Travel show as a lifestyle

A surprisingly small film crew – extreme traveler Dmytro Komarov and mountaineer cameraman Oleksandr Dmytriiev – has made a striking travel program, “The World Inside Out,” now being shown on the 1+1 TV channel, about the countries tourists usually avoid. On coming to a faraway exotic country, these travelers settle in for several months and begin filming only after they have adapted to local ways, customs, and culture, and merged with the natives. The guys said in an exclusive interview with The Day that they had prepared about 100 programs in the five years of painstaking work – the largest number of travel show episodes ever made by the smallest film crew. In this time period, TV viewers have seen, among other things, a unique story of Tanzanian albinos, a cremation at a sacral place on the bank of the river Ganges that flows through the Indian city of Varanasi, and the Indonesian New Guinea province Papua, the world’s wildest and least explored place.

What particularly attracts one in the program is the fact that Komarov and Dmytriiev always try to find… Ukrainians! What helps our compatriots achieve success abroad? Do people in exotic countries know about Ukraine? Where do the travelers, who have seen almost half the world, prefer to vacation in their own country? The Day discussed these and other questions with Komarov and Dmytriiev a day before they went on a new expedition – to Nepal.

Dmytro KOMAROV: “There will be several countries on our new itinerary. The first is Nepal. We’ve chosen it for a number of reasons. First of all, we are seeking a ‘model’ of happiness for Ukrainians. Our country is going through hard times today. Some are very depressed and disappointed. We’d like to ‘borrow’ some tentative optimistic model. You see, Nepal is one of the world’s poorest countries. If a Nepali compares his average income to that of a Ukrainian, he will say we are very rich. But most of the Nepalese feel happy. I have already been to that country and mingled with the natives. They do not complain about life and seek happiness in elementary things. We’ll try to find out how they manage to do so. Another reason for our choice is that there was recently an earthquake there. We want to see the way the country is recovering. Besides, a much-talked-of film, Everest, was shown recently. I think Ukrainians will find it interesting to see these places through our eyes in ‘The World Inside Out.’ Everything shown in the film before the base camp is absolutely real.”

I know you are also planning to scale Everest itself…

D.K.: “We are sure to go up Everest, but not this time. It is our dream or, to be more exact, goal. Unfortunately, our current schedule makes it physically impossible to prepare for this. It must take us at least two years to get into shape for this kind of expedition.”

Oleksandr DMYTRIIEV: “I’ve heard a lot about Nepal, but I haven’t yet been there. It is my dream to visit that country. All I know is that it’s cold there now. We’ll take more batteries for our photo camera as well as a drone, for we want to show some bird’s eye views. We will be looking for Yeti. We are also planning to tell about the living Goddess Kumari. We will be perhaps lucky to interview her.”

You have shown Ukrainians a lot of countries and the “inside-out life” of local people. But where do you vacation in Ukraine and what can you advise to see in this country?

D.K.: “The Carpathians top our list. In any season! If you are interested in a comfortable vacation, it is Bukovel. If you seek thrills, go up Goverla and ski down. As for dangers and emotions, this does not differ from the Caucasus and sometimes, in bad weather, it can even resemble Everest. The vicinities of the village of Pylypets are extremely beautiful, even though there’s a danger of avalanches there. In the summer, trekking is the best thing. As for lazing on the beach, my favorite sea resort is Odesa. But, in general, my tradition is to take a ‘mystery tour.’ In my spare time, I can come to the station, ask where the nearest bus goes, and take it. A small village in, say, Zhytomyr oblast, of which you knew nothing yesterday, may impress you with its history and make you love it forever.”

O.D.: “I am not original here – it is also the Carpathians. As I go in for rock climbing, I like visiting the Buky Canyon in Cherkasy oblast. It is, incidentally, very classy to pitch a tent and roam about there. I also like Denyshi, a village in Zytomyr oblast.”

The program says that you find Ukrainians even in remotest countries. You show how they live and whether they managed to adapt.

D.K.: “Yes, we search for them on purpose.”

This must be difficult. How do you manage to find them? Besides, you often show successful Ukrainians.

D.K.: “We had just a few chance encounters. All the rest were prepared. It’s not so difficult to find a Ukrainian abroad today. There are fellow countrymen’s clubs, embassies, and, after all, Facebook and online forums. There is such an interesting source of searching as associations of Slavic women. The women who came from post-Soviet countries form communities in many places. These associations bear different names. As recently as three years ago, they were mostly called ‘Club of Russian Wives.’ Foreign-based Ukrainians are self-identifying today. Ukrainians no longer identify themselves as Russians. This is why you can see more and more Ukrainian associations as such. We want to show our viewers the way Ukrainians live in various parts of the world and cherish their culture. Yes, it is true that we show successful Ukrainians. As a rule, the people who agree to be video-filmed have something to show and speak about. For example, we found Ms. Svitlana in Mexico – she is not rich, but she launched a business of her own – a small cozy cafe that serves Ukrainian dishes. You know, this business just helps her survive. As for successfulness, yes, the people who left their country, relatives, and customary ways just have no other choice. You must go the whole hog and do something. That’s why we would come across rich and even very rich Ukrainians all over the world. As a rule, those who have resettled are making an all-out effort to achieve success.”

