Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Interviewing the Unbreakable Vasilisa Komarova

Transcript

Interviewing the Unbreakable Vasilisa Komarova · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:04
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal Podcast. I am
0:08
Speaker 1: your host, Scott Brady, and for today's installment, we have
0:12
Speaker 1: a special guest interviewer in Bruce Dorn. Many of you
0:16
Speaker 1: note Bruce from his contributions to Overland Journal and his
0:19
Speaker 1: recent time on the Overland Journal podcast. Bruce interviews Vasilisa Coomorova.
0:25
Speaker 1: They conduct the interview down in Mexico, and Bruce and
0:29
Speaker 1: Vasilisa have developed a longtime friendship as fellow travelers and photographers.
0:34
Speaker 1: For those that have sensitivity around disturbing subjects, you'll want
0:39
Speaker 1: to stop listening to the podcast at this time because
0:42
Speaker 1: Bruce's interview with Vasilisa includes details about her brutal rape
0:48
Speaker 1: in Bolivia in twenty seventeen. So we not only learn
0:53
Speaker 1: about Vasilisa's brutal assault, but we also learn about her
0:57
Speaker 1: unbreakable Spiritslisa overcame incredible odds, coming back from being left
1:04
Speaker 1: for dead at the side of that lake to ultimately
1:07
Speaker 1: seeing her assailants prosecuted and serving now time in prison
1:12
Speaker 1: in Bolivia.
1:13
Speaker 2: This is an important conversation.
1:15
Speaker 1: It's a difficult one for Bruce and it's a difficult
1:18
Speaker 1: one for Vasilissa to have but you will come away
1:22
Speaker 1: being so impressed with her as an individual. And this
1:25
Speaker 1: is just going to be the first installment with Vasilissa.
1:28
Speaker 1: There's more conversations coming up and you can read more
1:31
Speaker 1: about Vasilissa's story in the Spring twenty twenty three issue
1:36
Speaker 1: of Overland Journal. And we thank you all for listening
1:40
Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you next time. This content is
1:42
Speaker 1: brought to you by Overland Journal, our premium quality print publication.
1:47
Speaker 1: The magazine was founded in two thousand and six with
1:51
Speaker 1: the goal of providing independent equipment and vehicle reviews, along
1:56
Speaker 1: with the most stunning adventures and photography. We care deeply
2:01
Speaker 1: about the countries and cultures we visit and share our
2:04
Speaker 1: experiences freely with our readers. We also have zero averatorial
2:09
Speaker 1: policy and do not accept any advertiser compensation for our reviews.
2:15
Speaker 1: By subscribing to Overland Journal, you're helping to support our
2:19
Speaker 1: employee owned and veteran owned publication. Your support also provides
2:25
Speaker 1: resources and funding for content like you are watching or
2:28
Speaker 1: listening to right now. You can subscribe directly on our
2:33
Speaker 1: website at Overland Journal dot com.
2:37
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Overland Journal Podcast. I'm the Overland Journal
2:41
Speaker 3: Senior photographer and occasional writer Bruce Store And I'm here
2:44
Speaker 3: with vas Lisa Komarova, my longtime friend who I have
2:50
Speaker 3: been at face to face with.
2:52
Speaker 2: For twenty minutes.
2:54
Speaker 3: Back in about that when you came out to the
2:57
Speaker 3: show in London, I was over there to do a
3:00
Speaker 3: little presentation at the Apple Store.
3:02
Speaker 4: I could think we would meet here.
3:03
Speaker 3: You know, it's crazy beus. Lisa came to my show,
3:07
Speaker 3: skated in. Couldn't help but notice you. He came right
3:10
Speaker 3: up to the front row, and you were very attentive
3:13
Speaker 3: and we spoke for a few minutes. Afterwards, I learned
3:16
Speaker 3: that you were an adventure traveler, and at that time
3:18
Speaker 3: I believe you had already been traveling for a while,
3:21
Speaker 3: and I was doing show on adventure photo journalism and
3:24
Speaker 3: adventure filmmaking. If I recall, you have always wanted to
3:28
Speaker 3: be a traveler. You travel by motorcycle. Yes, tell me
3:31
Speaker 3: about when you were a kid.
