between adriatic azure and peterburg patina

Leaving the Continent

2005-08-31T04:12:00.000+02:00

Well, it's approaching. I have already dipped under the 36-hour mark. At 13.30, Istanbul time, I will be departing from this side of the Bosphorus to Singapore. Starting to have mixed feelings about all of this. I really really want to go to Singapore and know that it will be a blast. However, all those feelings about my life going through a change, while not being doubted, have fallen by the wayside so that I may enjoy the twighlight hours of the European Excursion.

Today, I took another trip to the Turkish baths. I have met a great girl, Betsy, 26, who works for the military at Garmisch, very very near Bad Aibling. That is what got us talking and we haven't stopped since. Hanging out with someone with whom I have bonded so well is a great relief. Looking back, I want to sort of tally the good times and the bad. The good meet ups and the ugly ones.

March 4 - 11: Amanda...mediocre time that turns great then immediately nosedives.

Mid March: Meet Machie, invites me to stay at his apt with his roommies. Great guy. Only stay half a day. Meet up with three Americans: Noam, ?, ?, down in Matmata. Hang out for three days. Mixed feelings. Didn't bond so well. Meet Australian couple on ferry ride back to Trapani and hang out through Palermo. Very good people. Wish I could have met them earlier in the trip.

March 27 - April 1: Amanda, Kaisa, Victoria; nice group of girls. Good company. A little over the top on drama.

April 4 - 9: Amanda's place. Decending the levels of hell each day. Depart early in order to avoid burning alive.

April 11(12) - 18: Lanie, Codi, and Becky. Didn't hang out everyday but this is how long I was in Florence. Had a good time. A little hectic b/c of their clases. Spent last four days in a hostel. Hostel was absolutely horrible. Did not meet with anyone there except for a few minutes with an artist guy. Amiable but preoccupied, like me.

Last week and a half of April: Pick up things at Amanda's. Spend an afternoon. Much more pleasant experience. Meet Chris at Venice "hostel" that evening and hang out. Next day, hang out a little. Not much to talk about. Good guy. Really into basketball and claims that he is a damn good poker player. He seems that he would rather do that instead of become a doctor, like his father. On the train from Venice to Ljubljana, I meet a couple who have retired from their jobs but are also Peace Corps volunteers. They were wrapping up their service, which is located in the Moldavian province of Romania. He was an attorney and subsequent representative at the state level (democrat) and amateur sculptor. I forget what his wife did prior to the Peace Corps. I arrived in Zagreb that late night and the next day, went to Ravnice Youth Hostel. Met David, Canadian/American, happens to be traveling on his passport. He and I took in some of the Biennial Contemporary Music Festival, met a couple of Australian girls, and then hung out at Apartman Cafe and the Hemingway Bar. Hang out with him for a few days. Until the middle of the next month, I did not bond with anyone at Ravnice Youth Hostel. Mostly writing. I did; however, hang out with Marko. I met several of his friends, too. Daliborka, Vedrana, Fiki, etc. Went to a linguistics presentation. Went for drinks. Meetings were intermittent. Headed for Bucharest, via Belgrade, mid-May. Did not meet anyone.

Mid-May: return to Zagreb and hang out with Marko on occassion. I forget whether or not I meet Robert during this time or before I left for Bucharest. I bond with no one else. I head back east towards end of the month. Take train to Nis, meet Bulgarian girl, Christina. Nice girl, pretty. Too young. Also meet three Americans (Victoria also has French citizenship). Met her on the bus. Met Sebastian and Dave on the train to Sofia. From Sofia to Istanbul and Cappadocia, I hung out with several people between the three of them and others. When I return to Istanbul, I did not hang out.

In fact, it wouldn't be until June 10th, when I arrived to the Moldovan border, that I was invited to join a group of cadets, studying in Chisinau, to hang out. Unfortunately, the information was either stolen or lost. I am not sure which. While in Chisinau, I met two American girls, one a Peace Corps volunteer and the other was her friend. They invited me to eat dinner with them and so I met a gaggle of volunteers and then met Katya the next night. Went out on a date. Was okay. Was promising and then she annoyed me. My Hertz rental car died on our second date. I never called her back. Prolonged my stay by missing my train out of Chisinau. Accidentally met back up with the volunteers and hung out with them over the next three days. Great time. Leave Moldova and capitulate to an illness. Remain in Sighisoara over three or four days. Josh, Cindi, Alex. Great people. Two other Americans and some strange Brits.

