Hurry up, hurry up…

mothers tell their children. ‘Soon the people of the prophet will come!’.

Every night children and youngsters go out of the town and hide in the bushes. So that the army of the prophet cannot find them. And would not make them kill. Every night these children do not sleep in their beds, but shake from the horror to be found in the bushes.

This is not a tale from a horror book about Christmas. All this happens also today, in this word in the real reality, while many of us are celebrating Christmas. In the north Uganda, where Joseph Kony proclaimed himself to be a Christian prophet and strives to establish a Christian state. His army is a gang of youngsters with weapons, that call themselves a “Lord’s Resistance Army’ goes every night through the villages to force children and youngsters to join their rows.

Spirituality is great. But as soon as the religion is established, you can easily manipulate people. Make them believe in the life after the death and they will not struggle for their rights now. If you want to fight against a nation, tell religious people this nation is against their God and they will take arms and fight. If you want stability, make people believe in fate, they will take their misery as a will of God. If you need people for your armies, burn witches that know something about birth control.

All over the world worst crimes are being committed in the names of religions.

I wish, that you and your children don’t have to escape your own home, because someone believes too deep. For spiritual Christmas without religion

Your sweet cactus

Bekit bekit, paskubekit…

skubina motinos savo vaikus. Tuoj ateis pranaso pasiuntiniai. Kiekviena vakara, vaikai, paaugliai nakciai slepiasi krumuose uz miestelio. Kad pranaso armija nesurastu. Ir nelieptu zudyti. Kiekviena nakti vaikai tirta krumuose is baimes tamsoj.

Visa tai vyksta dabar, kiekviena nakti ir sita Kuciu vakara, kaimeliuose siaures Ugandoje, kur save paskelbes pranasu Joseph Kony siekia isteigti krikscioniska autoritarine valstybe. Jo armija – ginkluotu nepilnamaciu vaiku gauja besivadinanti “Lord’s Resistance Army”. Kiekviena nakti jie eina per kaimus ir jega renka nepilnamecius ir jaunuolius i savo gretas.

Dvasingumas yra puikus dalykas. Bet kai tik jis tampa religija, galima taip lengvai manipuliuoti zmonemis. Itikink zmones, kad yra gyvenimas po mirties, ir jie nekovos uz savo teises dabar. Jei nori kovot pries kokia tauta, itikink religingus zmones, kad ta tauta yra pries ju dieva, ir jie paims ginklus i rankas. Jei nori stabilumo, itikink zmones, kad yra likimas, ir jie priims savo skurda kaip Dievo valia. Jei nori zmoniu savo armijoms, sudekink raganas, kurios ismano kontracepcija.

Religiju vardu pasaulyje visad vyko ir vyksta ziauriausi dalykai.

Linkiu, kad jum ir jusu vaikam nereiktu begt is namu del kazkieno pernelyg didelio tikejimo. Uz dvasingas Kaledas be religijos.

Jusu saldusis kaktusas

Masterpiece of Georgian Experience

Instead of writing my own impressions in English, I better quote here my absolute favourite writer now, Tony Anderson, from his book  Bread and Ashes – A Walk Through the Mountains of Georgia, 2004 Vintage. A small masterpiece of Georgian experience.  

‘Do you have a gun?’ asks Akhmed.
‘A gun?’
‘Yes, a gun, do you have one?’
‘No, I say, ‘no gun’.
“Would you like one? A rifle? A Kalashnikov?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Here, take mine.’ He passes over his old hunting rifle, made of a Soviet army barrel from the last war, a Turkish breech dated 1919 and stock he had carved himself.
‘No, thank you. I thought you said this was a peaceful place.’
‘Yes, of course, it is a completely safeand peaceful place, ochen spokoynoe mesto, but there are bears and even wolfes.’
‘But the bears are no problem, ‘ I say, ‘are they?’
‘No, no, absolutely not,’ Akhmed assures me, ‘but here are people.’
‘People?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah, so you would not say it was entirely safe.’
‘No. It is completely safe.’
We sat on a grassy slope above the village, watching the great mountains darken, the fireflies and the stars coming out. Below, on the low wall of the little border post, a young guard coughed and lit a cigarette. I t glowed comfortingly, way off in the night. His friends inside played cards and drank endless cups of tea, like soldiers everywhere. Akhmed, leaving reluctantly, had told them to watch over us. So, we settled down and drifted into sleep, listening.

