Altay
Just as some stories have no end or moral this second story about Siberian shamanism is missing a shaman, again. It is generally not much of a story at all. If it wasn’t for Altay, where it takes place, and didn’t fit into this illustrated Shaman trilogy I wouldn’t bother writing it. I’d just keep the few memories to myself.
My second journey to Siberia took place in 2013, four years after I didn’t meet shaman in Tuva. I actually tried. I didn’t get eaten by a resting bear and the four days on the Bear island turned out to be a very cold yet unforgettable long weekend. We got back from Tora Khem on a boat sailing down the stream of the Yenisey river to Kyzyl. Lena left on a long journey back to Moscow and I tried to visit one of the shamans practicing in yurts on the outskirts of Kyzyl. To my surprise none of them were willing to see a foreigner not even a Russian, as I learned later. I was told this is the norm. So four years later I went to Altay or Republic of Altay to continue my search for a Shaman.
Altay is a place with a romantic notion to its name for many Russians. I did not know how popular Altay had become in recent years though. I knew Putin had a dacha in Altay and films his bare chested wildlife tik tok videos here, hunting with his clothed pals. But I didn’t know it was this popular. Instagram and Russian celebrities have definitely helped turn Altay into a sort of Siberian spiritual gateway with a Shaman. Tourist camps called ‘Turbaza’ started to appear like mushrooms after rain a few years prior to my arrival, catering for wildlife tourism and spiritual seekers alike.
It was summer and I couldn’t escape tourism in Altay, almost everywhere I went I met an UVAZ car or expansive 4x4 car driven by a local driver with a group of Russian tourists. There seemed to be two kinds. First in the UVAZ, the young people from big cities coming to Altay for a yoga retreat, healing sessions with a shaman, spiritual holidays. And then the wealthy middle ages in the off roads, with family, wearing shorts. But I had shorts too and I would be a hypocrite to moan about tourists, being one myself. I was exactly the same, feeding this new phenomenon with my arrival. I tried to go to the far away corner of Altay to run away from my fellow tourists. I travelled through the remote north east of Altay to Chuluschmanskaya dolina, a deep valley carved in the middle of the north eastern mountain range. On the way through the mountains I met a few hermits and hunters living off grid and getting seasonal jobs in the forests. The journey was very beautiful and I saw Oboo’s (cairns dedicated to the spirits) on the tops of high mountain passes.
I planed to stop in one village I read about in a book by A. Znamenski. If I remember well this was the village where a prominent shaman lived and practiced. The village was called Ulagan and on the way there I got a lift through the mountains by a group of young people. They looked hip, young and up for any adventure. They were from St.Petersburg. I was happy to meet someone from the city and enjoyed the talks about films, music and stone slingshots. It felt good after months in Russia’s far east. I spent couple of days with them in Ulagan, there was a local folk festival with Buzkashi game, a violent sport where two teams on horse back fighting over a goat carcass to put it in the opposite goal. Buzkashi is the national sport of Afghanistan but domesticated all over Central Asia under different names, they call it Kok Boru here in Altay.
I grew each day a bit more frustrated with the group of hip St. Petersburgians . I felt they couldn’t connect with the local people, I felt they were detached as a group and tried to project their way of life on to the locals. They spoke down about the locals amongst themselves, for various reasons, because the locals ate meat, drank vodka, looked or talked rough, supported an unfashionable politician and their moral superiority started to rub on me. I guess I also felt annoyed because I was one of them. I felt like talking football and drinking vodka again. I didn’t wait for my chance to meet the Shaman as it felt pointless and all a bit wrong by this time and I left.
The last week in Altay gave me a little in return for all the disappointment. I went to the very south west of the mountainous republic. The landscape changed and all of a sudden reminded me of a bleached poster of Canadian river I had seen in a hotel room of Kyzyl four years earlier.
