*Memoir book written by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi following the Islamic Revolution in 1979

"Are you with the group?" the check-in clerk on my Bucharest to Istanbul flight asked when seeing that I was going to Tehran.

"No, that is pure coincidence" I answered, noticing the few mid-aged gentlemen holding Iranian passports and waiting at the business class desk; they were joined by a Romanian official and a VIP escort lady joined them instantly. This makes me pretty confident that at Istanbul Ataturk Airport they were not to go through all terminal in search of a bathroom that was not closed for "cleaning and maintenance purposes", like I was to do. Eventually everything was fine, available and willing to serve toilet was found, gate was changed from upstairs to the ground floor airport finger, somewhere between Ariana's Kabul, Turkish's Osaka and PIA's Islamabad departure gates, with an odd Austrian Airways gate sandwiched in between. I got on an aircraft where I met the official group again, but shared the economy cabin with mainly Turkish businessmen that were noisy to the extent where they could only compete with a chai vendor on a long haul Indian train. It got even “better” when they started making obvious jokes at Ayatollah Khamenei and generally at Iran itself. However they did not make any joke at our plane's waiting for one full hour before departing Istanbul due to "long traffic queues on the runway".

I reached Tehran at dawn and memories quickly made their way to surface, beginning with the immigration officer on duty that greeted me, took a moment to smile and wished me a good day. Getting a taxi that stormed at over 140 km. / hour towards the city, with cars virtually leaning one against the others and with the odd (well, that was soon to turn into routine) horn blowing, they all revived in me the fragrant, intense and nevertheless calm Persian life pace. Other than for a few new traffic lights nobody seemed to either understand the reason of (or respect for that matter), the city had not changed much in 5 years. A building corner, a park or a pedestrian bridge crossing the wide and already crowded avenue at 05.30 AM, memories were cleared from the dust every now and then. A loaf of sandjak na'an, some local cottage cheese and a glass of sia chai had me wake up faster than 10 cups of instant coffee or after 10 hours of continuous sleep I had not had for months. However, there were changes. Meeting Mohammad, my old friend, recent and not so recent events soon turned into topics of discussion. The rial had dropped a bit since 2004, oil was considerably more expensive, subsidies for the basics had been cut overnight with no planning or strategy that would allow people to comply. Recent elections had been faulted at gross scale, with Ahmadinejad's opposition candidates not getting the majority even in their native towns. The SMS service had been stopped and many internet websites were banned access to, so that people looking for alternative sources of information to IRNA and the state TV monopoly had to create fake IPs that would trick the system. Foreign mass-media had been boycotted (at best) or banned (usually) by the government and BBC Persian or VOA Persian's broadcasts had been jammed until the two had to change frequency. Sabotage was in the air, as people planned to turn on all electrical appliances a certain day at the evening news' time, in an attempt of boycotting the false information provided by state media. Artists like Shajarian refused to grant the state TV the right of broadcasting their music, in an attempt of showing their disagreement with the current politics. Furthermore, the theological and administrative rule's domestic and international actions, respectively the subsequent isolation of the country or tough foreign sanctions were reasons of further anger. The air was thick with a sense of omnipresent discontent at the state of things. While my opinion was obviously created or at least influenced by young to mid-aged people in the big city, it is usually there that explosions occur. With the obvious differences in the background, it all had a flavour of 1988-1989 in Romania, where everything had become so forbidden or inaccessible that the only way of surviving was cheating, bribing, betraying and lying to everyone, including our own selves. Maybe it would be politically correct to say I hope the apple will never explode. But instead I hope the apple does explode, for people like Serb Ljubomir Pajic's sake, for people that loved freedom and fought for it with the risk of messing up their life and mental health, risk that turned into natural consequence at the end of the day. And I do hope this change takes place before Iranians lose their heartly smile and inborn, overwhelming hospitality. Before they turn in grim, frustrated, dead people as Romanians did and are not likely to recover anytime soon.