Tony Anderson was born in 1950, read English at Oxford and has taught both in Britain and abroad. He has worked as an editor and writer for television, books and theatre, and has recently edited works on Russian/Caucasian subjects. He lives in Somerset.  

Somerset must be definitely a nice place to live, since there is at least one inhabitant of astonishing wit, insight and simplicity around. I could hardly believe, that travelers experiencing the world around them as Winnie the Pooh can find publishers nowadays. So, the news for the world are not that bad then! Whaaaa, I wish I could write like Tony. And I’m glad I am not at the university anymore and can learn from books and people beyond academic. So much more exciting!

Kars or white rabbits of history

From Erzurum I took another small bus to Kars. At that point I knew nothing more than, that it used to be an important place in Armenian history.

After amazing wonderful winding roads in the valleys we entered finally the town. I was standing with my luggage on the street side and felt all but comfortable. I stick out in the crowd usually, but here I felt like being decorated with blinking neon lights.

I don’t know exactly what it is, that gives a flair to a town. This was a combination of concrete, grayness, poverty and the moon landscape all around.

It’s never a good idea to get stuck in the town when it is dark, so I decided to go out of it. On the way some children would run into me grabbing on the bags and shouting moneymoney instead of English hello, and that can drive me crazy.

In the gasoline station I realize that Ani, the ancient Armenian town is another 50 km away, next to the boarder to Armenia, and there would be no other way than to come back to Kars afterwards. The man says that is is not good idea to go there alone. I mean, I was wondering if there is anyone in the world, who could tell me that it is a good idea to travel alone generally. But, since my visa was running out, I though that I eventually enter Turkey from Armenia.

Later I found out that this was more than wrong. Armenia does not have any checkpoints to Turkey. And somehow I can understand that these countries are far away from being best friends.

How can one feel being brought up about the legends of the nation dwelling in the valleys next to mount Ararat and to admire it from the kitchen window knowing, that this mountain, the symbol of the nation surrounded by the legends of Noahs arc, which landed there after the flood, is beyond its borders?

Armenian history, like anything you pick out in Caucasus is damn complicated. You cannot tell anymore, who was the first and who was the second starting the war or building a monastery.

The sad thing about it is that this point of view protects people to look at and construct some kind of future. With Armenia it is like with these children that were told they can find the key of happiness in the backyard, but only if they don’t think about the white rabbit. If you try it yourself you realise that it is just as possible as to act spontaniously when someone tells you to. Brain focuses on the datainput, no matter what it is.

And sure, telling Armenians not to think about their history and to forget the past would not help them to think of the future. The monuments of their history are so evident and impressive that it is even more hard to do so. Own language with its own alphabet, monasteries from the 5th century, mount Ararat surrounded by myths about Noahs arc landing there – these are too big to be ignored. Just as the number of killed people – 2 mln people of Armenian origin were killed in 1912 –1915.

I was glad to tell people I come from Lithuania those days. My French friends were wondering by email, why people were so strange to them in Istanbul. As cyclists they did not read the fresh news. France was proposing to pass a law, that makes it illegal to deny the fact of the Armenian genocide.

The actual discussion proved once again that history is not that much about the facts themselves, but far more about the mental construcs around them. Concerning the Armenians it was in a tremendous clash in Turkey in October. ‘It never happened!’, people who probably have never seen a dead person at all would shout during these days in the demonstrations in Turkey on the television.

The sun was setting and was pedaling through the stony empty landscape of nowhere. Strong wind, the climate is clearly more fierce here.

I was starting to wonder if I can reach any inhabited place before the sunset. Setting up a tend would shout for murder, absolutely no place to hide. Stones too small. Finally, like from a very strange surrealist movie a lonesome concrete building appears. I come closer, gasoline station in construction, first men, I ask them how far is the next village. They looked like bandits i thought. In a good way. Whatever that means. We build a hotel here, they said. You can stay here if you want.

I appreciated and accepted the offer, since the sun was setting very quickly.

