As in most typical years, our correspondents in 2020 sent dispatches from some of the most distant, difficult to reach and totally dangerous places in the world – from the deep cold of Siberia to the scorching heat of the Australian Outback; from the jungle of a jaguar reserve in Argentina to the interior of an armored vehicle filled with French Foreign Legion troops in Mali.
But 2020 was no ordinary year.
With travel restrictions to combat the pandemic imposed almost everywhere, our correspondents had to be more creative. Instead of getting on a plane – or a boat to a drowning island – they usually set out on local trips to convey in an intensely personal writing how the countries, cities and neighborhoods they called home were going through a health crisis devastating.
We were there at the start of the outbreak, with a dispatch in early February from Wuhan, China, the original epicenter, and the first city abandoned in the anxious monotony of a blockade that billions would soon endure. Covering the virus so closely meant being quarantined frequently – four times in three months for Amy Qin.
As the disease spread across the world, so did our reports, with dispatches covering the effects of the coronavirus on six continents, from Bogota to Ottawa, where Canada’s “voice of the nation” continued to ring; from a lack of sheep in Senegal to a silent football match in Tokyo and a private island in Greece.
In Sydney, Damien Cave dived under the water to report on the appeal of spearfishing in Australia during a pandemic.
Book stands were in danger in Paris, closed bars in Beirut, baseball tents emptied in Taiwan and taxis in London banned to a cemetery. In Indonesia, the global slowdown has left thousands of waste pickers even more miserable.
As the world took the first tentative steps to reopen this spring, we documented the return to a kind of strange and temporary semi-normality, taking a 3,700-mile journey through Europe, from a drive-in to a one-on-one disco. classic concerts.
The year, fortunately, was not just about the virus. There was militant pomp on display at the Indian-Pakistani border, protest art on display in Baghdad and Paris and love for communism on display at a Chinese lake.
There was mudlarking to try in London, gold to prospect in Scotland, a street race to run in Somaliland, a lion tamer to meet in Egypt, Lebanese cannabis fields to walk and a Berlin airport to open in the long (long! ) Last.
Was it the social detachment embedded in Thai culture – the habit of greeting others with a wai, a movement similar to a prayer instead of a full hug – that prevented the uncontrolled transmission of the coronavirus? Has Thailand’s early adoption of face masks mitigated the impact of the virus? Is there a genetic component?
Or was it some alchemy of all these factors? We explore what may be the reasons behind Thailand’s low infection rate in the most widely read order of 2020.
– By Hannah Beech; Adam Dean photos
Venezuela’s economic collapse has hit a proud fishing village. Then the jewels began to appear mysteriously on your beach.
“I started to shake, I cried with joy,” said Yolman Lares, a 25-year-old fisherman who initially stumbled on the treasure. “It was the first time that something special happened to me.”
– By Anatoly Kurmanaev and Isayen Herrera; pictures of Adriana Loureiro Fernande
A couple of international lovers, aged 89 and 85, this spring, found a romantic way to (almost) keep in touch during a year of separations, meeting every day on Germany’s closed border with Denmark to chat, play and drink schnapps.
“We are here for love,” said Karsten Tüchsen Hansen, a retired German farmer. “Love is the best thing in the world.”
– By Patrick Kingsley; pictures of Emile Ducke
In front of an audience of 11-13 year olds and TV cameras, five adults were completely naked, like statues, with their arms behind their backs.
“OK, kids, does anyone have a question?” asked the host of the program.
– By Thomas Erdbrink and Martin Selsoe Sorensen; Betina Garcia Pictures
Canada’s largest city politely obeyed a strict coronavirus block. But when a family of foxes set up a den in a prime Toronto location, all bets were off.
“The fox is a small flash of beauty and resourcefulness,” said Al Moritz, a Toronto-based poet. “He’s a fugitive and he’s adorable.”
– By Catherine Porter; photos by Brett Gundlock
They had no oven. Their apartment resembled Santa’s workshop set up in a dormitory. But two novice bakers are thriving in Mexico City.
Their success, a rare good news in a country hit by the coronavirus, is testament to the power of cooking as a survival strategy in the food-obsessed Mexican capital.
– By Natalie Kitroeff; pictures of Meghan Dhaliwal
Victoria is peppered with Tudor Revival architecture, pubs with names like “the Churchill” and specialty stores that sell jam. Until 1950, its officers wore bobby-style helmets.
And if Prince Harry is left alone for real life while in Canada, he can always visit his great-great-grandmother, sitting at a dinner table with a glass of sherry, her hair carefully washed with shampoo and combed by one of her most dedicated affairs .
– By Dan Bilefsky; photos by Jackie Dives
Like the family in the Oscar-winning film, many in Seoul’s so-called dirt class live in basements well below the wealthy.
“Those who live there,” said a 63-year-old taxi driver, “must despise people like me as pigs.”
– By Choe Sang-Hun; Lam Yik Fei’s pictures
In 1633, residents of a Bavarian village, devastated by a pandemic that killed one in four, swore to God that if he spared the rest, they would do the Passion piece – representing Jesus’ life, death and resurrection – to every ten years forever afterwards.
Another pandemic, 387 years later, forced residents to abandon that promise.
– By Katrin Bennhold; pictures of Laetitia Vancon
Caught in an Armenian rocket attack, a New York Times reporting team captured the agony of a dirty war.
A burnt car was still smoking. Blood stained on the sidewalk. Screaming. And a distressed mother, cradling her dead son’s head: “He was coming to tell us that something was going on, and he died.”
– By Carlotta Gall; Ivor Prickett’s pictures
Without the crowd of visitors, Paris once again belonged to Parisians this spring.
And, of course, for “les microbes”.
– By Adam Nossiter; photographs of Andrea Mantovani and Dmitry Kostyukov
In Russia, elections are typically theatrical, with predetermined results. Sometimes, however, they get out of the script.
No one was more surprised to win an election in a Russian village than Marina Udgodskaya, the new mayor, who has not campaigned, has no interest in politics and said she agreed to run only to help her boss. “I like agriculture,” she said.
– By Andrew E. Kramer; photos by Emile Ducke
The Vatican’s nativity scene this year sparked a lot of criticism, some scratching their heads and lots of welcome laughter.
The three magicians, life-size and cylindrical, appeared to be built with ceramic oil drums. Joseph and Mary looked like huge Weebles with the Bible theme. And who was the one with the astronaut helmet?
– By Jason Horowitz; photographs of Nadia Shira Cohen