Exiting Tehran and going towards the Caspian, a special feeling struck me. It happens every time I find myself among those dry, mostly barren hills and ridges, with those infinite tones of brown contrasting with the sky above and with the blue stream at their foothills. Every time I see the dust stirred by my feet, every time I feel the hot wind blowing against my face. Memories came back as I started again on that road dotted from place to place with teahouses and restaurants complete with carpet covered divans, with entire families having lunch, tea and a waterpipe. It was getting dark as we started going up towards Polur and our Nissan Patrol began shaking and coughing every time there was a steeper slope ahead. Eventually it came to a halt. It seemed some dirt had got stuck in the fuel pump or that the pump was broken. With a plethora of mechanics and garages along the road (second only to teahouses in number) just a short while to the back, it did not seem to be that big a problem. But it was not to be over soon, as a long drive up and down the road followed. The first mechanic said he was not familiar with that brand and engine, so he refused to have a look at it and instead sent us to another garage across the road. The other mechanic knew how to handle a Patrol, but there was no electricity on his side of the road and it was already dark. My suggestion that he came across the street to the other garage where they had electricity was not considered. At another garage, the two apprentices refused to inspect the car, as the boss was not there and they dared not do things without his word. Farther back down, two other mechanics did not know that kind of engine and sent us to two Nissan specialists, some 2 km. in between: one had gone home and had left his mobile phone in the shop, while the other one still had three cars waiting ahead of us and was not likely to finish anytime soon. Driving farther through the town we had reached, we were directed to a certain Armenian called Varuj and we visited one more garage en route, but the guy there was already half buried under an engine and said he was going home afterwards. As for the man himself (i.e. Varuj), he had closed down. Two hours had passed and it was getting clear that the chance of finding a garage that would meet the already so many criteria was small and getting smaller: there must have been electricity, the garage needed be specialized in Nissan, the boss had to be around, he must have had no customers and, very important, his name had to be Varuj. And if you ask me, his apprentices must have served us some pistachio and chai while we waited for the car to be repaired. But most of these criteria could not be met, so we drove back to Tehran - luckily it was down the hill almost all the way, so that the car worked. Mohammad's brother - in - law offered to take us to the foot of the mountain early next day, with his own Peugeot. We went to bed at midnight, with all Mohammad's family angry at a crazy mullah holding a speech on national TV about God's having sent Ayatollah Khamenei on earth, respectively about his untouchable rule.

“This is Middle Ages, they think we still live in the Middle Ages to believe them...”

The morning was quick, the city buzz was soon history. The heat was on, luckily Shajarian and Lotfi were on the car's CD player too, and a peaceful atmosphere filled the little car. Looking at score families having picnics on scarce green spots near the road or next to the river bed one could not but realize how much we miss with that dead “efficiency” and punctuality that only turn everything in tasteless standard. A villager from Nandal had come to meet us at a teahouse along the main road with his 30 year old (but working) Zamyad truck. We soon started along the crazy switchbacks of the road that was asphalted for the first part, then it turned in a dirt road and, after passing by the village, it continued with a trail. Eventually we reached the beginning of the North Route to Mount Damavand and we started trekking across the gentle slope pasture, where one seemed to have spread countless small, dry bushes and a sea of loose rocks. The heat slowly gave way to a mild breeze and in the early evening we reached Abbas Saleh Shelter, which provided a great view both to the summit 1650 m. above us, and to the dry pasture-covered ridge to the North, which reminded me of an Afghanistan guidebook cover photo. It then all turned quiet, even the wind stopped blowing. Subsequent ridges faded in the evening mist, while the buzz of the main road, of Tehran or of anything reminding one of rush and a clock's ticking was too far to be noticed. Fort some reason, I felt a big smile was growing in me, but I was aware that my lips had not moved a tiny bit.

It was the first good night sleep in about a week, so we started going up to the second shelter at noon. The wind was quite strong and it brought down the sulphur emanations from the crater. The terrain became rocky and any sort of vegetation was gone before long. Some two hours and a half later, we reached the shelter: it was supposed to lie at 5000 m. according to one map, 4800 m. according to another one, while the GPS stubbornly stopped at around 4650 m.a.s.l. The wind started blowing strongly at night; it was as if it wanted to take the shelter away. We decided to postpone the summit ascent for next day and meanwhile two shepherds from the region arrived from down. A slow pace discussion began, where our tea was exchanged for their cottage cheese and local bread. The afternoon passed by slowly, a best proof of the irrelevant nature of time. The following day began with an early morning start (i.e. moon light), at Mohammad's slow (but very constant) pace. The terrain was arid and rocky at first. After a short, steeper section, we got on a round, constant slope ridge between two of the North Face's "glaciers" (i.e. the everlasting snow patches separating the volcano's not always obvious ridges). Even though the summit appeared to be so near, it took us some 3 more hours to get to it and it was not the fresh air to welcome us at the crater, but rather a yellowish, moon-torn scenery with a small pool at the centre, respectively with two rocky rims of more or less the same colour. Clouds of yellow gas emanations steamed from the Eastern side and the wind often blew them towards us, filling the crater with an impossible to mistake substance: sulphur. Something can hardly hit one harder and in a more memorable way at 5670 m.a.s l. Beyond that however, the fact that I had eventually got the chance to reach the summit, the fine views all around (well, the above-mentioned sulphur gas emanations allowing) and other mountaineers' cheering spirit, all made it a wonderful experience. We returned to the second shelter along a different route, coming down the glacier (which was a relief) and then straight through some rocky terrain, full of loose stones, gravel and volcano ash.  The crampons had turned yellow of sulphur, all of our clothes smell and, once dry, the gaiters bore a thin yellowish pulver-like layer. The evening saw us down at the first shelter, which was soon packed with local mountaineers, some of which intended to summit in one day.

