Elnar Mansurov

Born in Perm. Graduated from the Faculty of Geography PSU, Department Of Tourism. The founder of the independent travel agency Mishka.Travel, the owner of the Mishka.Food cafe, dedicated to gastronomic traveling.

Quotes

• Most of all I like to have breakfast, but I dream of going into space.
• I am afraid that my two-year-old daughter will not remember me if I do not return from a trip.
• I take energy from fresh juices and hard drugs. Just a joke. From breakfast and coffee.
• I love the book «Wild Neighbors»: it tells how a rabbit tamed four wild cats with the help of dances and delicious food.
• The main problem of people is the lack of taste. This affects what foods a person chooses and what houses he builds after that.
• I love to inspire people, and I think it works.

My story

I am a Perm aboriginal, but with some features: my relatives are from the south of the Perm region, from the village, where 98 % of the population still speak Tatar. Sometimes it helps me in traveling: once in Istanbul I discovered that the numerals in Tatar and Turkish are the same, so it was straightforward for me to bargain.

The only thing I liked about school was geography. I loved to read how people live in other countries, what money they use, what rivers and mountains there are in the world. Therefore, after school, I entered the Faculty of Geography without a second thought.

In those days, there was practically no independent tourism in Russia. However, I read reports on the Internet from people who traveled independently from Saint Petersburg to Finland, and that captured me. I realized that one can visit the places this one wants to visit, not his umbrellaed guide.

At first, I organized trips for myself, then I began to hold meetings, lectures, and more and more people desired to fly for one euro across Europe. They started to contact me for help in route developing, in getting visas, and this was the beginning of my activity. I myself went to the consulates, occupied the queues from 4 a.m. and sometimes stood for several hours in a 20-degree frost, waiting for admission. Over time, I rented an office, and I got the first travel agency in Perm, which helped to organize independent travels. We did not sell tours, and I remember that it was plunging people into a state of extreme surprise.

Almost immediately, my friends and I came up with a logo: a polar bear with a backpack, as the antipode of his fellow with the coat of arms of the Perm region. Then I got the idea to make myself a bear head and to photo myself in it, for promoting independent travel. The head was made by a puppet master: we thought about the material for a long time, and the felt was the best option. You can easily wash it and not to be afraid of an injury.

If to talk about favorite places on the map, I love California, Argentina, Iceland, and Norway. Iceland and Norway attract me with nature, there is always something to see, and at different times of the year, they look entirely different. Argentina and California are beautiful because there are almost all climatic zones on the limited piece of land: desert, tropical forests, mountains, and lakes.

Now I can't spend nine months traveling; therefore I delegate a part of the directions. There are guides who travel instead of me to countries already known to me, and I develop other areas: South and Central America, for example. Together with Elena Pechishcheva and Darya Pepelyaeva, some time ago we created an online course «We Teach Guides,» with webinars, lectures, homework, and exams.

One of my favorite parts of traveling is gastronomy. From Brazil, my wife and I always brought a suitcase of fruit, from California — chia seeds. And once we decided to open a place where we could put all our gastronomic passions and our experience. I found a location in Perm, and in 2014 we began the Mishka.Food cafe. Now we are thinking of bread baking.

Although I have visited all continents and over a hundred countries, I still live in my hometown. Perm is the place I miss when I travel. The house should always exist, and my house is Perm.