Caucasian Tinderbox : A Cradle of Conflict and Coexistence

rugged Caucasian mountains is a magnificent treasure box of different faiths, languages and cultures but it is also a tinderbox which exploded into war seven times in the past seven years since the fall of the Soviet Union. I believe I must keep on documenting this strategic, turbulent region because I believe my work shows the human face of this complex region and that it will help erode cultural misunderstandings by shedding light onto the roots of conflict buried deep in its totured history.

In each of the past seven years, there has been succession of blazing conflicts spreading the width and length of the Caucuses, starting in Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Ossetia, Abkhazia and lastly, the most horrific of all, the tragic and brutal was in Chechnya. Starting as a blitzkrieg by a cavalier Kremlin, it ended in a David versus Goliath defeat for the Russian giant, shocking the world and traumatizing both nations. The war against their former Soviet brothers in this tiny Caucasian republic, which has less than one percent of RussiaÕs population, reached scales of destruction the world has not seen since World War II.

The Caucuses Mountains, home to hundreds of clans and ethnic minorities, is a land apart from East to West. I would like to continue my photo documentary project there which portrays these sprit and struggle of these cultures as others constantly battle to defeat, control or subdue or outwit them: It is important to photograph their experiences now because theirs is a universal story to so many zones of conflict around the world struggling for survival in an increasingly shrinking world. This Caucuses is a bridge between two worlds yet it distinctly struggles to resist outside domination in a landscape stretching from Black Sea of Europe to the Caspian Sea of Central Asia. It demanded all the might of the Russian Czars who only after 300 years managed to subdue local peoples, finally wrenching their blood-strained "Prize of the Caucuses." Their subjugation of it through cruel, bloody and senseless onslaughts turned the region a physical and spiritual battleground.

Today, the power struggle continues but this time it includes the smell of oil, the black gold of the modern age. A new scramble for power to control royalties from the oil which will gush forth from huge Caspian Sea oil reserves is happening as the Caspian Basin is expected to be more productive than the Gulf states in the next century. Traveling through Caucasian pipelines, the battle for royalties and pipelines routes across this ancient land makes the Caucuses more attractive to the power-hungry and more unstable then ever before. This is a critical time and I believe it is important to photograph the human dimension of this conflict.

My project is to document this tightrope of conflict and coexistence in the Caucuses. I intend to show the human face of this diverse and ancient land coming to terms with modern times. The Caucuses is a crucible in which brews Muslim versus Western ways, ancient versus modern beliefs, and a warrior peopleÕs pride versus conquerors abandon. All at the moment are seeped in the economic and political intrigue of modern oil wars. It is a unique place during a unique time and I want to photograph the human dimensions behind this clash of cultures to increase cultural understanding between peoples, which can and must coexist.