My friend Konstantin and I are 16 years old. We are going up to the dusty mountains. I turn around. The city is hardly visible behind, sunken in the blue haze far below. A hot and dry day. In the middle of the road we see an opened gate, with the road continuing on the another side.
Concrete bunkers are visible on the top of the mountain. I take my Zenith TTL out of the bag and we start to take photos of my friend posing in front of the wells. Because the place looks so surreal, we come up with different scenarios for a photo shoot.
We are having a lot of fun and let our imaginations loose.
We are so consumed by our game that we don't notice two militia men with machine guns approach us from behind. We are handcuffed and during the ride to the precinct informed that we are spies operating in the state secret zone. In the precinct we are strip searched. During the following long six hours, we are told that if we don't admit to being spies we will be prosecuted. We are questioned about what exactly was shot on each frame. They are dissatisfied with our poetic explanations (e.g. "a close-up of the hand reaching for the flower which is growing through the crack in the concrete"; "my friend half naked, looking out of a bunker with hands reaching to the sky and mouth wide open"). In their eyes not only do we appear spies but also gay, which is an offense and punishable by law. We are terrified. Finally we get permission for a call. I call my father who is at a funeral reception. Soon after he arrives. Luckily for us he turns out to be a classmate of a precinct supervisor. He explains to the militia that we are not gay spies, just kids experimenting with a camera. This photo shoot will always remain in my memory, but will never materialize.
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