We are starting to broadcast the new season of the documentary travel show “I Want to Go Home” from Leni Pashkovsky, who this time traveled through the Caribbean countries and Central America, to honestly talk with the locals about life where no one would want to live. In the first episode, we walk through City Soleil, the most dangerous area of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.
The new season begins with a journey to Haiti - the only state in which black slaves, with the support of voodoo rituals and yellow fever, managed to make a revolution, slaughter all the whites and create their own state.
“In order not to waste time on trifles, Lenya immediately went into the thick of it: the slums of Cité Soleil with a population of 300 thousand people are the largest in the Western Hemisphere. And they have a neighborhood called Brooklyn, which has been at war with other slum areas for 25 years.”
Three centuries later, the country has never really learned to live independently, and its entire history is one of endless uprisings, coups, riots, massacres and bloody dictatorship. Dramas are added by constant natural disasters and epidemics and, as a result, Haitians live in an absolute world of post-apocalypse: in half-destroyed cities, without work, without normal food and water, practically without electricity and at least some kind of social order.
In order not to waste time on trifles, Lenya immediately went into the thick of it: the slums of Cité Soleil with a population of 300 thousand people are the largest in the Western Hemisphere. And in them there is a neighborhood called Brooklyn, which has been at war with other slum areas for 25 years. And the war between local gangs became so large-scale that the UN sent an army of ten thousand soldiers there.
There we will walk along the streets lined with houses made of garbage, among boars fed by waste, drink beer with local black gangstas, record a fit with them in a real underground studio and generally feel like Dante on an excursion with Virgil.
New episodes of “I Want to Go Home” will be released on Mondays, once every two weeks. Premiere of the next episode – February 19.
Subscribe to the project pages in in social networks– photos, behind-the-scenes and soundtracks await you.
Today is the last day of filming. Which I’m very happy about, I already really want to go home. I spend half a day packing my things for tomorrow’s departure, and at three o’clock the driver picks me up.
We are going to the slum City Soleil (City of the Sun) - according to the UN, the most dangerous place in Haiti. At the entrance to the slum, my second fixer Villio, with whom I already worked a couple of days ago, is waiting for me. Villio was born in the City of Soleil and promises that no one will touch me here.
“You can photograph anything,” he says, “everyone here knows me.” The people here are good, even the guys from the street gangs treat the guests of the slum with respect, because few foreigners come here. Of course, I wouldn't advise you to come here alone.
Villio says that even UN soldiers very rarely visit the City of Soleil. For workers of international missions this is a “no go zone”. Several years ago there was a real war here between MINUSTAH (UN) soldiers and local bandits. And when an earthquake destroyed the city prison, many escaped prisoners found refuge in the City of the Sun. Now they are hiding from the police, and there are often shootouts between gangsters and government officials. Bullet holes are visible on almost every building on the main street.
Villio found me two Restavek boys, one of them is called Faustin, he is 16 years old. He lives in some kind of barn next to the owners' house. Faustina's mother died several years ago; her father, a drug addict from the provinces, sold the child into slavery to a poor family from the City of Soleil four years ago in exchange for a dose. Since then, the boy has been working for his owners, who do not even give him food. After he finishes his chores, he goes to the seashore to catch fish for dinner. He exchanges it for clothes. The boy does not go to school.
Villio tries to help the boy, sometimes throwing him vegetables or change. In the evenings, when Faustina's owner comes home drunk, he beats the boy with a whip. His screams can be heard all over the street. “We can’t do anything,” sighs Villio. “It’s not customary here to interfere in the affairs of someone else’s family.”
After I finish photographing the boy, he grabs my hand and asks me for something in Creole.
He says, “Can you place him in some shelter,” Villio translates.
I remember about the orphanage that priest Sergio runs, and I call Shinaida. She promises to talk to Sergio and writes down the boy’s details.
We go deep into the City of the Sun, where another Restavek boy lives, whose name is Etienne. He doesn't know exactly how old he is. “Eleven or twelve,” Villio suggests. His parents gave Etienne to 32-year-old Rene, the owner of a small grocery store in a slum. Villio works from morning to night in Rene's store and home. He doesn’t let him not only into school, but even into the neighboring block. As I begin to photograph Etienne, his owner puts his hand on his shoulder and tries to shove a smoking cigarette into the boy's mouth. I lower the camera so as not to provoke Rene into abusing the child for the camera.
