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Bikes on the Roof
On the route to Tajikistan "the flying carpet" took us in Istanbul.
The 8 hours stay went "on a tight schedule":
8 beers, a bottle of Rak'a, 16 tickets for ground transport,
4 falafels, 3 airans, some beach time
and a bath at the Bosphorus.
We saw two mosques, which might have been more,
but this is not important.
Ahead of us was a night flight to the capital of Tajikistan,
Dushanbe.
"Hush omaded"( Welcome!), Central Asia!
Time is not an essential factor in the everyday life here.
Everything is smoooooth!
At our question " Kak dela rebyata? (What's up guys?),
we usually received the answer: Vsio Normalno (Everyhting's fine)
And in quite in the mood of the things we waited 3 hours and 5 minutes
to get hands on our baggage.
What is the haste for?
Dushanbe has a population of 680 000 people.
We couldn't meet all of them, but with the help of one of them,
our connection Davlat by name,
we walked around and took a look at the city.
Our first stop was the local market.
The local fruits and vegetables market exceeded our expectations.
We didn't have a clue what to buy or from what to choose.
Our sightseeing tour began and finished
with the visit of the Arch of Ismail Somoni -
the Father of the Nation.
Nowadays the highest peak in Pamir,
previously named Comunism, bears his name.
To get over the 225 km to Pamir we hired the pick-up of Alik.
He is an Afganistan veteran wounded in the war.
He was going to present his gratitude to the Holy Father
who cured him from the pain.
On the way down he picked our quartet of
"Pamir soloists"
combining the "spiritual" journey with a little business.
The kilometers went by and our caravan was floating
East on Pamir Highway M41,
which quite gently turned into a dusty bumpy road.
Under the severe conditions of the road
only the toughest vehicles survive:
KAMAZ, UAZ and some VAZ!
At last… almost by ourselves!
Almost, because always around us there
were somebody or the second Ego of one of us.
The bridge of Obihingob river was the beginning
of our true adventure.
The first goal was the Haburabot pass (3252 m)
which was 1600m ascend and 40 km in distance
from where we stood.
We immediately took up with carrying out our mission
and progressed with the "fantastic" 200 meters…
to our first camp.
Our first cycling day began with a high spirit.
Yet, the euphoria lasted quite shortly.
With the Sun rising the heat began to smash us.
We had the feeling like being in an oven.
On the way up the only shadow that could shelter
all four of us was hidden in the tank
blown at the bottom of the river gully.
Luckily after 3 km Stoyan found a decent in height tree.
There we stretched our bivouac and hanged 4 complete hours
wrapped around its shadow expecting
more bearable cycling conditions.
By progressing with the route we discovered
some fine tricks of moving on in Pamir.
We successfully lead the struggle with the heat
basically at "osh-hans' and "choi-hans".
Sitting under the thick shade refreshing ourselves
with "lepioshka", green tea, "***"
we were not only exercising our Russian language skills
but also training our face muscles
trying to chew the stringy "shashlik".
It took us a day and a half to crawl
to the Haburabot pass.
However, we hadn't much business there
as the surroundings were carefully mined
during the Civil war back in 1993.
It wasn't very healthy to wave the Bulgarian flag there,
so we cautiously "walked" it wrapped around our necks.
So after a chain-horo, a short rest,
with high spirit we swept down
towards our first downhill.
The combination of floating and singing stones,
moving sands, multi-tonnage KAMAZs
and raging UAZs made the downhill
quite tricky and tiring.
At this diary farm at 3000 meters altitude
we discovered with amazement the myth
of Yavor's "sea-gull".
It appeared that its reserved rights
and mostly in the eyebrows of the Pamir girls.
This fashionable make-up is laid (on the eyebrows)
with the help of graphite.
Later we found that the graphite
has a healing property…
It helps against baldness and logorrhea,
for example… I don't remember exactly.
In Kalai-*** city we got our documents stamped
for entering Pamir.
Pamir or Gorno Badakshan is an autonomous region,
part of Tajikistan, and a special permission
is needed to stay there.