Paradise and nationalism

… or how I went to Erzurum by bus

In the bus I woke up in the middle of the night. I could see the landscape just next to the road. In the moonlight with stones lying around it looked like on some different planet. I thought once again that it was a very good idea to go by bus and slept further. Next time I woke up the sun was shining in my eyes. Cold early morning, first sunrays. In the big bus there were 8 men. I wasa the only woman. No houses around, stones, no trees, river valley. Then passing an abandoned village full of concrete bungalows of the same model. I thought, but the soviets, who liked the concrete architecture were not here? No, not soviets. These were Turkish buildings.

I wondered, who live in these places. Many kurdish. People that would not be the first that would cry out TURKIYE GUZEL, meaning Turkey is megacoolbeautiful, that so many people from small to old would tell me in the same manner and doing the same gesture of the Italian cook. Kurdistan.

Before 1912 here lived also many Armenians. And many others before them though the thousands and thousands of centuries.

Erzurum. Concrete blockhouses. Erzurum was seen by ancient Armenians as paradise. In earlier days it must have been a place in a very fruitful valley, and comparing to the harsh mountains it would make sense to see it as paradise. But it definitely changed from that time.

The 2 mln years old skull found in Dmanisi in Georgia lead the archeologists to the conclusion, that first people came from Africa to Caucasus and further spread to Europe and Asia, when the land did not provide enough food. Some time around 12 thousands years ago (10.000 B.C) this region (or rather more south from here, in the valleys of Tigris and Eurphratus) was overpopulated. The Sumer city of Uruk or later Babylon (in Irak) had more around 80.000 inhabitants in 6 square kilometers and was the first megapolis of these days. The climate changed slowly also because the wooden areas were cut and the land was used to an extreme extent. Most probably it applied also for these places. Since now Erzurum does not look like paradise at all. Very cold winters and very hot summers make this place not the easiest to live in.

There are also no Armenians left here to think it as of paradise. Except maybe Hemsinli. Muslims of Armenian origin were not killed during the Armenian genocide. And few must have survived. Since Armenian women left their babies on the streets before they were killed. And raised in Kurdish families. Many Kurdish participated in the killings, but many also raised Armenian children.

So, I was wondering once again, who is going to tell who is bad and who is good? Armenian, Turkish, Kurdish, Jews or Germans?

Nationalism can be used so easily to make people kill each other, just as it happens in so many places of the world. A perfect example of `split and rule’ is the Abhasian conflict in Georgia, or actually any other conflict here in Caucasus.

Some people in power are smart in a nasty manner. Make people believe in their national superiority, give them weapons, destabilize the region and rule! Some politicians in Russia seem to know these principle too well. This is how it goes, since people in Caucasus are proud people, very proud of their nationality.

The sad thing is that most of the people don’t realize that indirectly they are feeding these wars – by cultivating their national identity. Caucasus seems to forget, that through the ages all the kingdoms and states that might have existed here were always multicultural, and here to en extreme extent. There are more than 30 languages in Caucasus. Which is more important of them? Georgian, Svanetian, Mingrelian, or Ubykh, spoken maybe be a handful of people in a small village? Anyway, the result of the cultivated extreme national feeling could lead to a first desired state of monoculture.

In Armenia almost 98% of population is Armenian. Don’t want to make any negative predictions, but at least for biology this rule applies – monocultures have less possibilities to survive, than multicultures.

What a crazy century. Greece, Turkey, Serbia, Armenia, the places that used to be multicultural through the centuries turned or strive to turn to monocultures. The saddest thing is that most people don’t realize that all these wars are actually not national.

Wars nowadays are economical. But its very easy to cover their real nature with national flags. While singing national hymns hardly anyone pays attention to the silent omni presence of Coca Cola.

or things like this: http://candycactus.net/qdig/?Qwd=./6.%20Georgia&Qiv=thumbs&Qis=M

Religion and sexuality

…or how I wanted to go by bus from Nevsehir 

The best would be to communicate without the language. This is what we do anyway, my precious friends in all the places of the world, ugh? So, it is not important anyway, what language to choose to write this diary. For a change I’ll continue in English, if you permit. Not to reach the peaks of mastery writing and compete with the owners of their mother’s tongue (I wonder how obscure must have been the inventor of this image!), but just to share my impressions traveling with few more people around. But I mean, why not learn Lithuanian and read all the previous posts in original language, ugh?

