No matter how much you think your town sucks to skate in, someone somewhere has it worse. Like… Afghanistan. Time magazine has a video featuring of all things skateboarding Afghans, who are skating the burliest pool I’ve ever seen ridden. Image courtesy of Time
Update: Skateistan’s website has more photos and information.
20 comments
alex jeau
I know this is kind of a late post
but they have this skateistan thing on allthis.com and I made one for skatistan (I’ll make a stencil for someone who donates 50 to it). pretty cool idea just thought id share 😀
Ollie
Thanks for all the nice comments. Makes me feel like what we are doing is worthwhile. I have been trying for 8 months to get the money together to build a decent park. And yes $2 billion a month flows into Afghanistan from the US and none has been diverted for a skatepark yet even though we have land and all equipment donated. We dont skate that pool much actually as the gaps are a bit big. Check out the website http://skateistan.org for photos where we actually skate. Don’t believe everything you read in TIME!
Propinas
I forgot I have mega sets of new/old school wheels to help the cause and bearings to go with them. If anybody wants to get with me let’s do it. I did send out a email to skateistan.
Eric Cherry
ben,
http://skateistan.org/contact-us/
One of those guys can surely help you out with who/where/how to provide them with donations.
Little tip tho, according to my sources, images of people are forbidden in artwork. Not sure how legitimate that info may be, but if true something to consider before packing up boards to ship. As not to offend with board graphics.
Nice to see such generosity.
ben
i cant find a website or nothing for this organization.. Me and some guys wanna see if we can donate some money or some boards towards this
Larry
benny–guess the rules all gotta break sometime. good call. can we now get some opiates to pass by the lack of skate terrain there?
Propinas
I found it. Updates are cool…
Propinas
Is there a address we could actually get and seroiusly put together a Skate Pack.
cold ones
Dude, Time magazine totally blew out their pool. Not cool, bro.
benny b bones
One more thing. According to Wikipedia, Georgia acquired its first McDonald’s franchise on 5 February 1999, while Russia had one as early as 31 January 1990. So this war definitively debunks Thomas Friedman’s famed “Golden Arches Theory”, as expressed in his 2000 book The Lexus and the Olive Tree, that “no two countries that both had a McDonald’s had fought a war against each other, since each got its McDonald’s.”
I want to believe…
benny b bones
Woah…finally saw the video. Sick. I want a shirt.
Larry
no country that has a mcdonalds has ever bombed another country that has a mcdonalds. think about it.
sane
a cruise missile is about a million USD so yeah, a couple of nice parks and an interconnecting skate path system wouldn’t be a problem.
I’m stoked, have to see if I can get any decks together to send their way.
JF
I think that one missile would pay for a skatepark. Really cool story.
ssk
So cool. Sucks that even a $50 Walmart board is 5% of the average annual per capita GDP though.
We should send Vallely as a US good will ambassador. Every missile we fire over there could probably pay for a couple thousand skateboards.
Drop skateboards not bombs.
Propinas
Westernize my ass, they’re already bombing hills. I’ll pitch in some product, they said 40 boards were on there way. How cool would that be to stoke them out.
conahan
Great story. Kids are kids everywhere. Buy their tshirts.
kvon
The first link goes to the vid I believe, the second goes to Time.
WOW! Part of me wants to send these guys all the resources we have (boards, concrete crews etc)… but I wonder if its fair to westernize everything even with good intentions. Who knows what great things they might discover if we let them evolve on their own. SCREW IT! Send in the concrete crews! Build them a hill to bomb, and a Dog Bowl. Then leave it alone.
warning: possible side effects may be Walmart and Mc Donald’s.
benny b bones
I clicked the link but I could not find the video. I have a friend who just got back from Afghanistan. He had all kinds of footage of himself skating inside a warehouse. Kinda makes me want to spend some time in the desert…
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=6759933
Check it out, sick skating for what he had available.
heath
Not the most technical skate footage, but probably the most powerful and inspirational message that I’ve seen in this crazy modern world… “I have just one trick.”
I think that international skaters have just found a reason to hate the systems that have prevented them from making friends with their neighbors.
Thanks, Eric.