Edvin Sugarev
Gerasim Velichkov–Gerry departed from us. He set out along the sky ridge for his most difficult ascent. In the short breaks between his journeys he used to do different things. For example, he translated more than 20 books from English into Bulgarian–from “Knight’s Gambit” by William Faulkner through “The Critic as Artist” by Oscar Wilde to the books of the great mountaineers Joe Tasker and Chris Bonington. He created 18 documentary films, among them: “Chadar— Shadow of Glass,” “To Purify yourself in the Himalayas,” “Kailash—the Axis of Faith,” “A River born from Shiva’s Hair” and “The Mountain Goes to Mohammed”. He wrote a lot of grand travel notes published in “Odyssey” magazine that managed to turn the places you were reading about into part of your inner biography.
First and foremost, however, he was a traveller. All his life Gerry travelled around the world trying to understand how this world exists, how people live in it, what unites them, what distinguishes them, and whether the faith and the religion make them equal or completely different. Maybe that’s why his inner world was as boundless as the one he travelled. This is why we, his friends, don’t want to take a final leave of him but just to wish him a pleasant journey on this highest of his ascents. He should pitch a tent up there on the peak for our wandering souls as well.
I heard you are en route again, Gerry!
And that you are again ahead of us walking uphill along the frozen river that springs straight from the sky. A pleasant journey in the invisible, and don’t forget to leave tracks for all of us who come behind you!
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