´óÏó´«Ã½

The main character of Leo Tolstoi's novel Anna Karenina, Count Vronski famously loved women and horses.

I was always intrigued by this particular combination.

It's understandable separately, but why both along with each other?

For instance, there's a famous narrative which states that the Prophet Muhammad loved in this world women and pleasant scent, but his greatest pleasure was in prayer.

Commentators then explained it as the ascension from the worldly love through the spiritual one to the divine.

But why women and horses?

If you read novels of Leo Tolstoi he makes this convergence not just in Anna Karenina.
In his another acclaimed novel War and Peace describing Countess Bolkonskaya waiting for a visit of her old acquaintance Anatole Kuragin, he writes: 'The little princess, like an old war horse that hears the trumpet, unconsciously and quite forgetting her condition, prepared for the familiar gallop of coquetry, without any ulterior motive or any struggle, but with naive and light-hearted gaiety'.

I was thinking about all of that going on earlier this summer at Royal Ascot - a horse race which is famous also as an ultimate women's fashion show.

That was the place where Count Vronski should have come to fulfil his passion for women and horses.

I must say that the Russian speech was heard here and there and today's successors of Vronski - the 'new Russians' were clearly enjoying the place.

But I would like to talk about the 'Englishness' of this 300 year old institution.
It starts with the very approaches to Ascot race course - which is situated not far from Windsor Castle - the main location for the Royal household.

Acres of well looked after woods, the tranquillity of the boundless fields, empty rural roads - everything is preparing you to the solemnity of that closeness.

And the very course starts with a Phaetonic appearance of Her Majesty on her Royal carriage from afar until the caravan of Royal carriages passes in front of every spectator.

Looks of participants mean quite a lot here too: black or grey morning dress with a top hat is a must do for men and long dress, covering midriffs with an exotic hat - for women.

This traditional Dickensian look brings with itself more traditions hinting towards the historic class make of the English society.

There are three enclosures to watch the race: the highest - The Royal Enclosure, where no stranger could be found - you are either a member of the club or recommended by a member, who has attended the race for the last four years.

There even the guards on watch talking softly and eloquently: 'I humbly beg, Sir, that you will honour the regulations of that Sovereign Enclosure and conceive it has beguiled you of one moment's pain if I ask you to prolong your motion further down, I am, Good Sir, Your Well-wisher, and most humble Fellow-subject...'

So, puzzled and amazed by this tirade, which you read somewhere in classic books, you move on either to the Grandstand - a typical middle-class milieu or even further to the Silver Ring, not a riffraff area, but the part of Ascot were no formalities in dress code apply.

Enough of class-division, the English concept of 'fair game' is present here in betting which makes everyone equal in front of a chance.

One can bet anywhere, regardless of enclosures: if you had no extra money to drink champagne before the course, you can drink it afterwards, after winning the bet. Fair deal? Fair...

There's a moment of 'here and now' - along with the lightning speed of the horse race you can also race to the betting shop for your win.

I don't think that this feature confined just to Royal Ascot.

One can see it in the National Lottery, X-Factor, Strictly Come Dancing and many other endeavours: to wake up next morning rich and famous.

I don't think that it's a purely English feature, but the famous English wit appreciated much more than long-lasting contemplation or life-long wisdom, chimes somehow with 'here and now' concept.

(By the by the dominance and preference of the tabloids with their snappy and flashy headlines in the media scene could be also read in the same manner).

I should have also said about the spirit of free enterprise as well as ubiquitous English charity, when you can see private courtyards open for payable parking, some of them earning extra money, some raise money for good causes.

(A lady in front of the gates put for a pound a flower in my button-hole. A man next to her whispered: 'D'yuo need an extra tikkey, err?')

But let's be back to our gorgeous women and majestic horses.

Am I any clearer why Count Vronski loved them equally?

Did Royal Ascot make the answer a little bit clearer?

Maybe because the horses are the archetypical symbol of masculinity: I was a toddler when my great-granddad tied me up to his back and mounted on his horse.