"This is a very complicated situation to come to Iran" said one of them.

Well, situations would not be complicated unless mankind turned them so. As for complications like the aforementioned, they are always preferable to, say, a dolce far' niente Romania where people are afraid of their own reflection in the mirror and cowardice rules. Time passed and the same sense of silent discontent (if not mutiny) filled the evening's discussions; the air soon turned more suffocating than that sulphur gas at the top of the mountain.

When I woke up, one name simply appeared to me out of the blue: Gohar Shad. Two years before I had gone to Herat and seen what there had been left of the imposing Gohad Shad's Musalla which amazed me, even though "little" had survived. Now I was just "a bit" farther West from the great mosque Gohad Shad had built in Mashhad and going there seemed to allow no other option. One hour flights, 14 to 18 hour bus rides, 12 hour trains from Tehran, as well as the obvious Friday (well, to be more precise, summer Friday) crowds of pilgrims at the shrine grounds hosting the mosque, all seemed well too irrelevant now: I had to go and that was pretty much about it. However, every day begins in the morning and that was - again - about the irrelevance of time for us. We started on the way down a first rocky and then grassy slope, so that noon saw us in Nandal Village. Stupidly enough, I was already making calculations: one hour to get down to the main road in Mohammad's Nissan (as his brother-in-law had had it fixed and brought it to Nandal to pick us up), three more hours to Tehran and one more just in case, so that was supposed to get me to the railway station, Central Bus Station or Merhabad Airport at around 6 PM. Or, at least, that was the European in me I had not managed to kill, the suffocating arithmetics where one plus one always needs sum up to two. Just when about to exit Nandal and start the steep way down to the Tehran road, we all of a sudden took a sharp turn left and I already knew that would mean hours. We got to the higher part of the village, where a venerable, old man welcomed us with an open face and a heartly smile. He was one of the oldest mountain guides in the area and most of his family worked to sustain mountaineering nowadays: one of his sons was in charge of the mules some mountaineers hired to take their luggage up to the first shelter, another son was in charge of the mountaineers' hut in Nandal, while their wives catered for the visitors. As for us, it seemed that we had accepted an invitation to lunch at the mule man's house. An invitation I indeed had been made, that very morning even, while going down from the shelter, and that I had kindly declined due to my blind-folding, stupid and omnipresent lack of time. But even so, thinking at it now, an invitation I had declined only once (as opposed to at least four times) and with a big smile on my face, producing no valid excuse for my doing so. The lack of time is not an excuse in such a context, as it is exclusively a feature of the Western society that has long lost the riches of life while desperately chasing time.

But then, the futility of my thinking showed its ugly, sulphur-like yellow teeth: that lunch, sitting on the carpet, leaning against large and heavy cushions and enjoying some great na'an, rice, vegetable stew, khoresht and mast, followed by an endless chat over chai and chilled melon, with the breeze blowing through the wide open windows or neighbours’ talking to our host from the street below, that lunch brought me much more than all efficiency in the world. We eventually left and, after taking along an old couple waiting by the dirt road (and hence turning into 6 passengers), we got to the main road by 4 PM. Whatever there was left of my plans (or whatever part of me still believed in them) pointed at reaching Tehran by 8 PM. But the vehicle soon started shaking and came to a sudden halt when we were going on the steep climb past Polur. Well familiar with the symptoms, I looked at Mohammad's brother-in-law which was driving the car. He smiled at me broadly and asked whether everything was OK. I smiled back and realized this was not just mere local courtesy. I remembered what Jason Elliot had been told in Kabul once during the Afghan war: "Khoda mehreban ast" (En. God is great). Time vanished, my watch evaporated in the hot afternoon air, I could only feel the human flow that had taken me along. As Ahmad Shamlou once said, the importance of life lies in its being short and one has to do more than merely living, i.e. touch humanity.

