Spirit Atlas

I was pretty sure it will be an easy thing to write - because, firstly, I've already done an article on Expo once, and, secondly, there was so much to write about there.

That first article, however, was written long before I actually got to Expo, so I based it on the Expo's official website's information - which was still so much to write about; after I did get there, though, and after I've spent something like seven hours there - seven hours of zigzagging through the pavilions under the blinding, ruthless sun, classics of our summers, - I feel like it is not that much about the details - details are worth seeing in person, - than it is about the message Expo tries so hard to pass along that I want to write about, make photos about, and that was totally worth almost dying from dehydration that day.

First things first - Expo stands for Universal Exposition that is held regularly from 1844 (much thanks, Queen Victoria). They are united through the topical themes; Milan's Expo used "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life" and exploits the topics of the malnourishment, hunger, food sources and their varieties. In a nutshell, it is a lot about how not to make an Interstellar movie out of Earth.

The number of participants of this year's Expo is more than 140; the pavilions are lined up along the main street of exhibition - so-called "World Avenue" - that stretches over 3 kilometres. Pavilions are of the three main types - the ones belonging to individual countries/companies/entities (the pavilion of Catholic Church - check); those from the thematic clusters, that unite the countries not being able to build their own pavilions; and thematic areas that explore often very specific (and always endlessly cool) themes (those include both children amusement park and the supermarket where food is packed by robots. The robotic part for now is limited to apples being packed into small boxes though).

All these endless things to see - pavilions, supermarkets, clusters of chocolate and coffee; drinking fountains and lanes of sea salts; restaurants, and coffee places, and outdoor markets; stretches of South American, or Polish, or God-knows-where-from plants growing right in the centre of Northern Italy; the giant Tree of Life that is a part of spectacular light show every evening, - all of those and more are built on the Milan's outskirts to be a living reminder - for these 5 months at least, - that the world, after all, is just a street. Even more so - it's our street, with the rules we set, pavilions we built, food we grow, resources we use, and choices we make. Milan's chosen to feed the planet; now tell me - where is it that our choices can't be just as ambitious.

Expo is somewhat moving, questions-provoking, and endlessly inspiring. It makes you wonder at the potential of our science - Israel is growing vertical fields now; Germany is using projectors that recognise pieces of paper with three tiny plastic buttons on it and automatically play recordings on them. It makes you feel the food (and that was delicious); feel the world (that's such a beautiful place); feel the choices - and the way they define the world around us, for better or for worse.

It also made us feel a bit like having a mild dehydration; we've had to stop our zigzagging and found one of the "water houses" - constructions a Lombardy water company has built specially for Expo. The text on them promise that after Expo will finish these water houses will be used on Italian street on regular basis - we need it desperately in summers anyway, so that might be just the heritage Italy needs.

So you walk that world - that street - up and then you walk it back again, and every country out there is just a part of its neighbourhood, and every pavilion - even the one with the apples-packing robots, - is just a part of something more, and the street you walk through is just as clean as thousands of people passing it daily leave it, and the food you taste is just as awesome as those who grew it, cooked it, served it are. We come through the street and, perhaps, the best that we can do is to leave it better than we've found it; to make it equally beautiful; to share and love what is worth sharing and loving out there.

One of the stuff members of the Lithuanian pavilion told us that food is something we share rather than own - and that was one of the beautiful moments when somebody else's words make everything going on in your head to make quite a bit of perfect sense. The phrase was so right and so totally won me over that I've insisted to have a lunch at their pavilion - even though Lithuania is just three hours away from Belarus, the friend I came to Expo with is actually Lithuanian, and my mom makes the cold borscht just as good as the one I ate there. Still:

Share that food; feed that world; walk that street - with the respect and dignity that it deserves. Make your choices - with all the awareness and consciousness that it takes, because doing so might just be our first common steps to - well, - feeding the planet (and not ending up looking for a new one with the help of the space wormholes).

And make sure to come see it - Milan has never been just so powerfully beautiful.

Expo Milano 2015

Feeding the Planet

Energy for Life

Proper Expo greetings next to the entrance

Pavilion of Israel on the outside

Pavilion of Nepal proudly presenting all the crops growing on all the crazy altitudes.

South Korea: what is you favorite dish?.....

...PIE. DUMPLINGS. Add yours <3

Now that was quite weird - carnival-like action on World Avenue around 4 in the afternoon.

Korea does it high-tech or not at all.

Performance in Argentina's pavilion that's involved quite a bit of trash (drums from the trash bins and so on) and sounded quite awesome.

China does it traditionally or not at all.

Magic in Azerbaijan: the flowers were glowing as we were doing all these strange above-the-flowers hands' passages.

Pavilion of Azerbaijan.

Lithuanians posing while cooking traditional cake, sakotis. We've also run into sakotis later on in Poland. But, again, sharing is caring.

Pavilion of Lithuania.

I have to add that the number wasn't quite always increasing. Pavilion of Gabon.

Fiat is covering its cars with a material participating in air's purification. Also, the tree is growing out of it, yes.

Pavilion of apples being packed into small boxes.

Pavilion of Czech Republic making chairs of recycled plastic.

Life-savers. One could also choose between still and sparkling water (although it took us a while to distinguish between them; look, there are tiny bubbles drawn on the icon above the tap. Stupid us).

Czech Republic has always struck me as quite a straightforward country.

[Finally, just a few words - after going to Expo, or before it, if you feel like doing something out of ordinary now - try read something on circular economy. Like how they make jeans out of jeans now; or what is it in there for food industries or what the whole thing is about ( (that's an awesome one and huge one, so take care). Ok and now I'm done. Have a lovely day out there and stay hydrated - it's damn important.]

So, I came back home after a ten days-long trip to Israel, and I’m writing these few lines for the third time already, and, apparently, I just can’t get it right. I want to write about Israel – about how it’s not just a country, and not as much of a country, as it’s a beautiful idea, and faith, and the essence of hope. I want to write about how grateful I am for a chance to do what endless generations of my family never dreamt of doing – to somewhat come back there and be met at the airport with the “welcome home” words. I’m bursting with all these stories we had there, stories about swimming in the Dead Sea during a sand storm, and reading Shabbat prayers with strangers, and singing this special kind of songs without words that you can only sing with Jews. There are also all the people I’ve met that deserve to be mentioned, and places so beautiful that it still hurts, and feeling of immersion into something immense as you walk the streets and roads there – but, honestly, it’s just too hard to get it all together.

To put it simple, there is a country out there, which is simply beautiful, in a sense which I’ve never come across before. It’s stunning in the way it colours the desert around itself in impossible shades, and in the clashing of its cities into one another, and in the way mountains are out of the blue crossed by valleys and lakes, but the real essence of its beauty for me is spiritual – it’s in its strength, in stories it tells, in impossibility of its existence and in the way it, despite all the reasons to cease, is obsessed with living, not just existing.

I said it already – I saw Israel as an idea rather than a country; it’s the idea of a homeland, created and built by people for people – that’s it.

And you know what? – Any idea is only powerful when it’s believed in. Our ten days were merely a real Israel – we lived in hotels, and saw more history that we were able to cope with, and ate what was kosher, but very European-like food. But the way I, the way our group learnt to believe in this country – well, that was real for sure.

Just as hard as it was to write about that trip, it was equally hard to find the photos I really want to share, but look, here they are. Thank you, Taglit, and thank you, Israel, for showing us so much, for people, places, times and that overwhelming beauty of being your part.

The wearing of a red string is an ancient segula (propitious remedy) that protects the wearer from danger.