because my roots are here. Noe - I am a calm, silent musician, who never realized himself. I was born in Tbilisi, grew up in Batumi and I have been on stage with a guitar from the age of 16. Before, I played the flute. I had my first kiss at the age of 13 and I had no idea how I was supposed to do it. I just remembered it from the movies, when parents were trying to keep us from seeing the kissing scenes. I felt cool after that kiss. At the age of 20, I realized that the only person I loved was - ME, and I became a narcissus.  Then I met a girl.  We met each other and we were together for two years, but I was in Batumi, she - in Tbilisi; and we rarely saw each other. We lived between Tbilisi and Batumi.  Then we decided to break up and 3 months later, I moved to Tbilisi. Now I live here. We don't see each other and have no contact at all. Even when we run into each other on the street, we hardly recognize each other because we've changed, grown up. And so we live in the same city apart.   I am from Batumi and am proud of that city and the spirit, mood and love there. People are also different, friendly. In a small city everyone knows each other. The city loves you and you feel it. Kakha - I am an ordinary guy, I live ordinarily. I like skiing. I enjoy it very much. Also, I like playing rugby; it's so exciting for me. I have spent almost my whole life playing games of rugby, but could not continue on with a professional career. Now I play on an amateur team. But anyway, on the field I feel free and delightful. I am a poster designer and I think that all of us should be a little bit crazy, but it should be within a normal range, people should not show it. We must be calm. I was born in Batumi, my mother is from Batumi, but I live here. I loved the period of life before the age of 15. I didn't worry about anything. I only thought about going to the yard and screwing something up. When I grew up, everything was left behind... I realized we have missions and we should do something in this life. I see myself in the future in two different ways: either I will be very successful, or some kind of closed person. But I feel that my generation will change something, the generation of the 90s. Keta & Luka -   K: As a child, I thought was not a kid. I did not like to play, did not really like to be around other kids and if some of the kids visited me one thing I thought was "I hope they don't make a mess". I had my own small world. Luka is a part of my life, no matter how banal it sounds, he is not just a person, he is my life, like every day when I wake up I know that my life is connected to this person till the end of it professionally and in simple things like when I put a kettle of water to boil for tea - I know there has be enough water in it at least for two. L: It all started with a theater. My life is one big theater too. When I'm off, I do plays at home, I always come up with these things. I never believed in love at first sight but it really happened.  The curtain went down and I came out from behind the scene; she had come with a friend, I knew I liked her as soon as I saw her. I went up to my friend and told him: "we are going to go get a drink". So we went. I could feel that Keta liked me too. I did not get in touch with her for six months after that, I don't know why we did not speak for six months but after six months I texted her: "I remember you" and we met… we met and met.