We waited for the engine to cool down, then started, went on for another 200 m. and stopped, waited for it to cool down again. The beat of Shajarian's music made us hardly notice the heat or the fumes of other cars passing by. Nobody felt the urge to call Master Varuj the Nissan mechanic. The climb was eventually over and the car worked, as it was down the hill to Tehran now. When we were just entering the big city, another driver shouted something at us. I first thought we had cut his way off, but then we stopped: a pipe had been punctured and a liquid was flowing off the engine. Luckily it was neither oil, nor fuel, but water. Pocket knife in hand, Mohammad cut the broken section off and had it fixed. We reached Tehran after dark and it was past 10 PM when we had a chance to call the railway station and a travel agency at Merhabad Airport. All trains to Mashhad were fully booked, but there was a flight with available places. The following morning at 6 AM. No places back though, on any flight that would suit my onward schedule. Schedule. Schedule. A day was over. A day that had taught me more than all schools, universities or lifeless, rule-suffocating, time-chasing jobs I had ever had. A day that made me linger to leave it all behind and go East. To a place where breakfast time, faut-pas, dogmas, politically correctness, ethics and that 3 in 1 "professionalism" we hide our impotence or failure behind go down the toilet, among half disintegrated faeces. And stay there forever, in the place where people welcome problems with a smile, neither with a curse, nor with calculations.

I woke up at 4 AM and, after crossing Tehran in full speed with a taxi driver that played Lotfi's music, I got to the airport. I had not booked a ticket, I wanted to lean on the odds. I went to Iran Air's office, asked whether there were still places, then woke the cashier up (it took him a while to do so), paid and got my ticket. Iran Air's clerk question when I asked for availability hit me like a hammer, despite his smiling:

"One person, one way, isn't it?"

That man had preserved all that our "bright civilization" had lost in the last 2000 years.

I smiled back and got on the Mashhad flight. It was a Tupolev aircraft that reminded me of the Caspian Air crash a week before. It was to also remind me of the Aria Air flight on the same route, that was to hit a wall after skidding off the runway at Mashhad, killing 16, just 10 hours later. One needs be reminded of death as often as possible; as Sartre says, it is good to be afraid, for that is the only way to growing up.

The scenery looked pretty familiar as we approached Mashhad, with those entirely barren, dusty hills and low mountains, respectively with that sequence of almost identical frames wherever one looked. I considered at least once getting an Afghan visa and crossing the border en route to Herat, in search of blue glass and of that Afghan smile that lies beyond face expressions. After getting a short ride on a bus serving the airport staff, I walked for about one hour to the railway station. The city was quickly waking up and it was impossible not to see the fast pace it had developed at, respectively the fact that many (if not most) of its inhabitants had come there from various parts of the country and not only, to begin with straight Afghan men wearing karakul hats and all the way to entire families set in Vahdat Park, praying or already having breakfast. The railway station was large and well organized, except that I could not notice any ticket counter. That happened because in a large station I foolishly expected several ticket counters that were well signaled. A guard pointed me to the right place, a room the size of a newspaper stand, with a single counter where two people worked: a clerk whose job was selling tickets and her boss whose job was being nervous and sending everyone away, disregarding of their demands. As I had waited at the shorter line in front of the boss and realized people ahead of me were sent away without much courtesy, I switched lines and waited at the young clerk that at least smiled every now and then, even though the answer was negative to most people, of the "no availability" sort. My turn was next, so I put a smile on, as I did not want to get back to Tehran on a 14 hour bus. I asked for a ticket for a train departing at 5 PM. Or 6 PM. Or 7 PM. Or anytime after that. The lady looked in her computer, while other people were unlucky enough to come when she was busy and the boss sent them away in a loud voice. She could not find any availability for that day. I kept my smile on and stuck to the counter, not saying a word. She asked the boss something, he answered negatively in disgust, at the same time both to her and to a mid-aged couple that was just entering and had not had the chance to ask anything. They attempted to say something, but were immediately hurried away with boss’ lifted hand and shout. My smile was always there and my hands crisped to my back. It all turned quiet for a short while. The boss eventually went to the back of the room and returned 5 minutes later with a ticket, threw it to the lady in disgust, mumbled something and went away to make sure nobody else dares enter the office.

