According to Gurdjieff, he visited a place at the southwestern edge of the Gobi/Takramakan desert, probably not so far from Yangihissar, at least twice; both times after being wounded by a "stray bullet." He describes it as a special place, "truly purgatorial," where the air is transformed in a "space between paradise and hell."

When I reread this passage in the summer of 2001, it evoked in me on one side the memory of that special taste of air which characterized some rare moments of intensity I experienced in my struggle with Gurdjieff's ideas and methods, and on another side a desire to visit this "small singular piece of the hard surface of our Earth," and breath the same air that Gurdjieff has breathed. From late August to September, I, with my friend, traveled in Karakorm, Pamir, and Chinese Turkestan to locate this place and come as close as possible to it.

Yangihissar was a dusty little post town near Kashgar on an ancient road to Yarkand. The town and its immediate neighborhood seemed to be without a character; nothing special about its air or its geographical/geological feature. There was nothing that matched the Gurdjieff's description. However, when we approached the oasis of Yangihissar in early morning, we saw in the distance, a phantom-like view of the Mount Kongur, a giant peak at the eastern edge of the Pamir range. It seemed most reasonable to assume that Gurdjieff's place of recovery was somewhere on the foothill of Mount Kongur or Mount Mustagh Ata, probably on the southeastern side, at a distance of 100 to 150 kilometers from Yangihissar. In the years of Gurdjieff's travel, it was an uncharted area inhibited by nomads (Kara-Kirghiz or Kirghiz), and politically a neutral zone between the Russian influence from the Pamir and British influence from Karakorm and its consulate in Kashgar.

Since an entry to the southeastern side of Mount Kongur is prohibited to foreigners, we traveled on the Karkorm Highway from Kashgar to Tashkurgan, passing through the northwestern slope of Mount Kongur. And along the way, there ware places to which Gurdjieff's description about the landscape and air seemed to fit. The above pictures show the landscape of the area north of Mount Kongur, at the altitude of about 4000 meters.

The geological particularity of this area consists in its hierarchical structure. One can see the following three distinctive layers at one sight: glacier and permanent snow at high altitude; barren mountain desert with small dunes at medium altitude; green pasture land with glacier water springs and streams. The air of the place was certainly special because of the altitude, 3500 meters above the sea level even in valleys, and the mixture of dry desert air with a slight moisture in valleys.

The Pamir and Karakorm mountains originated from a clash of two gigantic continental plates. The echo of that clash vibrates through the history of the Great Game between Russia and Britain, which touched the life of Gurdjieff and probably played a definite role in the shaping of his ideas and even his soul. On September 11, 2001, we were in the city of Tashurgan at the western edge of Chinese Turkestan, close to the Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan borders. We crossed the high Kunjerab path to Pakistan a few days before the border was closed. We left the land several days after the Consulate's advice to leave.

As we left the country, I thought of the life of Gurdjieff, how he must have placed himself in a space of conflict between opposing forces, and how he was not only clashed by the conflict between two forces but gathered something for himself by breathing the air transformed in a "space between Paradise and Hell."

Plavan N. Go