On a route extending from Rize to Erzurum, we pursued a series of lakes in the Kaçkar range, some of them blue, others black, some quiet and still others wild.

Silvery waves lapped the tiny beach. There were six of us, sitting around in the heart of the night on the shore of Lake Aksu, situated below the foothills over which loomed the mysterious peaks of Mt. Ovit. As if afraid of breaking the mountains’ spell, we were silent as we watched the glitter of the lake. Then the full moon showed its face behind the summits. The moon and the Milky Way, which gave the feeling that we were closer, and the lake, which spread out before us in the depths of the blue night as if it belonged to another planet—all this beauty had combined to seal our lips. If we spoke the spell would be broken. Scattering stars, the wavelets came as far as our feet and vanished in the sand. And thus we sat, silently, motionlessly, on the shore of a lake that isolated us from the world and plunged us into the purity of nature.