I went through Ust’- Kan and then followed the river Koksa to the road end at Ust’- Koksa. There the river meets the Katun river where local believers tie white ribbons on trees and leave food and offerings for spirits. White is for the white line of Siberian shamanism. White and blue ribbons are of a Buddhist origin. In other places near Mongolian border and Buratia locals also tie yellow and red which for a shaman signifies the female and male origins of everything. I met Yevgeny just when I disembarked the archaic bus I arrived on. He was an ethnic Russian, a minority here. He was the first passer-by in the village and I asked him where I could spend a couple of nights. He said I can sleep in his place if I don’t mind a bit of discomfort. He lived in a log cabin adjacent to a brick house. Yevgeny rented the place and it was very basic and small. I decided to pitch my tent behind the log cabin in a small grassy bit. I had couple of drams of vodka with Yevgeny and he offered to show me around next day. He said he had never met a foreigner and put his Sunday clothes on every morning until I left. He was in-between jobs and we went for a hike in the hills or by the river for the next few days. Yevgeny spent his all life in Altay and worked as a beekeeper in the mountains. He decided to move down to the villages with the boom of tourism, now working as a wildlife guide - kind of old school, without a base layer. He was lovely. Yevgeny and the quiet, uneventful walks and the life stories told made my trip to Altay memorable. Without much of an adventure and without a shaman.
Vodka, love and no shaman
(story from Republic of Tuva, Russia)
I spent the last night in Krasnoyarsk at Nikolai’s…After my naive attempt to get on board of a vessel sailing the 1500km stretch of the Yenisei river from Krasnoyarsk all the way to Norilsk failed. It was one of those unimportant yet memorable nights fulled by vodka, Anstafyev and Alexei Jaskin. The sense of failure of last few days was overridden by the anticipation of my trip to Tuva to find the roots of Siberian shamanism. And so with a huge hangover and a head filled with useless information about a writer and an ice hockey player I boarded the train to Abakhan.
The train journey was what I needed. After leaving Krasnoyarsk the train track began to gently wind up and down through heavily wooded hillsides, leaving behind the monotony of the Siberian tundra. I was sharing the whole night carriage with only one other occupant. After the packed carriages of the trans Siberian magistrale this felt like balsam on my mind. There was no vodka, no fish flavoured air and no loud teenage soldiers travelling far from home to full fill their duties, only me and the other occupant, a woman. She looked different from the usual women of eastern Russia. I remember thinking she might be a foreigner. She sat by a window and watched the forest roiling behind the window for hours, in absolute silence. I felt shy to speak to approach her and remember how strange it felt to be in the whole carriage, quietly rattling through these dark endless woods with another person, a woman, acknowledging each other presence yet not talking.
We arrived to Abakhan very early in the morning. The sun just risen behind the periphery of this provincial town and I stood on the deserted train station platform with Lena. The woman from my train carriage. We both looked a bit lost so I asked where she was going and she said to Tuva. I said that was where I was going too and that was it, we were going to Tuva together.
I did not need to wait long to figure what company Lena will be. We left the bus station and Lena waved down the first Zhiguli car on the sleepy morning road and before I knew it we were getting off in a village and heading for a swim in the icy cold Yenisey river. We arrived back to Abakan quite late. I thought we would have to spent a night in there before we travel to Kyzyl, capital of Tuva but Lena had different plans and with the sun setting we were squeezed between couple of vodka drinking Tuvinians in a Lada car heading off to the capital of Tuva Republic. It’s 400km from Abakan to Tuva and it takes about 7 hours in a car. The road zigzags through the wild Sayan mountains. But I did not see anything, I wouldn’t have even if we’d driven during the day. I didn’t see anything because I passed out. The vodka from the Tuvinians found me.
I was woken up at the Tuvinian border by a Russian border officer, questioned and forced to drink another vodka. To toast on Czechoslovakia. Next thing I remember was still dark and a grumpy receptionist in a hotel on a ground floor of a prefab in Kyzyl. Lena doing all the dealing for me. Grumpy receptionist giving a quizzical look and then an old barren room with 2 simple beds and a functionalist painting of a factory on a sun bleached socialist wallpaper.
