French traveler and writer Cedric Gras, who is in our country on a friendly visit, met with students of the French Institute in Ashgabat in the media library. The guest donated five of his books in French - three about travel, a novel and science fiction - to the library of the French Institute.
Among those who gathered to meet with the writer were students of the Turkmen State University named after Magtymguly, as well as students of the Turkmen National Institute of World Languages named after D. Azady, with whom the French traveler met the day before.
The writer and traveler aroused great interest among young people, and he was literally bombarded with questions. The guys asked about how his fate turned out, about the most vivid impressions of his trip to Antarctica and the Alps, about how to become a real mountaineer, about what inspired him to become a writer and, of course, about global warming.
Cedric Gras answered questions from the audience with utmost sincerity. The traveler said that he is a geographer by training, so visiting different parts of the world and seeing beautiful landscapes is his professional need. Most of all he loves the mountains. He first saw the Alps while sitting in his father’s backpack. It was his parents who instilled in him a love of travel.
–In 2016, I was lucky enough to visit Antarctica, –says Cedric. –I experienced unforgettable emotions there, which I described in my book. The territory of Antarctica is approximately equal to the area of Europe. In January it is day here all day long, and in June it is night. That is, day and night, winter and summer have changed places. And the beauty from the glaciers is such that words cannot describe it.
In the near future I plan to visit Antarctica again, but at a different crossing. I hope to write another book.
Actually, I don’t consider myself a real writer, because a writer is characterized by imagination, but I write about what I saw with my own eyes. My works also differ from scientific works, since I write in simple language, wanting my books to be accessible to a wide circle of readers who also love to travel, but do not have the opportunity to do so.
I travel a lot in the mountains. Fate somehow protected me from accidents, but one day, during another climb to the top of the mountain, I injured my ankle. From a medical point of view, if this happened in the city, this would be a trivial diagnosis. But in the mountains, where the victim requires immobility and medical attention, this is a disaster.
And one day a storm overtook me at sea. I must say that I am a good climber, but a bad sailor, so I suffered from fear for the rest of my life.
This is my first time in Turkmenistan, although I have visited Central Asia before. This time it won’t work, but if I visit your country again, we will definitely climb the Kopetdag Mountains with Turkmen climbers.
The meeting with questions and answers continued for a long time. Issues such as global warming, which Cedric Gras himself witnessed, flying saucers, which the science fiction traveler does not believe in and does not advise others to see, were touched upon, and many others.
When asked about his impressions of our country, a guest from France replied: «We are all different, I am not like you, and you are not like me. Maybe this is precisely the highlight for the traveler».