O.D.: “Many ponder, especially in hard times, over giving everything up and leaving the country. We find such people and show how hard their life is. We are saying there are a lot of ‘underwater rocks’ in each concrete case. One should not make rash decisions and run somewhere. In most cases, Ukraine is better. Besides, in an exotic country, no matter how thrilling it is, you will hardly become a big businessman because, in all probability, you’ll be ‘ditched.’ More often than not, you cannot legally own a business and, for this reason, you take on locals as co-owners. It sometimes happens, even among the heroes of our programs, that people simply have their business ‘squeezed out’ of them. As for private life, our women sometimes say almost with tears in their eyes, when the camera is off: ‘Girls, never go to Africa to play.’ You must know that you are not just moving to a new place of residence – it is a different civilization, a different world. We think differently, believe in different gods, and laugh at different jokes. One must remember this.”

What do we, Ukrainians, lack at home to be successful? What are your first impressions when you come back from an expedition that may have lasted for 2-4 months?

D.K.: “We lack kindness and mutual respect. We lack mutual help and peace of mind. In this country, whenever you come into a transport, you see depression in people’s eyes. And you immediately recall people’s eyes in the countries you visited, the way they live, and the elementary things they learned to enjoy. In many exotic countries, when somebody cuts in front of somebody else on the road, they smile and wish success to one another. In this country, people run out of the car, swing their arms, and curse. For example, when we had an accident in India, people came out their cars and began to smile. Moreover, they helped us.”

O.D.: “Most of the people we come across in expeditions think positively. And when we come back, we are short of smiles. People are absorbed in their problems. They are reserved. But a Kyivite’s tenement is a palace in comparison to how people live in many countries…”

D.K.: “Yes, we are short of kindness. In India, a tire blew out on our jeep. Almost all the passing drivers began to stop to help us. We had no lifting jack – so they gave us one. Moreover, they asked us to step aside and replaced the wheel by themselves. And the other day in Kyiv, my car’s storage battery ran down. I could call a service for 100 hryvnias to recharge it, but I was pressed for time. I thought it was no problem to flag down a passing car. So, here’s a picture: I stand holding contact wires in one hand and waving the other for help. I stood with the wires for 20 minutes – a couple of hundreds of cars passed by and none of them stopped. Everybody was turning his head, pretending to see nothing. ‘It’s no concern of mine’ must have been their motto.”

You work in many interesting countries, and you are obviously asked where you have come from. Are there many places where people know about Ukraine and, what is more, what exactly do they know?

D.K.: “As recently as 4 years ago, hearing that we were from Ukraine, people used to say: Ukraine is Russia, Ukraine is Gorbachev (?), Ukraine is the USSR… The farther a tribe or a settlement was from civilization, the less they knew about us. Today, they know better. Frankly speaking, we must thank sport personalities above all. First of all, it is Andrii Shevchenko. Even the remotest tribes know him. The Klitschko brothers are also known, albeit lesser. Very few could show Ukraine on the map. However, the absolute majority of educated people in the world know now what Ukraine is and that there’s a war going on here. They know about the ATO and Crimea. But the problem is where people draw information from and whether the information is reliable. Take, for example, Raul Castro’s regime in Cuba. You switch on a state-run channel and immediately hear the first piece of news: ‘All is good in our country. Shop shelves are stacked with foodstuffs.’ But in reality food is a huge problem! Stores are empty. Another piece of news: Raul Castro has done something, and he did it very correctly and timely. The third piece of news is that something has happened in the world and Raul has rightly commented on this. Why am I saying this? Because this is followed by a fourth or fifth piece of news almost every day – about Ukraine. This news begins with the phrase ‘As Russia Today reports…’ You know, they even keep on the Russian channel’s logo during the news bulletin. A totally Russian position on Ukraine. And you can feel this, speaking to Cubans.”

Can one feel Ukraine’s informational presence in the countries you visited?

D.K.: “Of course I am not an expert in information politics, but I don’t think one can feel it. Our media presence is insufficient. In Europe, naturally, everybody knows about the situation in our country – in particular, via the Ukraine Today channel of the 1+1 Media group. It is difficult to bend the opinion of Europeans, but Russia’s informational aggression shows that it is possible. As for the exotic countries, they know our country and are informed of the ongoing war and the annexation of Crimea. But everybody is totally unaware of the depth of the problem. In Bolivia, where presidents were once hanged on a city square, people are satisfied with the results of the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine. They said to us bluntly: ‘Well done, Ukrainians, odious leaders must be ousted by force.’”

And, finally, a question about cookery: how can you eat all those exotic creatures – spiders, cockroaches, snakes?

D.K.: “An interesting question. I’ll tell you frankly: to eat a cockroach is the easiest thing to do for a producer of a project like this. If you find a little-known tribe, an interpreter, fix a meeting, settle there, organize the arrival, and ask that the tribe elder grill a cockroach as part of an ancient rite, it will be no problem to eat it. My logic is that if local people eat this, I can also do so.”

Oleksandr, Dmytro must eat exotic dishes, for he works in front of the camera. Do you morally support him?

O.D.: “It is much simpler in my case. I eat everything voraciously just because I am hungry. I eat absolutely everything, even though not in front of the camera (smiles).”