Traveling to remote places I realized that beauty is everywhere and is found in the diversity of people. Their uniqueness makes humanity special. This awareness and the need to preserve our roots together with our planet should guide our every gesture, our every thought, our every choice.

Kyrgyz women live in the dust of high-altitude deserts but look like queens. I met red women for the first time in the high mountains of Afghanistan. The Kyrgyz are a minority of 1200 people scattered throughout the vast territory of the Pamirs.

They hosted us for the night, offered us their bread, warmed us with their fireplaces, gave us a moment of their lives without knowing how precious it was to us. A testimony of a slow and unstoppable farewell. Every winter many of them are lost forever, at the thaw of spring the snowpack discovers huge voids and absences caused by too cold or too much opium to bear it. Burnt skin, strong hands, bright eyes, gentle manners. Under the stars of the high desert our cultural diversity vanishes, we are all made of the same stardust.

What remains of this echo vanishes even faster in the presence of a modernity made up of roads and economic interests that leave no room for traditions and our common roots.