“The desire to wander is not a profession, but a tendency of the soul”: the story of my grandfather-traveler

There are countless such albums at home, my grandfather is an avid traveler who traveled almost the whole world. He does not like to talk about himself, says that he described everything in detail in his memoirs. But even in them he writes modestly about himself in the third person. Reading:

 

Alexander was born in 1934 on November 20 in the ancient city of Samarkand. My father is a simple office worker. The mother is an illiterate woman who experienced many ills in her virgin years, which the revolution and civil war brought with them. Alexander's life was not easy. During the war he was wounded and half lost his sight. He remembered a starving, half-orphan childhood.

 

With his future wife Elizabeth brought the case. They fell in love at first sight, became husband and wife after four weeks of dating, and have been living together for fifty-four years. Elizabeth is from a family of Germans who were evicted from their native places from Zaporozhye to the Arkhangelsk region and only then, after ten years after the war ended, they were able to gather at the place of residence of their older brother in the Urals and move to Germany.

 

 

For the past twenty-second year, my grandparents have been living in Germany, in the small resort town of Bad Oeynhausen.

 

Coming to visit in the summer, Alexander tried to grow up to take and show the corners of Russia, visit the sea, and later began to go on tours in Europe. Let it cost trouble, money, but how many impressions, delights, memories remained in his soul will inspire him!

 

Indeed, almost all of my most vivid childhood memories are related to travel: a mud volcano, river rafting, a night in a tent in the rain, a difficult climb into the mountains... Mountains are a special topic for Grandpa.

 

Alexander had a very interesting hobby when he was young – to go to the mountains, where he felt at home. He is asked:

 

How did you get stuck in the mountains?

- It was a bit of a stand-alone thing. At work, we often went to Ilmeny, then to Taganai, then to other places in the Southern Urals. I had my own hiking things - sleeping bag, storm strike, backpack, tent. Having got acquainted with the guys from the regional tourist club, once the collections, hikes to the Tien Shan, the Pamirs spun at once.

 

Why did I love mountains? Do they love something? I just felt good there. And when I came back, my soul was fresh, almost transparent. I was not a big man, but fragile, like a light bulb, and in such difficult trials as sleeping on a glacier, climbing a pass, the weight of a backpack pressing you to the ground - it all tempered, gave the strength to feel that you are no worse than the other muscle-pumped comrades on the hike.

 

- How many peaks have you climbed?

 

- None. They climb climbers, and mountain tourists go, overcoming passes, which is not much easier, and sometimes even more difficult. I had to walk five thousand and spend the night at 4600 meters.

 

- How did you choose your routes?

 

We chose an area where we had not yet been, developed a route on the map – how to go to see the best in the area. In the regional club made an application and if the commission gave the “go-ahead” to release a group with guys who have experience of walking mountain trails, they went for romance, for the next impressions and to test themselves for strength, endurance.

 

Yes, I am old now and, of course, I miss those with whom I went to the mountains in Russia. In those years I was ready to go to any area on a hike of any complexity, but with a reliable loyal team.

 

And I will tell you that the desire to wander is not a profession, but a tendency of the soul. Either it is or it is not. Those who do not have, do not need to change anything. He who has can change nothing. People like me want to get somewhere on trains, in airplanes, queuing for hours for tickets, dragging an unbearable load, sleeping on rocks in tents, climbing rocks in a bundle, cooking on a fire or on a primus, eventually helping a friend remove the "cats" after hours of crossing the glacier as they turn into ice balls, or helping to untie the knot with cold fingers and remove the rope from the carbine.

 

It's hard work. There is also such a thing as a call to the road. It’s not because people like me don’t have a roof. Simply, when full of energy, this call does not allow you to live within four walls, sleep, breathe, exist without doing anything for the soul. This call tears down the “tower” to the full program and counts the days before departure to plunge into the enchanting world of other parts of the planet.

 

And for me, a lover of mountain travel, it was associated with wrapping the beak of an icebreaker, packing food in cellophane, fitting equipment. Prepare your camera for hard work - and on the way! To unknown places!

 

 

 

At 84 years old, my grandfather continues to travel. He says that it is the trips and his love of life that help to keep the tone of the soul and body. And I believe that, looking at him. As well as that one day I will be able to tell my grandchildren where my footprints are in the incredible places on this planet. And grandpas, of course.

 

 

More than twenty years since Alexander left those places, but his heart was attached to them, and often, sitting at the window, he mentally passes one or another route, made by him in his distant youth.

 

I often dream of the nature of the mountains, as if they were called back there.

Where behind the tent you can see them in the white hat of the height.

The path curls with a ribbon, the mountain river makes noise

Smoke is ripping from the fire, we're sitting by the tent.

The mountains are in the mountains, and I am not afraid.

I walk captive, lost in the clouds, holding on to the wind before the steep.

Even an eternally cold glacier reaches the sun.

Mountains love the brave and the brave.

The ice axe was cut. Ice is a blue rock.

Steps are cut down, dreams are approaching.

And under the mountains, the Edelweiss bloomed.

Here, above the clouds, our feet have taken us!

Their possessions expanded as light and easy!

Russia is far, far away!

As the mountains beckon us, no one is in a hurry home.

In the mountains, the heart beats freely.

It's called cliffs, I'll walk the path. I'll touch the steep peaks with my hand.

I will look up at the sky and not one day, but down the path of the brave.

Affable distance beckons arsnatch. The mountains are like a fairy tale.

The earth will never get tired of spinning and you will never get tired of walking.

 

Text: Alexander Samokhvalov/Yulia Vitomskova

Photo: from the author's personal archive