Ever since when I think of my parental roots it feels that they are growing out of a horse.
Centaur is the name for that archetype.

So maybe Count Vronski was passionate about the place where the pure masculinity races towards the pure femininity?

It's just a guess and the Royal Ascot might be one of those places, though with some English reservations...

This summer I'm not planning to go anywhere, so I'll be having a purely English summer.

It began with some very institutional 'English' events like Royal Ascot and Wimbledon and may possibly end with the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Proms.

You know, I've got a good friend. A very decent person. She is an extremely nice character and lives up in Cambridge.

Before the days I knew what it was to be to do an English summer and I had just arrived in the UK, she invited me for an audit dinner. I didn't know, what the audit dinner meant, but agreed to come to Cambridge for it.

She even sent me a card, which said in Gothic letters that I was kindly invited to the audit dinner at so and so college at Cambridge University and that the Dean of that college looked forward to seeing me and enjoying my company.

In the small print there were the letters RSVP and something about a tie, which I never wear anyway, so I put the card into a drawer, and made a note in my diary.

That day I put on my smartest suit with a flowery tie, laced my new orangish shoes and took the train to Cambridge from Finsbury Park.

I was pleased with myself for finding my friend's room at college half an hour early.

But when she opened the door, her face fell.

When I went in I asked her: "Am I late?"

"No" - she said and asked me: "Did you receive the invitation?"

I said: "Yes".

"Did you read it?" - she asked impatiently.

"Yes!"

"Did you read about the black tie?"

"Yes... nno-o... I've got all kind of ties, but unfortunately not the black one..."

"Do you know what black tie means?" She lost her patience.

"Yes... nnoo... Apparently black tie... Black by colour... Isn't it?"

"No, black tie means... have you seen conductors in the orchestras? Do you remember what they wear? That is black tie..."

"...And can't I go like this?" I pointed my finger vaguely at myself.

"No!" She cut the conversation short. "I don't know what we are going to do..."

Her husband entered the room and we shook hands.

Having heard this discussion from the other room, he said "What if he wears my black tie?".

He is twice as big as me, but I immediately grabbed upon the idea. "And I can leave my clothes with you..." It was stupid of me to suggest that he should have my clothes, however new, because of his size, but he understood my good intentions.

"Just hang your stuff instead" and I got changed in his room.

I coped with the trousers, using my own belt and rolling them up several times inside.

I also sorted out the shirt, though the sleeves were far too long.

I felt a bit like a diver in a diving suit, but nonetheless it was all right until I put on the jacket.

The suit proved to be the most challenging item of clothing that I've ever worn.

The shoulders came to my elbows, but when I raised the elbows my arms disappeared in tunnels of my sleeves.

Another problem was the buttons: when they were undone, the jacket was wrapped round me like a scarecrow almost twice, but when they were done up my body was like a clapper of a bell, hitting the sides of the suit.

Finally I struck a compromise: I found a position for my elbows in the shoulders and my hands were hardly coming out of the rolled up sleeves.

As for the buttons, we wrapped a sweater round my belly and did up just one of the buttons.

The black shoes were much easier than the rest: we just put lots of cotton wool in the front part and I experienced an unfamiliar feeling of standing on the skies.

So I was ready for the swift march to the dinner. I don't remember how we got there, because I was mostly preoccupied with the outfit hanging off me: I was afraid to lose my shoes on my way.

We entered a hall, where my hostess introduced me to a Principal, who was a Nobel Prize winner, and to his spouse, a spouse of a Nobel Prize winner no less.

In the gathering crowd I spied another two or three dozen Nobel Prize winners and contenders and shook hands with the Principal.

The shoulders of my jacket were jumping on my elbows, but the dim light was in my favour and the Principal didn't pay any attention to my look, I think he thought I was just eccentric.

After the introductions and essential chat I chose an even darker corner of the room, where I stood as a single scarecrow, allowing my hostess to entertain herself among her educated colleagues, some of whom she brought to me to introduce from time to time.

