Final Destination
Participants with a stone in their hands repeat in the manner of a mantra: “From stone to stone, from heart to heart. Let my hands be free of drugs." The pilgrimage to Tashtar-Ata Mountain starts at 3030 meters above the sea level and over 246 km from the destination.
We could’ve started effectively the review of the 17th episode with a list of complaints of true walkers and hike haters. First of all, Gleb, Irina, Anatoliy and Andrey complained about blisters, aching tendons, weak legs, and acute pain in the spine, heavy weight of "stones of the soul," with which they worked in the lapide-psychotherapy.
Secondly, Irina and Gleb do not understand the practical meaning of the pilgrimage. At the beginning of the series, Professor Jenishbek Nazaraliev shares his impressions of what he saw on the practice of enlightened Tibetan pilgrimage. Every third step of their way, Yogis drew closer to the ground facedown. Monotony gestures excluded them from stress and physical exertion. Only in this gap of consciousness can shine the grain of higher meaning.
However, the participants are not to high insights - they have to struggle with themselves and sloth, Gleb also has to justify his lag because of the pain in his back. In this race he doesn’t lead: he cannot beat strong Anatoliy, so he goes off the distance climbing the mountains, desperately cutting off the route. The unconscious approach to the final stage of treatment can be seen in it.
The background of pilgrimage does not only have Tibetan roots. Participants go through the exactly way by which heroin and opium exports from Afghanistan and then ships to Europe. It is the way of the biggest drug trafficking in the world. Within a year 12 thousand tons of drugs pass through this road. Professor Nazaraliev calls it by analogy with the Silk Road - the "Great opium road."
Gleb seems to not know about this, but he doesn’t want to look weak. Alex has long been nicknamed as such. "I suppose you think I'm some kind of Alex," - he said at the end of the first day, after passing 40 km. But the fear to be kicked from the project visits all the participants of the Doctor Life project. Except for Irina, who has already outlined a plan of how she will free herself from the burden and throw the "stone of soul" in advance, not from the slope of Tashtar-Ata but to the roadside.
In the presence of the instructor she constantly whines: "My heart will pop up, something is knocking in the ears and you cannot cut the road. "After a while: "The liver hurts. Healthy Gleb, lying, that he has some pain. He goes along with Tolik." And before the final decision to go back to the clinic: "I do not see any sense, I will not go further. I do not want to go. Why mock myself. "If you will go - you will understand." I did not understand anything! What am I pfuffing around, I do not understand!" Conversation with the instructor does not inspire Irina to victory. She leaves the project and joins the Italian, Alex and Gleb, who was more dishonest because of what, was dismissed.
The youngest participant, as he is often called, not only cut the road through the mountains, but also threatened his life and that of the operator, by almost throwing off from the cliff both of them. And if Irina already proved herself everything and the passed way of almost a hundred kilometers became a personal Everest for her, Gleb looked a little upset when he was expelled. To instructors, he said that he got a back injury from missing the springboard while jumping on a snowboard. Ironically, during the pilgrimage Gleb missed again, he almost fell off a cliff. And it is a strong injury to his feelings.
While leaving the project after Gleb, Irina with faith and hope said to Anatoliy and Andrey: "At least you two must carry on!" But the last heroes have three more days on the road ahead, probably the most difficult. Meanwhile, in the hospital, Victor and Ekaterina are waiting for stress-energy psychotherapy – author’s method of the Professor Nazaraliev, which has been classified and overgrown with lots of rumors for a long time.
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