Anti-Tourist Seeks Druid

According to Daniel Kalder author of “Lost Cosmonaut” and devoted “anti-tourist”, the well-visited natural wonders have become “banal” and the way forward for the traveler is to seek out places usually avoided and to lie if you have to. So it is with some skepticism when I read about his “Druid” encounter in the Volga-Finnic Republic of Mari El. According to book reviewer Tom Adair, he meets a “high priest of paganism” and gets his photo taken with him. The puff-page from the publishers talks of his encounter with the “Chief Druid” with whom he partakes in an “ancient rite”.

Alexei Izergovich Yakimov, High Priest of the Chi Mari Pagans
photo by Daniel Kalder

Depending on what you read the Mari people are either mostly Christian with a few practicing a Christo-pagan hybrid called “Marla faith” (most likely similar to Haitian VooDoo or Santeria in the Americas) or are practitioners a strong untainted tradition of European pre-Christian religion.

“Unlike in western Europe, paganism among the Mari constitutes an unbroken tradition rather than a New Age construction. Mari anthropologist Nikandr Popov points out that pagan prayer meetings were permitted by decree during the Second World War – with collections being made for the front – and survived subsequent Soviet attempts to suppress them. Today Mari pagans gather together for approximately 20 festivals annually, at which they offer animal sacrifices in specially designated sacred groves. There are now 360 such groves in the republic and around 120 karts (pagan priests), according to one of the claimants to the title of head kart, Aleksei Yakimov.”

I always get a little irked when faith and tradition are marketed as a “point of interest” for tourists (anti or no) and I’m troubled by the implications of this new “anti-tourism”. How much embellishing (remember, anti-tourists are partial to lies) does the author do in his “pagan” encounter? What are the ramifications of making a pagan survival an “anti” tourist hot-spot? Does Kalder delve into the issues and struggles of this faith group (not to mention the tensions with the Orthodox Christians) or is it a cute photo-op with the local “Druid”? It seems to me this is just the latest permutation of the counter-cultural longing for “authenticity”, and that “anti-tourism” is no better or worse than the garden-variety tourism embraced by many nations (including our own) as a source of revenue.

Tags: Neopaganism