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A big mustache, a captivating smile. This is the first association with the image of Maxim Minchev. The second association when mentioning your name is automatically something related to travel. I have traveled with many people all over the world, but Maxim was the sweetest storyteller I have ever met. When describing a place, he seemed to entertain you with his knowledge. The world around him was always more colorful, more pleasant, and brighter.
I remember one of our fun adventures in Southeast Asia, when we were hospitalized together at one point. Bed to bed, foot to foot. We took a walk with elephants in the jungles of Laos. While trying to balance the head of an angry elephant, he rode with the majestic posture of an Indian maharaja on a wooden saddle attached to the back of another softer elephant. It was a lot of fun, but in the end it ended in a nasty accident for both of us. We broke a left ankle.
I collapsed from my elephant at the end of the ride, proud of my newfound abilities, and Max didn’t make it to the step of the wooden ramp he had to go down. Instead of drinking champagne with the rest of the group, we sat with him, leg raised and ankles swollen from internal bleeding. The others did not drink champagne either, because the ice was for compresses on our feet while we waited for transportation to the nearest medical center. We were taken to a hospital near Luang Prabang, where the doctor immediately sent us for an X-ray for suspected fracture. Limping with Maxim, we made our way to the office in question, where we found a long line of people waiting for a photo.
Interestingly, everyone was playing with a small child, and everyone who entered the office handed the child to the next in line. It turned out that it was the son of the X-ray technician, who had no one to leave him with, and so that the boy did not stay inside because of the dangerous radiation, the patients outside entertained him. The boy immediately liked Maxim, who probably impressed him with his size, and also made him funny muzzles, and immediately went to play with him. He didn’t want to look at anyone else. In the end, we barely put anything on it so Max could come take a picture.
In addition to the commotion at the hospital, it turned out that our X-rays were confused, so Maxim’s wife had to go to the doctor and put this cacophony in order. He took the two photographs, looked at them in the light, and said, “This is this gentleman and the other is that gentleman’s neighbor.” The doctor asked her if she was sure and she replied that she was always sure who her own husband’s ankle was.
We laughed a lot and Makim kept joking about our situation. They bandaged us, prescribed painkillers, and fired us, but outside the radiologist’s boy saw Maxim and grabbed him again. We fled with great difficulty. Overall, Maxim had an incredible focus on the little league. I don’t know how he always managed to win them so fast. Perhaps with that big smile of his, which also captivated us adults.
Max loved photographing children’s faces, wherever he traveled the world. He was a really avid photographer and rarely missed the camera, but his favorite hobby was capturing the most natural emotions of children. He photographed their faces in the foreground: smiling, snotty, short-tempered, wide-eyed, stained up to the ears, but shining with innocent purity … Maxim even made a display with those shots, which actually showed mostly everything. that lives a great sincere child. somewhere in the heart of this our dear fellow traveler.
This seemingly insatiable childhood curiosity about the world was read between the lines in her travel diaries and books. With his characteristic style, he described the habits and habits of people, their food and drink. He always found people from all over the world to befriend. Then, if I had to go through these lands again, I would go looking for them.
In the 90s, when trips to Brussels weren’t so casual and formal, he loved going through the same tavern called “At Papi”. For years, all Bulgarians who came to this Pope with the magic phrase “Maxim Minchev sends you regards” automatically received a discount. Maximus was a magnificent Epicurean with a charming sense of humor. He liked to joke and he kept joking. The Solomon Passy caliber were his favorites. For example, what would famous travelers say about Maxim if they met him? When we met Maxim Minchev, he had already discovered almost everything, without America, Christopher Columbus would say. And Marco Polo would note that Minchev showed him the most direct way to India. Thanks to the recipes in Maxim’s travel diaries, I became a cannibal, the Papuan researcher Miklouho Maclay would probably point out.
Maxim was a traveler at heart and a nomad by vocation. The arrest in one place, the lack of movement bothered him. He was proud not so much of the number of foreign countries he visited, but of the fact that he was in all the Bulgarian cities, climbed all the peaks of the country, entered all the caves and monasteries of Bulgaria.
He was not tired of sharing his impressions. Thus, by reading them, anyone who did not know Maxim personally could enjoy this pleasure of traveling in his company. To draw from your smiling curiosity.
I last heard it a month ago. He called to tell me that he was ready with his book on Africa, which he had asked me to be an editor. We agreed to meet to hand over the manuscripts, which I couldn’t wait to read, because they talked about our favorite Sudan and Ethiopia, the dunes of Western Sahara and the jungles of Gabon. But instead he left without seeing me again. He embarked on his longest journey.
May it have light on the road.
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