Leaving Jerusalem

There was no time or place to stop as we drove out of Jerusalem, so I just held the camera out the right side window and let it go at continuous drive. Most of the photos were either angled wrong or had obstacles in them that obscured the view, but from three shots I managed to assemble the following picture.

2010-07-05 19:37

Israel 2010, Sakharov Gardens

Wide angle photos are difficult. When looking out over a vista, the interesting region is very often just a thin string on the horizon. In this case I was lucky: We were driving on a road high up on a hillside. Still, the road takes up much more space in the photo than it did in my mind when I was there.

The spot where I took the three useable shots is a bit to the east of the Sakharov Gardens interchange, on the Sderot Ben Gurion highway. The gardens are named after Andrei Sakharov[a] (1921 – 1989), a Soviet nuclear physicist, who turned to human rights and peace activism in the 1950s. This made him a Soviet counterpart to J. Robert Oppenheimer[b], who, after having created the first atomic bombs, turned to peace activism. After protesting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 he was sent into internal exile to Nizhny Novgorod[c], a closed city[d]. Sakharov's opposition to the Soviet government made him a target for further harassment and his apartment was often raided by police. It wasn't until Gorbachev launched the glasnost[e] and perestroika[f] movements that he was even allowed back into Moscow. The following prizes are named in his honor:

• Andrei Sakharov Prize (APS)[g] for outstanding leadership and/or achievements of scientists in upholding human rights, awarded by the American Physical Society[h].

• Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought[i], awarded by the European Parliament, intended to honour exceptional individuals who combat intolerance, fanaticism and oppression. Like Andrei Sakharov himself, all the winners of the prize have shown how much courage it takes to defend human rights and freedom of expression.

• Andrei Sakharov Prize For Writer's Civic Courage[j], an annual prize established in 1990 by the association Writers in Support of Perestroika.