Life is strange, often uneven, and from the outside, often unfair too. It is strange, how little it takes to send us in full speed out of this world and into the happy hunting grounds. Well, it is little use thinking about the future, not even as far, as from September to christmas, let it go, as it will, let destiny rule, and let us strive forward and take whatever we can get from life and this world, while we are still here.

In a brief time we have christmas once again, and how will my christmas eve unfold this year? Where will I spend christmas? Most likely somewhere in Urga, at least I should say in Mongolia, but it might also be other places, if I am not merely a memory to my comrades at that time, those whom I have ridden next to, knee to knee. Let the future be, let me calmly sleep in peace and dream about the past.

Merry christmas!

Text and photos: Oscar Mamen (from «Thoughts by a traveller», a christmas letter to his former wife, Karen, written in 1927)

Text in italic: Maria Kartveit

Maria Kartveit is a phd research fellow at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. She investigates the Oscar Mamen collection.