"Does 4 PM work for you? I know you wanted to leave later on, I am so sorry, but this is all we have, someone has canceled..."

The contrast between the boss and the clerk was so big that I nearly bit my lip until it bled so as to make sure I was not day dreaming. Even though I felt like jumping around in joy, I kept my smile on and thanked her very much. But it was not over. She explained I only had to go across the park and street from the station, look for a certain travel agency (the name of I instantly forgot) located next to a bank (the name of I instantly forgot), and ask for a certain Mr. Didri (the name of I thankfully remembered). That ticket had been issued by that agency and it was only them that could change the name and issue it on my name, it was also only there that I could pay for it. After passing through two travel agencies, I luckily met a clerk that knew the gentleman I was looking for and directed me to the right place. Even though Mr. Didri did not speak a word of English, we understood each other and the matter was solved before long.

Logistics completed, I could eventually go and see the mosque. Crowds of pilgrims flowed along the avenues leading to the main gates. The heat was growing and the sun was so strong that simply looking at the shrine's golden dome and minarets felt blind-folding. I however went straight to Gohar Shad's Mosque. It featured the best of its era, from Samarkand to Konye Urgench or Herat (at least the Herat we can see nowadays). Even though the grand portal was partly hidden away by the extensive sun shades meant to allow people to pray also in front of the mosque, it was a jewel of tilework, while the gold-plated stalactite patterns above the mihrab bore delicate, amazing designs. By looking at the two minarets not necessarily imposing, but definitely stunning in detail, one could not but get an idea of the greatness of the Musalla in Herat, provided the British had not passed by and cleared it off. Furthermore, the many people praying in and in front of the mosque, its being functional and not just a piece of national pride like in Uzbekistan or some parts of Turkmenistan, this all made it more beautiful and granted it with life beat.

The rest of the shrine area was a succession of courtyards and buildings which made it for a fine, complex and heterogeneous location. The golden dome and minarets, as well as the mirror maze inside the main shrine building (where I could peek thanks to Ramin, a kind guide of the foreign pilgrims office) could not be ignored either, even though the mosque reminded one much more of the human nature of the person that had it built. However it was interesting to see that, while Ramin knew many anecdotes and a lot of religious information on the shrine, there was little historic or architectural data he had been given access to. He was very thankful when I offered to send him Elliot's "Mirrors of the Unseen". The heat had got even worse. It was Friday afternoon and most merchants had already or were about to close their shops. After gulping some great kabab joined by a refreshing dough, I had one of the (if not the) strongest waterpipes in my life, comparable only to that in Yemen's Shibam a few years before; coals were placed directly on top of a heap of strong, quite rough tobacco. Simply sitting there, puffing and drinking black tea among those quietly talking local people was bringing one all peace and tranquility that would have paid for going to Mashhad alone. The other people in the otherwise small and simple joint close to the railway station were accustomed to each other, but by just looking at them, one could see how mixed the population of Mashhad was, as their faces ranged from the Turkic lines, to the Arian type or the darker Arab complexion.

Eventually the time to go had come and I got to the railway station, which was already beaming of life and people. I was to share the 6 bunk berth with a mid-aged gentleman, three young men in their twenties (two of which kept on kicking and giggling at each other for the entire journey), respectively a mullah from Qom which was very curious about Romania, but which shared Ramin's lack of information about nearby Herat or about anything else than the religion surrounding the Shrine of Imam Reza. Other than that, he asked me a few times how I found Iran now, 5 years after my first visit, pointing that the country was going in the "right" direction. I did not feel like arguing and smiled, then joined some dilletantism in, about new roads and highways being built; it seemed to be the cure to all of the day's odds and challenges. The train was meanwhile crossing the barren plateau bordered by remote, dry, reddish ranges, but they all slowly gave way to endless, even drier plains. Trying to call Mohammad, I realized there was no service that I could use, even though the network I had used just two days before was up and strong: they had cut off the roaming service; well, it was Friday evening and there might have been people gathered again at Tehran's university... Fear, fear again.