There was a Sikh fellow among them and he was in his traditional turban and usual outfit, no black tie at all, I tried to get upset with my hostess, but there was no way back: the Sikh treated me as if I was eccentric.

He asked me whether I was a Nobel Prize winner. I was about to say something like: "No, just in waiting..." but at that time a bell rang out and everyone was invited to sit.

I made an excuse and headed towards my hostess with a warm feeling inside.

The feast had started. But not an ordinary one, no, there were a lot of rituals.

The Principal made a toast in Latin, we should have repeated it word by word, then he took a sip of the silver cup, wiped it with a white napkin and passed onto the person next to him who did the same, saying some Latin words and looking at the portraits of the Founders on the walls and passing the cup to the next person, and so on until the cup reached my hostess, who did the same and forcefully articulating the Latin formula, passed the cup onto me.

Struggling with my sleeves and shoulders I said what I thought was the Latin that everyone else had been saying and wiping the cup half with my napkin and half with my shirtsleeve and passed it onto my neighbour.

"O, God, what a burden to be an Englishman!" I thought for the first time in my life and added to myself: "But a double burden is to be an educated Englishman..."

I wouldn't tell you that we drank the best of French wine, ate great lamb and wonderful cherries, thanking God and the Founders of the college and singing anthems in medieval Latin.

After all it was a lovely evening, but just the form was a bit weird...

I had already written an entry for this week's blog, when we received the wonderful news, that Urunboy Usmonov has been conditionally released and has rejoined his family.

I have just spoken to him and he expressed his gratitude to everyone, who supported him and who believed in his integrity as a journalist.

I'm delighted that Urunboy is back with his family, from now on Urunboy will undergo medical check ups and we'll deal with the rest of the judicial process.

When I wrote the following words, Urunboy was still in prison and I have decided to go ahead and publish them here to mark the difficult month that his family, friends and colleagues have had to live through.

The past month has witnessed statements of support for Urunboy Usmonov from individuals, governments, respected international organisations and media outlets.

Travel writer Colin Thubron who has written extensively about Tajikistan and Central Asia said:

"My message would be simply one of understanding from a fellow writer.

I know what it is like as a writer to be accused of things of which you are innocent.

Simply because you have aimed to understand and to know, people imagine that understanding must means collusion.

But of course it doesn't.

We all know that it is just part of the writer's or journalist's job.

And I can only say, keep your head up and don't despair.

I think anybody who reads what you have written or hears what you have spoken knows that your are not giving inflammatory material.

You have always been a man of great compassion and sophistication in your reporting and nobody who knows your reporting could doubt that."

Josh Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning US journalist, wrote:

"My message to him is, I hope he gets it: We are trying to get him out. He shouldn't feel completely abandoned"

Emin Milli, an Azeri blogger, recently released himself from jail after an international campaign, said:

"It is sad, but it also shows how powerful and important people like Urunboy are.

And I, in a way, it is a badge of honour, because if he didn't do something that matters, he probably wouldn't be punished."

As for his family, they have experienced so much distress over the last month.

My Granny Oyimcha, who lost her husband Obid-qori to Stalin's repressions in 1938 used to say:

"Your Grandad's fate was easier than mine. He was shot dead, but I lived with this pain all my life."

I don't want to compare my Grandad's case to Urunboy's, but the pain which a family goes through is always traumatic.

I spent several days with Urunboy's son Oybek, who is a young, bright man. He is married and has a lovely one-year-old daughter. He should be enjoying life at his age.

He had been left as the only man in the family: one who must look after the entire household and also shuttle between the lawyer, security services and prison, asking for the latest updates, bringing medicine or changes of the clothes, begging for an appointment.

He is 25 years old, but I have noticed he has grey hair.

Urunboy's wife Malohat said about her pain:

"After they arrested my husband all our lives are in tatters.

All of us are devastated and shocked. We can't imagine how they could associate him with the 'Hizbut-Tahrir' party.

