The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

The archaeologists were working on the excavation of the palace of Sogdian rulers. Theylived in small rooms, two persons per room, at the home base of the archeologicalexpedition. They would wake up early in the morning, have breakfast, and then be drivenby a truck to the excavation site. They would work until noon. The laborers were localTajiks, students of technical schools. Starostin’s task was to identify and define the objectsthat might be of scientific interest. By noon, when it was too hot to work outside, themembers of the expedition would return to the house to eat a delicious borsch cooked byGul’djamo, a kind Tajik woman. Then, until night, the scholars would work on their reportsand presentations. Others, including Starostin, would stroll among the local orchards, eatgrapes and melons, talk to the locals, or visit Samarkand to eat pilaf and drink local wine ata cheap restaurant on Penjikent Street.That season, unique, well-preserved writings were found on the walls of the palaceof Sogdian rulers. Only one person in the world could decipher those writings. His namewas Vladimir Livschitz. He worked in the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad. He was anice, bright man, who arrived at the expedition site from Samarkand by taxi along with hisUzbek girlfriend and a box of wine for the colleagues.At the same time, having learned about the discovery of those writings, Richard Fryedashed to Penjikent from America along with his fourteen-year-old son. Frye greatlyimpressed the expedition participants with his impeccable knowledge of the Russianlanguage and his ability to quote Dostoevsky precisely, as well as with the latest Westerntechnological breakthrough—the Polaroid camera. Nobody in the Soviet Union had seensuch a camera.213