Originally published via Armageddon Prose Substack:
I inherited from my grandfather a fascination – some with more conventional sensibilities might say a perverse obsession – with old churches and graveyards around the world.
They, through my eyes, convey a sense of the existential cultural legacy that one can’t quite get from cultural artifacts.
Whenever I encounter one that captures my imagination, I tend to document it through photography.
Here’s a smattering of what I’ve seen around the world.
New Mexico
Once employed by the federal government, prior to my permanent banning from the Bureau of Land Management Rio Puerco Field Office for eternity following a Homeland Security investigation into my threat status as a domestic terrorist, my job include long drives to remote federal government sites for obscure bureaucratic reasons.
In Arroyo Seco (I believe it was Arroyo Seco although memory has faded), in 2016, while wasting time on the clock in my official capacity, I stumbled upon this gem hidden in the Northern New Mexico mountains.
Arroyo Seco, New Mexico (?)
Ukraine
Against the backdrop of midsummer green in Ukraine, my Ukrainian now-wife and I walked through 230-year-old Lychakiv Cemetery, consisting of more than 300,000 gravesites — literal miles of them, nearly all meticulously manicured and comely, mixed in with the occasional forlorn, ancient-looking crumbling façade
Lviv, Ukraine
Rivne, Ukraine
Stepan, Ukraine – a village graveyard (the location of my wife’s grandmother’s gravesite)
Lviv, Ukraine
Georgia (the country)
This beauty in Batumi, adjacent to the Black Sea, is perched atop a mountain a few kilometers inland. Like the previously documented churches in Ukraine, it is Christian Orthodox, as evidenced by the telltale proprietary cross design at the top.
Batumi, Georgia
In the interior of Georgia, deep into the Caucasus Mountains, in Borjomi, we came across this modest graveyard.
Borjomi, Georgia
Mexico
Latin American church architecture is a tribute to the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church that Spain championed.
15th-century cathedral in Merida, Mexico, lit up for a local celebration
Graveyards work a little differently in Latin America in that the gravesites are above-ground, often stacked one on top of the other.
And, below, on November 1, 2022, was the scene of the Ciudad del Carmen graveyard on Dia de Los Muertos (“Day of the Dead”).
Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico
Here is found a curiously colored Jesus figure, at the cathedral Izamal on the Yucatan Peninsula.
Izamal, Mexico
Costa Rica
Costa Rica’s capital, San Jose, is largely nothing to write home about, save for a sprawling and majestic graveyard in the middle of the city.
San Jose, Costa Rica
This cathedral, likewise, is located in the middle of San Jose, surrounded by urban decay.
San Jose, Costa Rica
And, in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, we came upon this quaint-looking church, erected with bricks, near the beach.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Vietnam
Here we have a French-inspired cathedral in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Hanoi, Vietnam
Below is not a church, clearly, in the conventional sense, but it is a temple of Chinese influence.
An arrangement based on the Chinese astrological signs
Lao Cai, Vietnam
And below is the scene near Sapa Vietnam, shrouded in fog, near the highest point in continental Southeast Asia.
An array of idols of some sort, Sapa, Vietnam
Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
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