3:33
Speaker 5: Well, the thing is that I grew up in Soviet
3:36
Speaker 5: Union and Soviet Union, and a kid could dream about
3:40
Speaker 5: anything to be a now stronnou to be a scientist, policeman,
3:43
Speaker 5: environment but not a traveler, because we leave behind the
3:48
Speaker 5: iron border and because a few things that happened personally
3:52
Speaker 5: to my family. When Soviet Union fall apart, traveling was
3:56
Speaker 5: out of question for me, and I grew up on
3:59
Speaker 5: reading Tom Saw and Mark Twain. You know, I wanted
4:04
Speaker 5: to do a lot of you know, discovery of the world,
4:06
Speaker 5: to have all the adventure. So I guess, you know,
4:09
Speaker 5: in a way, being so out of possibility of traveling
4:14
Speaker 5: and just seeing it once in a while, you know,
4:17
Speaker 5: in some programs, because even the programs from from abroad
4:20
Speaker 5: almost didn't come to Russian Union. I remember there was
4:23
Speaker 5: one program on traveling only like one an hour, and
4:27
Speaker 5: I was always like waiting for this moment. And I
4:30
Speaker 5: guess it's really what I was dreaming. Since I remember
4:33
Speaker 5: myself literally, since I started to understand things and understand
4:37
Speaker 5: who I am, I wanted to travel.
4:39
Speaker 3: I have this vision of you as like an eight
4:43
Speaker 3: year old girl who just sees the mountains in the
4:45
Speaker 3: distance or sees the horizon and just wants to go
4:48
Speaker 3: over it. And you've been you've been doing that, but
4:51
Speaker 3: there was something in between, so you as I also
4:54
Speaker 3: recall your trained as an attorney.
4:57
Speaker 5: As a lawyer, I was working in Russia's the assistant
5:01
Speaker 5: of the lawyer, because by the time I could become
5:03
Speaker 5: a lawyer and understood that it's not what I want
5:06
Speaker 5: to do, because I was interested in.
5:08
Speaker 4: Criminalone more than anything.
5:10
Speaker 5: I saw things that broke my heart and my paradigma,
5:15
Speaker 5: you know, of all the world. And they realized that,
5:18
Speaker 5: you know, in Russia, I cannot really change that system.
5:22
Speaker 5: So and we say, you know, like you cannot walk
5:26
Speaker 5: on dirty not to become dirty. So I dectarted just
5:29
Speaker 5: to leave it all behind me and start from the screache.
5:33
Speaker 5: And because of the person who I was working at
5:35
Speaker 5: the moment in Russia was really high and close to
5:38
Speaker 5: the government, you know, like I saw things that made
5:41
Speaker 5: me didn't want to be around all that.
5:44
Speaker 3: How much time did you invest in being in the
5:47
Speaker 3: legal system where you saw about eight years?
5:50
Speaker 2: Eight years?
5:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, like college, academy, diploma, then working, you know.
5:56
Speaker 2: So and you had enough, You finally had enough and
5:59
Speaker 2: you decided that was.
6:01
Speaker 5: There was a tragedy which I don't need to go
6:03
Speaker 5: into the gitals. And the tragedy made a huge impact
6:07
Speaker 5: on me and I realized there is no way I
6:10
Speaker 5: want to be part of this.
6:12
Speaker 3: And then when we met you were in London and
6:14
Speaker 3: had been in London for a while and you were
6:17
Speaker 3: not practicing law.
6:18
Speaker 2: You never went back to that.
6:20
Speaker 3: And I believe that you were a personal trainer and
6:23
Speaker 3: a fitness champion.
6:24
Speaker 2: I think you're already a fitness champ.
6:26
Speaker 5: I don't remember if I was already champion by that time,
6:30
Speaker 5: and I think maybe I was maybe on the way,
6:33
Speaker 5: because I don't know if I mentioned that I did
6:35
Speaker 5: photography for some time also in London. Yeah, I did
6:37
Speaker 5: photography for some time. I was working on some books.
