Although he might deny it, Maksim Bratsun, at thirty-six, is the most enlightened person I know. He is one of those guys who learned how to love not only himself but all that surrounds him. It seems like he awakened and now lives in the moment.
Last year, when I interviewed Maksim, he was living in Vilnius, renting a fancy apartment, working as a web-designer, music-promoter, DJ and also as a designer of bed sheets that had been sewn in Belarus by his mother. He planned also to earn more money by manufacturing and selling reusable straws.
Today Maksim lives on the island of Bali and collects donations via the Internet to feed the hungry, whilst recently teaching Hatha Yoga.
Through our friendship I learned that any active file on Maksim has to be updated every two weeks. Therefore this story may seem obsolete, but I thought it might be fun to see what he was like then, and it is with this in mind that it is reproduced here.
***
The first time we met, Maksim was modest but sincere, easy to talk but not too chatty. It was in Vilnius, in August 2018, when he set up a meeting for a tattoo with me.
‘Why do you want to tattoo Love Maschine (stet)?’ I asked him, this tall thin stranger with the big nose, wearing black skintight jeans with torn knees.
‘It is a story about self-love,’ he said. ‘To get love, to make love, to experience love, to be love, first thing you have to do is fill yourself with love, like a tankful of gasoline.’ He paused with a long erm. “I found it while working on my bike, cutting away all the redundant things and keeping only the essentials. The more I loved myself the cooler my bike was.’
I thought I understand him.
The second time we met was also in Vilnius in 2019 on the 12th of March. Maksim and I were taking the oath of Lithuania. We both were Belarusian citizens before that day. Maksim looked very good, too tan for winter, with a kind smile, wearing the same torn jeans and having the same unusual, delicate, flashy and pernickety haircut. After the oath we arranged to meet at his place.
‘What is the rent for this great studio?’ I asked him, looking at the huge windows.
‘550 plus utility,’ he answered and added: ‘A real deal!’
I noticed that he spoke with a burr and wondered why haven’t I noticed it before.
‘Beautiful place! What do you want me to tattoo,’ I asked him.
‘Ten minutes before you came in I felt the necessity to read a book called Be Here Now, written by Ram Dass,’ Maksim said with the excitement. ‘I’ve read a couple of pages and understood that I want to tattoo these words, here and now, the same words you have on your face but in English and somewhere on my arms.’
I looked at his long arms and proposed that my tattoo should be on the back of his hands. He hesitated but not for too long.
Later Maksim said to me, that after this tattoo he began the journey towards himself and only after reflection did he really understand the meaning of HERE and NOW. He will say that it is the only time when you can live completely. He calls this the awakening.
The third time we met was in September 2019. He came to my studio in Paris for another tattoo. He was attractively funny, shining and wearing a leopard jute. He had a new tattoo on his throat SWALLOW, the last letter leaked out like a bruise.
‘Couldn’t you wait for me?’ I asked staring at his tattoo.
‘I really needed it at that time! I went to the best tattoo parlor in Vilnius and asked for a handpoke, just one word. I had spent an hour with the tattoo master trying to copy your handwriting and then he said that he was unable to do it handpoke, so we did it by gun,’ he laughed.
‘I am glad you are not upset,’ I said. ‘What are you doing in Paris?’
‘Here is the biggest exhibition of fabrics right now,’ he said,’ I wanted to touch the most advanced recycled materials.’
‘Right, you wrote me on Facebook recently that you plan to make some men’s jammers.’
‘Yes, but they will be eco friendly men’s leggins,’ he corrected me.
Then, with some pride, at length I told him how I had moved to live in the forest and how my life dramatically changed by that. I could go on for long if he had not interrupted me.
‘I have a flight from Beauvais in four hours and I want to get on this plane.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me from the beginning?’ I got nervous. ‘You should be leaving right now!’
‘Tattoos first!’ He said confidently.
‘Okay! What do you want to get?’ I thought he will be late but I didn’t dissuade him.
‘I want OPEN at the centre of the chest, the heart chakra, and I want SURRENDER on the belly, bellow the belly button, the sacral chakra.’
I didn’t know the meaning of the second word, but there was no time to ask.
***
Interview with Maksim.
20 October, 2019
Our fourth meeting.
At his place in Vilnius.
‘What is happiness for you?’ I asked Maksim.
‘To be aware of who I am,’ he answered, pacing around the kitchen and brewing tea in some unusual glassware.
‘Who are you?’ I asked him.
‘I am a living spirit that’s inside of me’ He answered, deftly sitting down at the table.
‘What do you love most?’
‘I love love, I love adventures, honesty and openness.’
‘Where were you born and raised?’
‘I was born at the station Bezrechnaya, not far from Chita. But soon, along with my parents, we moved to Mongolia. We lived there for three years and then moved to Buryatia.’ Maksim rose from the table and approached his jacket. He took a package of tobacco, rolling papers and a lighter out of his pockets.