Our neighbours are aware of his innocence, but they are keeping silent.

At times like this you can see the real value of one's relationships.

When people in different corners of the world are protesting and protecting Urunboy Usmonov, it's very sad and painful that your neighbours keep silent..."

The family wrote an open letter to the Tajik President Emomali Rahmon asking him to look into the case and reinstate justice.

The local authorities of Hodjent, recognising the service of Urunboy as a writer, poet, journalist to the community, were planning to celebrate his 60th anniversary later this year in November.

Malohat, who has been living through the pain for the last month, believes that they will celebrate the jubilee if not with the wider community, among their reunited family at least

PS Now that the family is reunited, I think that all of us can join them in that celebration.

Despite all diplomatic efforts, statements from respected international organisations and protests from journalists, our reporter Urunboy Usmonov remains incarcerated in Hodjent, Tajikistan.

A colleague of mine is now in Tajikistan meeting officials, trying to convince them that the journalist should be freed immediately.

I have already written about how Urunboy is in a very poor state of health and every additional day he is kept in prison might cost him months or years of his life.

Urunboy is an acclaimed writer and my hope is that one day he will be able to tell us what he is going through. He is being held at the provincial headquarters of the ominous KNB - the Tajik security service.

As a sign of our solidarity with him, I decided to translate some excerpts from Urunboy's creative writing, to introduce you to his prose.

Last year he published a book of short stories, which constitute a novella and it starts as follows:

The smell of blood lingered in the neighbourhood's sky, spreading from yard to yard and choking every passer-by, leaving them gasping for a gulp of fresh air.

It seemed that the suffocating odour laughed at its every victim.

People hid their noses and mouths in scarves, silken waist ties and shirts, trying to escape this deadly enemy.

Those who had a dugout, hid in it, whilst those who didn't have a cellar locked themselves in their inner rooms and pulled all the curtains shut.

But the smell penetrated small openings and cracks of windows and doors and mercilessly cut into the throats of its victims.

Coughing and spluttering people scanned the blank white walls and ceilings, trying to find and plug any gaps with balls of cotton-wool taken from God knows where, in search of salvation.

Awoken by terror, Idrok grabbed his shirt, hiding his nose and mouth and examined it as if seeing the shirt for the first time.

Shirts get crushed in small cells and he attempted to straighten it.

Having shaken it off two or three times he threw the shirt on his shoulders and suddenly remembered the terrible landscape outside.

He grabbed his handkerchief and held it to his nose, while recalling an old man with a tongue as sharp as a knife.

The old man hammered these words into his head: "So, you are sleeping, err? Wrapping your head in a blanket? And not giving a damn about what happens to my fellow citizens, or what is going on around me! You don't even bother to think, and in the meantime we have to live in hell! The smell of blood that comes out of the yard where you were born and where the blood of your umbilical cord was shed, had already seized the whole neighbourhood. It smothers us, we can not breathe freely, and you're lying here in the meanwhile! Come on, get up!"

(Idrok crossed the village, walking to the side of his yard where he was born and where the smell of blood comes from).

"Do not enter, my son", the old woman standing at the gate in his father's house said to him. "Four people have entered, but have not come back out. It's not a yard, but a terrible dragon. It swallows alive anyone who enters there. No one has ever returned either dead or alive. Do not enter in there, son"...

I'll cut the translation short here. I won't tell the whole story.

I won't be stretching the metaphors of this text myself, describing vultures or slaughter houses.

But I must confess that while I was in Tajikistan to meet Urunboy in the prison, I felt the same feelings, which can be found in his prose.

I felt a sense of anxiety in the air, that any moment unexpected danger can fall upon your head however well you are protected or prepared, that many people around you are living very difficult lives, that somehow you can't help them, but nonetheless something should be done about it...

In my last blog entry I described a mother of a young man I met when I was standing in front of the security services headquarters before I went in.

Her son had been arrested when just one leaflet was found in their courtyard. In vain, she had been trying to see him for two months.