6:41
Speaker 5: Then I was working in studio photography. Then you know,
6:44
Speaker 5: I was teaching photoshop like some diplias and want some competitions.
6:50
Speaker 4: Also this photography photoshop.
6:53
Speaker 5: But afterwards also something happened and eventually I went to
6:58
Speaker 5: Vietnam to me detate and think, you know, about my
7:01
Speaker 5: life and the end, I decided to put more things
7:05
Speaker 5: together so at some point, you know, I can just
7:07
Speaker 5: go and you know, to change my horizon.
7:10
Speaker 3: This explains a lot, because your photography is fantastic. After
7:14
Speaker 3: we met, we exchanged Instagram information and I began to
7:18
Speaker 3: follow you. Your work is terrific strength I was gone,
7:23
Speaker 3: what the heck she's you know. I really enjoyed following
7:27
Speaker 3: your travels and admire your work. You began making short
7:32
Speaker 3: trips out of the country and you went to Vietnam
7:36
Speaker 3: and some other places.
7:37
Speaker 5: And I have been almost almost all over Asia, but
7:40
Speaker 5: it would be like one months one not two months.
7:44
Speaker 5: At the time. Because of that time I was working
7:46
Speaker 5: as a personal trainer. I would lead my clients for
7:49
Speaker 5: a year and more. And most of the time, you know,
7:52
Speaker 5: sometime between mid of December to the mid of January,
7:56
Speaker 5: as much as through whole August, it was that period.
7:59
Speaker 4: So I take at least those two months, you know,
8:02
Speaker 4: out of the year.
8:03
Speaker 5: Just go into the country, find the motorcycle, put my
8:07
Speaker 5: backpack on the motorcycle and just go to explore and
8:10
Speaker 5: then come back to London and leave normal life.
8:13
Speaker 3: Well, you know, since arriving here in Tuloum to meet
8:16
Speaker 3: with you, all I've wanted to do is buy a motorcycle.
8:20
Speaker 3: I want to buy a motorcycle and run around. You know,
8:26
Speaker 3: I'm kind of light on motorcycles at the moment. I
8:28
Speaker 3: sold my beloved Harly, but the fellow who owns it
8:33
Speaker 3: has promised me visitation rights.
8:35
Speaker 4: So that I can see that. You understand you're guilty.
8:38
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, Well, as you get older and slower witted.
8:43
Speaker 3: I don't know if motorcycles are exactly the right choice.
8:45
Speaker 4: But they always right choice.
8:47
Speaker 2: They are the right.
8:48
Speaker 3: Choice, the right choice. I started making the wrong choice
8:51
Speaker 3: of motorcycles at a very young age. I was racing
8:54
Speaker 3: motocross and stuff.
8:56
Speaker 4: Fortune and that's awesome.
8:57
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, No, I wouldn't have changed anything, but I
9:01
Speaker 3: crashed a lot.
9:02
Speaker 4: So did that? You know, hereat it.
9:06
Speaker 3: Goes, It goes with the excitement. Can't have the excitement
9:09
Speaker 3: without paying a price on exactly, But so you would
9:13
Speaker 3: you would go somewhere, get a bike, get a map
9:15
Speaker 3: and find the most remote path and follow it.
9:18
Speaker 4: Yeah.
9:18
Speaker 5: Usually, but I think, like now it's years past, and
9:22
Speaker 5: understand that I did things that I shouldn't have done,
9:25
Speaker 5: you know, because of the time it was no GPS, nothing,
9:28
Speaker 5: So I would usually get a painted map. Then I
9:31
Speaker 5: would like, hm, there's a lot of green and there's
9:34
Speaker 5: a dolt. It must be interist and I would go there,
9:38
Speaker 5: you know, but obviously, you know, it would bring me
9:41
Speaker 5: into like you know, I'm here now to tell the story.
9:44
Speaker 5: So I've done everything right. It's perfect, yes, But let's
9:47
Speaker 5: say if I would have children or anything, I would
9:50
Speaker 5: definitely know them to want to do those things because
9:54
Speaker 5: I don't know, it's it's a miracle that I'm still around.
