Kyiv is now desolate as curfew approaches. A city full of life a few hours ago has been forcefully put to rest and enters into limbo. Humans do not stop existing, but walking around in this isolation makes me believe they have. Something as natural as another person's voice has quickly become an anomaly.
Just to the west, this limbo continues. Instead of the human race ceasing, time has. Thirty years have passed; however, little evidence exists that things have changed in Transnistria. The earth doesn’t stop spinning, but walking around here makes me believe it has. In most towns, the only visible concept of time is the cigarette, which slowly burns between my fingers.
These deserted cities are not created by some nuclear disaster or extraterrestrial intervention; instead, they are created by something just as devastating: war. The effects of such an event are mainly shown through chaos. Rarely do we see the stagnation and isolation caused by it.
