07 – 12.09.2011

The Russian traveller, mountaineer and author Anton Krotov had first rented a house in Moscow and had started to provide it other travellers for free, for as long as they wanted to stay. Such a ‘House for All’ was now opened by his friend Marat in Tblisi. He stays in it himself, going out on hikes and longer expeditions in the Caucasus mountains. Dejan and I move to the apartment and get to know Olesja from the Ukraine. She is going to China to teach English. We talk of the power of the will and of the contrast between life in the city and life in nature.

“Yes, sometimes this awareness comes to me that I am not something apart from my surroundings, that all of this is actually me,” she says “and it is usually the strongest in nature.”

Dejan leaves towards Erzurum, Turkey, the next day, to pick up his Visa for Iran there and he gladly accepts the opportunity to stay at the Selemiye Apartami. I meet Laureene from Uganda. She is planning to go to India too and is seeking to find a lasting inner piece.

“I want this inner peace, you know? We talk and think of God so superficially and don’t understand what is actually meant. I want to be able to actually talk to him, to sense his reality.”

Laureene’s wish is to work for peace and equality and to work with the UN or influential NGOs for this sake.

Mika sends out an invitation to his place on couchsurfing to all nearby travellers for a brainstorming session on the topic of founding a social center, a freethinking space. I come to the address and meet Masha, whom I had met at the ‘Boombullys beach hostel in Batumi, standing in the doorway. She leads me inside. Three friends are just starting to paint the walls and don’t say much at all. The plan is to open a Rasta Café. I am assured it has nothing to do with a Coffee Shop, but am somewhat disappointed about this meeting, that Mika had promised to be a brainstorming session for opening a social center. Nobody seems to know Mika either. We talk for a while until I get a call from Mika, who tells me that his place is actually one number further down the street. He does not know anything about the Rasta Café.

It turns out that I have written Mika several weeks ago from Turkey to ask him whether he could host me. At the time he was still travelling and had to refuse. He had changed his name online, but is now emphatically inviting me to stay at his place. The meeting is energetic, the people fresh and open. Mika came back from 10 years of travelling and now wishes to give something back to society. He wants to create a productive network, a place for people to exchange ideas and initiate projects for raising awareness, a place for workshops and seminars to be held, a place for dance, music and alternative movies to be shown, a place for travellers to come for free, rest and share their experiences. He is booming with ideas and is spreading out his antennae all around the world, freshening up connections and inviting people over to Tblisi with whom he could start an NGO. He had already planned to propose to the Georgian government the project of using the border between Georgia and Abkhazia as a buffer zone in which a peaceful community project could be initiated, being self-sustainable through agriculture and providing a transformative interface between both groups of people through its international and open-minded inhabitants. The project fell for now, but the energy lives. Mika speaks of founding such a community where the borders of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbejan meet. He mentions desolate villages in Spain being bought by young people to initiate such self-sustaining communities. We remember the Kibutz’ in Israel and ‘house-projects’ in Leipzig. 

Several from the group meet again in the following days. Monika from Lithuania is studying politics and international relations and is writing her thesis on what role Anarchism plays in Utopian communities, whether theoretical or extant. She refers to philosophical treatises as well as the various religious or agricultural communities around the globe. Mateusz from Poland is studying Philosophy and together we arrive at the conclusion that one can only be truly convinced of something if that individual comes to the conclusion on his own accord. Gela thinks practically, ready to initiate the necessary steps for starting a new business, getting the right supplies or founding an NGO.

The truthful and selfless mindset is what we all understand to be a prerequisite for a peaceful and loving community.

“We are prone to reflect the attitudes which we are faced with.” Says Gela “If one talks to a person of angry, sarcastic or generally negative mindset, he will usually reflect just this type of energy back. But if you live and act consciously you simply absorb such a vibe and continue to radiate positive energy undisturbed.”

“We are like transformers of energy.” I recall the words I have once heard. “Whatever we encounter in thought, emotion or physical surroundings, we have the power in every moment to transmute into positive vibrations.”

Gela speaks: “And deeper insights, flashes of enlightenment come time and again, in moments where all thinking stops, but we are simply not strong enough to hold that state. Most people, having had such an experience, slip back, thoughts come rushing back and the limited personality resumes. But something remains and propels the personality onwards. We all ultimately strive towards enlightenment, towards becoming a Bodhisattva, a being more than human, whether consciously or not. Having become this we choose whether we return to this earth to help humanity or whether we continue upwards. But you see, consciousness, experience, understanding cannot be transmitted. Everybody has to come to it solely by his own efforts. If I taste an apple and describe to you how it tastes, you cannot understand. You have to take the apple and taste for yourself.”

I smile and gaze: “Yet nonetheless there is something incredibly positive created when people come together and share. The energies add up and potentiate exponentially.”