9:57
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think that I'm part cat because cats
10:00
Speaker 3: have nine lives.
10:03
Speaker 2: So yeah, you can call me cat daddy. I adopt
10:07
Speaker 2: that title cat daddy.
10:08
Speaker 3: Adventure travel, adventure travel. It wasn't even called that then.
10:11
Speaker 3: You were just driven to pursue.
10:14
Speaker 5: Yeah, I even didn't know, like, you know, I never
10:16
Speaker 5: read I still haven't read a single blog on traveling
10:20
Speaker 5: on the motorcycles. And now I think, you know, maybe
10:23
Speaker 5: when I started, you know, I should have read something
10:26
Speaker 5: because you know, all what I had my rolly blade pots,
10:29
Speaker 5: you know, rolly blade gloves. I would get, you know,
10:32
Speaker 5: the cheapest helmet and I didn't have any protection. I
10:36
Speaker 5: would just take, you know, my my backpack, put it
10:39
Speaker 5: on the motorcycle and one on the way.
10:43
Speaker 3: I get the impression you really believe that it's a
10:45
Speaker 3: great way to self actualize.
10:47
Speaker 5: Exactly because you know, like it's like it brought me
10:49
Speaker 5: the most amazing experiences. If I didn't get lost, if
10:52
Speaker 5: I didn't crush, I wouldn't you know, made all those
10:56
Speaker 5: stories that I had to remember, you know, like once
10:59
Speaker 5: I was low. Monks took me to live in the monastery.
11:02
Speaker 5: Another time, you know, the tribe took me to live
11:05
Speaker 5: with them and they healed me.
11:06
Speaker 4: And I wouldn't get.
11:07
Speaker 5: Inside of those places and get connected with people if
11:12
Speaker 5: I did everything correctly, you know. So like, as long
11:15
Speaker 5: as you follow your heart and you feel it and
11:19
Speaker 5: you trust your intuition, the God, the journey or whatever
11:23
Speaker 5: you want to call it will.
11:24
Speaker 4: Take you exactly where you want to be taken.
11:26
Speaker 2: I believe that. I believe the universe rewards those who.
11:29
Speaker 4: Are brave exactly.
11:31
Speaker 3: And I have daughters and granddaughters, and as a grandfather,
11:36
Speaker 3: you know, it's a little different than being a father.
11:38
Speaker 3: You really don't want your daughters to do anything dangerous,
11:41
Speaker 3: but with the granddaughters, you kind of want them to
11:44
Speaker 3: have an adventure, but you also want them to figure
11:46
Speaker 3: out the best ways to be said exactly.
11:48
Speaker 5: You know, I think it's it's not making mistakes, but
11:52
Speaker 5: you know, learning from mistakes that make you great a person.
11:56
Speaker 5: Because if you never tried, if you never got burn yourself,
11:59
Speaker 5: who you're going to you know, like you will be
12:01
Speaker 5: just the jervis out.
12:02
Speaker 4: Water in it.
12:03
Speaker 3: Before you did, most of Southeast Asia and then I
12:07
Speaker 3: think you were getting ready to head towards South America
12:10
Speaker 3: to do what I have always thought of as a
12:12
Speaker 3: transact from the southernmost point up to Alaska. I think
12:15
Speaker 3: that when we talked, your goal was to do that
12:19
Speaker 3: journey along the way. You had some terrible experience, and
12:24
Speaker 3: that's the subject of the article in the Overland Journal
12:27
Speaker 3: of the spring edition of the twenty twenty three, So
12:30
Speaker 3: that's out there to learn from. After having just an
12:35
Speaker 3: awful experience and pulling yourself out of that, which was
12:40
Speaker 3: not a slow process, and I think I feel like
12:43
Speaker 3: the fighter that you are from your goals of working
12:47
Speaker 3: in law and trying to champion people who are in
12:52
Speaker 3: legal issues, I think probably helped you survive.
12:55
Speaker 5: Absolutely absolutely, because I believed in too doing the correct thing,
13:01
Speaker 5: you know, and I believed in into the the rightness
13:05
Speaker 5: of putting those people.
