Olga, thank you for your message, I think it's very important to know the
insight of this decision.
And at the time when I agree with your decision to not to take responsibility
for the risks that are (sadly still) exist for the photographers, I can not
agree with your assumption that Wikimedians of Russia "are living normal life".
Yes, bombs are not falling onto our homes but we are having risks of other
nature that can have same, or even worse consequences. And I'm not talking
about mobilization that have already took few of my acquaintances, involuntary.
I'm taking about a condition of a society when any person photographing
anything in public can be understood by police or even by bystanders as a treat
with a very bad result. I, personally, had a very rough conversations with
random people on streets during my personal or even our user group photowalks.
After the beginning of mobilization I even asked our affiliate members to
terminate all of the photographing activities and offline events.
I'm talking about an enormous emotional pressure when authorities claim
Wikimedia Movement as their enemy and Wikimedians as traitors and a treat to
the "only truth". And, adding to that, some of our fellow Wikimedians are
trying to treat us bad just because of our citizenship.
We can't get any support or appreciation from both our compatriots and people
who share our views. We can be claimed as a treat and jailed or even killed in
our country in any day and at the same time there are some people in the
movement who wants us out.
Yes, what happens in Ukraine is a mess (there should be another word for that,
but my English is not perfect, so I know only obscene synonyms) and should not
happen anywhere and anytime. If I could do more that I've done already to stop
that — I'd do it. But don't think that you are the only one struggling. That
would be a bit selfish even in these damn conditions.
Cultural heritage topic was always aside of world politics and I hoped this
time it would stay the same. Keeping in mind number of losses of Ukrainian
heritage monuments I think that work made by Wikimedia community on
photodocumenting them and maintenancing the database is one of the coolest
thing humanity made so far. And all we've done in WLM along the years was
dedicated to that. I hope that this horrible actions of a part of a Russian
society will not intervene our productive work on that field.
--
Sorry if I've offended someone.
Nikolai Bulykin (User:Красный)
North-West Russia Wiki-Historians User Group четверг, 15 декабря 2022г., 02:44
+06:00 от Olga Milianovych [email protected] :
>Hi all,
>
>On behalf of the organizing team for Wiki Loves Monuments in Ukraine I’m
>writing to inform you of our decision not to submit photos for the
>international round.
>
>Traditionally, Wiki Loves Monuments in Ukraine has been one of the biggest WLM
>local contests in the world, as well as among the biggest projects supported
>by Wikimedia Ukraine.
>
>This year, Ukraine and subsequently the contest has suffered from Russia’s
>full-scale invasion. Particularly, for security reasons the organizers had to
>limit submissions only to photos taken before February 24th, 2022, which is
>the date when Russia openly invaded Ukraine.
>
>Despite the limitations, we managed to organize the contest in 2022 and
>attract almost 14,000 photos of Ukrainian cultural heritage from almost 300
>participants. They illustrate over 5,300 monuments, including 351 monuments
>depicted for the first time.
>
>However, the local organizers will not be submitting Ukrainian photos for the
>international round because of the international organizers’ decisions to
>accept photos from Russia on the international stage. To be clear, we do not
>support this decision and had asked the international team not to accept
>Russian photos in the international round.
>
>While we fully support the spread of free knowledge in various forms, we
>believe that it is not appropriate to promote on the international level
>photos from the country that wages a brutal war against Ukraine, kills
>thousands of Ukrainians – and systematically destroys and steals Ukrainian
>cultural, architectural and archaeological monuments.
>
>Besides, Russia’s war has deprived Ukrainian photos of equal conditions in the
>competition. While daily life in Russia continues largely as normal, Ukrainian
>photographers have had to operate in extremely difficult conditions and under
>many limitations – both the formal ones imposed for security reasons and the
>overall situation in Ukraine (power blackouts, problems with internet
>connectivity, personal hardship etc.)
>
>Therefore, we cannot accept Ukrainian photos competing alongside Russian ones
>– we do not think that in current circumstances it is the right thing to
>announce which Ukrainian photos are better and which are worse than Russian
>ones.
>
>We are grateful to Ukrainian participants and volunteers who have made the
>contest possible this year against the odds, as well as to international
>organizers for their hard work in supporting the largest photo contest in the
>Wikimedia ecosystem.
>
>Best regards,
>Olga Milianovych
>Member of the organizing committee for Wiki Loves Monuments in Ukraine
>
>(Disclaimer: Antanana is a member of the Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine
>organizing committee. Due to her currently serving on the Wikimedia Foundation
>Board of Trustees she recused herself from taking part in discussions and
>making decisions on this topic).
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