Lena woke me up early. She wanted to go out and roam, eager to have an adventure. I tried hard to figure my new companion out and asked who she was but she wasn’t giving anything away. I thought she had secrets but it was just her, she never said much. The only think I somehow pieced together was that she was from Moscow, kept a high profile job and was quite mad, good mad.
We went to explore Kyzyl. The city seemed a bizarre mix of Russian prefabs scattered in amongst wooden houses and vast squares connected with dirt track roads. You could see folk icons and shaman references next to the adverts for new Lada cars or Russian beauties. In the evening we went to the outskirts of Kyzyl where the last prefab of the city ends and taiga starts. Lena got to talk to a bunch of vodka drinking characters in a circular place resembling a taxi rig. After some heated exchange she turned to me and asked to land her my map. One of the men put his index finger on a vast and remote area of forest and Lena turned to me and said: ‘The UVazik is leaving at eight, hurry we have to get our backpacks from the hotel’. In the next hour or so we were sardined at the back of an archaic UVAZ on the way to one of the most remote parts of Tuva, Toora Kham.
The journey took all night and was particularly demanding on my bones. There was no road to Tore Cham just a dirt track through the taiga. We stoped midway at midnight at a wooden log cabin housing couple of weathered hunters. Everyone had a dram and cigarette and than I woke up with sunrise on a river bank. The UVAZik came to a halt in thick forest on the banks of the Yenisey river. It was cold and mist was rolling out from the river. The driver made fire to keep us warm.
I asked what we were waiting for and the driver said we wait for a boat to take a couple of us at a time across the river. There wasn’t a timetable. The boat came once every odd morning to meet the UVazik. The boat was a simple wooden canoe for 8 with a gas propeller engine. Once on the other side we walked for couple of miles through the taiga until we reached an opening and suddenly the view of Tore Cham opened up to us. It was very picturesque, mist coming up from the ground along with the sun. Some chimneys already puffing.
When we got closer to the village we started noticing people laying about the unpaved roads and paths, in the grass. They were mostly asleep and dressed. There were empty bottles of vodka scattered all around. This was eerie. We asked the villagers we walked with from the boat where we could stay and were directed to the villages mayor. He was already up and offered us breakfast. He asked what we were doing there and Lena explained we were tourists and going to lake Azas. This was the first time I’d heard about lake Azas. He then asked to speak with Lena in private. When Lena came back she lit up a cigarette, exhaled and said: ‘People don’t like Moscovian here so from now on we are both from Czechoslovakia. You start conversations and when I see it’s safe I join. We are staying here tonight and we get a lift to lake Azas first thing in the morning‘ I said ‘da’ as I struggled to find something more coherent than da. I felt excited yet apprehensive as this adventure started to have a bit of an unhinged feel to it.
We had a day to kill and Lena was keen to get out and roam. The sun was up and the village looked different now under the morning light and the fog gone. Not better, it looked run down, and quite surreal too. There were empty bottles scattered everywhere, and wrecks of agricultural machinery and cars on the outskirts. It wasn’t the people’s debris and waste that made Toora Kham feel surreal it was the people themselves. They were mostly drunk. Some lying around on the grass trying to start conversations with Lena and me stepping in with a phrase about coming in peace from Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia seemed to do the charm. Not that anybody knew, it just sounded good. Foreign yet ‘more Russian then Western’ and too long to ask for a repeat. Invitations to toast our newly found brotherhood came thick and fast and I did not mind, I enjoyed being constantly semi drunk. It helped me not to focus and just follow the flow, or Lena in this story.
We spent the day washing clothes in the Yeanisay river and stocking up on food in a tiny local shop. The shop had 4 walls (most shops do). The first was for canned fish and cooking oil. Second bread, third was cheap Russian vodka and forth local unlabelled one. We bought a bit of all and got some vegetables from under the counter. The night at Toora Khem was fine even though I slept on the ground and had another dream about another place that doesn’t exist.
Next day morning we saw the sun rising above Toora Khem again, this time we left it behind entering the Taiga in the opposite direction. In the direction we headed were no more villages just lakes, mountains and the taiga.
We arrived to lake Azas late in the afternoon after a bumpy ride over the forests undergrowth. The driver of the UVAZ was called Alexandr and his son was Anatoly. They were ethnic Russians going to get the fish from the fisherman and hunters living on the shores of lake Azas. They were good people. Anatoly said his dad never touches vodka and he added then said to Lena they will make sure we have a place to stay and are safe before they leave.
After arriving we found ourselves being hosted by the fisherman outside of their hut, eating smoked fish, drinking vodka and toasting to Czechoslovakia. Then Lena asked her usual all plans changing question: ‘And what is the wooded bob in the middle of the lake there?’. The fishermen said it was a tiny island called the Bear island. They said the bears often rest there when they swim across the lake. There was a sense of inevitability in the air before Lena asked again: ‘Can you take us there?’
How many times I started a new paragraph in the story by: ‘and before I knew it’.. well just like that I stand on a tiny island in the middle of the Siberian lake while Lena is emphasising her last sentence to the leaving fishermen: ‘Don’t forget, after 4 days!’
I am standing on a shore of a 50x100 metres Bear island with a bag of tatties, under counter vegetables, borrowed fishing rod, bottle of vodka, single man tent and no shaman whatsoever but a woman I’ve only just met and I am falling in love with. I sign, take it all in and reach for the bottle.
The tent pole jihad
I left Faizabad and Badakhshan province after my 30th birthday. I spent few days in villages of Takhar province and then I came to Mazar- i- Sharif, 3rd largest city of Afghanistan, on the 8th of September. One day before Ahmad Shah Massoud anniversary and 2 days before I was meant to meat my friends from an NGO who I was about to stay with for a while in Afghanistan. But before the story moves on let me tell you a bit about the main character in this story, Ahmad Shah Massoud.
I am a bitterly dejected romantic and for such, Ahmad Shah Massoud means a lot. He’s the Winnetou of my childhood, Aki Kaurismaki of my twenties and Monty Don of my middle age. Dubbed the Lion of Panjshir, Ahmad Shah Massoud was the head of the Northern Alliance, the Tajik resistance dug deep in the Panjshir valley of the Hindukhush mountains who fought the invading Soviet Red Army and later the Taliban. Pious yet moderate Muslim he was fluent in 5 languages, schooled at a French lycée and graduated in engineering in Kabul’s. Admirer of Persian poetry and works of Mao Zedong and De Gayle, Massoud was charismatic leader, skilful strategist and as much as a mujahedin can be he was a trendsetter, wearing his pakol hat skilfully on one side of his head. Ah, Massoud was cool and so he was loved by all journalists and that became his downfall. The Taliban sent two Al Quida sympathisers pretending to be journalists with Belgian passports who detonated a bomb hidden in one of the cameras while in a room with Massoud. He was assassinated on 9th September 2001. Tellingly just 2 days before the twin towers.
Mazar- e -Sharif, like the most of northern Afghanistan has always been an anti Taliban stronghold. Ahmed Shah Masoud is having a hero status here. It was 8th of September, one day short of Masouds death anniversary when I arrived in Mazar-e-Sharif.
The Chinese made windowless bus stopped very centrally and I set out to find the most run down hotel around. I found just that in one of the offshoots leading to the main square of Mazar-i-Sharif. The hotel was desolate but as a rule run down hotels are always full of wonderful characters and colourful stories. I spent the evening around the serene and breathtakingly beautiful Blue mosque. I people watched and people watched me. I remember having green tea with a Mazar-i-Sharif - Kandahar bus driver back at the hotel. He had the hotel staff roasting him half a lamb he got from a villager as a bus fare and invited me to dine with him on a carpet. He told me he came here as all people in the hotel for the Ahmad Shah Massoud dead anniversary.
