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Rafal Milach is a documentary photographer based in Warsaw, Poland and interested, as said by Things Magazine, in the “dead zones and economic oddities of central and Eastern Europe“.

Black sea of concrete is Milach’s portrayal of Ukraine, a decadent landscape whose Soviet past is still very present.

“The first thing you notice by the sea is the concrete. Kilometres of grey blocks sometimes painted in blue and yellow – the national colors of Ukraine. You can feel the Soviet past at once. It looks surreal and doesn’t match the beautiful landscape that surrounds you. Industrial zones and iron waste by the sea doesn’t remind one of a harmonious idyll between nature and man. People have changed the landscape in a very brutal way. But the sea fights back for its natural shape and territory. The locals seem to respect the power of the sea. Nevertheless they thoughtlessly devastate it. This weird symbiosis makes that piece of land fascinating. I went to the Ukrainian Black Sea coast to explore the mutual influence and the relationship between a man and the sea. Ukraine is a country in transition which for the past few years has been looking for its new identity. So has the Black Sea coast.”