ABSTRACT
“A khtyam! Akhtyam!” As Akhtyam awoke from sleep, he could hear clearly his mother’s voice calling to him. He had not been dreaming of her, but he could hear her voice calling to him as he woke up. However, she was 300km away in the city of Kazan. 1 That same evening, on 21st August 1997, Akhtyam received a telegram from Kazan informing him that his mother was seriously ill and was partially paralysed after having had a stroke. He travelled to Kazan as soon as he could do so. Each weekend after that he returned to Kazan from his home in the town of Almetevsk, in south-eastern Tatarstan. It was on one of those journeys, on Friday 26th September, that he told me about his experience of hearing his mother’s voice just one month previously.