July. Starts as a bad month. Never meet anyone in Amsterdam except for some stoned out kids. The next to last day in Den Haag I meet three girls: one from Romania and two from Macedonia. Nothing ever comes of it as I have not heard back from them. Was nice talking to them though. I arrive back in Split and immediately and accidentally find Coonoor and Jess. Meet Kevin. Hang for a few days. Great. Go to Trieste, meet Amanda. Mixed feelings. The first two nights are nice. Meet two English girls the second night and adds a lot of fun. From there on out, sort of blah. Mixed feelings. Say goodbye to her on July 12th. I leave the next day. From the 14th onwards for one month, save for the last day or two at the Pula Youth Hostel, I am never alone. Tons of fun, probably the most fun since I have started this trip. Movie Fest. Johnny, Tom, Yuranov, Maats, Rasmus, Norweigan guys and Swedish girls, Brian and his friend, Karlos(?). Meet Sasha and Anna and, unfortunately, Mel.

August: Johnny and Sasha. August 14th is the first day alone this month. August 15th, my b-day, Sasha arrives and remains for three days. Good times. Meet lots of people on my b-day. After August 17th, I am on my own. Was on my own until I arrived to Istanbul a few days ago, yesterday, in fact, when I started hanging out with Betsy. I did converse quite a bit with three Serbian girls in Belgrade at the hostel. We never hung out.

In putting this together, I just wanted to compile data and form an opinion of it from what I am seeing rather than relying on what I would like to think without thinking through the evidence first.

I would have to say, as far as meeting people goes, the first three months of this trip was not so hot. Half of the instances I have listed here are only meetings based on conversation, not spending days together. The group I met in Tunisia proved to be cold in many ways. That happens and I do not begrudge them. The worst hostel experience goes to the one in Florence. Absolutely no one was opening up...with me. I was there. I wanted to talk. I just went back to Lanie's. May was a little better. In really looking at the evidence, Marko and I did hang out and there was that one time I met Daliborka. Marko was very and is very busy with work. So, most of May was passed without much company. However, I did not mind because I was busy writing.

June...Turkey, Moldova, Sighisoara...great times, punctuated by a lot of alone time. Getting better at not having to be lonely and on the other hand not being inundated by people.

July...August...have been amazing months in terms of what I have wanted out of this trip. Not everything but close. If these two months are any indication of how the rest of the trip proceeds, then I have a lot of fun to look forward to.

European Saturation

2005-08-27T00:12:00.000+02:00

It's not that I have had it with Europe, it's that I have had it with having so much Europe. I am one who, while being content to go and explore, is easily bored and tends toward whims if possible. This time, I am headed to Singapore. That decision was made final when I bought the airline tickets about three weeks ago in Zagreb. It was raining outside.

Rain.

Rain.

It has been a very rainy summer. Just as when I was here three summers ago, the center of Europe is being gripped in torrential rainfall and subsequent floods. This time it is much more extensive. I arrived to Europe on the cusp of a snowstorm. Three days into my travels, I was mired in eight inches of snow along the canals of Venice. Now that I am preparing to head by train to Istanbul, I leave a thoroughly drenched region to my north, praying that this does not slow me down in my need to arrive in old Constantinople.

This may be my last post for this weblog. I will soon discontinue, though maintain it. I can't be 'balkan around europe' if I am in southeast Asia.

To Europe, a great place to hover and discover for six months! Certainly, I stole of to Tunisia and Anatolia, but only for one week and two days, respectively. You are my first in international travel. You have kept me 26 months of my 28 years. Longer than most places. In my heart, even longer. I run off now to SouthEast Asia, first to Singapore, then possibly anywhere after...perhaps to the ruins of Angkor Wat, the Forbidden City or the Great Wall of China, even. What of Lake Baikal? But wait and don't worry. I must return to you one day.

Ciao Croatia

2005-08-20T19:17:00.000+02:00

I left from Zagreb this morning at 00.12 in a crowded train with a cabin full of travelers.

I have had some mixed emotions about the departure. I didn't to leave. But I knew I had to. Part of me says to get back on that train, what the hell am i thinking? and to spend more time there. just be more frugal with the funds. that would mean the omladinski. but stop! this isn't going to happen! i am continuing in a southeasterly direction. I have become a juggernaut and cannot be suppressed. What remains to be seen is whether I will travel through Bulgaria from Macedonia or to Romania from here. Where in between?

