The post first appeared in The Leipzig Glocal. The heavily gated entrance to Freedom Park in Leipzig fails to project an air of leisurely abandon its name intimates. Approaching the territory from the north, you have to pass through a triple gate – a set of iron double doors flanked to the left and right by two archways of yellow brick masonry. With the clandestine resignation of seasoned elders, they inspect blithe visitors. I walk up to the gate on …
Read more →
Mariam Goshadze
Village Kheshi, Svaneti, Kingdom of Georgia. December 21, 1351, 6:53am. Daguna is sprawled at the foot of the shrine. Her forehead numb from the cool stone, arms extended, fingers wedged in the dirt between the smooth slabs. At her feet, a reed basket bulbing with offerings. This is her oblation, her last hope. Barbol is benevolent, only last year had she saved Daguna’s favorite heifer from steppe murrain. She’ll surely take pity on Daguna too and sate her womb with …
Read more →
It was a hectic morning. The three siblings had been calling each other non-stop since 8:00am. Everyone had to carry out their individually assigned tasks scrupulously for “Operation Babu” to go off without a hitch. My mom and I had to buy soft drinks and pick up my aunt and cousin. Then we were to drive to my aunt’s favorite bakery for the éclairs and choux. [In case you are wondering, yes, these French sweets are the staple pastry for …
Read more →
An abandoned factory stands on a vast, scorched piece of land in the middle of Plagwitz. Its elongated, brick body is stretched out like a snake struggling to digest a hefty prey. The hollow windows, ebony scales exposing its insides. The head is a medieval gothic-style tower with horns of steeple. The structure is enveloped in graffiti. Plagwitz has been subject to its share of experimentation throughout its history. Its modernist aspirations date back to the visionary agenda of the …
Read more →
Time has been playing strange tricks since the pandemic turned our world upside down. Stretching, bending, and collapsing into themselves, temporal dimensions have unraveled in a majestic dance. Perhaps this is the closest some of us will ever come to the physical awareness that linear time is a construct, that it can divide and multiply into countless pathways, that it can stop, and start whenever it wishes to. The reality that follows is incoherent. Are we travelers whizzing through hours …
Read more →The Evangelist-Baptist Church has won the hearts of many in Georgia. In the past two decades, Church leadership has come into the spotlight on numerous occasions for championing the cause of a common humanity and mutual love in the face of xenophobia, racism, homophobia, and gender-based discrimination. While fervent Orthodox Christians decry the denomination for erring from God’s true path, the Evangelical-Baptist Church has garnered sympathy from the liberal faction of society, a feat rarely accomplished by a religious group …
Read more →
This blog was originally published as a part of ‘Dossier Corona’, introduced by Religious Matters Project at Utrecht University in the spring of 2020. The sound of religion – reverberations of calls to prayer, sermons, and church bells against the urban topography, ecstatic utterances of devotees, faint sounds of breathing bodies in meditation, devotional songs uttered with dedication – has animated the minds of researchers in various disciplines, including anthropology, religious studies, sound studies, and history. Silence, on the other hand, has been …
Read more →
This blog was originally published as a part of ‘Dossier Corona’, introduced by Religious Matters Project at Utrecht University in the spring of 2020. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, in Christian Orthodox churches across Eastern Europe and several post-Soviet countries, the age-old altercation between religion and science is condensing around a small material object – the communion spoon. This shared utensil, used to deliver sacramental bread and wine to the parish, is now brandished by liberal secularists as the ultimate insignia …
Read more →You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
Franz Kafka