Podlasie/24 places

Podlasie has always been a place of contradictions for me- filled with beauty and nostalgia, but also with loss. As a child, I spent every summer in a house my great-grandfather built with his own hands. Those were carefree days, running through meadows, listening to the sounds of the forest, and feeling the slow rhythm of village life. But that idyll ended with my parents’ divorce. The house, a symbol of my maternal family’s roots, was given to my father in the division of property. I never got to say goodbye to it, and the loss stayed with me for years.

Years later, when I had to choose a topic for my master’s project, I returned to Podlasie- not physically at first, but emotionally. It became a journey of self-healing and discovery. Over the course of a year, I traveled by train, bus, bike, and even balloon through the hidden corners of southeastern Podlasie. I met dozens of people, visited 24 towns and villages, and captured the essence of a region where history, religion, and culture blend like nowhere else.

Podlasie is a land of mysticism and contrasts, where Catholic churches stand alongside Orthodox monasteries, Tatar mosques, and remnants of synagogues. It’s a borderland in every sense- political, cultural, religious- where languages intertwine, and traditions persist despite the passage of time.

But this place of childhood magic has changed. Today, the forests I once played in are surrounded by barbed wire fences, part of the militarized border with Belarus. The region now bears the scars of the ongoing migration crisis, where desperate people fleeing conflict and oppression find themselves trapped in a political stalemate. In these same woods where I once laughed and felt free, migrants now hide, suffering from hunger, hypothermia, and fear. Many die, their stories lost to the silence of the forest. Villages that once welcomed travelers now echo with tension and division as border patrols and humanitarian workers try to navigate an impossible situation.

This project allowed me to confront my personal trauma, but it also opened my eyes to a new layer of grief for Podlasie. Its beauty and cultural richness remain, but they are overshadowed by human tragedy. My photographs and stories are an attempt to preserve the soul of Podlasie- its resilience, its humanity- but also to bear witness to the pain that now defines its borders.