Bell

November 8, 2026

"The Voice of Time … calls out to man: "Go forward!" Time wants him to advance toward the goal it knows and sees, which was set when it first began. Time and man began.

He who tries to block its way or reverse it, tries to stop the powerful machine, which kills the impudent to death, and after a moment's delay, will work even more indomitable and fierce."

Ч. Dickens "The Bells"

"Where the Motherland begins…" An old song. but it remains a tale of the most important thing. Being born, a person is caught in a web of true and false values. And throughout our lives we persistently try to sort out our relationship to them. But one thing is certain – this is our native land.

We remember the special sounding crossroads, the special pattern of windows flashing in the night, the whispering of trees in the wind. And the Motherland for us is no longer just a solemn word, but the guardian of carefree childhood and youth, the time of growing up and comprehending wisdom, the witness of endless ups and downs, soaked in the flesh and blood of each of us. Family, home, street, neighborhood. City, country, planet, universe. A person …

Kazakhstan, at the height of political panic, nevertheless left its Soviet past behind and boldly stepped onto the path of development and prosperity.

TODAY, OUR KAZAKHSTAN IS RECOGNIZED BY THE WORLD COMMUNITY AS A STATE THAT PURSUES A CONSISTENT DOMESTIC POLICY AIMED AT ENSURING TOLERANCE, INTER-CONFESSIONAL AND INTERCULTURAL HARMONY OF REPRESENTATIVES OF ALL ETHNIC GROUPS. THE UNITED PEOPLE OF KAZAKHSTAN ARE ACTIVELY BUILDING A SECULAR STATE.

TODAY, OUR KAZAKHSTAN HAS ESTABLISHED ITSELF AS A FULL MEMBER OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY, PURSUING A CONSISTENTLY PEACEFUL AND CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY OF FRIENDSHIP, GOOD-NEIGHBORLINESS AND MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL COOPERATION.

Even before independence, President Nursultan Nazarbayev of the Kazakh SSR closed the world's largest nuclear weapons test site in Semipalatinsk Oblast by decree. Later, as a sovereign state, Kazakhstan gave up its nuclear arsenal, the fourth most powerful in the world.

These steps have served to strengthen the confidence of the world community, including the leading powers around the world, and have ensured a friendly attitude towards the young republic.

Foreign investments flowed into the country, leading companies from all over the world began to open their representative offices.

Since the 2000s, private entrepreneurship has become a conscious choice of the active part of the population, people have free money and time to go out and have fun.

A free movement of bikers started in Almaty. Foreign motorcycles appeared on the roads – they were brought by businessmen-transporters from Europe and some Asian countries. The borders opened up and became accessible to everyone. In 2002 we created the Public Association "Bike Club "Kazakhstan". Then I got a new nickname – "Chief". I felt that my dream was approaching before my eyes, but I was still in no hurry to fulfill it. The children had grown up, embarked on the path of independent decisions. The world was transforming, forming a new reality of possibilities without borders and judgmental views, daring challenges that we were ready to set for ourselves every day.

My blood was boiling with the anticipation of something unknown and the most incredible, with shades of thrill. Successful businessmen, the first bikers, free riders of Kazakhstan's roads. We were surrounded by beautiful women, foreign brands, the luxury of the young capital dazzled even visiting foreigners.

*The biggest trike in the world. South America. 2013.*

There was another side of the coin. The polyphony of new meanings, like a double game of the mind, was dragging me into the mire of comfortable existence. To accept peace from the world of possibilities was tantamount to resigning oneself to a slow, voiceless death in a fashionably pressed white collar. Quietly, millimeter by millimeter it seizes the mind, triumphing with the sweet aftertaste of another day in satiety and permissiveness. The soul stiffens from indifferent look at the surrounding world, the eyes darken, everything beautiful and once amazing acquires gray shades.

To settle down meant to throw oneself into the dump, in advance, to leave one's body to rot, to soar with the air molecules of former ambitions and to feed one's consciousness with self-deception, destroying the last hope for a new breath of fresh air.

I always knew that the day would come, the hour would strike. And the illusion of contentment will crumble, the bell ringing in your ears will appear in the form of a universal judgment. And the reason will be the same, if at the punctured hour you have not yet taken the path of your true destiny.