As she told me her sad story, it reminded me of Urunboy's prose. Words were being hammered into my mind, as if she was saying: "Do not enter, my son. Four people entered, but did not come back from there. It's not a yard, but a terrible dragon. It swallows alive anyone who enters there. No one has ever returned either dead or alive. Do not enter in there, son..."

With horror, I thought to myself: if under the watchful eyes of diplomats, international organisations and thousands of journalists a ´óÏó´«Ã½ reporter can be arrested and put in prison, what will happen to an ordinary person taken from the street like her son?

Where does the literature end and the reality start? Or the other way around?

Where does this reality end?

In reality, I hope that Urunboy is well - and the son of that poor mother will be back from the courtyard (be it fictional or real), in which lingers the suffocating smell of blood.

Last winter, in preparation for a new project I read a dozen of books about British missions to Central Asia to ascertain the fate of Her Majesty subjects who had either been imprisoned or had allegedly been beheaded by the savage rulers of Transoxiana.

In the end I got carried away by a completely different theme and wrote a completely different book.

I thought that I would never return to those studies once I had given up on that unwritten book, but I was wrong.

In the last week I have been to Tajikistan to establish the situation of my colleague Urunboy Usmonov - who has been detained on charges of contacting the members of the outlawed Islamic party Hizbut Tahrir.

Hizbut Tahrir is an Islamic party, propagating the idea of an Islamic chalifate or the Islamic state uniting all Muslim countries. It's banned in many Central Asian countries, including Tajikistan, though it is allowed to function in Britain.

I not only recalled the somehow archaic word 'ascertain', but while I was in Tajikistan - again and again - I re-remembered all the perseverance and difficulties those historic missionaries encountered.

I started at Dushanbe - the capital of Tajikistan - to meet officials from the Ministries of Foreign and Home affairs, to learn their thoughts and their position on the detainment of Urunboy, because until recently they had been silent on the matter, despite the international uproar and protests. I was also there to express the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s position.

The latter is clear: we have no reason to believe the charges brought against our reporter.

He is lawfully accredited and was carrying out his journalistic work and therefore must be released immediately.

It is noticeable that the officials have been quite annoyed with the international pressure, saying that it is harming the image of Tajikistan to the outside world.

They also have indicated some willingness to resolve the issue sooner rather than later.

But they repeatedly said that according to preliminary investigations there is "serious evidence" of Urunboy's links with Hizbut Tahrir (I'll be back to that "evidence" below).

While I was in Dushanbe I also met some diplomats and rallied round the local journalist association with a simple message: every one of us, could find himself in the place of Urunboy.

In fact it wasn't just a message. By that time it had turned into a rather obsessive state of my mind

In the sleepless nights - whether it was in a reasonable hotel in Dushanbe or later in the UNDP compound in Hodjent - I was constantly tormenting myself with a single thought: while I'm enjoying the comfort of my bed, Urunboy is... I didn't know what exactly was happening to him those nights - another interrogation, sleeping rough in the cell, being bullied by criminals - but in any case I was sure of the unbearable duress of his nights and days.

We came to Hodjent, where Urunboy is being kept prisoner, over the weekend after a six or seven hour car journey through the mountains.

The Monday following the weekend was a national holiday - called Day of a Unity.

Hodjent: pain of the family

Hodjent is an ancient city believed to be built on the banks of Syrdarya by Alexander the Great and in other circumstances I would have enjoyed its beauty over the long weekend. But not this time.

Together with a colleague we shuttled between places: settling down, going to the office where Urunboy worked, seeing the lawyer, laying the ground for an appointment with Urunboy himself.

All of that was necessary and somehow routine business.

However the evening when we went to see Urunboy's family was heartbreaking.

His wife, his grown up children - three daughters and his son - were shocked and devaststed.

Two weeks ago they were a happy family looking forward to celebrating their dad's 60th birthday.

Urunboy is an acclaimed writer and a poet and - in recognition of his service to the community - the local government issued a decision to celebrate his birthday publicly.

