It is also interesting to note that the Allakh-Yun road is of significance for other associations than the world war of the mid-20th century – for many centuries beforehand it had been the sole over-land thoroughfare providing access to the Lamskoye (Okhotsk) Sea and was used by the local residents for communication and trade: the exchange of goods for furs.
Listening to Suzanna’s stories, the logical question raises itself: Might perhaps the photographer’s craving for travel have been passed down from her ancestors through the female line? From that same grandmother who, wrapped in the skins of taiga animals, fulfilled her duty for months at a time, carrying provisions to the front. Or from others, their names now lost to oblivion, those many-times-great grandmothers of Suzanna who managed down the centuries to pass on to today’s Yakut men and women beliefs that need no explanation. “You do know that before starting a long journey, you must without fail feed the spirits of the road?” Suzanna asks me. “For example, I sometimes lay out edible treats along the path for them or throw some bread to the dogs that randomly spring out of nowhere.” We are drinking coffee and eating Georgian baklava, half an hour before her next train is due, and I realise I have come to a perfect understanding that this amazing book named “Suzanna” has many more roads ahead of her, meaning that we, her viewers and readers, likewise have awaiting us many stories and pictures about the lives of people and things that will help teach us to be at peace with ourselves.