Tskaltubo, Georgia, was once a popular destination for tourist from Moscow looking to enjoy the town’s spas. But following the fall of the Soviet Union, the formerly grand spas were abandoned and fell into ruin. When photographer Ryan Koopmans began researching the site, he found more than the relics of the spa town—he discovered an active community. During the war in nearby Abkhazia, which began in 1992, displaced Georgians found shelter in the deserted structures, and over 25 years later, families are still living in Tskaltubo. In photographing the area, Koopmans set out to show more than just the remnants of the once opulent structures. “My aim is to portray traces of life in these ‘abandoned’ buildings—signals that subtly indicate that people still live in these crumbling structures,” he says. “For example, laundry hanging in a derelict hallway, the mud imprint of a ball against the wall, or old glass bottles and Soviet magazines on a table—signs of human presence that implies that people inhabit these architectural relics from the past.”
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