Beautiful Ruins - Part 1 [by Lera Auerbach]

Arriving home after several months of travel, and while taking some time to recollect experiences by organizing photographs, I came upon images of one of the most memorable trips of last year. It was my first visit to Brazil, where I performed a Mozart piano concerto in the city of Curitiba with a superb orchestra led by Maestro Osvaldo Ferreira.

Brazil made an indelible impression on me.  After my performances in Curitiba, a modern city with all the 21st century commodities, I spent ten days traveling and learning about this mysterious, vast, multi-cultural country, buzzing with creativity. I took a detour to  a part of the world both terrifying in its isolation and achingly beautiful - the last point of civilization before the great expanse of Amazon rainforest between Brazil and Colombia. Twelve hours by fast boat from Manaus lies a small town on the south bank of the portion of the Amazon River known as the Solimões.  It is called Tefé, no roads lead to Tefé. It is only reachable by boat or small plane. Lonely Planet describes it: "It’s not that there is anything wrong – it’s a perfectly agreeable place, just not particularly memorable." Yet, it was in Tefé where I found one of the most extraordinary sites in all my travels.

The heat and humidity were unreal. As I walked from the port up the hill, I saw hundreds of large black birds circling  up in the distance. Soon I realized these were vultures. The image was unsettling yet hauntingly beautiful, so I walked towards the birds. The heat was melting the sole of my sandals. After about half an hour, I reached the gates of the place I was looking for. What I encountered is a memory that will stay with me forever. A cemetery that was a charnel ground, with some of the most chilling (in spite of the heat) yet mesmerizing images of a place for the dead. Here are some of the images:

Vultures on top of the cemetery gates.

These vultures are very large. Majestic birds, really. Despite their bad reputation, vultures are saving this town, working as a full-time cleaning crew. They do not attack the living, they feast on the dead. I saw them playing with the local dogs and cats. They appear as gigantic awkward chickens in the backyards. The locals seem to ignore them altogether. When something is always present, we stop noticing it.

I have always been fascinated by cemeteries and try to visit them wherever I travel. The beautiful ruins of Tefé's cemetery is a feast of colors and shades. 

Crossed perspective

The smudges on this gravestone look like a modern painting. And all these shades of blue...

Petals and leaves fall on the gravestones from the branches of the trees. Pink tears.

I took over thirty photographs of this grave. This child captured my heart.

Wisdom, understanding, strength, mercy, fear of G-d, science are all buried in here.

Beautiful ruins and open graves in all their glory

Life goes on. A cemetery is as good of a place as any to dry your laundry.

Triptych

In other words, don't dump fresh corpses unattended!