We thank the boy and leave the block. We walk around City Soleil until it gets dark, where I’m already relaxed taking street photography. The City of the Sun is a real paradise for photographers; every minute some absolutely ridiculous shots from local life appear in front of your camera - just have time to capture them.
Here is a girl running somewhere in her mother’s long pink dress, its hem dragging along the mud of the road, on which local rappers are dancing with radios in their hands.
On another street, a young pregnant woman in only a skirt and bra pours soapy water from a basin under the wheels of a passing bicycle, behind her a pig grunts in a ditch, and white doves fly into the sky from a nearby dovecote. Or in a huge landfill, among tons of garbage at a lonely table, men are playing dominoes; on the face of the loser of the last game, multi-colored clothespins are hung in the form of a beard, spreading in different directions from the very ears. I regret not coming here sooner - this would have made a great story about life in a slum. Maybe next time.
Fixer Zoe calls me, asking how my shoot in City Soleil is going. He asks if I would like to meet another young woman, a former Restavek. I gather my last strength and go to Delma street 95, where 21-year-old Muriel lives very close to me. We meet at her friends house. She can't invite me to her place, so I interview her right on the street. My driver illuminates us with the headlights of his motorcycle.
The girl tells another story of an outcast child who suffered a difficult childhood in someone else's family. After Muriel was raped by her owner five months ago, she ran away from his family and now lives with friends, earning a living as a housekeeper. Three months ago, the girl found out that she was pregnant from her former owner, but decided to keep the child.
No matter how hard it is for me, I don’t want to give it up. I will give him all the love that my parents could not give me. And I will never give my son or daughter to someone else's family.
By nine o'clock in the evening I return to my friends' container house. Copying photos today to hard drives. I stand in a hot shower for ten minutes. I'm making tea. That's it, filming is over, tomorrow I'm flying to New York, and then home to Australia. I don’t know if I will be able to return to Haiti again, but I really hope so. There are so many different sides to the issue of child slavery in this country that there is definitely still work for me to do here. We can only hope that my project will be of interest not only to the Restavek Freedom Foundation, but also to such a large international organizations, like UNICEF or Amnesty International.
Well, that's all, actually.
Thank you for reading my diary.
Vlad Sokhin, Port-au-Prince, 2013.
From RR-Online: At the moment, Vlad Sokhin, having completed his work in Haiti, has already safely returned to Australia, where he now lives. We would like to thank him for the work he has done and the unique material he prepared for us. It's great that everything went well. We are also pleased to announce: in one of last days works by Vlad Sokhin in Haiti, it became known that the jury of the competition FCCT OnAsia Photo Contest- one of the main photojournalism competitions in Asia, awarded him the title Photographer of the Year for photo stories Mary's Lament» , « The Last of Dani" And " Cargo cult" (PP-Online already presented Vlad’s material about cargo cults to you under the title “” a month and a half ago). We sincerely congratulate Vlad on this victory and look forward to continuing our cooperation with him.
Stills from the photo story “Cargo Cult”.
There are many places on our planet that each of us would like to visit and would be happy to build our own cozy nest. But there are places that you should avoid, or even not at all, because there you are in real danger to your life.
The “City of the Sun” (this is how the name of the area is translated) is located on the outskirts of the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Most of the buildings are slums and shacks; poverty reigns in Cite Soleil and crime is rampant. The streets are drowned in mountains of sewage and garbage, there is no sewage system here, so the area has long become a breeding ground for dangerous diseases and viruses - average duration life here does not exceed 50 years.
Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Rio, located on the coast Atlantic Ocean, incredibly beautiful. Thousands of tourists come here to admire the statue of Christ the Redeemer, take part in colorful carnivals and sunbathe on the beaches of Copacabana. However, the city also has another face, practically unfamiliar to idle tourists who love the Brazilian sun and cool mojitos: on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro there are vast favelas - disadvantaged areas consisting mainly of squalid shacks and huts.
The notorious favela Rocinha has long been a transit point for drug traffickers delivering cocaine to Europe, and the close cooperation between the corrupt government and the criminal world has led to the fact that gang leaders here feel at ease, living in abundance and even luxury. Until recently, one of the most notorious and famous drug lords in Rio was Erismar Rodriguez Moreira, nicknamed Bem-Te-Vi (Bem-Te-Vi is an insectivorous bird found in Brazil). His accomplices committed many brutal murders, and Moreira’s group was known for its members’ passion for gold-plated firearms. In 2005, the special services carried out a carefully designed operation to detain gang members, but as a result of the ensuing shootout, Moreira was killed.
