All articles by this author
There is no justice in Russia
When I hear the calls to “cancel” Russian culture, I think: Go ahead and kill me, too. I have no other path, no other identity besides being an artist. I can’t change my blood, and you’ll never grant me any citizenship.
November 11, 2022
Marches and trials in Belarus
I was in a cab headed to the Courtyard of Changes when my friends texted to say that the police had just painted over the mural. But by the time I got there, building residents had almost finished repainting it. “This is the sixth time they’ve painted over it, and we always put it up again right away,” they told me, laughing.
June 2, 2017
Book Tour Diary
Something is always breaking down on the New York subway, and when the loudspeaker announces it to the ladies and gentlemen, you have to invent a new route to your destination. On one occasion, I found myself walking back and forth through a subway station with a group of Chinese people, Latin Americans, and Europeans. None of us could manage to figure out a new way to get to Queens, where not a single train seemed to be going.
March 15, 2017
An excerpt from Other Russias
”It’s forbidden to be sad in Georgia.”
Most of Günel’s reports deal with women’s rights in the South Caucasus.
“The lives of Azerbaijani women living in Tbilisi are different from those of Georgian women,” she said. “Azerbaijani girls are taken out of school by their families in the ninth grade and married off at the age of 14. If Azerbaijani girls resist, it’s suicide. Our child’s nanny became a grandmother at 32. Talk to her.”
Their nanny, Renka, agreed to pose for a portrait and talked a little bit about herself.
She was married at 13 and had a daughter when she was 14.
