Sometimes you need to disappear completely to find yourself again. This trip to Kazakhstan saved me in ways I didn’t know I needed saving.
Standing in front of those mountains, I felt something shift inside me. The silence here isn’t the heavy silence I know from bad days – it’s clean, almost healing. No Moscow chaos, no constant noise in my head. Just space to breathe without everything feeling like too much.
The scale of everything puts your brain in perspective. Those peaks have been there forever, and somehow that makes the mess inside my head feel both smaller and more manageable. Not gone, just… in its place.
I brought my guitar but barely played it. Instead, I found myself humming while walking through snow that feels different here. The melodies coming out are slower, less frantic. Like maybe not everything needs to be urgent all the time.
Being around people who move differently, think differently, helped me remember there are other ways to exist. The locals I met don’t rush through conversations. They’re present in a way I’ve forgotten how to be, especially when my mind gets chaotic.
This landscape is already changing how I hear music. There’s something about the vastness that makes you want to write songs that breathe, that give people space instead of overwhelming them. Maybe that’s what I need to explore next – music that helps rather than just expresses.
I’m hearing fragments of new songs, but they’re gentler than what I usually write. Less about the struggle, more about finding ground to stand on. This trip reminded me that inspiration doesn’t always have to come from pain.
Sometimes beauty is enough. Sometimes peace is worth writing about too.
— Indie pop artist, musician Anastasia Ledovskaya