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So far, no postcards from any readers incarcerated in Lubyanka.
However, I did receive the above postcard a few days before the invasion, sent from an American living in the country and training Georgian troops. It was disturbing to contemplate that a number of his charges—who, incidentally, were trainees for peacekeeping duties in Iraq, not storm troopers aimed at the Russian jugular, as Mr. Putin seems to believe—might have perished in the ensuing rout. The card underscores a truism that we in the travel industry should never forget: The world can be a dangerous place, and it turns on a dime.
It was also troubling to look back on some of our previous features, such as the one about the salmon fishing reserve in Russia in our April/May issue, or the letter I recently wrote on this page saying that one good thing to come out of the Cold War was that places like Bulgaria and Mongolia had not been colonized by rampant development. The assumption was that, since the fall of the wall, we’ve all become global buddies, and, except for a few hot spots, there’s no part of the earth we can’t access with a little time, money, and spirit. Now, if the Cold Warriors keep rattling their sabers, we might have to reconsider future travel plans. The world is dotted with geopolitical volcanoes, and there’s no telling when one might erupt under your ***.
I am reminded of a hiking trip I took in the Bolivian Andes a few years back with two companions. After a week, we descended into the town of Sorata and came upon a villager moving hastily the other way.
“Una guerra, una guerra!” he shouted.
“¿Quién es?” we called.
“Todo mundo!”
The whole world was at war. That was unsettling.
As it turned out, there was a nationwide strike. The protesters had rolled a huge boulder across the only highway into town, and since no buses could get in, we tourists couldn’t leave until the strike was over. Except for the police hiding in their barracks and a deserted plaza, things seemed normal enough. We travelers—all staying at the only hotel—amused ourselves by watching dubbed videos and playing Ping-Pong. Some Australian ladies even put on a seventies disco party.
A few mornings later, we awoke to the staccato cough of a bus idling in the plaza. An army officer explained that the bus was being allowed to go to La Paz. Within 15 minutes, all of us were on it. On the way out of town, a local strike leader stopped the bus and climbed on. He wanted to thank us for our patience and support of the workers.
Before stepping off, he paused at the door and smiled a little wickedly at us. “Now you can go back to being tourists,” he said. “You are no longer our captives.”
Once again, on a dime.
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