And all of a sudden - like lightning out of the blue there was his arrest, a terrifying search at their house the next day. A day when Urunboy said goodbye to all of them, adding that he can't survive another night like his first in captivity.

The family have been allowed to see him just once, and they are still sharing between themselves every single detail of that meeting: how he looked, what he said, how the security officers were alerted and pre-emptive...

All I could do was to reassure them that we - his colleagues - feel as strongly as them, that we are also like a family and will do everything we can, to get him out of the prison.

Meeting Urunboy

Despite of the long weekend we met many people including our lawyer - Faiziniso Vahidova.

Going though the investigation documents with her I saw that there's nothing that constitutes a crime: yes, Urunboy met several members of Hizbut Tahrir, yes, he interviewed some of them, yes, he kept in his computer some files related to that outlawed party.

But he is a professional journalist, accredited by the Tajik Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a reporter for ´óÏó´«Ã½, which expects him both to report and be on the top of any local issue, including a religious issue.

Even the Tajik law distinguishes between an ordinary citizen and a journalist as a subject of norms and regulations.

As if answering our doubts and concerns, at that time the investigator decided to drop two charges one relating to Urunboy's alleged membership of Hizbut Tahrir and the other that he propagated their ideas.

But the the charge that he did not inform the security services about his contacts with the members of Hizbut Tahrir remains.

The real issue now is the unwillingness of the investigation team to drop the charges at all, because the group that detained Urunboy in the first place, the investigator who initiated the criminal case and the prosecutor who sanctioned it - should all answer for their acts - though that is my belief. The investigation is still ongoing.

That was my understanding of the situation when finally it was agreed that we could come at 8 o'clock last Tuesday morning to the provincial headquarters of security services called KNB.

At 8 we were in front of the long two-storey building, which KNB inherited from the Soviet and ominous KGB.

Too many associations went through my mind.

Outside I met a mother in her late 40s who said that - in vain - she had been trying to see her young son who was arrested two months ago.

And her son's charges were the same as Urunboy's.

I left her and Urunboy's son behind, when an officer with short hair and metal in his eyes invited me inside.

I felt somehow guilty: I can meet Urunboy, whereas Urunboy's son can't do the same.

We entered the KNB building and were invited into the first room on the right: a smallish faceless space with two tables and six chairs.

Apart from the security officers there were already two local journalists.

After a while they brought in Urunboy.

We hugged each other and I deliberately tried to touch his body: would he feel any pain.

It seemed to me that he had shrank since the last time I had seen him.

He sat in front of me on the other side of the table.

I said to him that everyone is behind him, that we are doing everything to get him out of here, that we firmly believe he hadn't done anything wrong, that he was carrying out his journalistic duties.

He kept silent.

His eyes were fixed on the security officers.

When I repeated that he hadn't done anything wrong and therefore should not sign any papers, the investigator shouted: "Stop! Stop! You are instructing him!" I replied that I'm just expressing the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s position to him.

I repeated everything to Urunboy again, because I felt somehow that he is listening, but not hearing me.

I asked him whether he had read what had been written in support of him.

(The lawyer had said earlier that she had passed onto him a digest of support statements and letters).

He nervously said: 'No I didn't, I can't read now, nothing goes into my head'.

Then all of a sudden he burst into a tirade: 'A journalist shouldn't go after the sensationalism, but should remember his citizen's duties!' (a phrase I had heard so many times over the last few days from so many Tajik officials, including the security officer)

Then without any link he continued: 'I believe in the just and modern society, which our President builds and I'm sure that the people who are appointed by the President (he pointed out at security officers) will do justice!'

That was the end of our meeting.

I deliberately won't go into my feelings of horror, which I made clear to the security officials afterwards, but thinking over and over again all the details of that short meeting I came to an unconsolable conclusion - he might have thought: 'He came, he supported, he goes, but I'm staying with these investigators, in this cell, in this country...'

And that was the most unbearable thought that goes through my mind...
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