Where I go from Istanbul is wholly unfamiliar to me. Save Abhi and Ash. I am excited but a little disconcerted, too.

I was never good with farewells, so Croatia, all I will say is ciao. dovidenja.

Where to in the interim

2005-08-07T20:36:00.000+02:00

do i go see macedonia, or do i rent a car in sarajevo and tool about seeing the places that i patrolled when i was in the army.

This is how the coutry was divided for the NATO troops deployed there. I was in the northeast sector from April 1999 to March 2000.

Unfortunately, and time and distance does this, I have lost contacts with all the people, both local nationals and military, alike, from my time there. However, the cities and the culture remains, and I would like to see how it has changed in my more than five years away. Or maybe I'll just let it be what it was and not go back. I tend to do that with my past.

The next major port of entry will find me landing in Singapore. The plan, though it will probably change, has me going north through SE Asia, up to China, Mongolia, hanging out in Siberia and then over to European Russia. The terminus of my trip is far off and only Heaven knows when I will make it back home to the States. Maybe not for a few years. (I have had this fantasy of not returning to America for decades, finding odd jobs and writing about my experiences around the globe).

running on silent mode

2005-08-02T14:47:00.000+02:00

one month. 31 days. i can't believe it's been that long since i have written. catercorner across the Continent and here i am, back in Pula, where i have been habitating and relaxing for the past 20 of those 31 days.

this picture (not my own), does not justice to how beautiful and amazing the town of Pula really is.

this is where i attended the 52nd annual Pula Film Festival. every night there were two features, the first Croatian and the second foreign, presented here beginnning at 21.30. an amazing structure, 2000 years old (approx.) and last night there was an Anastasia concert held here. didn't attend.

all that aside, i am leaving here tomorrow. the beaches, the people (how many have i met?), and soon enough it will be croatia that i leave for a very long time.

Den Haag ain't as bad as it sounds

2005-07-01T22:37:00.000+02:00

Okay, hate me if you're Dutch, but the way the language sounds when spoken does sound a little strange...I suppose it's that I'm not that use to really guttural languages.

Anyway, I left Amsterdam and all its attendant potential, near disasters. That's right...good-bye smoke shops (coffee shop, my ass!) and smart shops (no, they don't smell smartie candies) and red-light, red-hot panties district, and all the other immature shit and people, whether you're a German high school kid who dresses like you belong in the red light district or some 50 year-old Canadian dude opining, in an attempt to get attention from two Australian chicks, about the horrors of cops pulling you over in the totalitarian nation of the USA. So, whether they were suffering from mid-life crises or quarter-life crises (what the hell is that?!, c'mon, are we gonna have quarter-mid-life crises next?)

To hell with Amsterdam! Den Haag (The Hague, in English) is a big city with a definite small town feel and combines amazing old-world charming architecture with modern steel skyscrapers that actually look pretty damn amazing. Been here for about eight hours and already a fan.

The Uneasy Lowness of the Dollar

2005-06-29T22:56:00.000+02:00

All be amsterdamned...even though the dollar is back down to $1.21 to the Euro (was $1.36 when I was in Bologna and Florence), it is very very expensive here. I just dropped 100 Euros today. Of course, I bought two books: one by Murakami and another by Palahniuk (sp?).

I miss 50 cents per hour internet (the cheapest I have found here is nearly five times that at the EasyEverything Internet centers, which seem to have taken a bad run of luck and they are no longer 24 hours and not in as many cities as they were before. Step aside Paula Cole, you and your cowboys, I have a song to sing...Where have all the cheap internet cafes gone? Not that I really listen to Paula Cole...just the unfortunate circumstance of having to listen to her whine ever other song on the radio back in Colorado Springs about six, maybe, seven years ago) that was featured all over the Balkans, except for Croatia. It's a dollar there.

nothing really to note...

2005-06-29T22:32:00.000+02:00

Not Amsterdam but NYC. Just another big city that I am visiting; however, the gritty feel, the interminable stench of pot and piss through the streets is beginning to rack my nerves. I have been here before and each time (this is my third), it really gets worse. I don't know what to think of here. I am beginning to think that this place is damn near the edge of the earth. All her shame brought to show on her sidewalks from the beaten prostitute to the gaggles of tourists peering into the pink flourescent-lit windows wondering, licking their lips and wondering what may just lie (take that either way) on the other side of that fortress made of thin cotton. Her ominous yet inviting architecture, famous mad artists, beautiful canals and vast tracts of cobble and tracks of tramlines portends potential transformation in more ways than you or I could imagine. What is it you expected to find when you passed by here? Some questions are best left unknown and some regions of life whether on earth or inside our heads may need to be explored with better care. As for me, I think that I will take my leave of this place soon. Bruges, Belgium may be more my speed.

Bratislava...en route to Amsterdam

2005-06-28T01:22:00.000+02:00

The beautiful, rolling mountains of Transylvania have left me with a gift...a bug bite that has swelled across the back half of the upper half of my left forearm. The description is a bit excessive and klunky; however, I just want you to know what I have had to witness while I was on the night train, unable to sleep all night. Once the sun started to lift itself up from slumber, then I began to find my own...piecemeal-speaking. I still need to rest but the changeover from one bank card to another has given me an appreciation for the smooth handover of power from one administration to the other; while, if having my way, I would have raised and army and sacked every last godd*med ATM in Bratislava and declared my own bank. Being exhausted, I realize that I am starting to write my friends very lofty emails that are more for my own amusement than their concern. My friend Tim tells me he has decided not to by a house in Wyoming and perchance may apply for law school in Laramie in 2007 and I reply with a loquacious essay about my sex...but I haven't lost sight of reason nor have I forsaken good judgement, in total.

I look forward to returning to an EU nation that is truly Westernized. Nothing against Bratislava, how can I have anything against her? for I have remained indoors most of the day typing away about some obscure events concerning bank accounts and a greedy bug bite which has quite an appetite and greediness about it. However, the immune system has kicked back into full production and this invasive growth is about to be vanquished. And I will be out of a land still somewhat stuck between a sickle and a hammer.

Budapest

2005-06-27T09:24:00.000+02:00

I am transiting through this beautiful capital and thinking that I need to return one day to actually see what it's all about. My "layover" in Sighisoara had what seems to be a typical effect on my as I was moved by its scenery to remain there for three nights instead of just passing through.

Anyway, time to get moving on to Bratislava. You will see a post from there.

sighisoara

2005-06-24T20:18:00.000+02:00

that's the name. sounds like a pop star but looks absolutely classical. just wanted to note that i have had some bump-ins with several three or four removed acquaintances. one is from New York and was in the Army for fourteen years. The other two are from different states, originally, however, they both went to and graduated from IUB and now ended up in the same place as I. more to follow.

First day of summer

2005-06-21T23:05:00.000+02:00

Today is day 113.

(sing along) I'm leaving...on a cargo train...dododeedodo...

2005-06-21T19:36:00.000+02:00

Plans change. Though I am happy to have stayed a few extra days within the country. I wanted to visit a village but couldn't this time around. However, I should have ample opportunity in Russia when I finally get there. When will that be? I have no clue. It seems that I do more flying by the seat of my pants on this trip than anything else. Too bad I don't have frequent flyer kilometers for this! Then again, God knows where that would land me!

I've decided that Romania, a quick overview and as interesting as it may be for blog purposes, will have to be jettisoned as a course of action. I am going to leap frog the homeland of Vlad Tepes, yes, that irrestible rascal otherwise known as Dracula, and end up in either Budapest or Bratislava. Probably try for Bratislava to be honest. I had planned a flight through www.skyeurope.com but won't make it back in time to Split to catch the plane. Bummer, though when I was thinking about it, I knew it would be more expensive to catch that plane than go there by train (Bratislava, that is). At this rate, I probably won't make it in time to see all the sites in Vienna and Bratislava because I have a plane to catch to Amsterdam on the 28th and then head back July 5th to Croatia where I will probably remain for the rest of the summer.

Just finished checking the best damn railway website ever, www.bahn.de, yeah! it's a German site, but you can have your options in English and it's wonderfully helpful.

I'm leaving here, unless something better presents itself before then, at 17.10 or 5.10pm for those non-former-military types. Right now, I plan on getting into Bucharest (Bucuresti) around 6AM but having to wait around eleven unholy hours in that shithole of a train station. Maybe I can run off to check out some sites or sit down and right up what I haven't all month long...my journal entries. Nevertheless, the earliest I can catch the next train to Bratislava is around 5pm that evening. That puts me in Bratislava - hopefully the arrival is on-time, so I can catch my connection - at about 9AM on the 24th, a day later than I would arrive there by plane. That will be the next entry most likely and so you will hear from me then.