‘When I was six,’ Maksim continued to tell, ‘we moved to Belarus, to Zasimovichi town. We lived there for three years and then moved to Lida. In Lida we lived for six years and then moved to Fanipal. Altogether, though born at the station I am scattered around the world.’ He said, ending with the completed cigarette.
‘Let’s go outside,’ he said.
I took my notebook and went out to the balcony after him. The sky was blue, Maksim’s shirt was white. I sat on one of two chairs and placed the notebook on my knees.
‘How many times you have changed school?’
‘Eight times.’
‘How do you think it affected you?’
‘It certainly toughened me up, taught me to adapt to new conditions and teams.’
‘What do your parents do?’
‘They are in the military.’
‘What was your relationship with them?’
‘My father was persuading the military way of parenting. He had been feuding with me, imposing his authority, in return, of course, I rebelled. I ran away from home, smoked cigarettes and listened to rock-and-roll. Mama was easier, generally she was more liberal in life.’
‘How did he imposed his authority over you?’
‘He suppressed my dissidence, my will to have a free thought. I questioned the foundations from an early age and it made him very angry. I used to ask the question “why” endlessly, thereby shattering his disciplinary authority, his hierarchy. It became a real hobby of one little nonconformist.’
‘What kind of relationship do you have now?’
‘Most of our hardships sorted out when I moved to Vilnius and began living on my own. Perhaps it was the first time in my life when we could talk as equals, without all his authoritarian rubbish,’ he said rolling a new cigarette.
‘How do you think, what is love?’
‘Love is to be aware that you exist with someone for someone. Love is about sharing.’
‘Sharing of everything, or are there some boundaries?’
‘There are some boundaries.’ Maksim lit the cigarette.
‘What are your plans?’
‘I’m going to India. I’m going towards myself. Going to spread love,’ he said pensively.
‘What was your biggest adventure in life?’
‘My journey which I call Back to the roots. It is a tour I made visiting places of “military glory” from my parents’ past.’
‘Tell me more about this journey.’
‘On the 1st of June I left Vilnius on my motorbike, planning to arrive accurately on the 14th of June to the location where I was born 30 years ago.’ He dragged on a joint, but it went out. He lit it again and continued. ‘8000 km behind, after I’d crossed two thirds of Russia I finally appeared at the station Bezrechnaya, my birthplace. There was no stone left unturned, all gone. A heath at the back of beyond, an emptiness and tumbleweeds. I remember I put my tent up and enjoyed the blood-red sunset, appreciating the loneliness and a drop of rum from the flask, which apparently had been leaking throughout the whole trip.’ Maksim finished his cigarette and we went back to the table.
‘After that you headed to Mongolia, right?’
‘Yes! Mongolia is a place of an untold beauty, still untouched by civilization. You can ride through the country for hundreds and hundreds of kilometres and you won’t find any people, asphalt roads or a GSM signal. Everywhere you look, only flat unrippled prairie. It was so calm and pleasant there, that I instinctively returned back to my genuine roots – mother nature. I fine-tuned with wild animals and birds and harmonised with the rhythms of day and night.’
‘What is your most memorable moment from Mongolia?’
‘The racing herd of antelopes. They graciously jumped over my path and I was racing along with them, at their speed, on my Japanese horse, the red Honda. Hundreds of agile wild antelopes. I was crying with happiness, out of love to life and to the universe. And then we parted, as unexpectedly as we had met.’
‘What has this journey taught you?’
‘To be patient. A week after I had met the antelopes I tried to cross a shallow river on my bike. It appeared much deeper and faster than I expected. The ice-cold river knocked me down, with me tightly clutching my bike. We slowly drifted down with the flow. The river tried to swallow both of us.
I managed to get my Honda out only after 40 minutes battling the course. I had frostbite on everything below my chest, but I was more concerned about my machine. The water got into the engine so I couldn’t move any further.
Imagine how shocked I was when I found out that a new excellent bridge was just one kilometer away from where I had tried to ford. I was in such a rush that drowned my bike and almost got myself killed. This lesson of patience that so ingeniously was given to me by the universe I’ve learned for life.’
‘How many days did your journey last?’
‘33 days, the happiest days of my life.’
I looked at my watch. It’s been three hours since I started the interview. I understood that it’s time to wrap up.
‘Is there anything that you hate? If so, what is it?’
‘There is nothing I hate,’ answered Maksim.
Following the idea of my project Your Story By Me I wondered what kind of words I may use to describe him best, including not only the stories of his travels but also his will to look over the fence of consciousness, his desire to overcome borders that people indulge on themselves. This is how a phrase “I AM GOING ABROAD” appeared in my mind.
I like the double meaning of these words, I thought, it will be a perfect tattoo for a person who is finding himself and is opened to whatever new life brings.
‘Get undressed!’ I commanded.
Maksim for the first time appeared in front of me without his torn black jeans. I was scanning his body until I stopped at the top of his foot. As if he is going abroad by foot, I thought.
If you feel sympathetic for the character, feel free to support his initiative to feed the hungry, donate here: https://foodbank.co
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