The Editor-In-Cheif traditional foreword in the January 2024 issue of National Geographic Magazine – Georgia is almost all about bats and our cover feature story, published in. Text: Bohdana Vashchenko, photography: Viktor Lyagushkin.
Thank you, Ketevan Chumburidze, for your help and work! It was a great pleasure to collaborate with you and all the team on the story.
The project was funded by the National Geographic Society.
One more of our bats flies between rows of vines on the pages of the December 2023 issue of National Geographic Magazine – Georgia, hunting insect pests. The issue collected the best pictures of the year, and I am proud to say the photograph from our project, Bats of Georgia, is included. Congratulations to the photographer, Viktor Lyagushkin.
Bat portraits by Viktor Lyagushkin and their hunting sounds are nicely collected in the short video created by National Geographic Magazine — Georgia. The photographs were produced during my NGS-funded Bats of Georgia project.
Look what I have! I am holding something very special! My bat cover feature story, Night Shift, is inside National Geographic Magazine — Georgia!
It’s all over: terrifying moments when nothing worked, when we couldn’t find bat colonies and perform photo shooting or the animals escaped and stultified our efforts; moments full of joy when we got more than expected; hot summer fieldwork when we dreamed the night would come quickly and bring some coolness.
Stunning bat photographs by Viktor Lyagushkin (Vitya, CONGRATULATIONS!), ten spreads, 3,000 words, 67 days in the field.
It is winter here in Georgia, and our wingy models are hibernating. Sleep well, my bats; we did a great job!
Many thanks to the editorial team of National Geographic Magazine – Georgia for the fantastic work and great layout and your hints and ideas! Ruso and Katie, you are the best! Thank you, chiropterologists Ioseb (Soso) Natradze, Giorgi Sheklashvili, Alexander Bukhnikashvili, and Andrey Kandaurov, for your patience, friendly support, and knowledge; it was so lovely to work with you! Many thanks to Valeri Barbaqadze for your expertise in caves and to Amiran and Irina Tkabladze for your kindness and hospitality.
October 4, Moscow hosted the presentation of the sixth issue of Yevgeny Feldman’s slick magazine Svoy, which was completely dedicated to Viktor Lyagushkin’s art. Photos and stories “from caves and seas” on the pages of the new issue, and even more remarkable stories by Viktor during the presentation captivated the audience.
Photos from the presentation by Tatyana Mordvinova.
Horrible and beautiful, Dancers In The Dark, photography of Georgian bats by Viktor Lyagushkin on pages of the online magazine Republic.
The material is available by subscription. You may read one material simply by registering on their site.
My feature story for National Geographic Georgia, illustrated with Viktor Lyagushkin’s photography, about the Black Sea dolphins and dedicated scientists. During the work on the material I was deeply impressed with Professor Natia Kopaliani from Elias University in Tbilisi, who heads the program for studying and counting marine mammals of the Black Sea. There are only seven people in her group, but they manage with a huge amount of work: this includes counting dolphins and analysis of tissues of dead sea mammals for dangerous viruses and genetic analysis, assessing the diet of dolphins based on fish otoliths found in their stomachs, a lot of samples and so on. And finally, accurate and literate work with the obtained data, which then builds the most interesting scientific publications.
The work of the group made such an impression on me that I changed my original idea to devote an article to Black Sea dwellers only, shifting the emphasis to the work of scientists.
Cover story by me, Bogdana Vashchenko, illustrated with photographs by Viktor Lyagushkin in National Geographic (Georgia) about cave dwelling creatures, and also about issues appeared for the prominent touristic Prometheus cave and how to fix them.
Let Everyone Saves One Tree! – is the main message of my article about Colchis boxwood, published in the November 2018 issue of National Geographic (Georgia) Magazine.
Boxwood is a special plant for Georgia. In just a few years, the Colchis boxwood almost completely disappeared from the wildlife of the Caucasus, eaten by an invasive insect – a boxwood moth brought from the Far East.
The article describes what kind of plant it is, and what is its main enemy, what are the ways to save boxwood, and what has already been done.
Photography by Viktor Lyagushkin.
Many thanks to everyone who helped in the photoshooting and writing of the article.
Big story in National Geographic Georgia Magazine by me, Bogdana Vashchenko, illustrated with photographs by Viktor Lyagushkin, about Vashlovani National Reserve, our of the oldest National Reserves in Georgia. It’s an honour for us to be published in the festive issue of the Magazine, dedicated to its 5-th Anniversary.
Working on the story I was so impressed how it had been possible for all sides to Mind-Meld: the government, non-state organization NACRES, and shepherds.
Here in Vashlovani it is easy to see how strongly tied humans and nature.