Istanbul, Turkey, July 2010

It’s just how I’d seen it in the photographs. Fascinating, extended along the Bosporus, full of life and noises. We have reached Istanbul, Constantinople; the light of the sunset ties in with the taste of the end of a trip. We are at the end, but participants won’t stop growing, at least for the thousand meetings held during this hot Caucasian July, from the Caspian to the Black Sea. We have laid an invisible string with actions and words: from Rome to Constantinople, from Saint Peter’s dome to the cross of the ecumenical Patriarch and the minaret of the mosque of Istanbul.

Here we meet Bartholomew I, ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, and we establish a family climate straight away, he’s a man of great humanity and intense spirituality. I give him the particular greetings that Benedict XVI sent, repeating it twice, when I went to receive the blessing for the trip. Bartholomew is reliable, we remember old common friendships, we remember father Duprey, pioneer of the relations with Orthodoxy. He has peace in his eyes and each one of his words expresses peace. “We must eliminate religious fanaticism which contradicts religion itself”, he underlines while listening to the students of Rondine and the testimony of their friendship. “Rondine’s experience is very interesting and even more precious than that of universities where you study using your head. At Rondine you need your heart”.

And when we give him the silver swallow of the organization he says, wearing it on his chest: “Rondine has a new friend, I’m putting Rondine on my heart”. But before saying goodbye he takes me to his private study and gives me his signature “live” at the foot of the philatelist emission of the Vatican in occasion of the visit of Benedict XVI to Bartholomew, in 2006. Then, as an exquisite detail, he asks which of Rondine’s students are Muslim and takes them to his study to show them a precious edition of the Koran in Greek and Arabic which he has on show together with the Pope’s photograph, taken on the balcony of the Patriarchate while holding hands. He won the student’s hearts. After the meeting they say, emotionally: “If only there were more people like him!”. We say goodbye hoping that a young student suggested by Bartholomew will soon come to Rondine.

From the Koran kept in Bartholomew’s study to that of the Grand Mufti. The vice mufti, Sabri Demir, also welcomes us warmly and confirms the interest in Rondine’s educational work, clearly inspired to the Gospel and practiced in a spirit of inter-religious dialogue. In the simplicity of these visits and blessings we notice a deep meaning.

The minutes of this trip are hanging from the string connecting places and people, like many photographs getting dry. I start thinking about these days, as you always do at the end of an experience, and I already give it a meaning that goes beyond its protagonists, who organized it. It’s always the same for things that reveal meanings, duties, vocations. The last immersion in Turkish society, the meetings at the Galatasaray State University, with the authorities of Ankara, confirm the support to Rondine’s project. They strongly believe in education here and what Rondine asserts in understood immediately: without the Turkish point of view, we will never understand the Caucasus. Also in Turkey we have set the bases for the selection of the first students for the International Student Hall. The palpable feeling is that the Bosporus is very narrow, Asia and Europe coexist and mix in an absolutely original way. You notice a deep and clear difference from any European capital and at the same time you see known things and attitudes and hear familiar words.

Should Turkey join Europe? The travelers cannot avoid the eternal question and debate starts. Optimism dominates in the group. But on this issue we do not have an objective vision. Because Rondine has come from Baku, crossing the high Caucasian mountains: we all think there is no other solution than the union of Turkey to Europe, for a stable and pacific future in the entire region.

On the last night, for dinner, we make a toast, melting different traditions. They are not Georgian, nor Abkhaz or Russian. They are “from Rondine”, an excuse for everyone to talk about feelings, opinions and the meaning of these 18 days crossing the South Caucasus, among memories from the trip and funny jokes. Naira, our young Abkhaz guide, an evacuee in Tbilisi during the war that was never able to go back home, thanks us in a non generic way. She reveals to everyone that she had asked Guy, the Israeli student, to bring her a polychrome stone from the beach of Sukhumi, in Abkhazia, where she played and enjoyed herself until she was eight, with her friends, Georgians and Abkhaz indistinctly. She tells us about her excitement when she received it and took it to her grandmother who was carrying her when their lives changed: from being the daughter of a happy family to a refugee and orphan. In fact, the airplane that was rescuing her parents was hit by flak and fell, bringing an end to the enchantment of her youth. By chance, that airplane departed few minutes after the one on which David was, a student of Rondine that is now here on the bus with her. We discovered this during the trip. When she received the stone from the “pearl of the Black Sea” (as they call Abkhazia for the beauty of its coasts)  Naira’s grandmother kissed it and started crying. As if it were an icon.

The story is very moving but, most of all, it reminds us that the earth is sacred because before being of men, who fight over it, it’s God’s gift. When we were children we played a game with our hands closed while one of us took turns and, with his hands closed and a ring to give, would pass and give it to somebody without the others noticing. Who received the ring had to hide it as well, but excitement betrayed… It’s as if Naira, in her testimony, gave her little stone to all of us and we weren’t able to conceal our feelings. A symbol to be kept to feed the desire for a promised land. For what is possible on earth and for the rest in Paradise.

Franco Vaccari, president of the organization Rondine Cittadella della Pace