(Written 22nd of October, 2003)
PROLOGUE
Suburb, in the middle of our capital, abandoned because officials didn’t carry out their duties. Peaceful place now, with only birds singing, but yesterday, there were children playing, fathers washing their cars and mothers fixing their garden. Twenty years from now, some of those children, that lived on this idyllic suburb, might have a cancer or some other disease, that most likely will take their lives, because nobody didn’t ask, nobody didn’t care and everybody were after the money. The place is now called the Toxic Suburb, built on top of an old dumb pit, containing poisonous chemicals and substances.
Shortly after the families had moved here, the ground began shifting under the apartment houses, leading to the constant need to repair the foundations and the yard. Years passed and finally the families got tired of paying the constant repair work and demanded to see what was wrong with the ground, under their houses, in the sand where their children were playing. The excavator removed the soil a little deeper, not more than a one meter and the horrifying smell that came out of the hole, didn’t leave no place for an imagination. Short investigation by the city, revealed that the ground under the apartment houses was toxic and dangerous to the health to live in. The city officials expropriated the apartments and houses from the families, that were just yesterday living an idyllic life. City officials didn’t agree to pay a reasonable sum of money from the houses and so many of the people, that just had gotten paid back the bank loan, had to take another loan to get another home for themselves. All of this, because the city officials didn’t care about the people too much in the first place…
SUNNY AFTERNOON
I’ve visited this quite famous place
many times within a year. First I just came to check the place. Then I started
coming here more often, with only one thing in my mind. I needed to get into
those houses. I wanted to document the place, it’s sadness and madness, before
it would be razed to the ground and people would forget what happened. As I kept
on walking here, I didn’t come up with any plan to get in. It just seemed like
an impossible task. The windows were boarded in a way that I’ve never seen
anything like it before. Doors were closed by bolts and boards. The door handles
were removed and anything made out of glass or anything that could break easily
was also gone. All of this was done probably, because at the time, when there
were none of these security measures, there were all kind of strange people
walking around. I’ve read articles where the last remaining families say, that
they are terrified of the people that are walking outside with rifles. So the
security measures are here for a good reason, but still for a people like me,
who want to document the ignorance, that resulted this sad place, it certainly
didn’t make the job very easy.
Again, during one sunny afternoon, I was
walking among the apartment houses and looking like always a way to get in. I
had read a few days before, that the houses will be demolished at the end of the
year and I thought to come and see if there were any preparations being made,
that would make my job easier. The same old sight greeted me again. The worn out
“Keep Out” sign and the sad boarded windows, with few graffiti’s on them.
So apparently nothing hadn’t changed since the first time the houses sadly
greeted me.
However, when I looked a little closer,
something had changed. Call it luck, accident or the fact that the sad houses
had noticed me walking there always and had decided to give me a little gift.
There was a small hole near the ground level. Covered by a small piece of
concrete, it still was quite visible, at least for an eyes that are used to scan
these kind of details. With my heart pounding like in a heart attack, I
carefully crawled inside, putting my camera bag first. After getting in, I spend
few minutes of letting my eyes to adjust to the almost complete darkness. After
that I turned my flashlight on and got my camera ready for action. The sight
that greeted me was unbelievable. I seemed to have crawled into a kitchen, that
still had some dishes in the sink and everything was in a perfect condition.
Walking to the next room I noticed some kind of “altar” or a “place of
worship”, with roses and candles adjusted into a some kind of pattern. There
was also clothes near this “altar” and it certainly looked like somebody had
been sleeping here. My only wish at that time, was that hopefully, who ever had
been sleeping here, had gone already.
I started cautiously explore the first
floor of this house. It contained three apartments, one bigger one and two
smaller ones. The walls however deeper inside of the house, were almost full of
graffiti’s, so people had been here before me. Still the place was in a good
condition and many small details around, that made the house look like it had
been abandoned really quickly. The small details made this exploration feel
like, I’m really in a private homes, with a teddy bear staring me with it’s
black eyes, a children’s table left alone in one room and clothes hanging
everywhere. What really amazed me, was the fact that one entrance hall, was full
of advertising leaflets. I guess somebody forgot to tell the advertisers, that
nobody doesn’t live here anymore. In addition to the apartments, the cellar
was also located here and people had left their old bicycles there.
All along while exploring the first
floor, I kept on noticing stickers from one security company. I thought it as
strange, but I really didn’t give it a second thought. With the first floor
explored, I decided to start climbing to the second floor of this three-storey
building. I still had energy in my camera battery and I hadn’t been here even
for an hour, so I decided to continue.
I started to approach it, because I
couldn’t believe what I was looking. Someone was screaming in the back of my
brain: you fool, you know what it is. Why are you approaching it? You should be
running as fast as you can. As I stood in front of it, the voice in my brain
kept on screaming even louder and still I couldn’t believe it. I noticed a
wire going from it, continuing it’s journey between the stairway railing and
going out of the building. That’s when the voice in my brain ended it’s
screaming and I started to run as fast as I could to the hole where I came in. A
motion detector in a soon to be demolished house…
I got out from the building, covered the hole even better than it was before I went in, got my camera back in action and there they came. Two security guards appeared behind the corner. The distance was about twenty to thirty meters and I had my camera bag and there was two guards. No need to even think about running. I decided to surrender myself voluntarily and I started walking towards the guards. When I got within few meters from them, I got nervous because one of the guards looked like he’s going to hit me. So I raised my hand into a greeting and said hello. The security guards just walked by me, said hello and continued their walk towards the other corner of the house. While they were distancing themselves from me, one of them yelled to me, that I probably wasn’t inside of the houses…
EPILOGUE
These apartment houses will be torn down at the beginning of the year 2004. Since then, I have started to pay attention, that how many suburbs the officials build above old dumb pits. Let’s just say, that one hand isn’t enough to calculate them all. I honestly hope, that the next time, they decide to build homes for families on top of an old dumb pit, they will investigate the soil thoroughly, so that this kind of tragedy, that faced this place, wont happen again.