I felt full and tired when I returned to my shabby room with door secured by a string. After spending last few nights in mountain villages I was looking forward to a good night sleep and just when I thought I was falling into a dream of Massouds bravery the string tied door slammed open and in the door were two beardy men in a camouflage outfit holding Kalashnikovs. I jumped up from my bed but one pointed his khalasnikov at me and ushered me to stay on bed with my hands out. He asked me for my passport and my bag. He looked at my passport and then at me saying: ‘Hmm, Chechnya’ and I said: ‘Oh no, Czech Republic’ and he nodded and said ‘Chechnya’ .He searched my backpack, barked something at the hotel staff who was already all in my room and left. The hotel staff told me that they were local warlord Mohamed Ata’s men and they heard about a Chechnyan staying in the town so they came to check on me and made sure I wasn’t an Al Quida trying to blow myself up down the street during the Ahmad Shah Massoud anniversary parade. I said that was understandable and tied my door with the string behind them. It was after midnight and just when I was falling asleep again the door was kicked in with a louder bang then before. And here they were in my room..maybe 5 police officers screaming at me to stay on my bed and show them my passport. I did that and they passing the passport round were nodding and saying: ‘Hm, Chechnya’. Then one asked in broken Russian: ‘ Why you here?’ I said: ‘I am a tourist’ and they repeated after me nodding: ‘Hm, Chechnyan terrorist’. I objected and tried to explain that I am not a Chechnyan terrorist but they seemed to have their own version of me already made. Then they started to take stuff out of my backpack. Clothes, green tea, diaries, books and films and then the unfortunate self assembling tent pole came out and self assembled. That seemed to cause unpredictable havoc among the police unit. They jumped, hid and shouted at me pointing at the poor self assembling tent pole now self assembled in the middle of the crowded room. After some explaining and practical tent erecting at 2 am in the middle of a crowded hotel room they reluctantly left talking about self assembling tent poles and I tied the room door with another string behind them. I was exhausted and just fell asleep with all my posession from the backpack scattered all over my room when the door opened up with a bang for third time. This time it was a sorry looking middle aged man with a shabby beard and broken English. He said he was the hotel owner and his staff told him what was going on and he did not want any Chechnyan terrorists in his hotel and I should pack and get out. I felt tired after the eventful, sleepless night and angry and empowered by the fact that he was just a sorry looking middle aged man without a gun I started shouting that this is not the Afghan hospitality I am used to, where is his honour and that I already paid for my stay. He said back, one foot in door, that if I don’t leave in an hour he phones Mohamed Ata’s militia and that send me packing without too much of further objecting. I packed and I left my room. In the lobby at the end of a shabby corridor was all the hotel staff waiting for me around a large picture framed with plastic flowers of Ahmed Shah Massoud asking to take a photo with me around Ahmad Shah’s portrait. Just when I agreed to the photo shoot the two Mohamed Ata’s men appeared and asked for the hotel owner. They ordered him not to let me out till the parade outside is over. They said they are not taking any risks with me. They ordered the owner to keep an eye on me at all time. He looked deflated, disgusted and put on a 'Why always me' face on and so did I. He showed me into his little windowless half-room half-office at the back of the hotel. He asked if I play backgammon and I said I do so we sat there eating the yesterday’s lamb leg the Mazar - Kandahar driver left behind and played backgammon in the windowless room. My hero Ahmad Shah Massoud's death anniversary parade taking place right out in the street below. Chewing on a piece of last nights lamb I thought for a moment about the inevitable ways universe puts us through at times.
I called my friends from the NGO who were meant to pick me up at midday and apologised that I am being kept hostage in a local hotel. They said it was ok and to let them know when I am freed. Then they added that it was probably for the best to stay in during the parade. They said rumour has it there is a Chechnyan terrorist somewhere in the town.
The butchers shop
11 days to birthday
It was 11 days to my 30 birthday when I entered Afghanistan.
I came to Afghanistan from Tajikistan through the Iskhoshim border crossing. The border crossing is situated on the banks of Wakhan river which is the natural border line dividing Afghanistan from Tajikistan and the Pamirs mountain ridge from the Hindukusch. The remote, mountainous location at the mouth of the Wakhan Corridor makes this border crossing the least frequented in whole Afghanistan. I was searched for pornography and alcohol and told I was only 13th non Afghani passing through that year. I was proud of the news.
