Senti

[victoriaiakovleva]

18/01

The years shall run like rabbits.

I don’t keep up with the daily narrative and major events of my life. The life with Niri has been a series of small emotional accomplishments.

The three months in Berlin disappeared as non existent. I read, did yoga, froze, juggled my thoughts around on multiple occasions.

I flew to Milan, came to Turin. My stay in Turin was not all bliss, it was a slow getting through the thick forest of my emotional doubts.

I received a letter from Marco full of pain and sorrow. I couldn’t but unintentionally compare my life to how it was one year ago. I wasn’t venturing into hiking the La Palma volcanoes and celebrating New Year in a god forsaken village under the Teide, I was in a cold “shoebox” apartment trying to summon my celebrational spirits around Christmas and New Year with Nir.

[victoriaiakovleva]

Cicogna, the only inhabited area within the largest wilderness area in Europe, Val Grande. Tortuosity of the asphalt road filters off the most impatient ones and leaves some frustrated when destination is reached and the asphalt road gives way to trails, nature and any lack of civilized entertainment.

Cicogna’s reality jars with its name. It shamelessly promises the abundance of babies - cicogna the “stork” - and yet one could scrape up not more than 20 locals, being generous on interpreting the “local”. One bar, two families, four kids, no supermarket, a couple of farmers who show up with naturally hypertrophied zucchinis, shameless sheep grazing on the slopes of the mountains (that one looks at with distinct affection when reminiscent of their ricotta).

Cicogna is many trails that helped me to reinterpret myself as a galloping mountain goat, chilly Pogallo waters that awakened my blood vessels and briefly soothed the restlessness, Karl Marx-bearded Massimo who became my countryside angel guardian and loyal dinner companion. I opened my stomach to all his dinner proposals, he showed me the simple pleasures and human warmth can win over the snobbery of intelligent conversation.

The internal gossip with its humdrum and lullabying boredom is bound to stay within Cicogna, outside the viewfinder. Just as the smell of the tomatoes that got ripe precisely in time to jump into the last dinner sauce, and the mellow warmth that I’m carrying with me back to Rome.

[victoriaiakovleva]

D’Elise

05/04/2020 Via Paolo Zacchia 3. My favorite room out of my nomadic travels in Rome, with windows almost touching the 2 meter high ceiling. With the windows that can be wide open (распахнуты!) creating the illusion of being outside, even when technically still being behind my desk. My table is inside, but I can duck with my neck outside, to catch a sun ray on my cheek. I am going through the dry material of diabetes treatment, my mind is carried away and thrown back into memories of school years in Saint-Petersburg. The wide open windows bring birds’ chirping and the presence of someone exercising on “D’Elise”. The same D’Elise I was exercising on in the living room of our family apartment in Saint-Petersburg. The same D’Elise I was playing when my young mind could not foresee me being an almost medical graduate and typing these words while being quarantined in the midst of covid-19 epidemic. The someone is equally struggling with the second part of D’Elise when melancholic tone abruptly changes to fast and joyous. I remember the resistance of my own fingers.

[victoriaiakovleva]

Non-chronological notes of walking days. Day 12. February, 26. From Marina di Ascea to Pisciotto-Palinuro. Stayed in a deserted hotel of Magna Graecia in the company of the owner himself, the girl Ramona from Romania, one worker and multiple cats. The owner in his uncertain age bears the traces of time decay. He wears out with the current of time just as the colors of his once freshly painted hotel fade away. His speech is flavored with a strong unknown to me accent - that type of man believes speaking slowly and loudly is the path to mutual understanding. Looking at him, I think of my grandmother with a sense of sweet nostalgia. How good to know it's another trait of something intrinsically humane that does not know the conventions of national borders. Once you step inside the Magna Graecia, the sense of frosty foggy forest and the illustrations of the Sleeping Beauty come to mind. Thirty years ago the most lavish hotel of the Marina di Ascea, a desired place for weddings and multinational tourists - now it has a smell of decay and frost. Ramona's woolen cap and coat. A natural feeling is that girls and flowers languish here. The Romanian girl for the last 12 years meticulously follows the once established way of keeping records in the place. Copy of my passport, hand-written receipt, breakfast time. I am the only guest. I shall dance on the table with the picture of Mussolini on my face - they would ask if I want water frizzante or naturale. They faithfully surround me one by all the care that was supposed to be given to all the lacking tourists. Cappuccino, I'll make you another one. Now I leave you, I leave you to yourself. You finished. Another cappuccino? And here's the prospect of our hotel, please bring Russian friends here. Groups, packs of them. Please. Good day, lovely day to you. I open the door, here you go, just bring the friends, ciao ciao ciao.

[victoriaiakovleva]

Из Benevento в Montesarchio добираешься к полудню, снимаешь разом с плеч 18 пройденных километров вместе рюкзаком, распластанный впереди пейзаж - глазам, аббатство Николая, Мирликийского Чудотворца - спине. Под церковью покровителя Монтесаркьо нарезаю хлеб и сыр, из-за деревянной двери пахнет ладаном - миф моего уединения деликатно рассыпается. Исторический центр города венчает замок с музеем, посвященным италийскому народу Caudini, из самнитских кровей. Позже в баре мальчик двадцати четырех лет расскажет мне, что считает себя потомком самнитов. Здесь была их столица еще до расцвета Римской империи, а Montesarchio звался Caudium. Развязный мужчина в пуховике и одним выпадающим глазом нагоняет меня где-то в середине музея, чтобы провести блестящую экскурсию. Блестящая экскурсия с подробностями о скребочках для очищения тела древнегреческими атлетами перемежается с отменными ругательствами. Не могу взять в толк, просто ли он заблудшая пьяненькая итальянская душа или сотрудник музея. Кармине (итальянская душа), справившись широким жестом о моих табачных пристрастиях, закуривает (не единожды) сигарету в нашем каменном средневековом замке, проплывает через экспозиционные залы с дымком. Рассказывает мне про камень из Монтесаркио в Эрмитаже, страшно хочет показать фотографию в интернете, но средневековые камни глушат всяческий сигнал. Сразу наскоком, с умением простосердечного любопытства задавать важные вопросы в лоб, выясняет, что я пытаюсь в своем пешеходном путешествии узнать. Рассказываю про рамки своих возможностей, подкожные страхи и Италию. Понимает. Почти уничижительно, подпирая дугообразную линию живота, говорит, что не мог бы. Слишком уж не хорошо и так, с продрогшими за целый день ногами в ботинках. Я его тоже понимаю.