KONSTANTIN PAUSTOVSKY
Story of a Life - Part Five:
Southern Adventures

Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky was born in 1892 in Moscow, and grew up in the Ukraine. He died in Moscow in 1968. A writer of short stories, novels, plays, and travel books, his most famous work is his autobiography Povest o Zhizni (Story of a Life). This was written at irregular intervals between 1945 and 1963. In volume five, titled Southern Adventures, Paustovsky recalled his mostly aimless travels in the Caucasus and Transcaucasia during the years 1922 and 1923. This account of his visit to Ani is from "Story of a Life - Part Five: Southern Adventures", translated into English by Kyril FitzLyon and published in London in 1969.

While in Tiflis, Paustovsky wrote for the railway newspaper Gudok Zakavkazya (The Train Whistle of Transcaucasia). In the summer of 1923 the editor sent him on a long journey through Azerbaijan and Armenia, travelling in a special train together with a party of engineers whose job was to investigate the condition of the Caucasian railways. He visited Ani on the return part of his journey. The Maria that he mentions in the text was a Polish painter who resided in the same house as Paustovsky in Tiflis, and had guided him about that town.

Part of his account is puzzling: it is not possible to see Ani from any point along the railway line. Also, it is about 10km, a walk of at least three hours, from Ani to the nearest part of that railway. Either Paustovsky is using a considerable amount of "poetic licence" or perhaps he thought it unwise to write publicly that he and his fellow travellers had abandoned their assigned tasks and had devoted an entire day to visit Ani.


Chapter 28: This Mist of Ages

(Pages 218 to 220)

    Then the train began to climb out of the parched and burnt-out valley on to the plateau, where the wind blew and the nights were cold.
    The railway followed the banks of the river Arpacay.
    Once, at the end of the afternoon the train halted at the river's brink. On the other bank we saw basilicas, tiled Armenian domes and a complete absence of human beings. It was the ruins of the ancient Armenian capital, Ani - one of the real wonders of the world.
    The engineers summoned from the Turkish bank of the river the officer commanding the frontier guards.
    He came over to us across the hanging bridge, nonchalantly, showing off somewhat, smacking the patent leather leggings of his boots with a riding crop. Behind him came the soldiers, looking like dervishes or lepers - only some kind of copper discs on their shoulders testified to their military status.
    The officer allowed us to have a look round Ani, but only before sunset. This decision of his evoked some excitement and joy among the soldiers. The smell of bakshish was in the air.
    I boldly followed the officer across the hanging bridge to the Turkish side. Behind each of us walked an askeri, occasionally holding us by the elbow or stopping the rope sides when they began swinging a little too much.
    The bridge was made of narrow planks tied together with rope. The gap between them was quite sufficient to allow a man to fall through it and into the Arpacay at the first false step.
    The bridge shook, swayed violently, leaned over and with every step we took increased its rocking movement like a swing, threatening to tip us all out into the water. The water was about twenty metres below us.
    I reached the middle and stopped - the bridge hit my heels and flung me aside.
    A soldier seized me and shouted. At once the rest of the soldiers began executing some complicated dance on the bridge in order to stop it swaying. Red with the strain of it, eyes wildly staring, they shouted with all the fury of an attacking horde. The firm earth on the bank seemed to me the best refuge from all mishaps, particularly earthquakes.
    In Ani there were soldiers living in a small barracks, and a few shepherds in the town itself. They looked after sheep which grazed among the ruins, and slept at night, in any one of the basilicas.
    What is Ani? There are, of course, things we cannot describe however hard we try. How can we describe a silence so complete that one can hear the rustle of sheeps' hooves in the distance and the sound of ripe seeds in the pods of dead and dried flowers rattling as in a child's rattle?
    How can we describe the shadows of swallows' wings on porch stones in front of churches, overgrown with quite ordinary dandelions? Only grasses, frescoes and a sky which looks like frescoes live in this deserted, wind-swept silence.
    The clouds stand still, just as painted by some famous Italian master, and the sun casts a ray - Doré's famous, lonely, oblique ray, which he liked to depict - through a gap in the clouds.
    That ray became from my childhood days part and parcel of pictures from the Old Testament. On seeing it over Ani's scorched squares I immediately realised that I was walking over places as ancient as the Earth itself.
    The sun was setting. We had to go back.
    Oh, with what delight I would have spent the night in those ruins, contemplating the revolution of the planets and finding it hard to believe my own good fortune.
    How would I describe it all to Maria? What would I tell her of the constellation of the Great Dog, which served to guide pilgrims on their way to the Prophet's grave? There it was, low over the horizon, fiery, shining over vast areas of this Earth, so arid and yet so dear to us.
    Perhaps it could be seen from the window of the room where Maria was sleeping. But for that the wind would have to throw back the curtain, Maria would have to say something quickly in her sleep and open her eyes for a moment, and the light of the stars would have to shine straight into her eyes to make her re-member.
    To go back across the hanging bridge no longer terrified me. Darkness made it easier.
    The Turks shouted, a mule sobbed somewhere, bidding us farewell and the smell of wormwood seemed to me the most wonderful smell in the world. It was the smell of wanderings and bitterness. So I thought then and immediately cursed myself for being a snivelling symbolist.