After the Revolution: Libya Photographed by Yuri Kozyrev

May 24, 2012 7:00 AM EDT

The last time TIME contract photographer Yuri Kozyrev and I were in Libya together, we were covering the fall of Tripoli to Libyan rebel forces, near the end of an eight-month civil war. We had covered the revolution since February 2011, moving along desert frontlines, into war-ravaged homes, and finally, up to the gates of Muammar Gaddafi’s abandoned villas in Tripoli. Our coverage last Fall took us from intelligence headquarters to the scenes of massacres and on to new front lines. It was chaos—full of discovery and excitement for the rebels and newly liberated civilians—but chaos, nonetheless. No one knew when Gaddafi would be found, or what the future would bring when they found him.

And it wasn’t until four months after Gaddafi was captured and killed—four months after the official end of the war—that we returned to Libya. This time, we didn’t sneak across any borders, nor did we duck from any bullets. We flew into a calm and functioning Benghazi airport, surrounded by flower bushes.

Libya is not as we left it. Driving across the country, we visited old friends and new acquaintances. We discovered that the Esbaks, a family of revolutionaries who I met last February in the Green Mountains of Libya’s east, had lost their youngest son since I last saw them—killed by a mortar shell on the eastern frontline. We discovered they had a new set of politics as well: after decades of dictatorship, they were already fed up with the transitional government and they wanted to see Libya divided into states.

In every town we stopped in, we met rebels we used to know—men who could now be called militia members. They had retained their weapons and their autonomy. The people who defeated the old system may be the biggest threat to stability in the new one. In Misrata, a militia leader named Mohamed Shami took us to the city’s largest prison. There, the men who used to be winners are now the captives. Their overlords are the rebels they once fought and repressed. One of the prisoners we met is Sayyed Muammar Gaddafi Dam, the late dictator’s cousin. We watched as Shami, the militia commander, posed for a picture with the frightened Gaddafi at his side.

There is no justice in the new Libya—but the former rebels are quick to note: there wasn’t much justice in the old Libya either. The prisoners are awaiting trials. Some have been waiting a year. But in the mean time, the conditions aren’t so bad, the militias say—at least torture isn’t as rampant as it was under Gaddafi.

At times our journey was certainly eerie. We stopped in all the places where we had been shot at covering the war. Human remains are still submerged in the sand at one of the first rebel camps that Gaddafi bombed from the air, outside the oil refinery at Ras Lanuf. We stood in the place where our journalist friends and colleagues had been killed in Misrata; and we interviewed former loyalists on the road in Sirte where a rocket-propelled grenade had missed my car and struck someone else. Our jaws dropped when we walked through Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziyah compound in Tripoli. It had been smashed and burned to oblivion, as if the entire country had vented 42 years of rage on a single spot. Perhaps noticing our shock, a 12-year-old boy leaned out of a car window and asked me: “Did you ever expect to see this?” His introduction led us to a conversation with his family, and Yuri photographed the boy and his brother, as they explored what was once the dictator’s, now theirs.

We got the feeling, as we moved from town to town, that the country was in the midst of a great, collective exhale: that Libyan journalists and politicians were just starting to find their footing on new and unfamiliar turf; that families were lifting their heads from beneath the rubble to take a look around; that, despite all the guns in the hands of lawless militias, people were at least shooting at each other less often.

We drove across the country humming along to Libyan revolutionary hip-hop, and stopping to talk with picnicking families, religious leaders, refugees, village sheikhs, and oil workers. Some people wanted revenge; others had already taken it. A lot of people were angry that the money wasn’t flowing fast enough and that they were compelled to rebuild their war-ravaged homes and businesses with money from their own pockets.

But we didn’t find the same despair that had filled the eyes of the young men we encountered in blood-spattered field hospitals just months before. Museums have been erected to commemorate the battles fought and the martyrs lost. Schools are back in session—even the shell-shocked ones. Hundreds of former rebels are training to join the new national army. Old friends are now talking about tourism and business. We heard women discussing women’s rights and lecturing men on politics—a newfound agency that they’ve capitalized on since the revolution. Where the weak transitional government is failing, ordinary citizens are helping one another rebuild. Young people are getting creative. And the most marvelous thing we found as we traveled was optimism; optimism of the wild, determined sort. Libya is set to hold its first democratic election in June. No one knows how many bumps lie in the road up ahead. But despite all those challenges, and the years of heartbreak behind them, the Libyans we met on our road trip seemed hopeful.

Abigail Hauslohner is TIME’s Cairo correspondent.

Yuri Kozyrev is a contract photographer for TIME and was named the 2011 Photographer of the Year in the Pictures of the Year International competition.

March 31, 2012. Children play with slingshots in Sirte, the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown. Sirte was one of the last loyalist strongholds in the nearly year-long war that ended the 42-year regime of Muammar Gaddafi, and it sustained more damage than any other Libyan city—in just a little over a month of heavy fighting. Many residents who admit to having been Gaddafi supporters now worry about what will become of them in the new Libya.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 31, 2012. Nasser Metik’s second floor apartment was shattered by the heavy fighting that wracked Sirte, the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown, during the final months of the Libyan war. Metik lost everything: his home, his grocery store, his barber shop, and café, and he says he doesn’t have the money to rebuild. Now he and other residents, many of whom hail from Gaddafi’s tribe and openly supported the dictator till the end, wonder what will become of them in the new Libya. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

April 1, 2012. Misrata’s largest prison houses some 860 prisoners of war, most of them captured from stronghold towns of Gaddafi. Former rebel fighters-turned-militia members control this makeshift prison and its inhabitants, along with at least six other known prisons in the war ravaged coastal city. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

April 1, 2012. Another view of Misrata’s largest prison houses. With the Libyan justice system still in disarray, the fates of the losers of Libya’s revolution—those who fought for or sympathized with Gaddafi—hang in limbo.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

April 1, 2012. Another view of Misrata’s largest prison houses some 860 prisoners of war, most of them captured from stronghold towns of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

April 1, 2012. Misrata’s largest prison houses some 860 prisoners of war, most of them captured from stronghold towns of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Former rebel fighters-turned-militia members control this makeshift prison and its inhabitants, along with at least six other known prisons in the war ravaged coastal city. The militias say prisoners are treated well; they provide ample food and medical care to the men held captive here. But some of the prisoners say they have been in captivity for more than a year without seeing a lawyer or any sign of an impending trial; many insist that they are also innocent. With the Libyan justice system still in disarray, the fates of the losers of Libya’s revolution—those who fought for or sympathized with Gaddafi—hang in limbo.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

April 1, 2012. Sayyed Muammar Gaddafi Dam, a cousin and aide of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, passes his days reading books and writing inside his makeshift prison cell in Misrata. Dam was one of the last of 860 prisoners of war to wind up in Misrata’s largest prison. Former rebels captured him in his home in Gaddafi’s hometown and final stronghold days before they captured and killed Gaddafi himself. “When you see the Arab world—what happened in Egypt, in Tunisia, and Yemen—I expected this would happen in Libya too,” he told TIME. “And I told Muammar, but he didn’t believe me.”Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

April 1, 2012. Tripoli Street in Misrata.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

April 1, 2012. A young girl inside the newly-opened museum in Misrata. The Ali Hassan Jaber Martyr Exhbit is named for an Al-Jazeera cameraman who was killed covering Libya’s revolution, but contains the horrors and tragedies of Misrata’s own experience with the war—chronicled in intimate and meticulous detail. The museum contains portraits of the war ravaged city’s 1,215 “martyrs”; rows of tanks, rockets, missiles, and mines; official documents detailing the regime’s corruption, and the ID cards of its soldiers and mercenaries; pictures of the wounded, the fighters, and the journalists who covered them; the dictator’s clothes and furniture, and even—out front—the famed gold painted fist statue that Misratan fighters uprooted from Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli and brought home as their prize.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

April 1, 2012. Nassima Abdul Halim lost her son Mahmoud to a sniper’s bullet on a Misrata street on March 18, 2011: “The day before the NATO strikes started,” she says. Mahmoud left a wife and small daughter behind, and Nassima says she still cries for him every day. “We are psychologically destroyed. We need doctors and therapists to help us cope with this suffering.” Less than a month after Mahmoud was killed, Abdul Halim was offered a coping method: the rebels brought her a captured soldier from Gaddafi’s forces. They told her he was slated to be executed, and they handed her a gun, she says. “He gave me his back.” She killed him.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 31, 2012. The city of Sirte sustained more damage than any other city during the Libyan war, but almost all of the city’s damage came as the result of heavy shelling in September and October of last year. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

