In northern Kazakhstan, a futuristic city has risen from the forsaken landscape and post-Soviet rubble.
Gerd Ludwig // Chernobyl: Update at 25
April 26, 2011 marks the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, but the long shadow of Chernobyl continues to darken lives…
Gerd Ludwig // Chernobyl Cleanup
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), announced that the Chernobyl Shelter Fund shows a gap of $850 million. It could bring the construction to a halt soon…
Gerd Ludwig // Chernobyl Tourism
On the eve of the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl, the Ukrainian government legalized such tours and hopes for one million visitors to the zone in 2012…
Gerd Ludwig // Russian Epiphany
The Epiphany, celebrated in Russia on January 19, marks the baptism of Jesus in the Orthodox Church calendar…
Gerd Ludwig // Tourism in Crimea: A Bizarre Mix
Tourism in Crimea is almost as old as tourism itself. Throughout its history, the Crimea was conquered numerous times, with occupying powers not only valuing its strategic location, but also its climate and natural beauty.
Gerd Ludwig // Crimea: Russia’s Lost Paradise
Crimea was a jewel of the Russian Empire, today vacationers from Russian, Belarus, and Ukraine relax on its beaches and in its sanatoriums…
Gerd Ludwig // The Return of the Crimean Tatars
The Crimean Tatars are a Turkic ethnic group, with a tragic past, residing in present day Ukraine…
Gerd Ludwig // Cossack Youth Camp, Crimea
In Ukraine, Crimean Cossacks instructors hold a boot camp for Russian and Ukrainian youth from ages 8-16…
Gerd Ludwig // The Partitioned Black Sea Fleet
The Russian Fleet has been operating in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea since the late 18th century. Since then the principal base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet was located Sevastopol
Gerd Ludwig // 20 Years After the Fall of the USSR
In December 1991, the Soviet Union vanished into the pages of history books. Two decades later, Russia has found a new identity…
Gerd Ludwig // Ivanhoe – A Reservoir Undercover
The two open-air reservoirs in the Silver Lake community of Los Angeles comprise two concrete-lined basins that provide water to 600,000 customers…
Gerd Ludwig // Amsterdam
With its cannabis coffee shops, tolerance for homosexuality, and legalization of prostitution, the city of Amsterdam has long been a place to put liberal ideals into action…
Gerd Ludwig // In the Shadow of the Boom
Russia’s warp-speed economic transformation has turned Moscow into the most expensive city in the world, leaving a considerable portion of its population without a slice of the pie…
Gerd Ludwig // Russian Orthodox Church
After being driven underground by Soviet rule for nearly 80 years, the Russian Orthodox Church has been resurrected and is rapidly being restored to its former splendor as the center of Russia’s identity…
Gerd Ludwig // Moscow Never Sleeps
Boasting more billionaires than any other city in the world, Moscow’s extravagant all-night discos, opulent restaurants, and chic designer boutiques have made other metropolises glow pale by comparison…
Gerd Ludwig // Siberia Oil Exploration
Once associated with banishment and desolation, Siberia has now become Mother Russia’s best hope for reclaiming her seat as a world power. All because of gas and oil…
Gerd Ludwig // Siberian Oil – A Region Rising
Once a cold, foreboding region in Western Siberia, now the Khanty-Mansiysk Oblast is experiencing unprecedented wealth and development…
Gerd Ludwig // Peace on Earth or Earth to Pieces
The roots of these landscape photographs reach back to Gerd Ludwig’s childhood experiences…
Gerd Ludwig // Chinese Conquer Prato
As production gets cheaper in mainland China, the threat of competition to western economies grows. But for one Tuscan city, Chinese laborers exported to Italy are creating the competition…
Gerd Ludwig // Siberian Oil – Indigenous Peril
The expansive modernization and economic growth generated by Russia’s oil and gas industry have been a blessing for most of the Khanty-Mansiysk region’s 1.5 million inhabitants, but not all…
Gerd Ludwig // Marktl – Beer, Bread and Pope
There is a village in Southern Germany where most inhabitants still consider Ratzinger’s election to be pope as the best thing that could have happened to their wallets…
Gerd Ludwig // The Long Shadow of Chernobyl
More than twenty years later, the long shadow of Chernobyl continues to darken lives – socially, environmentally, and physically…
Gerd Ludwig // Salton Sea
A victim of geography and hard-ball politics, the Salton Sea is California’s largest, most troubled lake…
Gerd Ludwig // Great Smoky Mountains
Perhaps the most aptly named geographic landmark in the world, the Cherokee Indians called the Great Smoky Mountains the “Place of Blue Smoke” due to its perennial blanket of smoky-blue mist..
Gerd Ludwig // Tasmanian Daily Life
Tasmania – usually referred to by Australians as “Tassie” – is Australia’s second oldest state…
Gerd Ludwig // Tasmanian Beauty
As Tasmania marked the 200th anniversary of its settlement by Europeans in 2004, this uniquely beautiful island is being rediscovered.
Gerd Ludwig // Brazilian Indians
PP-G7, a pilot program to conserve 160 territories of the Brazilian Rain Forest, enabled tribes to mark and preserve their own territories…
Gerd Ludwig // Lethal Legacy
No country is free from the scourge of pollution, but the Soviet example is one of horrifying extremes…
Gerd Ludwig // Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales
Having grown up where the Grimm Brothers lived and worked, I returned to Germany in search of the reflections of my early fairy-tale dreams…
Gerd Ludwig // Trans Siberian Railroad
The world’s longest railway begins in Moscow and runs eastward through the Ural Mountains and across all of Asia to Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan…