The Random Wanderer

The First and Final Picture of My Travels

Today, as I begin writing this in a cafe in the centre of Vilnius, marks my last day of continuous travelling before heading back to London to begin my masters next week. I’ve been travelling for almost sixteen months, and it feels slightly strange today that this is the end for now. It all began on the 24th May 2021, when rather instinctively, I decided to go to the Europa League Final in Gdansk. Since then, almost all of the places I have been are the result of rather impulsive decisions. They are decisions that have taken me to four continents, twenty-one countries, and led me to meet so many people. They are decisions that I think have completely changed me for good and maybe for bad. The way I view things has completely changed. Travelling has broken me out of the bubble in the UK I think I have always lived in. Seeing things, knowing people, and being a part of events change one’s attitude toward many things.

I never expected my last year to have been quite as eventful as it has been. When I finished my degree in Eastern European Politics, I knew I wanted to travel. I had savings given to me by my grandparents on my eighteenth birthday, which enabled me to travel, something I will forever be grateful for. I had always been fascinated by the world; when I was a little boy, I would flick through atlas’; I memorised almost all the capitals in the world and was all in all a little strangely obsessed. In many ways, I’ve never lost this. At a 7th birthday party of a friend in 2007 in Rochdale, a children’s entertainer asked everyone at the party where they were going on their summer holidays. I lied and decided that I was going to Turkmenistan. As much as I clearly didn’t mean it, I have had a desire actually to go in my head ever since.

This turned out not to be possible, and my dream of travelling to all the former republics of the Soviet Union also failed. I did, however, manage to visit seven of the fifteen successor states to the republics of the Soviet Union. It’s a region I love. It’s a region I think will define my life. It’s difficult to explain, but I feel incredibly comfortable in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The natural landscapes are beautiful and, as I’ve said before, the architecture and art fascinate me. Some of my closest friends are from the region, the person I love is, and the large majority of people I have met have been lovely to me.

All this makes the region’s current problems all the more difficult for me. As I’m writing, three significant conflicts are raging throughout the territories of the former Soviet Union. First, the Russian Invasion of Ukraine has probably had a bigger impact on me psychologically than anything else in my life, largely due to my travel experiences. I was in Moscow on 24th February 2022. I attended, although briefly, the protest on Pushkinskaya Square, the signs and chants of «НЕТ ВОЙНЕ» feel, in retrospect to me, the last moments of hope in Russia. That day I was shocked; I spoke to friends in Ukraine, friends fleeing, friends hiding. In my Russian lesson that day, I remember sitting fairly silently in a world of my own. The protest felt like the last chance to try and force change; it failed, a large portion of the people there were arrested.

In the days and weeks after, I had to come to terms with an element of helplessness, a feeling I don’t think I’d ever had before. There were people in Ukraine I knew, yet I felt I could not help. In Russia, my girlfriend and I chatted, suggesting slightly in jest that we perhaps won’t see each other again for 30 years, but in reality, I took it as a genuine possibility. I remember being a wreck in the lift that evening returning to my flat. Fortunately, I have seen her again; the people in Ukraine I know are relatively okay; but I’m lucky I guess.

Recently the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan has broken out once again, with shelling occurring not far from where I stayed just over a month ago. I loved my time there. Now there is war.

In Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, border conflicts have grown. Although I did not visit either country, I did visit Uzbekistan, and I have enormous love and interest for the region as a whole. Yet, every time I read the news, it seems like an element of the world I love so much is crumbling in front of me. I’ve had to come to terms with this, I’ve had to differentiate between my academic and emotional views of the world.

It’s the people I’ve met whilst travelling that have made me feel this way; however, it’s with people I met that you have the best times too. From being taught durak in Kyiv, to drinking on the roof of an abandoned sanatorium with a German hostel guest who decided to strip naked in Georgia, to being allowed to drive a pickup truck through Wadi Rum Desert, to my favourite night out in a long time in Krakow, to taking and gifting pictures to the grandfather and grandson in Khiva, to being looked after when I had heat stroke in Budapest, to being serenaded on my birthday by my teacher in Moscow, to getting a ride in a bright green Zhiguli in Lithuania, to laser quest in Amman, to just chatting with locals in Tashkent and Samarkand cafes and many many more things. Almost all of these are little actions by people, but they are the things that I remember, the things I’ve loved about travelling.

I’ll probably never meet some of the people who gave me these experiences again, but I’ll never forget them. I’ll always, to some extent, care about them. I’m sure whatever I do in the future will always be linked to what I’ve experienced this year, to try to make the best out of the world in front of us.

Just some of the people

Hopefully, I’ll continue to travel when I get the chance and see the places I’m yet to see that I’m desperate to. Hopefully, I’ll be able to see and reconnect with as many people as possible that I’ve met. Hopefully, the world will become a little less chaotic and stressful, and all the people I’ve met can be exactly who they want to be and where they want to be. And just maybe, one day, my Turkmenistan prophecy will come true.

Ačiū, Faleminderit, شكرا لك, Merci, მადლობა, շնորհակալություն, Rahmat, Дякую, Dziękuję, Ďakujem, Tak, Gracias, Obrigado, Grazie,
Köszönöm, Hvala, Спасибо, Teşekkürler, Paldies

Going forward I will write a few more blogs about the places I’ve been to that I am yet to write about. However, after I’ve written them I think I will change the blog up a bit, still talking about the places I visit when I visit them, but also about a few other things.