April 1, 2012. A marketplace in Misrata.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 31, 2012. Mohamed, a schoolteacher, prays at dusk on the rooftop of his friend’s war-ravaged house in the coastal city of Sirte. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 28, 2012. Benghazi, Libya.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 23, 2012. Saad Abdel Ghader, a postal worker, and his family picnic on a Friday afternoon outside of Benghazi. Abdel Ghader says they’re optimistic about Libya’s future, and he believes the Libyan revolution has turned out better than the rest. “Muammar got killed and we threw out his followers,” he says. “Nothing has changed in Egypt. The military stayed in charge. Here we got rid of everything!”Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 25, 2012. Students flock into the courtyard of a girls' secondary school in the eastern Libyan city of Darna. Despite Darna's reputation as a hotbed of religious extremism, little has changed in the local school curriculum--aside from the elimination of Gaddafi's "Green Book"-guided study of Libyan history and society.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 27, 2012. Syrian refugees in Benghazi, Libya gather at a Syrian-run humanitarian organization to pick up their monthly ration of food, medicine, and other aid. Yahya al-Jamal, a Syrian expatriate, who helps run the humanitarian Union of Syrian Revolutionaries in Libya, says he registered more than 700 new Syrian families in March alone—most of them from the war-torn city of Homs. The interim Libyan government—only recently borne of Libya’s own revolution—has been supportive of the Syrian cause.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 26, 2012. Dozens of Libyans protest along one of Benghazi’s main highways. The success of the revolution has yielded an atmosphere of free speech and freedom of protest—both new rights that Libyans have embraced wholeheartedly. As the country moves forward, charting a new political system to replace the authoritarian system presided over by Gaddafi, Libyans have been keen to make their voices heard. This group is calling on their transitional government to push for the release of their relatives—Libyans who went to Iraq in the ‘00s to fight in the insurgency and have since ben imprisoned in Iraqi jails.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 23, 2012. Iman al-Mughrabi, a prominent Islamic scholar, addresses a crowd of mostly men after a Friday prayer in front of Benghazi’s central courthouse. Al-Mughrabi delivers a fiery speech about politics, religion, and women’s rights. “Women’s rights under Gaddafi meant two things: you could be a member of his regime, or you could be a servant, wearing military clothes and acting as his guard,” she bellows. But things have changed. During the revolution, she says, women played an active role: as brave volunteers, supportive wives, and strong mothers.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 25, 2012. The town of Shehat in Libya’s Green Mountains contains one of the largest expanses of Greek and Roman ruins in North Africa, but few people come to see it. Under the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, the region, along with much of eastern Libya was passed over for development. Farmers still transport their crops over poor, rutted roads here. Basic infrastructure is crumbling. And despite the sites, there isn’t a single hotel. It’s that history of neglect that drives support for federalism in the area. Residents say that if Libya is divided up into semi-autonomous states, they might have greater control over their own development and avoid marginalization in the future. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 25, 2012. Rabheen (L) and Miley Esbak visit their brother Ali’s grave in the Green Mountain town of Shehat in eastern Libya. Ali was killed fighting on the frontline against Gaddafi’s forces in April, 2011. Now the family hopes that Libya can seize the rights, dignity, and greatness that they say Ali, 17, was fighting for. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 25 2012. A Libyan woman visits the ruins of the ancient city of Cyrene in eastern Libya’s Green Mountains.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 29, 2012. The former rebels and residents of Ajdabiyah, a town on the former eastern front line of the Libyan revolution, are in the process of building a War Museum to document their town’s experience in war. The museum contains nearly 100 damaged tanks, cars and armored personnel carriers that the former fighters have collected from the scenes of battle in and around their town. It’s one of numerous efforts by communities across the country to document the revolution that overthrew Gaddafi. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

April 2, 2012. The Libyan town of Tawergha, which was a pro-Gaddafi town that participated in the violent assault on the nearby rebel stronghold of Misrata. As the tide shifted during the war, however, the Misratans pushed east and forced the Tawerghans to flee, looting and vandalizing their town in the process. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 28, 2012. Former rebels play sports and lift weights at the 17th of February Martyrs Camp in Benghazi, a former rebel brigade that is now being transformed into a “rehabilitation center” for youth who participated in the war. “Our motto now is ‘From a revolution to a state, and from liberation to reconstruction,’ says the camp’s spokesman Adel Shoahdi. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 28, 2012. Shoahdi says the camp’s new roster of activities, ranging from language classes to computer training, sports, and counseling offers former rebels away to integrate back into Libyan society after the year-long war that toppled the regime of Muammar Gaddafi—especially those who are not interested in joining the military or police.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

April 2, 2012. The Libyan town of Tawergha.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 24, 2012. The February 17th Restaurant in Tobruk looks out onto the east Libyan town’s main square, scene of the first revolutionary celebrations in February, 2011, after the rebels pushed Gaddafi’s forces out of the east. Before the revolution, the restaurant was called the “Fatih restaurant”—fatih, meaning Islamic victor, a common name for things under Gaddafi’s rule—and the square outside was called the King Idriss Mosque Square after the old mosque on its edge. Now the square is Liberation Square. And the owners of the restaurant say they wasted no time renaming it for the day the revolution started.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 30, 2012. Old men outside the mosque in Ben Jawad, the last major town east of Sirte.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 29, 2012. Ajdabiyah, Libya.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 30, 2012. Idriss Mohamed picks through the human remains of a rebel camp in central Libya that was bombed by Gaddafi’s forces during last year’s war. Mohamed started the war as a regime soldier, but defected in the initial weeks of fighting on the eastern frontline, and joined the rebels. Now Mohamed is stationed at a checkpoint here in the town of Ras Lanuf, outside the town’s oil refinery. His unit is being absorbed into a new national army.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

April 3, 2012: Senoussi's house in Tripoli.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

April 2, 2012. Haroun Milad, 12, and his brother Moussa, 14, survey the wreckage of Gaddafi’s once impenetrable residential compound, Bab al-Aziziya, in Tripoli. After living through months of war and bombardment in Tripoli, this is their first time to visit the remains their former dictator. They’re father says they are incredibly optimistic about Libya’s future—that the country has what it takes to become a prosperous, democratic society.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

April 2, 2012. A family lives at the wreckage of Gaddafi’s once impenetrable residential compound, Bab al-Aziziya, in Tripoli.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

March 29, 2012. A Libyan man inside of his ruined apartment in Ajdabiyah as the result of heavy shelling. Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME

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