polski
The next encounter at the Visa Application Centre at the Indian Embassy in Tehran is tough, but we come out of it victorious. In a week, we are to collect the visa. Meanwhile, we are changing the hostel into a cosy flat of our CouchSurfing hosts – Mohammad and Raziye. The lady of the house […]
As a woman, the first thing I must do after entering Iran is to cover my head with a scarf. Iran is the Islamic Republic, which means that the country is under the official rule of religious law – Sharia. Iran is ruled by Supreme Religious Leader Ali Khamenei, who issues Sharia-compliant decrees and makes […]
The first longer journey outside Baku takes us through the rusty steppes. Rather than the vegetation, they are full of oil rigs. Machines stand scattered along the road. Their metal necks bend over and over again in a continuous fortune mining ritual. The platforms are a sight so common on the oil-rich land of Azerbaijan […]
6 AM. A large parking lot by the Baku Bay. Our homebulance sways uncontrollably in powerful gusts of wind. It is still not too bad today. The wind reaches “only” 70 km per hour. Two days earlier, it was over 100. No wonder Baku is called “The Windy City”. We finish our coffee before it […]
Only late at night, we manage to leave the Russia-Azerbaijan border crossing. We still have to drive a few dozen kilometres to reach the country’s capital – Baku. Roads are lacking any street lamps, but the roadworks are plenty. In the darkness, in the maze of roadworks, we manage to lose our way several times. […]
In the middle of the bare steppe, there is a large square. On the square – mud bricks arranged in the outlines of foundations. These ruins are all that is left of the once-great Otrar. It was here, where the intersections of the main Silk Road routes converged. Today, only wind blows between decayed houses […]
![[English below]
Trzydniowa Japonia w pigułce rozniosła nam głowy. Kilka lat później przeprowadziliśmy się do niej na sześć miesięcy. Kraj przez pół roku konsekwentnie i nieodwracalnie przepalał nam styki. Dlatego nie zdziwiliśmy się wcale, kiedy kilka lat później w Wołgogradzie po meczu Polska-Japonia kibice naszych rywali zabrali się za porządkowanie stadionowych trybun. Co kiedyś mogłoby wywołać uśmiech politowania i wymowny gest posuwisto-zwrotny palcem wskazującym w stronę czoła, dziś było tak oczywiste, że aż trzeba się było dołączyć. Wcale nas nie zdziwiło, że przed stadionem rzesze japońskich fanów gratulowało Polakom tak żarliwie, jakbyśmy wcale nie grali o pietruszkę. Przy tym wszyscy byli tak urzekająco szczęśliwi naszym… hmm… szczęściem, jakby sami właśnie wygrali puchar. Wymianom szalików, koszulek nie było końca. Andrzej wrócił chyba z trzema. W tym jedną vintage z rozgrywek w latach dziewięćdziesiątych ubiegłego wieku. Co prawda juniorska, ale przynajmniej na jedno z nas pasuje.
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Three-day Japan, in a nutshell, blew our minds. A few years later, we moved in there for six months. The country has been consistently and irreversibly frying our brains for half a year. That's why we weren't at all surprised when, a few years later, in Volgograd, after the Poland-Japan match, our rivals' fans started cleaning up the stadium stands. What once might have caused a smile of pity and a back-and-forth gesture with the index finger towards the forehead was now so obvious that we had to join in. We were not at all surprised that in front of the stadium, crowds of Japanese fans congratulated the Poles as passionately as if we were not playing for honour at all. And everyone was so charmingly happy with our… hmm… victory as if they had just won the cup themselves. There was no end to the exchange of scarves and T-shirts. Andrzej came back with at least three, including one vintage from the 1990s. It's a junior size, but it fits at least one of us.](https://www.peryferie.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)
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