Ahead of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the city authorities are trying their best to improve the situation in the favelas, and some positive changes have already taken place.
Detroit, Michigan, USA
Detroit, once upon a time former center automotive industry in the United States is experiencing better times. It once bore the proud nickname “Motor City,” but now the streets and factories have fallen into disrepair: due to a decline in production since 2000, about 25% of the population has left Detroit, many are selling their homes for pennies and leaving in search of a better life. . Stray dogs breed in abandoned homes - this is one of the main problems in Detroit. Tens of thousands of dogs, most of them pit bulls, roam the streets, threatening all living things. On July 19, 2013, the Detroit administration announced the bankruptcy of the city and debt obligations amounting to $19 billion. The crisis affected many residents of the “Motor City” - the unemployment rate is now 16.3%, many people are forced to sell off their property in order to pay utility bills. According to the FBI and the US Department of Justice, three Detroit neighborhoods are among the most crime-ridden areas in the country.
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
The city, located in the northern part of the Mexican state of Chihuahua, has become a battleground in recent decades between drug cartels and various criminal groups. In 2009, Ciudad Juarez took first place in the number of murders per capita - the level reached 130 violent deaths per 100 thousand people. And these are only official statistics - in fact, there are slightly more people killed, since a significant part of them are buried in common graves, and people are listed as missing. Life in the city is especially dangerous for women: rape is quite common here, and in the last 20 years alone, hundreds of women have died in such incidents.
Medellin, Colombia
In the 1980s, during the cartels of Pablo Escobar and his squads, Medellin was the most violent city in the world - human life here it was a simple bargaining chip in the transactions of local “businessmen”. In 1993, Escobar was killed while resisting the police, and the crime rate decreased slightly: if in 1991 about 6,500 murders were registered, then in 2009, 2,899 people became victims of bandits.
In addition to banal murders and robberies, other common “vacancies” at the local “labor exchange” are blackmail and kidnappings, which, however, are not too different in methods from the first and second. As a rule, the scheme is quite simple: a group of armed people simply surrounds a tourist and offers to go to an ATM to withdraw a ransom from a credit card, threatening otherwise to take the victim to an unknown direction.
IN Lately Due to hostility between two criminal groups, the situation in the city has deteriorated significantly.
Brownsville, Brooklyn, USA
Brooklyn, like all of New York, has its share of disadvantaged neighborhoods, but Brownsville stands out from the rest. Most of it consists of apartment buildings where people with low incomes live. Due to the tense social environment in Brownsville, the crime rate is much higher than the city average.
Most of the crime in the area is related to drug trafficking. Of course, Brownville is much quieter now than it was in the 1980s and 1990s, but many trucking companies still send their vehicles here only with armed guards. Poverty and lack of work have led to the fact that some young people are forced to literally punch their way to success; it is no coincidence that many famous boxers grew up in Brownsville, including Mike Tyson.
La Perla District, San Juan, Puerto Rico
The outskirts of the city of San Juan, now known as La Perla, were once inhabited mainly by butchers - there were slaughterhouses and butcher shops on every corner. Now the slums have been chosen by the South American mafia, which uses them as a transshipment base when sending contraband and drugs to the United States. Despite the extreme poverty of the local residents, La Perla is quite beautiful with its beaches, colorful houses and wonderful nature. IN last years Puerto Rico's drug cartels have become the object of close attention from law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies - every year there are hundreds of arrests of people involved in the drug business.
Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan
After the breakup Soviet Union Many fraternal republics had a hard time: production and the economy as a whole fell into decline, and in addition, many social contradictions worsened. In some regions, tensions have reached extremely high levels, such as in the Fergana Valley, which is located immediately in three former socialist republics- Tajik, Uzbek and Kyrgyz.
The depression between the two mountain ranges became a real cauldron in which several nationalities were “cooked,” and each of them, after the collapse of the USSR, actively defended its rights, including by not the most legal means. The radical Islamic beliefs of some groups of the population and the sharp decline in living standards only added fuel to the fire: thousands of refugees flocked from Fergana, unable to find their place in the changed political and social circumstances.
Even 20 years later, the Fergana Valley remains a battleground between ethnic groups and the government. For example, on May 13, 2005, according to official data, 187 people died in clashes between law enforcement agencies and protesters against trials of members of criminal gangs. However, other sources report more than a thousand dead - presumably many of the bodies were buried secretly to hide the true scale of the tragedy.
Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya
Nairobi was founded by the British as their headquarters railway, and soon the city became one of the centers African continent and remains so to this day. Despite the large number of Europeans and tourists in Nairobi, in some areas it is better for whites, as well as local residents, not to appear; one of such criminal ghettos is Kibera.
The Nairobi administration prefers not to interfere in the life of the inhabitants of the area, as a result of which Kibera has become a haven for various thugs and scammers, for example, electricity is not available to everyone, because attackers use most of it for their own purposes. There is no water supply or sewerage system here, most of The water is contaminated with typhoid and cholera bacteria, and the toilets are pits that serve as latrines for hundreds of residents.
About half of the able-bodied residents of Kibera are unemployed, many women try to make a living through prostitution, and even the growing number of sexual crimes does not stop them from year to year.
Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong, China
Kowloon long years served the Chinese as a military fort, and at the end of the 19th century, when Hong Kong was rented by the British, the settlement became largely autonomous; residents were actually granted the right to self-government. During the Japanese occupation of China, the population of the fortified city increased significantly, and as of 1987 it was approximately 33 thousand people, all of whom lived on an area of about 0.026 km².
For many years, Kowloon was the real headquarters of the Triad, the most powerful Chinese crime syndicate, but the authorities turned a blind eye to this, because not only Chinese mafiosi, but also corrupt officials received considerable benefit from the existence of brothels, casinos and opium dens.
In the early 1990s, China finally decided to tackle this problem in earnest: the residents of Kowloon were moved to more prosperous areas, the slums were razed to the ground, leaving only a few historical buildings, and in 1995, a park of the same name was opened on the site of Kowloon.
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| Climate type | tropical trade wind |
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| Density | 12,154 people/km² |
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- Probably me, my friend. I think it was you who changed something in me. Go to the Lord, Isidora. He is your only hope. Go before it's too late.I didn’t answer him. And what could I say?.. That I don’t believe in the help of the White Magus? I don’t believe he’ll make an exception for us? But this is exactly what was true! And that’s why I didn’t want to go to bow to him. Perhaps it was selfish to do this, perhaps it was unwise, but I could not help myself. I no longer wanted to ask for help from my father, who had once betrayed his beloved son... I did not understand him, and I completely disagreed with him. After all, he COULD have saved Radomir. But I didn’t want to... I would give a lot in the world for the opportunity to save my sweet, brave girl. But, unfortunately, I did not have such an opportunity... Even if they kept the most precious thing (KNOWLEDGE), the Magi still did not have the right to harden their hearts to such an extent as to forget simple philanthropy! To destroy compassion in yourself. They turned themselves into cold, soulless “librarians” who sacredly guarded their library. Only now the question was, did they remember, having closed themselves in their proud silence, FOR WHOM this library was once intended?.. Did they remember that our Great Ancestors left their KNOWLEDGE so that it would help them someday? grandchildren to save our beautiful Earth?.. Who gave the White Magus the right to unilaterally decide when exactly the hour would come that they would finally open the doors wide? For some reason, it always seemed to me that those whom our ancestors called Gods would not allow their best sons and daughters to die just because the “right” time was not yet on the threshold! For if the blacks slaughter all the enlightened ones, then no one will understand even the best library...
Anna watched me carefully, apparently hearing my sad thoughts, and in her kind, radiant eyes there was an adult, stern understanding.
“We won’t go to him, mommy.” “We’ll try it ourselves,” my brave girl said, smiling tenderly. – We still have some time left, right?
North looked at Anna in surprise, but, seeing her determination, did not say a word.
And Anna was already looking around in admiration, only now noticing what wealth surrounded her in this marvelous treasury of Caraffa.
The “City of the Sun” (as the name of the area is translated) is located on the outskirts of the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Most of the buildings are slums and huts; poverty reigns in Cite Soleil and crime is rampant. The streets are littered with garbage, there is no sewage system, so the area has long become a breeding ground for dangerous diseases and viruses. And the average life expectancy in Cité Soleil does not exceed 50 years. The police try not to appear in this area of the city, so drug dealers and kidnappers are in charge there.
According to representatives of the Red Cross, the slums of the City of the Sun are the quintessence of all Haitian problems: widespread unemployment, low levels of education, lack of public organizations and services, unsanitary conditions, rampant crime and armed violence - all this can be found in almost every corner of the archipelago , however, it is in one of the districts of the capital that it manifests itself most clearly.
