Marwin’s biography includes many fairy-tale elements. He was born in Bukhara, a city in today’s Uzbekistan, during one of the most spectacular sandstorms man can remember. On that long ago day in 1966, a thin veil of red sand from the Kyzyl Kum desert covered the ancient capital of Oriental mysticism.
The descendant of a family whose legacy dates back to the era of the great Khazarian Khanate, known for its extraordinary tolerance, broadmindedness, respect for ancient traditions and dedication to helping their fellowmen, Marwin knew how to ride a horse before he could walk, thanks to his great-grandfather, a legendary hero or the cavalry during the First World War. And even before learning how to read, he was able to differentiate all of the herbal plants, thanks to his great-grand-mother, a healer who every year took him with her to the wonderful valleys of Tian-Shan to gather the “byline”, officinal herbs, and to drink ”kefir”, the mythical drink of nomadic shepherds that gives long life.
At the age of four, Marwin moved to Prague, in the very heart of another culture heavy with traditions and mysticism. Here, he approached the teaching of Holy Scriptures for the first time and became a devoted pupil of his grandfather Alvise Dov Liebeck. While still a boy he received his first schooling in Prague where he was able to absorb the rich cultural life of the city: theatres, art shows, galleries, and concerts. Dark reading rooms in public libraries or narrow labyrinths of the bookstores of Prague bursting with used and ancient books became the world where he loved to immerse himself in.
Nevertheless, the longing for the silence of the desert, rich in hidden tension, and the striking greenness of the high mountain spring meadows proved the stronger pull and Marwin returned to Bukhara at an age when he needed to choose his future.
He enrolled at the Institute for the Applied Arts and Craftsmanship, specializing in calligraphy. However, he soon realised that the entire Soviet system was enwrapped in a kind of sclerosis and he decided to rebel and escape.
He wandered through central Asia, occasionally working. He joined underground cultural movements and lived from day to day until one day he happened to step into a small craftsman’s shop in Ferghana, not very far away from his native Bukhara. Here, he met the man who would become his Master and spiritual guide: Hd. Daud al-Din Sharisbani, a humble house decorator and painter of miniatures who, as Marwin would later discover, was one of the last surviving members of the legendary congregation of dancing Dervish from Bukhara that was eliminated during Stalin’s reign of terror in the thirties.
Marwin studied and worked alongside his Master for several years. However, before crossing the threshold of that ancient gift of Sufism of “seeing the real world”, he had to make a promise, a kind of seal of devotion and a challenge at the same time, to not practice the Art until his 41st birthday, which is the supreme magic number in central Asian tradition.
After his long apprenticeship, Marwin retured to his nomadic life-style albeit this time with the clear aim of improving his own knowledge and capabilities. He lived with some horse sheperds on the mountain, he got to know the world of legends and story-telling, the voices for these stories being the „moldo“ – Tajik clairvoyants, Buryati exorcists, and Kyrgyz shamanist healers, learning from them the art of "mescheness" – the ancient way of mystic meditation.
Later on, he reunited with his family in Prague where he attended university, travelled to study in Europe and in the near East, he visited millenary kabbala centres in Safed and Sufist schools in Istambul.
Finally, he settled in Italy where for some years he did some fairly low-key jobs: decorator, lyrical theatre actor, cleaner, factory worker, railwayman, translator, teacher of languages, and horse breeder.
Time unfurled his promise: at the age of 41, Marwin returned to drawing and painting. In 2007, he organized his first informal art shows and he basically started the discipline where he successfully intertwines Oriental roots with the Italian world by creating Creative Archaeology.
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