“As a young boy of six you go hiking with your parents, you marvel at the world among beech trees, pick the flowers by the horses and go in your tiny boots giggling from village to village. You chat with wee old ladies and men with the seriousness of a six year old, they listen and laugh. If you are not teasing the cat, you are stumbling with the scythe under the watchful eyes of your father or you are standing in the snow up to your waist and you want to cry not yet knowing you have no reason to.

In twenty years you walk alone under the beech trees, but you don’t marvel any more. You would pick the flowers but don’t dare. You run up the steep mountain looking for signal. You listen to the old ladies and men, now it is them who tell the stories. They smile, but they don’t laugh. Their stories are stories from your childhood, memories of their times. You see the man with the scythe, but you only take his picture. In the evening you are in the pub, drowned in beer and dreaming in bitterness. Wake up, tomorrow you need to continue the last twenty years.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand how the countryside that was flourishing for centuries can disappear in a couple of decades. Girls do not return to be the old ladies, lads are busy with the lawn mower in the suburbs. They have good signal there, no need to climb mountains for it.

“A tiny bit. Just a little bit. All it takes. It helps to forget. The sorrow and the bitterness. A shot everyday is relaxing.” Told me a wee old man with watery eyes. “And then another one” smiled wryly.”

* * *

Stories from today’s Romania: the preserved ancient lifestyle of Transylvania and the haunting consequences of the village destruction policies of the 60s and 70s. The title suggests the photographer’s connection with Transylvania who, despite being born there, moved with his family to Hungary following the political changes of 1989. Returning to the mountains and villages of Transylvania after 20 years, he records the stories he finds guided by the memories of his childhood.

Kyrgyzstan celebrated the Victory day and it's accession to EEU in heavy rainstorm

"For the future of our country, we must save the Victory Day, to maintain peace and calmness in Kyrgyzstan", said the President of Kyrgyz Republic Almazbek Atambayev during his speech on the 68th anniversary event of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War in Bishkek's Ala-Too square.

Two years later Mr. Atambayev left his capital to Moscow days before the 70th anniversary parade of the Great Victory where the Russian Armed Forces for the first time in history took part in festivities, held in a foreign country. The president had decent reason to „leave his nation alone”: he took part in the meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council on May 8, which was also attended by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and Presidents of Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia. Following the meeting a set of documents was signed on Kyrgyzstan’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).

Despite an extremely heavy rainstorm and the lack of their President, tens of thousands of locals gathered on the following day to Bishkek's central square to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory and that the country officially became the fifth member of EEU. The military parade involved more than two thousand troops of Kyrgyzstan, 75 Russian military from Kant airbase and dozens of different military equipments. The air force participated in the celebration for first time.

„I visit the Victory day parade every year, because it is the most important day in our history. We are the winners” - said university student Anarbek Nazarbekov (22) of Bishkek just minutes after the end of the military parade.

Later on many large groups of university students were waiting outside of the tents where WWII veterans had their traditional „soldier's porridge” to great them with flowers and orange and black St. George ribbons when leaving the place of the 70th anniversary ceremony.