13:07
Speaker 4: Into the jail.
13:08
Speaker 5: And it was so strong that believe inside of me
13:10
Speaker 5: that you know, I was just following it wherever anyone
13:14
Speaker 5: would tell because even the people who on my side
13:17
Speaker 5: and helping me, eventually they would say, you know, we
13:20
Speaker 5: know that you're not going to win, but because nobody
13:23
Speaker 5: tried before, we will use your case as a study case,
13:27
Speaker 5: so we know all the mistakes in the system, how
13:30
Speaker 5: afterwards to help to other people. But when I when
13:34
Speaker 5: I won, you know, like even in the court, I remember,
13:38
Speaker 5: you know, the amazed.
13:39
Speaker 4: Faces because it was like a miracle happened.
13:41
Speaker 2: You never let go. You refused to let go your.
13:45
Speaker 3: Unbreakable I am, yeah, well, which which brought uh, finally
13:53
Speaker 3: you were able to And there's no way that you
13:55
Speaker 3: can put that terrible experience completely behind you.
14:00
Speaker 5: No, no I can, because you know, like now now,
14:03
Speaker 5: even when I look back, I believe. I know it's
14:07
Speaker 5: made sound strange, you know, is everything was going on
14:10
Speaker 5: right in the world right now. But I believe that
14:13
Speaker 5: universe puts on our shoulders only what we can carry,
14:16
Speaker 5: and it's depend on us how we carry it and
14:19
Speaker 5: how we react. So now with something happens, for example,
14:22
Speaker 5: last year started terribly for me, you know, things happened,
14:26
Speaker 5: but by then I already believed into the great thing
14:30
Speaker 5: around above me, and so I knew that whatever happens now,
14:33
Speaker 5: I won't I won't dive into it with the sadness.
14:36
Speaker 5: I will see how I can learn from it and
14:38
Speaker 5: my horrible experience what I had.
14:41
Speaker 4: Now when I look back. I know it sounds.
14:43
Speaker 5: Strange, but a grateful to universe for that, because it
14:45
Speaker 5: never would make me so strong as I am now.
14:48
Speaker 5: It wouldn't I would I would not become unbreakable if
14:51
Speaker 5: someone didn't try to break me before.
14:53
Speaker 4: Exactly everything is.
14:56
Speaker 2: And here you are.
14:58
Speaker 3: The way that I discovered that you were going through
15:00
Speaker 3: the troubles was that you sort of disappeared off of
15:03
Speaker 3: social media for a little while, and then we reconnected
15:06
Speaker 3: and we had a lot of exchanges. I've tried to
15:10
Speaker 3: kind of be there for you as just a friend
15:13
Speaker 3: out there far far away.
15:15
Speaker 2: Now here you are.
15:17
Speaker 3: I feel like your journey, your physical journey, is going
15:20
Speaker 3: to continue, but here you're planted in a tou loom
15:24
Speaker 3: at this time, and you're feeling very happy.
15:27
Speaker 5: Satisfied absolutely because here's I'm now putting together. I feel like,
15:34
Speaker 5: you know, eventually, everything that happened to me in my life,
15:37
Speaker 5: you know, like from the childhood, you know, from the
15:40
Speaker 5: background where I grew up, my family, things that happened,
15:45
Speaker 5: my education, everything, you know, it was like bits of
15:48
Speaker 5: puzzle and now eventually, you know, here I can bring
15:51
Speaker 5: all the puzzle together into one beautiful picture.
15:54
Speaker 4: And this beautiful picture make a change in the world.
15:56
Speaker 4: So I'm working on this now.
15:59
Speaker 2: I love it.
16:00
Speaker 3: I truly think that every moment, positive or difficult, builds
16:05
Speaker 3: us to a certain point where we can do things
16:08
Speaker 3: that we're destined to do. So do you anticipate that
16:11
Speaker 3: you will be planted here for a while? You have
16:14
Speaker 3: new projects, and yes, tell me a little bit about them.
