Zachary Selden
My previous
position at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly took me to some interesting
places. I
made several trips to Afghanistan
as well as to Bosnia Herzogovina, Kosovo,
Georgia, Armenia,
Azerbaijan
and Ukraine. Some of those visits were tragic- Kosovo in
particular. Others were more inspiring,
and I was privileged to serve as an election observer for Afghanistan’s
first parliamentary election in decades and in Ukraine
during the Orange Revolution.
Below you will
find links to some photos from my
travels. I will be adding photos and
explanations
when I have time, so check back occasionally for updates.
Afghanistan
These pictures were taken between 2004 and 2006 in and around Kabul,
Herat and Feyzerbad.
We met with a number of Afghan officials on
several occasions including the Vice
President and Preisdent Hamid
Karzai. If you are looking to
buy anything to take home from Kabul, the place to shop is Chicken
Street, although there are a lot of other market
streets
to choose from. In Kabul I went out on a routine patrol with some
French troops. They made us put on flak
jackets, which looked fairly ridiculous and were totally
unnecessary. Of course getting out and walking
for a couple of hours gives you a better sense of a place than
endless meetings in government offices. First a bit of the Kabul
version of fast
food, and then you have to take pictures of the neighborhood
kids.
But whatever you do, never park your
car in the long-term lot at Kabul International Airport.
Ukraine
These were taken during the Orange Revolution, mostly in and around the
center of the revolution in Kiev. Protestors had blocked off
several blocks of one of the main streets and taken over the main
square of the city.