Aurora

"Life's gone on as if I'd never lived," Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard

Earlier than the end of the iron curtain my interest in eastern Europe had been woken: in 1986 I had ended up unintentionally in Ceaucescu’s Bucarest for a couple of days and had thought: Strike a light! My growing interest in the unknown world beyound the perception of a common western youngster led me to Slavonic studies, language courses in the former Soviet Union and a man-year in Czechoslovakia. My studies failed, my interest in these countries grew. I became a photographer and decided to document the transformation of the former Eastern Bloc. Since more than 20 years I have been following the people’s struggle with the new freedom. Old values had become obsolete, a new system based on free market economy took over and left many behind.