So, this is what happened after staying in Cappadocia and working there as a slave and how I wanted to go by bus from Nevsehir.

It’s getting dark. The pink yellow color of the sky functions perfectly as a trigger and my stomach juice production set on automatically. I was seriously fasting during the stay in Ihlara with Fatime and Doene. And seriously eating after the sunset. So now, when the Ramazan prayer reaches the bus station of Nevsehir I am ready to devour any security guard or any moving living being.

Fortunately for them they are all gone, for the supper after day’s fasting. Barely seeing anything in the darkness I take out the yoghurt, tomatos, bread, greens from my various bike bags and prepare a royal feast. Even if I am used to spend time alone, after Ihlara I feel strange not having some kind of family around to share the bread, cay, or bunch of parsley. But, as it always comes – you just need to think of something and – one security guard comes out of the hut silently burping. He goes inside again. I count… – and here he comes with the cay! Even if he only partially could function as a substitute for the family like in Ihlara, but I’m happy and to have someone to talk to. Even if he’s a man. Small chat, cay, the need for the combination of need interaction – food was perfectly satisfied.

Why I go by bike? I mean, you want to know why I go by bus now? I had only 10 days left of the visa, I explained to him. Turkiye cok buyuk! Turkey is very big! 10 days and half of Turkey did not make sense to go by bike anymore. So, I found out, that there would be a bus going to Erzurum at 8. Very good, additional advantage would be that I could sleep on the bus and would not have to solve the sleeping question.

At eight there were many buses. Checked all the names, smiled to all bus drivers, but none of them would be going in the direction of Erzurum. Hm. No problem, my bus would come at nine, told me the worker of the bus station. Fine. I thought, this is one of the wonderful things of having let everything go – I don’t get stressed of waiting anymore.

At nine again many buses came. I read all the directions. Again smiled to all the bus drivers. But none of them was going to Erzurum though. Hm. My Buddhist Taoist Insallah approach blend start to crackle a little bit. The guy, who insured me that the bus would come, told me now it would come maybe at 12. At midnight. Fine, I thought. I have all the time of my life, no problem. Even if it gets cold a little bit.

With the corner of my brain I realized, that beyond the civilization there would be no problem with coldness, I would pitch up a tent, dress myself properly, that’s it. But here I was prepared for a jump into the bus.

People in Turkey are very friendly. The guy felt sorry for me. Once he called me to accompany to sit on the grass. I thanked and refused telling him, that the grass was wet and cold. So, he came to join me on the bench. Even if I did not realize anything special about the benches before, now they seemed to me really small and I started feeling a little bit claustrophobic. Dressed smartly like all the men working here, with the shirt carefully ironed, I thought it must have been his mother who did it for him, since he did not wear a wedding ring. He was looking for something in his fancy Nokia don’t-ask-me-which-model with blinking and clinking sounds and lights, until his frown turned to a big childish smile and he turned to me showing a small film.

Of course I appreciate when people are friendly, therefore I empathically focus my attention on this piece of technological achievement. The film showed a naked woman making sounds and movements, oh and ah would be the basic sounds.

My empathy slightly went down, but I did my best to control myself in order not to give any reason for my friend to look for a better film. I told him before I am going to Georgia, so being polite, he found the word “Georgia” something to launch on the small talk. He told me that there are many Georgian women here. He was wondering, if I also appreciate sex.

In Turkey I had many opportunities to think of new creative answers to this question. But now I had to admit to myself, that at this moment two crucial frustration sources come together – a never coming bus and coldness– and that the usually high coefficient of my creativity was drastically sinking. I told him simply yok. No.

I asked him if he loved someone truly. I asked him, how he likes Turkish women. And what he thinks of Ramazan. He did not want to talk much, and watched his film again and again. I let him sit on the bench and tried to warm myself going around.

I realized again, that most of the sounds in Turkey would come from some kind of cheap loudspeakers. No matter, if it is the prayer of Ramazan, or a woman making sounds from Nokia. Hm, what a strange world, I thought. Japan made Nokia with a Georgian naked woman in mostly Muslim Turkey being shown to a girl on bike from Lithuania in the middle of the night and middle of Ramazan in the bus station in Nevsehir. I don’t miss watching movies while traveling at all. The reality is surrealist enough.

