X-Message-Number: 13571
Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2000 11:36:58 +0400
From: Mikhail Soloviev <>
Subject: Project "Latmos"

[This message is a version of the article 
published in The Immortalist, Jan.-Feb. 2000.] 


Project "Latmos"

by Mikhail Soloviev

Latmos is the Ancient name of a mountain in the south-west 
of Asia Minor (now it is a part of Turkey, but in the Ancient 
time it was populated by the Greeks). According to the 
Greek myths Endymion (he belonged to one of the first 
generations of human beings and could be regarded as a 
prince or king) lays in one of the Latmos caves. He was 
plunged into eternal sleep by Zeus, who was asked to do it
by Selena (a goddess of moon and hunting, her Roman name is 
Diana). She loved Endymion and wanted to keep him forever
young (in 1817 John Keats wrote a brilliant poem on the
subject). Thus this story is one of the first examples of
the suspended animation idea. 

The essence of the project "Latmos" is the organization of a 
small colony (commune, settlement, village) of the (retired) 
Russian (European) immortalists. They would form a kind 
of social network to enable preservation of the body of a 
colony member as soon as possible after his/her 
deanimation. Our present resources don't allow us to use 
cryopreservation, but we could use embalming first (and I 
plan to carry out a small research to develop the best 
embalming method). The well-fixed (e.g. by resin) embalmed 
brain could be stored in a grave together with the body 
(embalmed or not). Thus in the simplest variant we would 
not even need a storage facility. Later if our resources
grow we could organize cryopreservation (in the form of 
"Cryofarm", or in another way) -- for example, create a 
cryonics society and a firm to provide cryonics service
(here it could interpreted as the burial at low temperature).

A good place for the Latmos colony is Crimea, a peninsula 
in the Black Sea in the south of the Ukraine. The Crimean 
nature (sea, mountains, warm winters) and history (there 
were many Greek colonies) have many associations with the 
original Latmos region. Now it is possible to buy a small 
house here for $500 to $3000. Last year I did it. Another 
Russian cryonicist, Igor Artyuhov (who was born in 
Crimea), also intends to buy a house there. Of course, we 
need more prospective colony members, but we have time 
(where is the wood?) and I hope in a few years the Latmos 
colony will become a reality.

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