I reached Tehran at 4 AM, just in time to sit and watch a mixture of patriotic songs, local soap opera series, "welcome to Iran" ads, the call to prayer, respectively the already familiar mullah preaching on life matters, all these on large plasmas spread across the modern station. At the break of dawn, I started walking in search of a hotel, always eager to experience the city come to life, from children's going to school or shops' being opened by sleepy merchants to that always growing traffic. Roads got busy to the point I was familiar with as I checked a dozen hotels to find a reasonable option for the third of a night I was to sleep there; furthermore, of them all, I managed to find the most secluded option, in an attic accessed along dwarf size, narrow stairs no mullah could take unless he took his turban off and crawled. It was getting hot and knowing that I was going home (a place I slowly stop identifying myself with) made it feel more suffocating than it actually was. Just like a cure, I needed people, their noise and overwhelming crowd, so I crossed the bazaar. I missed the great architectural jewel in Esfahan or the light play in the exquisite vaulted passages in Yazd. I then started walking at random through the part of the city where the richer and "neat" North met the poorer and vibrant South. Somewhere along Manuchehri Street with its plethora of antique shops selling real silver or genuine crap in all Baroque shapes possible, I stopped in front of a shop and entered. All of a sudden, in front of a small antique shop I had a deja-vu feeling, even though I was pretty confident I had never walked that way before, not during this trip and definitely not back in 2004. I entered. The old, but handsome shop attendant in his sixties welcomed me in English, even though I had greeted him in Persian. He did not go any further, trying to sell me this or that. A couple of miniatures showed Moses holding the tablets in Hebrew. Many of the silver plates bore a Jewish touch. I carefully looked at the attendant for the first time; there was a chance I had found the same person, the same merchant Jason Elliot talks of in his book. Even the prices he quoted for the two items I asked about, of over USD 1000 (respectively 3000), matched the picture. Books usually tell a distant story to us, which we sympathize with or get taken away by at most. But personally meeting a situation one had read about was, at least in this situation, more than interesting, to say the least.

I spent the rest of the day walking until I got blisters, with the ever increasing evening traffic, with local people showing me the way, with the odd, patronising, stiff Russian confectionery shop owner's asking "wuownly wuoneee?" when I wanted to buy, yes, only one cake (as opposed to one kilo), with an Armenian young man's comprehensive smile and kind words when I asked more or less the same, whether I could have only a few sweets. Changing buses to Mohammad's place in Northern Tehran, I could not but notice there was a strong and numerous police presence at every major crossing: at Ferdowsi Square, Arjantin, Vanak Square... At first I thought it happened because this was the rush hour. But no, it happened because this was July 25, day that was marked by many protests worldwide against the current rule in Iran and against oppressing people. And the only thing the ever less popular government could do was a desperate display of force. Staged acts have long been among this world's greatest arts, but they turn into a cheezy soap opera when they come from one's ego and not from one's soul. Such a regime can only last through force and it shall die of the same weapons that keep it alive now.

After three hours of sleep, the hotel manager woke me up: my taxi was there and the driver played loud, fast beat music all the way to the airport. The crowds with their heaps of luggage and the cheering, smiling, not at all professional for profession’s sake spirit of the check-in desk attendant were among the last things belonging to Iran that I met. As for the two mid-aged gentlemen sitting next to me on the flight to Istanbul, smelling of bad cigarettes and asking for whisky, wine and then several beers until they dozed off, that was just a proof of the extent to which frustration, interdiction and the "cannot do" lead. This is where preaches one learns by heart (as opposed to "understands and volontierly assumes") go. Neither Shah Reza Pahlavi, nor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad respected history or their own people and their legacy only has one common future: that of Amanullah's palace in Kabul. One took things way too quickly and ignored the life pace of his own country and people. The other one ignored his people and its desires all the way. At least the Shah wrote a book, while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cannot do more than having others keep his blog up. As for those supporting either of the two, the day’s big wigs seem not to get enough of what their mutant monkeys are capable of doing once they grow up. But then, as Emil Cioran wrote, let us not complain too much. I was going back to Romania, a country where people can only laugh loudly if not hysterically, where smile does not exist unless made of cardboard and paid in cash. A country where joy has long been replaced by the excitation produced by money or by a good meal, or by a popular puppet show where mockery is the main character. The only country I have been to where being human has been exclusively replaced by material values and where trust does not exist other than in the entrepreneurship book. For some reason, I could not smile like a few days back, when on Mount Damavand. Neither my lips, nor my inner self did not care move.

"Welcome to Bucharest Henri Coanda Airport, ladies and gentlemen. For security reasons, may we ask you not to leave your luggage unattended or to other persons..."

Dare not trust anyone. Kill thy brother, Cain.