Home

Sho Takahashi's World

Back Up Next

"With my two algorithms, one can solve all problems - without error if God will!" - Al-Khorezmi

6. Takahashi in Duria

Sho Takahashi has recently executed a commission to design a monument for the main square of Olet, the capital town of the recently independent Republic of Duria, to replace the former statue of Stalin. It will be recalled that Duria was for a century simply a remote region in the USSR, but once it was a small kingdom, just beyond the fringes of Alexander's empire, named Duria because of the hardness of life and because it was populated by deserters from Alexander's army in Central Asia. Like Turfan, Duria rests in a great depression, below sea-level in the desert and accordingly enjoys a severe, but at times hot, climate, very suitable for grapes, melons and other fruit, wherever water can be found. The Durians existed by stealing horses and trading horses for women (and vice versa) along the Silk Road. Their capital town, hardly a city, but once no more than a transitory camp, has reverted to the classical name, Olet. Now, like Transdniestria, Tatarstan and other small fragments of the USSR, Duria strives for independent survival.

Takahashi's connection with the place came about in a curious way. A few of the Durians have carried on the trading of horses along with other more portable but less socially-desirable commodities through S. E. Asia, going as far down as Singapore. However, with its rigid school discipline Singapore has tried to prohibit these activities and notices which say : "No Durians" are to be seen on public buildings. As a refugee from authority himself, Takahashi, financially embarrassed in Singapore, gravitated to the Durian Market and joined forces. Step by step he followed the trading trail back to Olet itself, where he found temporary work in developing the hitherto negative public relations of the embryonic republic, before being smuggled back into Japan, to resume his quasi-academic profession.

The commission was for a fountain, which would have been the most desirable traditional monument, (the Durians are animists, but have been influenced by Islam) but, because of the shortage of water, recycling is necessary and a single charge of water remains within the interstices of the monumental structure, symbolising neatly both the central place of water in the economy and the isolated, self-contained social structure of Duria itself.