The following is the story of my Crimea as I remember it, while I still remember it. It’s neither the Crimea of the Russian vatniks, nor the Crimea of the Russian military bases. It is a totally different planet that existed before March 2014. It was the planet of hippies, ecologists, archeologists, artists, musicians, poets and dolphins. The magic land where everyone you met was a friend and a teacher, everything you saw was a sign, and everything you found was a gift. Where people shared and gave, where you went out with 20 hryvnias and still had them in your pocket when you came back, where money had no meaning. I’ve been traveling the planet for the last decade in search of another Crimea where I could settle. But there was only one.

Kyiv

“When you are in Balaklava, look for a boat to the Ass. That’s where you’ll find me, under a naked pine tree,” said Andrew the Psycho[logist], checking out of my Kyiv apartment.

My one-room apartment in the heart of Kyiv, equidistant from St. Sophia, the Golden Gate, and St. Volodymyr Cathedral, was a couchsurfing base (before I even learned the word) for all kinds of people on their way to Crimea in search of happiness, and then back to their winter quarters. Our local hippies (I am not one) call this “vpiska” (roughly translated as “check-in” or, rather, “fit-in”), a place to stay for free, without obligations whatsoever, without even an obligation to leave. This is an important concept in the hippie universe, along with hitchhiking, love beads (fenechka) weaving, dreamcatchers and divine gifts.

Incir

“I’ll be there all summer,” said Andrew. He’s a Jewish guy from Kharkiv. All his family left for the United States, led by his grandma, to look for a better life. Andrew stayed. Then left. Then came back and tried to keep his bank account balance at the same level, spending little, earning little from his white-collar customers in search of enlightenment and antidepressants. He’d take them out of the office and to the pine groves of Cape Aya just east of Balaklava for fresh air, water yoga and breathing seminars. They’d eat healthy porridge, drink Crimean herbs, swim naked, roll in mud, spin fire, sing mantras, talk about karma and Babylon, and go back to the office. “Come one day to take a look at my congregation,” he said and left.

And that’s what I did. In Balaklava, I found a boatman taking people to the Ass, and the other one taking people to Incir. As it turned out, it was the same place. A round rock split in two halves next to the beach looks to some like an incir (fig), and to others like an ass. Tastes differ.

Under a huge naked pine tree, I found Andrew and his flock of office workers. I came just to say hi, and stayed for two weeks or two months. It doesn’t really matter, because time does not exist, as I learned on Incir Beach, Cape Aya National Reserve, Crimea, Ukraine.

All the meadows in the grove of Crimean pines were taken by gurus with their congregations. There were yoga teachers, Buddhists, Shaivists, Tantra teachers, Gestalt psychologists, masters of Bodynamics, Psychodrama, Hellinger Constellations, and Rebirthing Breathwork™. There were shamans, drummers, fire spinners, whirling Sufis, AUM singers, Tai Chi masters, and Prakshalana practitioners. Their customers wanted to reach a sudden awakening within a week, to become free and healthy, so they could go back to the office, refreshed and enlightened.

I stayed.

I did three hours of Yoga every day. I attended Ganesha Puja, climbed a rock to get to the meadow and collect fresh flowers for Ganesha, learned about Yama and Niyama, listened to talks about Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu, memorized the names of chakras, sang AUM, attended psychodramas, watched whirling dervishes, spun poi, went to the underworld by tree roots, led by a shaman with a drum. I swam naked, ate watermelons, drank spring water, and went barefoot to the spring, an hour one way up the hill. Life was beautiful, but there was no enlightenment.

Okay, I thought, I’ll find a nice cave in the middle of nowhere and sit there, fasting and meditating. And that’s what I did, at the end of the story. The enlightenment didn’t come, but something else happened.

First, however, there was the jazz festival, of course.

(… to be continued…)

Transadaptation Volume 5 – Of Flowing Vicissitudes

January: The Night the Stars Stopped Shining – Sarah-Leah Pimentel (South Africa)

February: Three Sides to Every Story – Krisztina Janosi (Hungary)

March: Rain Trap – Adriana Uribe (Columbia)

April: Priorities – Narantsogt Baatarkhuu (Mongolia)

May: The Night in Heaven – Armine Asryan (Armenia)

June: Witches Don’t Burn – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)

July: A Regular Flat – Mateusz Tymoszewski (Poland)

August: Many Happy Returns – Svetlana Molchanova (Russia)

September: And Now, It Will All Go Downhill – Jonay Quintero Hernandez (Spain)

October: Planet Qirim – Anastasiia Leonova (Ukraine)

November: You Are Her, Aren’t You? – Seyit Ali Dastan (Turkey)

December: Culture Shock – Veronika Groke (Austria)

Background – Context

Transadaptation Volume 4: Material Dissent – Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2023)

Transadaptation Volume 3: Evanescent – Young Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2022)

Transadaptation Volume 2: Conceived – Childhood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2021)

Transadaptation Volume 1: In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)

Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)

La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)

The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)

L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)

From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)

Emblems and stories on the international community

Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world

Credits

Top row (left to right): 1. Canary Islands, Spain – Above – Underworlds (Shutterstock), 2. Canary Islands, Spain – From above – Africa Pink, 3. Canary Islands, Spain – Sun setting – underworld (Shutterstock)

Middle row (left to right): 1. Canary Islands, Spain – The town – Maria Bobrova (Unsplash), 2. Canary Islands, Spain – The Teide volcano – Kateryna Mukhina (Shutterstock), 3. Canary Islands, Spain – Firgas – Yury Chernov (Shutterstock)

Bottom row (left to right): 1. Canary Islands, Spain – El Cubo de la Galga – Imag3s4U, 2. Canary Islands, Spain – Descent – Martagro (Shutterstock), 3. Doramas, Gran Canaria, Spain – The tree – Unai Huizi Photography (Shutterstock)

Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed