This is the tragic story of a man called Mikail Szearchov, a Bulgarian zoologist. As a young man he proved himself to be a brilliant scholar, able in all sciences, and eventually choosing to specialise in zoology. Within a few years he had risen through the academic ranks in his native Bulgaria, before being given a prestigious position in the Academy of Advance Sciences at Moscow University. A professor at the age of 29, he was soon talked of as a future candidate for a Nobel Prize. His future seemed assured.
But somewhere in his studies he came across an article about a strange new animal, known to us in the West as the yeti, or, more colloquially, the abominable snowman. He became intrigued, then fascinated, and, in the end, obsessed by the question of this animal's existence. Here, he felt, was a new and exciting challenge for him that would make his name once and for all.
He devoted all his spare time and an increasing amount of his academic time to thinking about this creature, studying all he could find on it, which wasn't much, and trying to devise a method of determining whether or not the evidence he had gleaned could be assembled in such a way as to prove or disprove the existence of the yeti. He organised field trips for his students in areas of possible sightings, training them to look for any possible clues of the presence of an animal of a kind not yet identified. Every footprint and trail, every animal dropping, every bit of hair or fur caught on a bush, was carefully studied, and only dropped from his inquiries when it had been positively identified as belonging to some known species.
Over the years his gut extinct that the yeti did in fact exist grew stronger, but being the great scientist he was he fought it off, determined to keep an open mind: his quest was to prove the existence or non-existence of the yeti once and for all.
At first, money was no object. The Russians at this time were strongly backing science, and particularly great scientists like Mikail Szearchov, hoping to reap much prestige in their competition with the West. But as year gave way to year, his funders began to become a little disillusioned and pushed him for results. Talking it over with some colleagues at the Academy, he came up with the idea of calling an international conference of all those working in the field in the hope that, by pooling their expertise, they may discover a way through.
The conference was not a success, it has to be said. First, because of the Cold War that was then at its height, no one from the West attended. About two hundred delegates from the Eastern Bloc attended; but to Mikail's dismay, there were almost as many views as there were attendees. And the ensuing debates were not exactly characterised by calm, dispassionate scientific analysis.
The first hint of trouble came on the first day when the chairman, a non-scientist appointed to the position by the Communist Party for inscrutable reasons of its own, included in his opening statement a reference to the yeti as "a mystery whom no man has ever seen". This provoked immediate objection from the leader of the Mongolian delegation, who insisted that, to the contrary, he had himself seen a yeti on many occasions, as, indeed, had many of his countrymen. This claim was immediately ridiculed by the cultural attaché and official interpreter of the Chinese delegation, who went on to tell the conference that it was well known in China that Mongolians were habitual liars and could not be trusted on any matter, scientific or otherwise.
In a desperate attempt to restore some semblance of order, Mikail urged the chairman to suggest that the delegates be divided into two groups, one group of those who believed that yetis had been sighted, and the other of those who did not. The chairman accepted this suggestion, and Mikail decided to go to the group of believers and listen to the 'evidence' put forward.
It was not a happy choice. In that group the arguments became even more fierce, each participant convinced that his version was right. Some said the yeti was like a bear, others said it was a member of the cat family. Some said it had thick fur, others that it was thinly covered in hair. Some said it walked upright on two strong legs, and had arms rather like humans, while others insisted that it ran on four legs of equal length and strength. They argued over where it lived, what it ate and whether it was a sociable or solitary animal.
History does not recall how long the conference lasted. Mikail himself had had enough after only two days, and went home bitterly disillusioned. He turned his interest away from the subject of the yeti, and went on to do some pioneering research into birth defects. But then came the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War, and the lifting of travel restrictions. Mikail was offered a visiting scholar's position at Edinburgh University and jumped at the chance. And, as luck would have it, very soon after he took up residence in that beautiful Scottish city, he heard of a conference to be held in Geneva on….The Quest for the Yeti!
He was among the first to register. All that he had experienced of his fellow scientists at Edinburgh filled him with conviction that scientists in the West were open-minded, liberal, tolerant of one another's views, and keen to learn from one another. When the time came, he set off for Geneva with high hopes.
They were to be cruelly dashed, but not in the way of his previous experience. There was no boorishness, rudeness or offensiveness. No politically, nationally or racially motivated insults. Every speaker was listened to politely and rewarded with polite applause when he or she had finished. The programme included time for informal socialising and chatting, and this, too, was very low-key and without any semblance of irritation or animosity.
Naturally, the participants had different views on the various topics under discussion, but everyone was careful to acknowledge that they were just as open to the possibility of error as everybody else; and when the chairman pointed out in his closing remarks that all truths were equally valid, the applause could be heard four blocks away from the venue. When it was all over many delegates said it was the best conference they had attended for many years or even ever!
That was not Mikail's view. He had held his tongue, with extreme difficulty, for the four days of the conference; but when he was shown the draft communiqué that was to be issued from the conference, he could contain himself no longer. He was loud (and alone) in his dissent. He simply could not put his name to a document that said,
"As scientists working together for the good of humanity we affirm our belief that our unity with one another and our respect for one another is of the first importance. For four days we have worked, talked, lived and laughed together, wryly amused by the trivial matters on which we disagree, and warmed by the wider truth that we all joyfully embraced and by which we are in turn embraced. In that spirit we affirm the essential duality of truth, accepting that the yeti both exists and does not exist, has four legs yet two, has fur yet hair, lives here but there, is sociable yet solitary, and is exclusively vegetarian yet carnivorous."
That very evening Mikail resigned all his positions, and abandoned scientific research and study for ever. He turned, instead, to theology, and soon became intrigued, then fascinated, and finally obsessed by the Doctrine of the Trinity. He soon found a marked division between Eastern and Western Theology. In the East few doubted the existence of the Trinity, but fierce debate raged over the details. In the West there was little debate. Theologians were free to believe anything or nothing about the Trinity, and not even bishops seemed too concerned about it.
He's thinking of giving up theology in favour of macramé, or welding, or perhaps sumo wrestling. Anything really. What does it matter?
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