This is Payandzh river.
Payandzh is a large muddy river
with big whirlpools and strong roar.
On the other part of the river live the Afgans.
They walk on a path up and down the hill,
sometimes alone, sometimes with mules.
And live a quiet life.
Ever since the very beginning we established
tight relations with the Pamir's dust.
We woke up with it, we rode with it,
we talked, ate, drank, washed our teeth,
even went to bed with it!
Generally speaking —
an overall-penetrating friendship!
From the local people we learned later
on that this phenomenon has a name of its own
Afganetz.
Afganetz is a wind which despite
the high mountains ridges carries sand from
of Turkmenistan that covers everything around.
We met on the road two participants
in the crazy rally for low-fuel-consumption cars:
London - Mongolia.
As Tom and Jerry enlightened us
this noble competition is made in aid of charity.
On the 205th kilometer or on the 13th date
we opened officially the field-hospital!
The first patient we welcomed was me.
Whether it was because of the water,
the food, the heat, the dust or all in one,
but within 2 hours the virus struck me quite nasty.
This happened in the middle of an oasis
with healing spring, where the story goes
that the water heals… night blindness,
thigh muscles inflammation and "other delicate deceases".
Luckily for us right then a GAZ truck
full of aunties stopped by.
The driver agreed to take us
to the city of Rushan.
And then, what happened and how it happened
but finally I lived up and at this moment
the aunties started singing love songs to me.
Because of the passion level increase,
suddenly the truck got a flat tire.
With entering the valley of Bartang river,
started the most difficult and dangerous
part of our journey.
In order to get away from the river
we had to ride the distance of 280 km.
And at the beginning — it was easy,
joyful and still almost green,
if we hadn't looked only up the hill!
In Shiponch village we got acquainted
with Kamardin and his brigade.
Kamardin set the doors of his home
wide open for us — he gave us to eat,
he gave us to drink, we watched even television,
we got informed about the war in Georgia as well.
In Basid village we got into a big
family celebration — birthday.
We hadn't the chance to meet the birthday man,
but in return we became participants in a great
blow-out party — there were live music,
young wine, short fist fight,
everything!
A complete experience as a whole!
This is the day of the "great carrying".
The river had prepared us a slight surprise
for a change.
On exactly four spots, the river had taken away
bank and the road.
We were lucky that we weren't carrying
grand pianos, but bicycles and saddlebags,
because for a mere 5 to 10 meters of collapsed road
we spent an hour or two in tramping
on steep and dangerous paths.
Although the way was taken away,
the contacts between the kishlaki hadn't stopped.
The Pamir people managed with the hard road conditions
moving either on foot or on mules
and at extreme occasions — with bicycles.
And what we were doing there —
nobody knew.
After Yapshorf the things got even tougher.
The road took us on a walk
on old river precipitations — fooling us up and down
for 300–400 meters.
It set our nerves to the edge!
There were no fillings left in our teeth…
In the kishlak of Savnob the local men
(because anyhow we didn't see any women),
welcome us as austronauts.
Probably we had disappointed them
for not having stayed with them
to drink tea, but we had landed
with the sole idea to have some ***.
There is some *** here,
but in the plastic bottle.
The question is to buy 1 or 2 litters.
One.
One? We gona drink it for 2 days.
Eehh…
Let's take one…
It's not bad…
We could not cycle on dry.
This is a very slight nuance which made….
the road look…
more exciting!
Even bigger excitement took hold of Stoyan
when the ear which supported
the back luggage–carrier broke.
Has someone heard of the golden fingers
of Yavor?! Well, the time is now.
Kishlak Gudar appeared to be
a turning point in our journey.
The hand trauma of Mr Penchev
reminded painfully of itself.
The exhaustion started to have its say.
The time was getting on.
That's why we decided to find a transport to Karakul Lake.
At first we drew blank since the three UAZ in the region
were either without gasoline or the whole quantity
of gasoline could not get us anywhere.