"The sign of doom," the harbinger of things to come, will emphasize with a bold red line and voice a verdict inexpressible in any other way than the polyphonic nature of the bell ringing.

May statuses and accomplishments be leveled, may the rusty crowns of this world's commonplace be wiped away into crumbs.

* * *

Listen to the beating of your heart, freeze. The frequency of your pulse, like the chime of an elusive epoch, reflects the laws of time, beats in your temples with a calibrated rhythm, depriving you of the possibility of justification. Every second it increases its frequency and raises the tone of its sound to a deafening squeak, tearing the brains of the loins and throwing them at the feet of a pompous creature.

And you will have to decide whether you will take into your palms, as on the scales established by the laws of nature, pleasure or suffering, on a personal or universal scale, in a sensual impulse or an act of retribution, flourishing in destruction, so that after excess, silence and falling into the abyss, you may come to the birth of the new, stronger, higher and clearer, as after an accidental death to the regenerating youth of fine matter.

I knew this day would come, the hour would strike. The wall clock would stop and the countdown would begin. What to do? Tear off the clock at last, as a symbol of belonging to a system with endless obligations and a stifling order of things?

To take the compass in hand and move towards your true self, revealing the facets of your greatness on the way to real achievements, through sweat, blood and clenched fists. To throw off the illusory armor of imaginary lords and face the world in his true image. In such circumstances, obstacles play the role of the singular, while the choice to be something greater here and now plays the role of the all-encompassing, infinite, powerful.

* * *

My sirens howled when I learned that Ewan McGregor, Hollywood's legendary actor, and his friend had decided to ride a motorcycle from London to New York: crossing all of Europe, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia, flying across the Pacific Ocean to Alaska to then drive across Canada and America. 32,000 kilometers and 19 time zones in 108 days. Having decided on the adventure, its protagonists had no idea what they were getting into. Listening to their naive arguments about childhood dreams, motorcycle manufacturers and extreme driving instructors looked at their friends as if they were insane. Afraid of creating a negative image because of the impending inevitable motorcycle breakdowns off-road, the manufacturing company suddenly withdrew its models from the project.

*Evan McGregor and Charlie Borman meet. 2004. Kurdish Pass.*

"RIDING SURROUNDED BY A CARAVAN OF GUIDES AND MAINTENANCE CREWS CAN BE DONE BY ANYONE, NOT EVERYONE WILL VENTURE IT ALONE…"

"…If we don't do it now, we'll never do it," McGregor recounted in an interview.
Long before the journey began, McGregor and Borman signed million-pound contracts with publishers and filmmakers to publish the stories of their unique journey and released the movie "The Long Way Around the World".

But any, even the longest journey, begins with the first kilometer of trials. After crossing comfortable Europe, the first encounters with harsh reality begin. The guys were traveling through Central Asia when Evan's motorcycle malfunctioned.

The news quickly reached the capital of the biker movement, and my biker friends and I set off to help the legend.

We met the famous travelers at the Kordai Pass, brought them to Almaty, repaired their motorcycle.

It was then that I heard from him a fateful phrase for me: "Everyone can become a biker, but not every biker can travel halfway around the world". After those words, half the world wasn't enough for me. I wanted more, and to be the only one who could, not only in my country, but in the whole world. The American dream acquired the properties of plasticine in the hands of a Kazakhstani biker, building new scenery to achieve more than a simple boy from harsh Siberia could ever dream of. I was preparing to give a worthy answer to the legendary Hollywood actor on behalf of all Kazakhstani bikers:

"Riding surrounded by a caravan of guides and maintenance crews can be done by anyone, not everyone ventures it alone."
The thought of a world record gripped me with even greater force.

A week later, after the biker festival, I announced that I was going on a trip and set the day of departure. Everyone took it as a joke, but despite this, on the appointed day in the morning we gathered in the central square of the southern capital.

Solemnly we reached Chemolgan. There my friend Valikhan Koshumbayev said: "Well, we had a ride, and now let's go home, eat shashlik and go home". And I told them: "No! I went on." This was the starting point of a multi-year dialog with the vast expanses of our planet.