Can a traditional practice still be beautiful when it indicates poverty?

In Tajikistan, a small, landlocked country in the mountains of Central Asia, nearly half of the population lives in poverty. Food insecurity is a constant threat to people across the country who rely on lipioshka, a flatbread prepared by hand and baked in large clay ovens, for nearly half of their diet. In Baking Bread in Tajikistan, the American filmmaker John Wendle offers a brief yet illuminating glimpse into the bread-making tradition practised throughout central Asia. As seductive as the simple beauty of the process seems, the video’s message is a rather a jarring reinterpretation of the oft-quoted words from the Bible: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’

Via National Geographic