The faith smiled on us, however,
in the face of the student of law — Shirin,
who drove a car right from Yapshorf.
After intense bargaining, from which our pockets
quite empty, it appeared that we would share the UAZ
with four more people.
That's the way it is here —
you bargain a car along with all relatives.
Colonel Karim took us to the shobans.
These people lived at 3800 meters altitude.
There we tasted just prepared kefir and lepioshka
with home–made butter.
The more we drank from the kefir
and peered at the faces of the people around us,
the more we discovered that we had
one and the same features.
At last we have stepped on the roof of the world!
Yet, with a car!
Karakul sea is a big salty lake on 4000 meters altitude.
There are neither hotels, nor fish specialties here!
The bar is not working since the Russians were gone.
However, on the other hand, right opposite to us
Lenin Peak looked as a small hill.
Generally speaking Karakul is an ideal place
where a man could clip off his nails
and try to take a bath, if he wanted to split up
with the rich flora and fauna on himself.
Not for fun, at nightfall, the Chinese wind
began to blow…
which... ruined our supper.
Good day!
Very good day for biking!
Totaly lubricated!
Perfect Pamir's morning!
Good day.
Zdravstvuite!
Happy new year!
After the end of the New Years holidays
the time to hit the road has come.
Before us we still had 450 km to the final
in Horog town, four passages and lots of unknown obstacles.
One of the peculiarities of Pamir highway was
that the turns were scarce —
one turn at 10-15 km.
Thus, each curve of the road turned to be
a real celebration for us.
Honestly speaking there were no much occasions for fun!
The carnival mood of ours disappeared
when Yavor got sick — vomiting, upset digestion —
bringing him to complete dehydration.
For two hours time, he became a walking shadow.
On top of this the height sickness hit Stoyan.
And so on 4200 meters altitude our quartet "Pamir soloists"
spent one of its most anxious nights.
At sunrise it appeared as though nothing had happened.
Although tormented, our two friends were ready
for the highest tarmac passage in Pamir — Akbaital.
In this part of Pamir the main ethnic element
was the kirgizi.
They were admirers of the free herdsman life
they breed yaks, lived in yurtas and walked venerably
with sharply pointed big hats.
We communicated with them from a distance
via cameras.
The master of the Roof of the world — the Wind
always blew form west to east.
Constant, on gusts, it filled our heads
with noisy vortexes.
The more we associated with him,
the more we discovered some of its habits —
the wind–blow always opened at 10:00 a.m. sharp
and closed as by clock at 18:30.
The combination of endless straight road lines
and the dense air mass started to smash us
physically and mentally.
With hats pulled over our eyes, with our jackets huddled on,
our faces were burning from the sun
and were getting frozen by the wind.
The vast spaces before us created the illusion
that we are staying at one place.
From one moment on we just stopped to look
at our speedometers.
It was pointless.
Our eyes desperately were seeking for some change,
some movement, which could save us
from the feeling of despair.
We found salvation in staring sidewards.
Only there the décor was changing —
grass with stones, stones with signboards,
signboards with grass.
In our conversations we began speaking more and more
Bulgaria — her green mountains, mountain rivers from which
from which you could drink with handfuls of water.
We already knew what the ancient Bulgarians
had been running from and why they had stopped
on the Danube river.
If you still haven't got the idea — come to Pamir.
We had a goal —
to clamber up the 4655 meters high Akbaital passage.
Akbaital!
4655!
Enough! To take some rest!
That's it.
Few kilometers were left to the final
which were even harder…
But let the wind cover up our tracks.
scenario Ivan Penchev Ivan Nikolov
cameraman Stoyan Kolev, Yavor Dachev Ivan Penchev
editing Ivan Nikolov
sound Alexandar Evtimov
music Pamir's folk music "The guns" from the film "My father the dyer"
graphic Andrian Dimitrov
voice Stoyan Kamburov
thanks to:
and Andon Kindekov Davlat Karakul Ana Nacheva Adrian Stefanov Ivo Dachev Krassimir Kostov Ivajlo Mitev