Another few hours passed. Quarter to midnight. My friend with Nokia had left and came now again. With a present for me – sesame bread I learned to appreciate in Cappadocia. He smiled at me with his big childish smile, and I thought that he was really cool in his simplicity. People can be so nice when they are simple. I wish that this man could make love with women that live here and would not need any electronic virtual substitutes of foreign import.

But religions make sexuality to a big tabu. I’m sad about the married women here, that do all the work at home and most of them probably receive little or no affection from their husbands. I mean, this happens in most places of the world. Here they also absolutely have no real possibilities to find any kind of substitutes for love, just as my friend with Nokia, without very serious social consequences.

The most ridiculous thing that it is all about love, not stealing, killing or any other crime. So, love, or love making is actually something very positive in its nature. I wonder, how people can nowadays ignore the fact, that humans are beings just as any other creatures with needs to eat, drink, laugh and make love? I mean, laughing is really something specific for humans, but making love is so universal!

Through the ages religions used to fulfill the function of social order. How can you make sure, that people don’t kill each other? That they raise their children? Don’t poison each other accidentaly preparing food in a wrong way? Put it all in religion. Indian Vedas include instructions for cooking, just as Koran the scheme for social inclusion of widows. And it had with no doubt its sense. But times change even in most remote places of the world. Social systems of family as a nucleus and religion as law slowly become replaced by communities of free choice, by governmental social system, making the individual at least theoretically more free to choose, who she or he wants to commit herself to. So, the argument, that loosening the sexual boundaries would lead to a social chaos is not valid any more. Since there are means, at least theoretically, to control births.

But no one representing any religion uses this argument. The official argument is that it is all about the soul. Just as cleaning the table before cooking in Induism is also about the soul.

And I admit completely that it is all interconnected. To the extent, that soul is the product of the chemical and mechanical processes in the body, veins, brain. Therefore, instead of prohibiting making love to each other, I would rather care that people eat right food and inhale fresh air, since it has a very direct influence on the soul. But now there are two realities – sexual deprivation in the real life and the excessive sexuality in the virtual. Tourist women belong to the second one – they come and go just as you can turn on and off your mobile. Oh well, I happen to be one.

Bus system in Turkey works usually amazingly well I realized traveling to and from Izmir. This time it must have been a strange exception, I thought. Despite this philosophical auto-entertainment my Insallah-Taoist-Buddhist approach faced another challenge, since I waited for a bus to come for additional two hours, until it came at 2 in the morning. Happy me, fell asleep even before the bus steward offered me some l’eau de cologne.

Kaip pasiilgau Spirakiu

ir ta proga didingas eilerastis pasirase.

Ka jau padarysi,

kad prisnigo vel i puoda,

kose po sniegu atsalo

reiks gyvuliam atiduoti.

Georgian number

for sms is this 00 995 93 26 73 54

will be using it until mid january.  

After a long time..

well, i realised that writing a blog from places where there is no electricity quite a challenge. now, writing two blogs is even worse… so, mainly i keep my lithuanian blog updated, because i can express myself better in litho language. 

i write now from tbilisi, where i came a around a month ago. since my computer was stolen - a matter of natural distribution i guess - i have less opportunities to write in an electronic form. but if you regard, that most of the world is not on wire  , then i think it is more than fare, that i slowly loose my privileges as someone from rich europe and can existentily start realising the life beyond internet or electricity.   

i think, maybe it will make sense to write it all in paper and when i am old and settled (the last one is still hard for me to imagine),  to publish a paper book, that does not require electronics, that we get so much dependent of.

i thank here all the kind people i met on my way in romania, macedonia, greece, turkey and here in georgia, that hosted me or helped me in another way. most of them will never read this post, because they would not have access to the internet.

now i plan to go to syria and jordania. then come back to caucasus in spring, and through central asia - to china. thats the plan, but you never know, if you survive until the next day. in tbilisi crossing the main street i think it could be the last chapter of my traveling. but i survived by now, so the chances are high, that i will continue cycling