faces in time Dusk For This Babushka

It's Dusk for his Babushka (Babushka means 'grandmother' or

simply 'old woman' in Russian, which is the language of Ukraine).

This woman was photographed on the street as she walked in Odessa,

Ukraine earlier this winter, her face showing the ravages of time.

An educated guesstimate is that she is younger than 70 years old and

does not smoke, yet her face is creased with deep wrinkles, which in

the U.S. usually is the result of intense smoking (women in Ukraine,

particularly older women almost never smoke). Your rating and

critiques are invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly or very

critically, please submit a helpful and constructive comment/Please

share your superior knowledge to help improve my photography.

Thanks! Enjoy! John

I like her face...very captivating photo. 6/6

Ordinarily, such deep wrinkles in the West are attributed to the effects of smoking, which breaks down collagen in the skin, or extreme old age.

 

 

But this babushka is not 'that' old, but it's apparent from her face, she's had a very hard life, with deep wrinkles.

 

Note, how, in a place where grey predominated during 70+ years of Communist rule, she has managed to add color to her grey coat with a colorful scarf, despite almost surely being a pensioneer, and surely living on almost no money -- surely a pittance.

 

Russian/Ukrainian women are very frugal and hardy, and don't resort to drink like their men who drink away their blues and die, so often, an early death from liver and heart disease (self-medicating).

 

John (Crosley)

I had a Russuan family that lived with me for a few months because the American husband had died. It was quite an experience and challenge as I closed out the estate. It was an amazing experience!

It must have been an experience. There is a vast difference between what I suppose must have been an American lifestyle and associated finances and Russian lifestyle and finances. For a long while there simply were not even any banks in Russia. It was not even possible to pay a bill without paying in cash, and even then usually to convert rubles into dollars, which were preferred.

 

Now that the ruble has stabiized since its crash in 1998 when it lost maybe 80% of its value and you could not buy anything because no one was sure they could replace their stock for what you paid them for it for a long time, and other fragile economies worldwide such as Thailand, Brazil, Argentina and others crashed, Russia has a new economic Renaissance, and Moscow is booming (I saw it last month myself), and there are now banks everywhere. Unlike the 'old' banks which speculated with deposits in the 'stock market' and made oodles in steadily-rising stocks before going bust, the new banks are investing in real property, which also is booming (around Moscow at least).

 

The old banks went bust when the invested money in the stock market disappeared as stocks went bust, but real property does not go 'bust' so easily, especially since Russia's economy is 'fueled' (pun intended) by oil and natural gas which it will be and is sellling to Europe and to the world (and Russia has bought gas stations on the East Coast which soon will have their names changed to the Russian brand LukOil, which is a familiar name in Russia and Ukraine.

 

This boom seems harder to bust.

 

But those Russians doubtlessly were from a different era, since this new boom is of short duration, although it appears to have a long lifespan ahead of it so long as it does not get completely out of control.

 

Nevertheless, life in the provinces is not nearly so heady -- one doctor I know says he likes Putin -- 'We have bread AND potatoes (meat is for holidays -- and guests like me. (kartoshka y klep is how he put it, and he should know -- he's my father-in-law; he told me over dinner last month during New Years and Russian Christmas holidays.)

 

Life is still very hard in the provinces and many people say life was better under Brezhnev, when mysteriously they all were poor, but their refrigerators (as the joke goes) were full.

 

(Russians joke a lot about their misery -- it's part of what keeps them going).

 

Whereas in Moscow, there were obese schoolchildren spotted in the McDonalds that have sprung up everywhere there, gorging themselves on cheeseburgers and gamburger royales and kartoshka frites, that obesity has not yet spread to the provinces -- the lesser regional capitals and the villages where life is still a struggle.

 

But auto ownership increasingly is becoming a reality for a Russian man/family -- or at least a less distant dream.

 

This woman, however, is a Ukrainian, and doubtlessly a pensioner. She probably is hurting badly, as her pension, I understand, has suffered, and because of circumstances, will buy far less than even a year ago when there were less freedoms, which means the pro-Western government voted in last year in the Orange Revolution likely will take a drubbing in this spring's elections.

 

She'll probably look forward to potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and some bread with maybe some porridge.

 

John (who observes keenly)

A beautiful photo John; I like the scarf colors

with all the grey. She looks as if she had gone through a lot in her life. Its a photo you can look at over and over again,

Ellen.

Ellen, this woman has lived a long, hard life, at least as revealed in her face. Probably she was very pretty as a young woman, and look what time has done to that face. What a pile of wrinkles! This is a problem, even for women who are not so old, and who knows her real age -- she may even be younger than she looks.

 

I snuck this shot as she worked in front of her flat on the sidewalk after the sun went down, and this is a level-adjusted photo taken at a very low shutter speed with a V.R. (vibration-reduction) lens at about 200 mm, an almost 'impossible' photo to take on the street.

 

John (Crosley)

This woman's face essentially is mirroring in its wrinkles the pattern (paisley? or oriental) or the head scarf she is wearing). I saw this in thumbnail while viewing the TRP galleries and it struck me immediately -- her scarf and her face each are an extension of the other with their circular designs and patterns.

 

I often am moved by something in a photo that escapes me otherwise, to post that photo -- something that is inchoate that is interesting that I can't explain, and that is the key.

 

I know 'old people' often 'rate well' on Photo.net but I don't play that game, as an examination of my postings will show. I posted this because it had 'something' on which I couldn't put my finger, and the above 'key' is it.

 

John (Crosley)

 

oh, so sad sad Life for some of US! oh.. where is this humanity not seeing anything!

 

Thank you my daer John for showing us all this painful and miserable life of others who were not so lucky as we are :(:(

 

Now, I have a headache cause tears are in my head!

 

Crazy crazy life we are living :(:(:(

 

Biliana

Just because this woman is old and wrinkly, you assume she is 'unhappy'. Perhaps she is quite at peace with herself, may have found her 'God' or her spiritual happiness, and may be grateful that she has children, grandchildren or even greatgrandchildren in a country where only women live to moderate old age, AND she is capable of sweeping a sidewalk in the middle of a harsh winter.

 

I'd be grateful if I could have all that at her age, and even forgive a few of those wrinkles.

 

It's all in how you look at things; you're just looking darkly in your comment and things may look differently another day.

 

Cheers (if it's appropriate)

 

John (Crosley)