Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 6 – Aleksandr Gabyshev,
a shaman from Sakha, has been walking for four months already on his way to
Moscow where he expects to arrive next year and to expel from the capital Vladimir
Putin whom he views as “the spawn of dark forces with which only the power of a
shaman can cope.”
In the course of the 2,000
kilometers he has already walked, Gabyshev has spoken with hundreds of drivers
and video clips of him have attracted more than a million views from Russians
across the country. Chita opposition groups say they will even organize a
special meeting for him when he arrives in that city.
Andrey Zatirko, a correspondent for
Radio Liberty’s Sibir.Realii portal, walked with the shaman for several
kilometers and became convinced by what he saw and heard that Russians who live
in rural backwaters are quite ready to believe in the shaman or indeed in any
other mystic “if that will help” (sibreal.org/a/30031688.html).
Gabyshev, 51, has attracted quite a
following. People come to shake his hand, to be photographed with him, and to
give him food. Some walk with him for long distances, and one of those says
that he “believes in miracles” and that it is possible that the shaman is one
of those people, “born every 500 years” who are capable of changing the world.
So many people along
the way are interested in the shaman that he often makes no more than eight
kilometers a day and not the 20 that he has planned. The love of the Russian people along his track
for him is overwhelming. Most truck drivers share his hatred of Putin and provide
support. (Gabyshev left home in March with only 3,000 rubles (50 US dollars) in
his pocket.
The shaman says that “democracy must
be without fear” but that now in Russia “people are afraid to speak.” What is
worse, he continues, is that Putin having set up this system in Russia is
trying to extend it to the entire rest of the world. He must be stopped and
perhaps only a shaman with his special powers can do that.
Gabyshev says that he is especially
pleased that modern technology allows him to communicate with a large number of
people and explain what he is doing. “We are carrying out a fight. A new world
is coming,” and he wants to help it come into being by ousting Putin from the Kremlin.
The first big city on his route is
Chita, and the shaman says he places particular hope in its people. If they
show up in sufficient numbers, other Russian cities will follow, and perhaps
Putin will get the message. If he leaves soon, then the shaman’s task will be
completed; and he will not have to walk on to Moscow where he expects to arrive
in August 2021.
The shaman’s political program is
simple: local administration is the most important thing because by its means
the people will be strengthened. When
Russians took sovereignty in the 1990s to the local level, they didn’t
separate, although the union republics did.
But that was their right and no one should be held by force alone.
Gabyshev told the Sibir.Realii
journalist that after the death of his wife, he went mad for three years and
was even confined to a psychiatric hospital. Then he was cured after spending
time in rural areas where he became a shaman.
He said that he doesn’t fear any effort by officials to send him back for
treatment. Let them try, he continued.
“I believe in God and in Christ. He
made a man of me. All my strength was taken away and I became a simple man. A
shaman on the other hand is condemned to loneliness and I do not want to be
lonely forever.”
“For me, the departure of Putin will
be a victory,” the expulsion of “a demon.” Then the Russian people will have the
chance to select their own leaders and make their own choices.
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