guennadi.com

When God gives, He doesn’t ask whose son you are. (Afghan proverb)

Since I arrived in Kabul Phil is introducing me to his friends as “Guennadi, a friend from Australia”. Yesterday, on the way to the city, the driver, an Afghani man, asked Phil, “Is Guennadi Russian”? “Why?”, Phil asked. “I recognised him by his name, Guennadi is a Russian name”. He then proceeded telling us that a number of years back he used to work as a mechanic for a Russian Automotive company. And his Russian boss, Peotr (Peter) really liked him because he was a hard worker, and each weekend the boss would bring him a box of chocolate. Saying that he had a huge smile on his face and he said that those were good times… I then asked him what it was like when the Soviets were in the country. On that he said, “I didn’t have anything to do with the military, so I don’t really have anything to say..”

Here are a couple more photos from my trip to the city.