The Art of Acting

Let’s not overthink this. Yes, best be not to think too much. Because if you started thinking, this pretty immediately made you consider and possibly reconsider choices that may or may not have been taken hastily. But acted we did.

Let’s not overthink this choice to visit the far lands of Kyrgyzstan. Even though it was not the first choice, as the Russian bureaucratic system made us act involuntarily and probably too fast for our own good. In fact, the effort required to first of all collect all the documents for obtaining a Russian visa is tremendous. After struggling to gather all the papers for over 2 or 3 months, Ludwig and I collectively decided to abandon our initial idea and travel instead to the mountainous, post-Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan.

It was in the early days of 2021 when the idea of photographing Sovietic моногорода arose (monogorods, Russian #bezeichnung# for a industrial towns that are entirely centered on one single source of revenue. They are most mining or other industrial cities. Norilsk, the Nothern-most industrial city, whose industry is focussed primarily on mineral mining and processing may be cited as a lovely example – also it is responsible for emitting 2% of the global CO2 emissions). Further, we were planning on diving deep into the local community and gather information on people by sticking to the ethnographic research method called participant observation. The so collected data should later form the basis, on which he wants to write his Bachelor thesis. A route had already been layed out, focussing primarily on the Ural mountain range and things appeared pretty jolly.

Our initial plan have undergone minor changes

However, due to the before-mentionned inconveniences concerning Russian bureaucracy we short-handedly changed our plans. Our new aim was Kyrgyzstan.

Why Kyrgyzstan? What do we know about the country? Not too much. Only the little information we found in various academic articles on ethnic composition (e.g. of the 70.000 Coreans deported by Stalin to Central Asia only a minute fraction did move back to Corea after the collapse od the USSR) and environmental problems. Very little did we find on Soviet influence in the region and possible Slavonic communities in the country… which is very unfortune, as Ludwig’s BA should have a clear connection with Slavonic studies.

Time will eventually show, if this travel will have any scientific value at all or if we’re only going to spend a month-long, well-deserved and long overdue summer holiday in one of the most magnificient post-Soviet states. Because sun, heat and a mighty mountain range we crave!

But let us not hesitate one more second. Let us rather dive straight into the adventure ahead and act. Do. Feel and experience. And, of course, share it with an evergrowing crowd of people.