The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

was so enamored by the ideology of Russian anarchists Mikhail Bakunin and CountKropotkin that the thought of serving “the American imperialist state” seemed immoral anddisgusting to him.While his former classmates were climbing career ladders at the State Departmentand the CIA, the Anarchist engaged in whatever came his way, mostly chaotic adventuresand attempts to earn easy money by doing strange and often risky things.During the Arab-Israeli War in 1969, armed with a movie camera, he reached thefront lines between the positions of Israeli and Syrian troops and filmed some uniquefootage. That documentary brought him some income but also a few problems. Then heengaged in sales, and invented some radically new styles of collars for men’s shirts, amongother odd jobs. He wrote and published articles on Eastern art and “practical magic.” In thelate seventies, he became interested in the business of counterfeiting antique objects andexotic goods, and specialized in the production of Persian rugs using artificial agingtechniques. The Anarchist opened a store of exotic Persian goods in Cambridge, hired amanager, and went to Afghanistan, where he organized several workshops to producecarpets and other objects.One of the Anarchist’s traits was a penchant for the unexpected.Once, having taken his fedora off of a hat rack in Starostin’s home, he accidentallydropped it directly into Valery’s hands. Starostin noticed that written inside the hat’s liningwas the name “Mordecai.” Valery jokingly asked if the hat belonged to the BiblicalMordecai. The Anarchist replied in all seriousness that Mordecai was a traditional Jewishname. That name was for him, his mother, and for God. He added that his secular, Englishname was for FBI files, in which he would be marked as a friend of a KGB officer by the210