The eastern district is an industrial area. Shops where you can buy things that normal people don't need, warehouses filled with old stuff, whose owners want to get rid of, production companies employing unskilled workers - such a landscape.
You don't expect winding streets or small colorful wooden houses; nothing pretty or magical at all. And yet.
We went there to buy spare parts for a couple of devices we needed while recording the album. We also wanted to go through a few warehouses in search of antiques, old photographic equipment or anything that would interest us.
The day was hot. We drove slowly, keeping an eye out, the windows fully down, letting in the fresh air we needed to keep us awake.
While passing quarters of concrete buildings, we noticed an unpaved road behind the intersection - an alley that, instead of tin containers and concrete halls, was arranged between old trees with twisted branches and small wooden houses - red, yellow, blue. A place like this in this part of the city is like a blooming oasis in the harsh desert. So we followed this image, as wanderers lost in the Sahara followed a mirage.
In the middle of a colorful housing estate we found a park. Neatly trimmed grass and blooming roses contrasted with the wild shapes of old trees. We decided to leave the car and take a closer look at the area.
On the other side of the park we found a long wall of mossy, crudely hewn stones. Behind the wall was a glade, almost empty except for a few single trees and bushes sticking out here and there.
Not a big deal, but something told us to keep going until we found a rusty, heavy, cast-iron gate.
We entered the walled meadow and, perhaps because of the emptiness, we felt peace. I wanted to sit down and meditate. It's hard to understand, the place seemed friendly and relaxing. We felt like Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden.
In the bushes and clumps of ivy we found crosses and tombstones - a glade surrounded by a wall is a nineteenth-century choleric cemetery.