San Francisco, Mission and the 6th, the hub for homeless folks and tech start-upers. StartupHouse Hostel - three floors of young ambition guys working towards their dreams behind shiny laptops. No other place could bring me faster back to the ‘default’ reality after Burning Man.
Â
Emptying my backpack I was slowly taking out pants, jacket, shirts, goggles and beads all twisted together with LED lights in one big knot. Every next item produced a bigger cloud of dust into the air of the dorm room.
This dust and a few successful photos on my camera is all that’s left from a week in Black Rock City, the house of BM festival and one-of-a-kind dream town that gets erected in a desert every year, just to vanish in a week.Â
 They say that BM is more than just a festival, it is a culture, built around the idea of freedom, equality and love and powered by arts and drugs (well, that's what they say). They also say that if you fall in love with the place on the first day you become a Burner and never feel truly at home anywhere other than in the miracle city. That’s why burners greet everyone with a cheerful ‘Welcome home!’ glee and a hug.
  My friend called Burning Man an all-you-can-eat buffet for entertainment and arts. There is so much going on, that it becomes overwhelming. You feel a bit FOMO, anxious to see everything before it burns. You spend days cycling among art installation scattered on miles of open playa, and nights walking from club to club, camp-crawling for free drinks, lining up to an Orgy Dome (sometimes just to say afterwards that you did) and then wake up at 5 in the morning to catch the sunrise at the Temple.Â
Like every big journey the trip to Burning Man had its own highlights.Â
1. The AwarenessÂ
The leave-no-trace philosophy together with a day of helping to clean after the camp got me thinking about how much waste I produce. I’ve never been a horder. Once i even made a get-one/get-rid-of-one-item policy for my closet. However I had been accomplishing it by buying things and throwing them away when i didn’t like them anymore, never seriously thinking of what happened after. Having to collect grey water for a week and cleaning the campsite from hair, smallest pieces of paper and food leftovers and then driving with all that back home in the same car was sort of eye-opening.Â
2. The Experience
Our camp built a Russian banya. The idea that seemed like a joke in the beginning (making a steam house in a place hot enough, but with no water, right?) turned out into the most pleasant experience. Getting spanked by traditional birch twigs, washing off day's dust and dirt in a hot steam room during a cold night was incredibly awesome!Â
3. The AtmosphereÂ
The first two days you could feel it, and it felt great. The philosophy of decomodization  takes the money out of the daily routine and embraces the culture of gifting and sharing. Whatever you need, the playa provides. Until it doesn’t. It worked very well till the last day when people started to pack frantically and make their way out of the paradise.Â
4. The Skill
I finally learnt to bike. As bizzare as it sounds, in my 29 i am a very shitty biker. I finally started enjoying it. After days of me cycling through the sand, a bicycle finally became a legit mean of transport instead of just a butt hurting device.
Â
5. The Creative OutletÂ
On my third day I discovered a lady drawing in the crowded centre camp. She was drawing a girl with insects in her red hair. Of course, I couldn’t help myself joining. We ended up drawing together for two hours, each their girls with butterflies. Next day I made an improvised 'Exquisite corpse' drawing session at the same cafe, inviting people to continuer the art piece i originally started. As an art experiment I can’t call it a big success, but as a social it worked quite well. Another touching moments came with me drawing mini thank-you cards for random passers-by - tiny illustrations with a personal note at the back. I have never seen my silly drawings making people so happy.Â
6. The AffairÂ
A classic travel romance with that instant chemistry that so easily sparks in a sexually charged environment like Burning Man. When you are surrounded by naked bodies, alcohol and sexual assault warnings on every toilet door (that seem rather inspiring than warning) it only becomes a matter of time. Even in the welcome booklet the possibility of ’not having a romance’ on the playa was presented almost like an odd exception. Not everyone is attractive, but most are horny and very open-minded and from time to time not very sober.Â
I could not fall in love with the Black Rock city even though I tried. I did not become its resident and I’m not sure if I’ll ever visit it again. Although I felt myself as a tourist on this feast of life, I had some of the most memorable experiences of my life and for that I am very grateful to the all the creative, open-minded, aspired, sometimes crazy but always very friendly people I met there.Â
More photos from Burning Man: www.lyadova.com/burningman
gamechangershow
tangentwithtanner
dailybridgerton
vaporwave
prguitarman
theartofmadeline
origamiaround
ellievsbear
