In the Middle World

Don’t ask how we got to The Middle World, Orto Doidu, in Khangalas Ulus. It’s another story and surely it will be told. But we got there on time, when the first Кitaliks (Siberian White Cranes) were ready for the flight.

If life could always be like that there would be no need in revolutions, feuds, quarrels or disagreements of any kind. There would be no need for soldiers and diplomats; there would only be need in artists.

There are some things that do not grow by being blabbered about. One of them is Yhyakh. You can’t make Yhyakh bigger than it is. You can’t make it shine more that it shines by itself.

Welcome to Yhyakh, the greatest festival and celebration of Yakutian people – the great day of Arrival of the Sun!

There is no better symbol of us humans than the Sun! The Sun unites us all – people. It is strange how often we tend to forget about the Sun and think about other things, small and unimportant.

Yhyakh is about the Sun, and it is also about love and mutual assistance. And – about miracles that each of us can make. It can be a small miracle, a really tiny one, almost insisible, but the size really does not matter!

In the coutnry where the winter lasts 9 months of more, Yhyakh is the gayest day in the year! This is a day when the past leaves and the future arrives. Here and now, at this very moment, they meet together before parting forever!

It was so quiet here yesterday and even earlier this morning. And then in minutes the entire valley turned into a scene of a great festival. Yhyakh! Everyone is here!

Look at these people! What pride they take into making their cloths (some may have spent a year on it), and then dressing up in the morning for this day! It is their festival. It’s their fairy-tale! It is their day!

How good it smells – the young horse meat, too tender for a knife, fabolous bubbling kumis (mare’s milk), salamat, horse’s intestines, and the icy cold ice water…. This summer promises, after all the rains that fell onto this land, some monstrous harvest! Which means more kumis and more salamat! Glory to the Sun!

I wish I were a «sputnik» and could see «The Middle World» from space. I know that at this very moment this great valley has turned into a glowing heart of Siberia.

And then there was a girl who got lost in this fairy-tale just to be instantly discovered by our fantastic friend, the young police woman Ekaterina Drachuk who picked her up, consoled, and shortly returned her back to her mother.

And then enter the young people!

It’s so good to grow up in Khangalas!

These boys know about nature at their cell level.

That’s why they can fly in the air like white cranes….

…and run across the valley like wild horses…

The crowd joins in and turns into a pulsing roar… Foot beat and heart beat come together!

And now time for Osuokhai!

We all join into the circle, the endless Osuokhai which has no start or beginning, like the life circle itself.

We look into the sky and suddenly see how deep space is – so deep that there is place for everyone and anyone.
We go around and round …. for hours… and no force on Earth can stop us!