For over a dozen years Silk Route was a transit path for merchants and traders. From the east they fetched silk, iron and paper; to the west they exported gold, perfumes, jewellery and grapes. Our journey will also have a form of an exchange.
One year trip on the one hand means visiting 18 countries, crisscrossing 15 thousand kilometers, four seasons, living in a tent and life packed into a few travelling bags. On the other hand it is the time of raising questions, searching for the local tales hidden in legends, fables, life’s stories, but also in movies and ordinary daily talks. Throughout this kind of narrations, we want to open a dialogue with the locals about all the topics that concern us: the differences, similarities, common ideals and values.
We don’t want to go there empty-handed. A bicycle bag cannot fit in too many gifts, but there is enough space in it for a projector and a set of Polish animated movies, which we will share with various groups of audience – from one viewer showing, to seances for the whole communities.

On our list of films that we’re going to show will be included both classical Polish fairy tales and also modern animations such as “Cinematograph”, “Woolen Cogwheels” and other movies, that are mostly displayed on festivals and film reviews.
During the film meetings we’d like to share with the local residents the images that we find valuable and beautiful. The selection of particular animations will allow us to reach both children, youth and adults.

Film screenings and workshops will be organised in Polonial centers and institutes. We’re going to purposely visit some specific towns where we can find Polish ethnic minority, places where polish language is being taught or libraries with Polish books. During the conversations with local residents, retracing and remembering the stories, our plan is to put together the experiences about Polish culture and its multifaceted roots. We’d like to elaborate together about the contemporary significance of Polish heritage and identity.

It’s a vision of Leonardo da Vinci’s vehicle, which supposedly had two equal sized wheels with spokes, crank mechanism, steering wheel, sprocket wheel and chain. In later times it was refined by Karl Drais and his successors, so now it enables us today to move between places. Regardless of the weather and the distance between home and work, during the whole year bike is our main form of transport. We were inspired by Kazimierz Nowak, who 100 years ago went through whole Africa on his bike, and now we decided to follow his footsteps.

We’re going to cross the route between Poland and Japan riding moderate pace – from village to other village, town, country, to the limit and to infinity. We want to accomplish this on bicycles just because it’s our favourite form of transport. This travel is a huge challenge – not only physically, but also in terms of going out of our daily comfort zone.