Sea, kind of

When the child was a child,

it walked with its arms swinging,

wanted the brook to be a river,

the river to be a torrent,

and this puddle to be the sea

[Peter Handke]

Dreaming is such a state of mind and heart where there are no limits, cold math and taboo yet. It is a space of free thinking, where everything is still possible. For instance, to learn seamanlike skills and hanker after a round-the-world trip while you are living in a small town at the confluence of the Unzha and the Volga Rivers, or “Yuryevets Sea”.

At one out of many derelict buildings in Yuryevets, among shaky floor and peeling off wall-paper, I found an archive. There were photos, documents, items, which once belonged to some fascinating life but now grow moldy and are lost to time. Though being in such a mess and powdered with dust, these artefacts seemed to be certainly preserved.

The Young Sailors Club “Dream” in Yuryevets is no longer exist. But a new story is coming out, putting a link between past and present.

Searching remote anonymous faces, I feel that the skyline is vanishing, that we are all somehow connected by common hopes and aspirations, dreams about world cruise and world peace — no matter how utopian it may seem by the sea, kind of.