Trying to restore order in the slums, the UN decided in 2004 to introduce a limited military contingent into the territory of Cité Soleil. The peacekeepers managed to largely defuse the situation, but some problems remained. For some time, the UN maintained control over the area, but after the devastating earthquake of 2010, unrest broke out with renewed vigor. Three thousand death row inmates managed to escape from the prison near Cité Soleil, and armed gangs continue to terrorize the civilian population.
2 Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Rio, located on the Atlantic coast, is incredibly beautiful. Thousands of tourists come here to admire the statue of Christ the Redeemer, take part in colorful carnivals and sunbathe on the beaches of Copacabana. However, the city also has another face that is practically unfamiliar to tourists: on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro there are vast favelas - disadvantaged areas consisting mainly of squalid shacks and huts.
The notorious favela Rocinha has long been a transit point for drug traffickers delivering cocaine to Europe, and close cooperation between the corrupt government and the criminal world has led to the fact that gang leaders here feel at ease, living in abundance and even luxury.
Until recently, one of the most odious and famous drug lords in Rio was Erismar Rodriguez Moreira, nicknamed Bem-Te-Wee. His accomplices committed many brutal murders, and Moreira’s group was known for its members’ passion for gold-plated firearms. In 2005, the special services carried out a carefully designed operation to detain gang members, but as a result of the ensuing shootout, Moreira was killed.
Ahead of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the city authorities are trying their best to improve the situation in the favelas, and some positive changes have already taken place.
3 Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
The Mexican state of Chihuahua, bordering the United States, is known as a springboard for drug trafficking. Ciudad Juarez, located in the northern part of the state, has been plagued by violence in recent decades as drug cartels fight each other and law enforcement. In 2009, Ciudad Juarez ranked first in the world in the number of murders per capita - the level reached 130 violent deaths per 100 thousand people. And these are only official statistics - in reality, there are slightly more killed, many people are listed as missing.
In 2010, a local man named Jesus Chavez Castillo was detained in Ciudad Juarez and accused of killing at least 800 people. He was a member of the Barrio Azteca gang. The Mexican admitted that its leader set him a certain quota of murders every day. The crimes were committed to intimidate the police and the population.
In the same 2010, the number of murders in the city amounted to 3.1 thousand per year, but then the authorities managed to correct the situation, the number of such crimes began to seriously decline. But despite this, the crime rate remains very high.
4 Kibera District, Nairobi, Kenya
Nairobi was founded by the British as the headquarters of the railway, and soon the city became one of the centers of the African continent and remains so to this day. Despite the large number of Europeans and tourists in Nairobi, in some areas it is better for whites, like local residents, not to appear. One of these criminal ghettos is Kibera.
The Nairobi administration prefers not to interfere with the lives of the inhabitants of the area, as a result of which Kibera has become a haven for murderers and other criminals. For example, electricity is not available to everyone there, because attackers use most of it for their own purposes. There is no water supply or sewerage system, most of the water is contaminated with typhoid and cholera bacteria, and the toilets are pits that serve as latrines for hundreds of residents.
About half of the able-bodied residents of Kibera are unemployed, many women try to make a living through prostitution, and even the growing number of sexual crimes does not stop them from year to year.
5 Tepito District, Mexico City, Mexico
One of the most dangerous areas in Mexico City, which even local residents from neighboring neighborhoods do not dare to visit, is called Tepito. The main street of the colony also has the same name. This place is known for persistent problems with drugs, underage prostitution and extreme high level crime. Here they sell and buy stolen goods, drug dealers make deals, and pimps daily renew the ranks of their “priestesses of love.” The streets of Tepito have long served as an arena for showdowns among local gangs. Fights, shootings, robberies and murders have long been the hallmark of this area. In Tepito, people periodically disappear, especially white-skinned people.
The name Tepito comes from the Nahuatl word Tepiton, which means "small temple" or "chapel". This is partly justified, because there is a statue of Saint Death there, and those who dare come to offer their prayers to her. Interestingly, Tepito is located almost in the very center of Mexico City, literally a few blocks from the main central square. However, it is difficult for tourists to get there by accident, since all the courtyards are blocked off and can only be accessed through the main street.
There have been repeated attempts to move the Tepito area to another location or simply erase it from the face of Mexico City. But besides people who consider this quarter a black spot of the capital, there are those who support its existence. The authorities have been trying for decades and are still trying to clear the area of illegal markets, homeless people, and prostitutes. But the residents of Tepito successfully resist. Most of them do not want to leave simply because they were born in this colony. In addition, housing rents in Tepito are the lowest in Mexico City.
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