Saturday Sun

When I got to Warsaw, my father recommended that I contact his friend Mr. Michałowski and have a chat about the Caucasus and other bizarre places that only nutters would want to visit. So I did... and he told me to come walking today with the Polish Walkers' Club PTTK on the outskirts of Warsaw in Podkowa Leśna.

Mr. Michałowski rocked up in a bizarre Mongolian fur hat, and immediately reminded me of the Communist Partisan dude in the Harrison Ford war movie I've forgotten the name of. Turns out that he's on a completely different planet, which made our communication difficult at times, given that my personal planet is a few solar systems away from his. Anyway, a cool guy. A gas pipeline specialist, he's written 12 books, been practically everywhere, and has stayed in Chechnya as a war correspondent. He told me I should visit so that I can see happy snaps of him with Maskhadov and Basayev.

I asked him to elaborate about Chechnya, but he told me:

"When you find out that your mother was a slut, or that your grandfather was a traitorous spy, you don't want to talk about it. In the same way I don't want to talk about what people who are related to me culturally have done to the Chechens."

He also went to Tuva a few years ago, and got a severe beration for knocking over a ceremonial drum during a shamanic ritual. He fell sick afterwards, then upon returning to Poland found that his house had burnt down on the same day he'd knocked over the drum.

He's got interesting religious views too:

"Based on culture and geographical location Poland should have adopted Islam."

The whole walk was about 15km, following a vague narrative linked to the life of the Polish writer/scientist Ossendowski. This dude was pretty cool too, as he wrote over a hundred books and travelled all around the world, including a trip to Mongolia/Tuva. A chemist by trade.

I also met a professor of Hydrology on the walk, who went for a few weeks to measure water in Lake Baikal. After the walk, some of us ended up at the nearby house of a doctor and gynecologist couple. We got drunk and ate nice cakes.