mrgood_old_school

?ason’s orphans
Last passengers went out at the airport. Bus passed by the large concrete “SSSR” sign and sharply turned around, leaving the sea coast at the rear view mirror. Dry, seared maquis soon gave its way to forests, getting thicker and thicker every mile. I closed the window. It was getting colder outside. The road was rambling, climbing slowly, cutting its way further through the mountain - The Caucasus.
Spreading my legs after an hour and a half drive. Long, red valley outreaching in front of me seemed almost unreal - Krasnaya Polyana (Red valley), last settlement on the Russian Caucasus from the coastal side. Fragile human walnut shell amidst the wilderness.
Beyond, only sharp, rocky mountain tops ripped the clouds. Further, only Prometheus paid on human sins.
Houses scattered in waste red field, with its whiteness, gave the picture almost the impressionist atmosphere. Emerging from the sea of red, they looked like they sailed here from some distant Aegean island. Miraculously escaping the caprices of Pontos Axeinos, the inhospitable sea, like “Argo”, they anchored here, on the summits of Colchis.
Houses were protruding behind the fences from the both sides of dirty, muddy road with its freshly painted walls, bright blue or green doors and windows. All along the facade, the ground floor was over hanged by long, wooden balconies. In front of one of the houses, on a blue bench, the two old ladies were sitting, wrapped in black. The big, black dog, resembling a wolf, was sleeping peacefully by their legs. The ladies were silent, looking into the past.
A bit further, in the village center, the life was flourishing. Greek attributes, flags and stickers were easily recognized on almost all of the jeeps parked in front of the “Olympia” supermarket. The “Delphi” tavern was located next door. In an open shop-window the gyros was grilling, spreading its aroma. Couple of dark people were jigging in front of it waiting for the meal impatiently. Loud sound of kemendze, a traditional instrument of Pontic Greeks was heard from the radio inside. The girls strolling down the street had swarthy skin, and long, dark, curly hair. Their face with nose slightly crumpled and eyes as dark as coal exposed their Levantine, almost Semitic beauty.
Some hours later, in the “Delphi” tavern, Youra Papadoupolus, with two bottles of vodka almost empty in front of him, pointed out seriously, for the fifth time that evening - “We are Pontic, not Hellenic!” In order to make it clear, he unbuttoned his shirt, showing me huge raised-wings eagle tattooed on his chest.
Over flown with emotions, and most probably alcohol, I though of the fate of this proud nation of sailors, explorers, merchants, colonists and former masters of the Black Sea. Two hundred years ago, running away from slaughter and Ottoman Empire, they chose, without even knowing it, another way of disappearance. Desiring the protection of the mighty Russian Tsar, they found assimilation and oblivion.
A small village lost in the Caucasus is the last station on their long road.