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Travelling the world on bicycle with Vyacheslav Stoyanov

БНР Новини
12
In Tunisia
Photo: personal archive

You dream of going around the world, but you first need to complete your education or make a fortune? Are you waiting for your children to grow up? Indeed, the obstacles that we create in order to turn our dreams into illusions never end... Why not put conventions aside, give away your property, or take it all in a backpack and head towards the adventures? Does all that sound unrealistic? In fact, this is exactly what the life of young Bulgarian from the Crimean Peninsula, Vyacheslav Stoyanov is like.

"The bicycle is the best way to travel! It gives you freedom: You can stop wherever you want and ride it everywhere. You can also take it on a plane or bus,” Vyacheslav says. He has passed more than 70,000 kilometers! Part of his journeys – the tours of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, are dedicated to his cause - environmental protection. "The sea is a joint one. If one of the countries bordering it, does not care about nature protection, the burden is shared by all other countries in the region. Therefore, countries should unite their efforts in this direction," Vyacheslav Stoyanov says. According to him, the waste problem is caused by the ignorance of people about the damage they inflict on nature. Here is what the traveler told the Bulgarian National Radio about his journeys on the Black Sea coast.

"I started my journey with the attitude that we must recycle waste. But I realized that it was too early to talk about this because people have not learned to think in that direction. We must first recycle our thinking in favor of the environment. Instead of waiting for someone else to do it all, we must also make changes. We should not criticize others but change ourselves. Changing ourselves will make the world cleaner."

Vyacheslav says that he often starts traveling alone, because few are those willing to part with comfortable life in the name of adventures and exploring the world. But soon after leaving he always meets followers. These are the best moments, he says - when one shares the road with other people. Of course there are moments that he remembers with laughter. Once while swimming in a lake in Abkhazia, thieves stole his bike with his entire luggage. He started running naked after them. Taking advantage of the confusion of the thieves he managed to get his wallet and pay ransom to regain ownership of the vehicle. What are the most important rules of the young adventurer when being on the road?

Belogradchik Rocks"The basic rule is, when you go to a foreign country, to suppress your ego, to know that you are nothing in this country and should not have any claims. The second rule is: whatever happens, stay positive. When you're smiling, you always attract positive things," Vyacheslav says.

He recently returned from a two-month trip to Nepal. He told us more about his impressions from a place to which people often go in search of spirituality.

"I cannot say I found much spirituality,” Vyacheslav frankly admits. “I expected more, but Nepal has become a popular tourist destination and tourists change the mentality of the locals. Everything has become a business. But there was something that impressed me. I have tried to live among the locals in order to understand their way of thinking, habits, culture... I realized that for them the ego was something disastrous. They do not show egoism. Most people live in poverty, but do not complain. For two months we did not see any incident related to a negative reaction."

The young man who has just returned from a long journey prepares for another trip. This time it is a two-year adventure that will start in Alaska in June. Vyacheslav will pass some 60,000 km across North and South America and once again the focus will be environmental protection.

English: Alexander Markov



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