On the road to the edge of Europe
Two months and one day we were on the road. On the road to the edge of Europe. At first, there were mountains, olive trees, pizza, seas and tourist destinations. Then, there were landscapes more and more barren, an economically shaken Greece, one mosque after the other, on and on we travelled east to the Caucasus. It was a journey without a mission, a journey to find myself again and to find us again.
“Back in the day, Brilka, when I was as old as you are now, I used to wonder what it would be like if the world’s collective memory had conserved things different from those it did (and, in turn, gotten rid of some). If all the wars and all those uncountable kings and monarchs and leaders and mercenaries were forgotten and only those people who have built a house with their own hands, laid out a garden, discovered a giraffe, described a cloud and sung about the neck of a woman would remain in the books. I was wondering how we are supposed to know that those whose names outlast are better, wiser or more interesting, just because they withstood time – what about those who are forgotten?”
“It is us who decide what we want to remember and what we don’t. The time has nothing to do with that. The time doesn’t care.“
(Nino Haratschwili)