The walk from the border to the nearest village Iskhoshim took an hour on a dusty dirt track road. It was a good walk on which I was negotiating with stray dogs, irrigation canals, remains of tanks and rocket launchers and wild children while admiring the snow capped peaks of Hindukush in the background. Once in Iskhoshim I asked where I spend a night and was showed a little shabby looking house at the road side. It was a simple, one room eatery which turned into a sleeping place (sleeping on the floor) at night. There wasn’t any toilet or bathroom but a small basin and an old jug with water in the corner and the only food served was pilaff. I thought it was a very good deal and stayed for couple of days. The surrounding vistas and nature were breathtaking but what I found the most impressive was the locals and the fellow occupants of the eatery.
Especially one eyed Khan Zada who sported an appearance of a dangerous pimp or a kind of a mad oriental looking Glasgow viagra back street dealer on a holiday. Anyway, I liked him and he showed me around and introduced me to couple of locals who could speak some english or Russian and tell me all about the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan I couldn’t find on Wikipedia or books. It turned out that Knan Zada, in spite of his dubious looks, was a well respected visitor to this mountain village but still a real dealer. He wasn’t into drugs though, he was dealing in precious stones, Lapis Lazuri and Ruby in particular which the whole area is well known for.
It was 7 days to my 30th birthday when I left Iskhoshim with Khan Zada.
I fell in love with this place and longed to stay longer but I was explained that this was the first day of Ramadan and there might be barely any traffic in this God’s forgotten corner of Afghanistan for the whole month.
Now, the trouble wasn’t only Khan Zada’s wild west appearance but mine too. On the evening of our departure I went to the local bazaar and bought shalwar kameez (long tunic and baggy trousers) .I like black, so I bought it black. I then got black waist coat and black turban to complete my new look. I attracted a lot of attention on the first days in Iskhoshim with my western clothes and I thought I will distinguish my origins in my new outfit but I was wrong. I got in the car with Khan Zada, ready to depart when his driver became very agitated after seeing me. He said, pointing at me, he ain’t be driving no Al-Qaeda fighter and left the car in a dramatic fashion.
On the way back to the bazaar Khan Zada explained to me that locals as well as anti Taliban mujahideen wear pakol hat (a pancake shaped hat as worn by the charismatic leader of the Soviet and Taliban resistance Ahmad Shah Masood). Taliban usually wear black shalwar kameez and white turban. ‘But your outfit, he says, looking at me, sizing me up.. you look like some sort of Al-Qeada funeral attendant. I bought brown waistcoat and pakol hat at the bazaar and we set off.
It was 6 days to my 30th birthday when I parted with Khan Zada and arrived in Baharak.
I had chosen Baharak as my next destination because I had been told not to go there. Baharak was notorious as a home to different warlords of north Afghanistan, place of frequent unrest between local tribes and safe heaven to smugglers of whatever can be smuggled. I thought that was a perfect fit for me. I had to persuade Khan Zada first to drop me off in there, which he did reluctantly, shaking his head, claiming I am dead man. He told his driver to stop the Toyota car at a local eatery in the middle of the village by a dirt track road. He took me in, shouted something in Pashto to the slow looking local eatery worker and told me to wait before leaving somewhere with his driver. He reappeared after an hour, shouting Pashto at the slow eatery worker, then came to me, gave me a deep one eyed look, kissed me goodbye on the cheek and handed me a white rose. My one eyed dealer friend left and I suddenly felt alone and realised the unbearable heaviness of the situation.. standing in the middle of a warlords village, dressed like an Al-Qeada and holding a white rose.