16:18
Speaker 5: So here in Toulum, I came back to my spiritual
16:22
Speaker 5: part and now I'm helping some women again to go
16:26
Speaker 5: through certain traumas. So far, I've been doing it mostly
16:29
Speaker 5: one to one with some friends, but now I'm forming tools,
16:35
Speaker 5: motorcycle tools, like right now I'm looking for motorcycles of
16:41
Speaker 5: the companies who want to help me on this in
16:44
Speaker 5: the way of the promotion of the tools only for women,
16:48
Speaker 5: starting with the shorts like four or five days around
16:51
Speaker 5: Utah Khan and then taking them further out with those
16:55
Speaker 5: who don't drive yet super well, but who I can
16:59
Speaker 5: help on the way and through this help to give
17:01
Speaker 5: them power because motorcycle and traveling is so empowering. During
17:06
Speaker 5: the day, we would travel and then we would have
17:08
Speaker 5: you know, women's circle discussion bringing out all the traumas
17:13
Speaker 5: discussing the traumas and putting all the power which we
17:16
Speaker 5: don't during the day into this content and through this
17:20
Speaker 5: two empower.
17:20
Speaker 2: So that's good work.
17:22
Speaker 3: I'm certain it will bear fruit and it will be
17:24
Speaker 3: a fantastic success.
17:26
Speaker 2: Thanking as it goes forward.
17:28
Speaker 3: I'm going to be a force multiplier for you as
17:31
Speaker 3: you get this going. I look forward to helping you
17:34
Speaker 3: turn it into something really big and I hope that
17:37
Speaker 3: it reaches far, far beyond here.
17:39
Speaker 2: Although this is a spectacular place and.
17:42
Speaker 5: When you universe want to help, you just need to
17:44
Speaker 5: be grateful. So I'm really grateful.
17:46
Speaker 4: Thank you.
17:47
Speaker 3: Gosh, there's so much to talk about, but this has
17:50
Speaker 3: been a really great moment.
17:53
Speaker 2: Time to catch up a little bit.
17:54
Speaker 3: Do you have anything that you want to promote a
17:57
Speaker 3: little bit more or talk about a little bit more?
17:59
Speaker 3: Two or do you have a name for your tour
18:01
Speaker 3: group or for.
18:03
Speaker 4: So far?
18:04
Speaker 5: I will stairs at my thousand smiles. It's yes, it's
18:07
Speaker 5: my name. So I haven't thought about the company. I
18:11
Speaker 5: want to follow these because you know my this you
18:15
Speaker 5: can play the world, so it's like thousands miles and
18:19
Speaker 5: this these thousand miles to have thousand smiles and we'll
18:22
Speaker 5: see if it grow into another world or anything. But
18:26
Speaker 5: this is the main thing. Also, my my groups, I
18:31
Speaker 5: call them sisterhood phoenix sisterhood because you know, those women
18:36
Speaker 5: usually had also quite a few traumas behind. And as
18:41
Speaker 5: I said, you know, it's when you go through the traumas,
18:44
Speaker 5: it's what makes you stronger. So we all of us
18:47
Speaker 5: like phoenixes coming out of the ash and ready.
18:50
Speaker 3: To fly, the phoenix rising. I've used that to describe
18:53
Speaker 3: you many times, and it sounds like you're continuing the
18:56
Speaker 3: sore and will continue to do so. That's Lisa's instagram
19:00
Speaker 3: is my thousand Smiles. At My thousand Smiles, look deep
19:05
Speaker 3: back into her feed, you'll see a lot of amazing
19:08
Speaker 3: imagery and you'll see the story of an amazing woman.
19:11
Speaker 4: So happy.
19:14
Speaker 2: All right, that's a Lisa. Thanks.
19:16
Speaker 3: I can't wait to share more and hear more about
19:19
Speaker 3: your projects and your successes.
19:21
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you for coming all the way here.
19:24
Speaker 2: It's awful to come to saloon.
19:26
Speaker 3: You know, you could invite she could have invited me before,
19:29
Speaker 3: but now that I have this villa, you know it's
19:32
Speaker 3: all good.
19:33
Speaker 2: It's all good, so I'll be back anytime. Thanks folks.
19:37
Speaker 2: Drew storm for the over Injournal podcast