ABSTRACT
1961: Reading on a train in the Caucasus I find the following:
Yesterday evening I arrived in Pyatigorsk and found lodgings on the outskirts of the town, fairly high up at the foot of the Mashuk; if a storm comes the clouds will hide my roof. When I opened the window at five o’clock this morning my room was full of the scent of the flowers in the small garden; cherry blossom gazes into the room and sometimes the wind covers my desk with white petals. The panorama is magnificent: in the west one sees the blue peaks of the five-headed Beshtau … in the north the Mashuk rises like a Persian fur cap; in the east below me there lies the clean new town; one hears the murmuring of the mineral springs and the voices of the cosmopolitan crowd. Further away the mountains form a kind of amphitheater, blue and hazy in the distance; and on the edge of the horizon one sees the silver chain of the snow-covered summits from Kasbek to Elbruz. It is a pleasure to live in such a place …
