Pavel Bogolepov

CRY TO HAVE IT BACK

As a photographer from former ‘Upper Hungary’, my travels often reveal me to small villages, the world of homesteads and I can see how once blossoming, these once lively locations are slowly disappearing. This is the area inhabited by Hungarians in Slovakia, which were the homes of many famous families in the old days. Their noble possessions were also the smaller or bigger farmsteads where the staff lived and worked in difficult circumstances. After the World War II., however, this system has finally ceased and nationalisation has engulfed everything. The descendants of the aristocracy disappeared, emigrated, leaving behind their belongings. That’s how it also happened with their property and movable property. Under socialism , noble castles and mansions were usually given home to state institutions or even military service. In fact, this moment could be called as ‘the starting point’ of that process which led to the complete abandonment and emptiness of the certain area. Without money and any possibilities of legislative, they are condemned to complete destruction. However, the exceptions are those ones that have been used and inhabited so far, that have been given a new role. After the change of regime, big transformations began in the bigger farmsteads. The descendants of servants passed away, migrated and they were replaced by new settlers poor Slovak and Gipsy families, consciously deployed from northern areas of the country. People here are completely left alone, the society does not care about them, they live there as on abandoned islands. The composition of the local population is: people from the periphery of the society, handicapped manual workers. They inhabit these areas today. But where do they come from? Are there exceptions?

Pavel Bogolepov

Pavel Bogolepov is a freelance photojournalist born in Czechoslovakia (1980). He is a photojournalism student at the National Association of Journalists in Budapest, currently focusing on social and environmental issues of central and Eastern Europe.