The next 5 days were one of the most interesting days in my life. Ramadan was on full mode so I was fasting from dusk to down in support of the local warlords. During the day I was exploring the little winding streets of this mountain village, the slopped fields, and hill sides oasis’s. I came back to the eatery which filled in with the whole village at sundown for Maghrib, the fifth prayer of the day which marks the end of the day’s fast. The atmosphere after everybody ate was exhilarating and joyous and in spite of the fact that I didn’t speak much of Farsi, Dari, Tajik, Pashto or whatever tongue the locals spoke, I felt part of it.
It was 2 days to my 30th birthday when the Fairy man arrived.
He came after Maghrib, after everyone’s eaten and prayed. He called me out and showed me to sit down in the corner of the eatery, away from the merry warlords. He had very clean almost white Shalwar Kameez, beige turban and long white beard. He looked very old. He asked me if I speak Russian and I said I do. He then said in perfect Russian: ‘Your are our dear guest in the village and we have been happy you enjoining your time in our village. The Village elders sat down with the warlords and the taliban and agreed to give you protection for 5 days. We are Pathans and our ethical code the Pashtunwale tells us to treat a guest like a brother. This is the last night of our protection and we won’t be able to guarantee you safety anymore from tomorrow morning. I advise you to leave by 8am tomorrow morning.’ He paid the bill I had made in the eatery for last 4 days and left.
It was 8pm so I had 10 hours to leave, I thought. I went to the slow eatery worker and asked if he thinks I can get a lift tonight and he said he will keep an eye on any car passing and would stop the car and make the driver take me. I said ‘Tashakur’/thank you and hoped for a miracle. Then somebody called me out and indicated to go outside. Outside was another fairy old man with white long beard, this time shorter, shabbier and even older version of the first one. This one was also accompanied by a little and sorry looking donkey. After asking about my family and health he explained: ‘I am very sorry to hear about your regrettable situation. I have come to offer you my donkey for $100. It’s a good donkey, who will take you to Faizabad in 3 days.’ It seemed a genuine offer but I questioned the state and age of the donkey and voiced my doubts to the old man. He reassured me: ‘This donkey here is an old donkey now but only a couple of years ago he was able to carry 2 rocket launchers over those mountains whenever needed, he’s still a strong donkey and will take you to Faizabad in 3 days.’
Just when I was about to began the price negotiations, the slow eatery worker came out of the eatery building and said there will be a car leaving for Faizabad in about an hour time. In next 30 min I sat in a 30 years old sellotaped Toyota pick up with a miserable man called Allaludin. In next couple of minutes we were deep in the mountains of Hindukush and I fell asleep.
It was 1 day to my 30th birthday when I woke up in the middle of the night in a sellotaped Toyota pick up. I looked at my wrist watch and it was 3am in the morning. We were parked on the bank of a stream in a deep cut gorge. The mountains around us were lit by milky light of the nearly round moon. It was very still and dream like and Allaludin was heavily vomiting into the pristine water of the mountain stream. I fished out some stomach bug medication from my backpack and gave it to him and fell asleep again.
The sun was rising from behind the mountains and the sound of Fajr (first prayer of the day) was still lingering in the dusty air when I was woken by Allaludin. We were in a small village on a mountain side, parked in front of a muddy house. Allaludin appeared in a changed mood. He wasn’t miserable anymore he seemed calm, self-assured almost gracious when he showed me to follow him to his house. Here, if I carry on writing about what happened on the last day before my birthday, in this small village, in the mud house, I may regret that. There are things in our lives which are meant to stay with us forever. Things which could open gates to demons and, hand on heart, once I am telling a short story it should stay short. So I decided to keep the proceedings of the last night before my 30th birthday to myself, untold.
It was my 30th birthday when I arrived on a back of a Toyota pick up truck to Faizabad and had this photograph taken.
October 1016 to October 2017
Some of the back sides of the found photographs I places in the Soviet Album. These photographs used to be send across the vast expanses of the former Soviet Union. The short texts are greetings to family members, friends or lovers.
These are some of the old illustrated children books I found in old bookshops in Ukraine. The books used to tell stories of far away places like the taiga in Siberia or the steppes of Central Asia and the books were favorite reads among children and young people from mostly urban areas of the Soviet Union.
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