Behind me is the chain of the eastern Sayan mountains, just a bit from Lake Baikal & border with Mongolia
(Gah, this virtual keyboard did post this, so I had to edit the post.)
My name is Peter, and I am Moscow, Russia born. However, my roots on my fathers side are from Buryat, who are Mongolian people that live in Russia, China & Mongolia.
Somehow, since I was a kid I got to hang out with really cool people, like ethnographer Sevyan Vainshtein, who was a good friend of my father and is famous for his studies on people of Tuva & shamanism. Or working in a team with glaciologist Igor Zotikov, best known for his discovery of subglacial lake Vostok in Antarctica.
But enough with the name dropping of the people you've probably never heard about! Same as them I do have a case of wonderlust, which comes from hearing lots of cool stories about expeditions and adventures since I was young. First from my father, and then from other significant adults in my life.
My father was a doctor (massage therapist) and I learned a lot of it from him, but since he forbid me from following into his footsteps as a medical professional, I've studied Computer Engineering for four years, but had to drop out of the University due to head trauma. I did work in IT for a while, with one of the coolest things from that time is being a part of one of the first two UX labs in Russia (which was one in Acronis).
Over the years I worked in a lot of different and seemingly unrelated fields including operating a mini-typography, working in the on air crew of a business news channel, PR specialist for an art gallery situated in the center of Moscow, and lots of other less cool jobs.
As far as job experience goes Mark Twain is something of a Role Model for me, and I hope that at some point my resume would be as wild and varied as his. Oh, and it goes without saying that I really love that quote from Heinlein, about broad range of things that human should be able to do & specialization.
One of the things I do is play harmonica, jaw harp, kazoo & some other small and portable music instruments, as well as sampling cooland weird sounds in my travels for my musician friends.
I did some extensive traveling myself, starting from spending a month in England in 2001 surfing couches of online acquaintances (the really cool peeps of DiscworldMUD) & sleeping every night in a new town, years before it became mainstream. The account of that particular adventure lies somewhere in the archives of the Joy of Tech webcomic forums. Since then I hitchhiked between Khabarovsk & Vladivostok, was probably one non Indian guy in Bhimashankar on Mahashivaratri, and then hanged out for a week in Mumbai slums.
What I was doing this season.
Most recently I helped a prodigial bum get back to his parents in Severodvinsk (that is the place where they build atomic submarines near Arkhangelsk) from Moscow, which was some 2500 kilometers via St. Peterburg. As well some less notable adventures. This summer I went to visit my cousine who is a Buryat shamanness, and am now hanging out on the border with Mongolia waiting for the rains to end/or her to return.
I found out about Steemit on some group in facebook where anarchism & futurism is one of the main themes. It took me some research about this whole blockchain thing, since I am not anreast of quite a bit technological advancements of last five-six years.
My first thought after groking steem?
Cool! It sounds a lot like whuffie — that egalitarian popularity currency thing for the post scarcity society in Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in Magic Kingdom".
I was surprised that search didn't find anyone mentioning it earlier.
Anyhow, I can rant on, but I am sure this is time to reign in the horses of my longwindedness into the bridle of prudence and wrap this up.
What Im up to, and what can you expect here.
Next several years, I'll have to visit region of Irkutsk, Buryatia and Mongolia every summer, since it is very likely, I'll have to go through a shamanic initiation rites myself. So some of the posts here will likely be connected with this topic.
Traditionally Buryat shaman is part healer, part psychologist, part storyteller & tradition keeper. All of those roles focus on helping people around lead better lives.
It is possible I'll either get myself a degree in ethnography, or do independant studies, since I did a lot of reading on the subject since I was young.
Since I absolutely hate cold Russian winters and yet to see most of South-East Asia & want to visit lots of places in South America, some of the stuff is probably going to be about that.
Oh, a lot of my friends are really cool musicians and artists both in Moscow & abroad, so some of the posts are possible to be about them, untill I can convince them to join.
Do check out my instagram, I post things from my travels there from time to time.
Followed you here and on insta, your photos are great! please keep posting pictures from your travel, it helps temper my wanderlust while I sit at my desk at work :)
Thanks for the welcome. I'll definitely continue to do so!
I hope at some point you give in to your wonderlust. It just needs some sort of fuel to enable you following it. I am thinking, perhaps steem might help. :-D
You seem to be a quite interesting fellow.
You seem to be quite interesting yourself. :-) I'm following your blog. :-) And thanks for the welcome!
Very interesting, THANKS for SHARING. You go ahead and travel around, I'll follow.
Thank you for your kind words. :-)
I fully support anyone currently involved in playing the kazoo and/or jaw harp. Keep it up!
One of the questions a lot of locals ask me about the jaw harp is"do you enter trance with it"? :-D
Anu unfortunately I don't. Still I like my musical instruments small enough to be easily transportable. I used to play bass guitar, and it is not something you'd travel with :-D
And yeah, the kazoo is wicked cool!
When I first saw your picture I thought, "Does this guy have a kazoo in his pocket?" I'm glad to see my suspicions were confirmed.
The comment depth thing was hit so I'll respond here.
Yeah, tat is exactly the reason why I put it there that way. I didn't take the talking drum with me, or it could have been featured also.
It sounds like you have an interesting life! My goal is to travel the world within the next year. I'd like to start in Europe and eventually travel the whole globe. My other's grandfather came from St. Petersburg. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1918.
I could show you around Russia. Moscow, or St. Petersburg, if I am there at the time.
Most likely will be in Buryatia untill October, and closer to winter might skip out to India, or something.
The book will come in handy, since a lot of people are telling me, "Why aren't you writing yet?" all the time. :-D
That would be great. I'd like to see Russia. I'd like visit the birthplace of Paramahansa Yogananada in India too.I hope the book is helpful. I'll watch for the address. Enjoy the weekend!