Smells of Tunisia ...
Smells - the strongest "binding" of memory. Sometimes, you forget some event, it would seem, completely, when suddenly it will lightly fly the same fragrance: familiar spirits or coffee with cardamom - and immediately dormant in the far corner of the soul the memory will wake up, take out a photo album with yellowed photos from under the mouse and helpfully open it its on the right page: after all, you remember that everything was just like that?
I'll come to Moscow in winter, but also Tunisia does not leave me .Parquet in the Tchaikovsky Hall smells exactly like in old French mansions on the main street of the capital - Habiba Bourguiba avenue .From the supermarket bakery comes the smell of fresh baguettes - just like the oldest Boulangerie de Hammamet, personally to buy bread in which it is honored even to own the millionth villas in the Yasmin-Hammamet marina .The scorching foliage, which had not yet covered with snow, smells just like the autumn boulevard in Bizerta, the most colonial city of Tunisia, whose center is planted with poplars and chestnuts, and the cozy smell of an old woolen carpet-the great-grandmother's legacy-awakens memories of the chilly February morning, when shepherds, wrapped in burnusy, they are driven by sheep herds to pastures .
| Smells of the sea, |
| spice |
| and fruits |
The smells of Tunisia, like a crowd of restless, impatient but touching relatives, await the guest at the airplane .As soon as the crew opens the door, they immediately rush into the cabin, hurrying and overtaking each other .The first rush of rioters: the tickling nostrils smell of lakes for evaporation of salt that surrounds the airport of Monastir, and a little more "adult", but the same restless aroma of the sea, located just a couple of hundred meters from the parking lot of the liner .Then follow the sedate and restrained elders: the scent of mown grass with the characteristic Tunisian smell will wrap around it - they have fallen under the sickle's sickle; hastily smacking a note of flowering jasmine, there is an eccentric fragrance of incense "bhura" .
And finally, on the platform the ladder will be met by the procession queen - burly, loving and bright Mama-Africa .Thousands of components mixed in this smell: heat, humidity, dust of red earth, dry sugar of Sahara, thousands of kilometers of deserts, plateaus, volcanoes and "lunar" mountains, there, to the south, to the Cape of Good Hope .And let it be only two hundred kilometers to Europe from here, it seems that behind it - just turn around - the horizon is covered with herds of wildebeest, cutting through the jungle with machetes, meet each other to meet Stanley and Livingston, and the rolling surface of great lakes for millennia reflects the cotton clouds born somewhere above the top of Kilimanjaro .
Having enraged the dear guest with its number and exoticism, Tunisian flavors are not going to give him a rest .In the morning, the nostrils tickle the pungent smell of burned olive oil cake, to which tourists sin by various bad assumptions - a cowshed, say, nearby .Under the sun's rays, citrus orchards start to smell: the wind brings the sweet aroma of orange blossom, so refined and exciting - the most refined spirits will not equal! Closer to noon, bakers start to fight for their noses: French baguettes and rolls, "herds" and "trabelsi" (coming from Libyan Tripoli) smell, peasant loaves and milk buns .Then comes the siesta, when through the closed shutters in the darkened room the smells of hot earth, the sun-warmed leaves and the quivering haze of the sea penetrate .In the evening, old quarters are filled with the flavors of hookah smoke, freshly cut mint - they put whole piles of it in tea - and bunches of jasmine, which Tunisians put behind their ears: both hands are free, and it smells just near the nose .And in the morning the dance will be repeated again - until one day Tunisian smells will not whisper: "It's time for you .But we will always remind ourselves .Until you return .ยป