Kept in Chisinau

2005-06-20T11:02:00.000+02:00

You'd think that maybe, just maybe four years in the Army and that I'd know the difference between 17.10 and 7.10pm. You'd be wrong and obviously so was I and I'm still in Chisinau, still purportedly the greenest city in the former USSR. However, some things did change and in a turn most surrendipitous, I bumped into a group of Peace Corp volunteers that I had the evening I came back from Tiraspol': Andy, Jill, Erin, and Margot (sp?). A new member was added - Heather. I was happy to be back in good company even after I got shot down when I asked the pizza delivery girl out on a date the day before and she said come back tomorrow. Well, tomorrow became today which writing this is now yesterday and getting shot down didn't bother me at all. No, I had a beer and half a pizza with a good group of folk and some pretty damn good conversation to wrap up the night. And as it seems, I have an invite to some village life here in Moldova so my one week here is spawning into two and should prove pretty entertaining. I guess I'll make it to Vienna just in time to catch my plane to Amsterdam. Bratislava and her baroque sister to the west will have to wait for mid-August.

Back to Bucharest

2005-06-19T15:28:00.000+02:00

It's not that I really want to but I'm going to end up back in Bucharest. That means another half-day spent in a train station. This is not what I wanted, either. Bucharest has to be the most depressed capital. Of course, you would be, too, if Ceacescu had been your step-daddy for twenty-five years. The city is slowly waking from the more than two-decade long dream (nightmare as lived by the populace) to a reality of a devastated economy and depressed downtown area. This is why I am not going much further than Gara du Nord. Anyway, it's off to wrap up a roll of film and then have a cigarette and a cup of coffee before hitting the tracks again.

Tiraspol' - Chisinau Green Without the Charm

2005-06-19T04:09:00.000+02:00

When I first laid eyes, after a few hundred sighs of relief, on the Tiraspol scene, I was looking upon a disaster of civic works proportions. The poverty was stark and the best quality of services that were provided were food and newspaper kiosks along side the road. A quick stroll just a few blocks away from the train station is witness to a monument, randomly placed, alongside a post office with the profile of Lenin and the ubiquitous hammer and sickle along with the faces of people who had been named heroes of some sort or another. I wanted to go closer to take a picture but after having been warned copious time about getting arrested for taking pictures of anything but religious sites (or at least having to bribe my way out of trouble), I figured against. The train station was swarming with a hive-full of military-types that looked like shit-kickers seeking an excuse to jettison their boredom under a sun almost as oppressive as the regime they're serving.

Just down the road is a park that has been overrun like Russian tanks over the Prague Spring. The greenery seems to be pulling all the stops in an attempt to assert itself over any concrete which has been laid. Vis-a-vis with the main park, Saint Stephan, in Chisinau - as my Let's Go Eastern Europe guidebook has quoted someone else as saying, "is the greenest city in the USSR" - has its lawns of green nicely mowed, trees trimmed and churches completely built. Whereas in the Tiraspol park, one Orthodox church is being built at the moment. I happened upon an elderly lady tending to weeding the area around the construction site with what I can only assume was her granddaughter and asked about the site. She told me that the church was in fact being built, God-willing. Funny, God and Lenin, an unlikely alliance that may mark a Fifth Way in political philosophy (the fourth way being yielded already to G. I. Gurdjieff). In fact, along the circle the spins out of the train station and into the center of the city, I found a placard with a blessing to the Holy Virgin with the name of the street above it, which was so ironically named Lenin.

After departing the battle between nature, Communism, construction, and God, I meandered back to the train station where I jumped upon a microbus (small vans that ferry people along the the sea of roads and rail criss-crossing the city), to the center of the city, which boasts a fine equestrian (and thankfully, not so Soviet realist interpretation) of Suvorov in the Napoleanic style rising above the city-scape - though not so high as Lenin, whose full bust in full Soviet Realist style rises in front of the State building - somewhat rose, somewhat pink, in a pensive yet ominous demeanor rises above a city yet unable to move beyond his philosophic failures.

Across the street, I found my way to a cemetery honoring the dead of the Afghan conflict that consumed so many lives, always young and full of what only we can conjecture. An eternal flame rises in memory of them. But for what? An empty nation? Kurt Vonnegut is reported as once having said, "all soldiers are my brothers." And thus I gave my respects to those dashed dreams for we all know that is the young who perish for the mistakes of any nation.

The rest of the day, I spent in a few cafes, trying to speak with people, which didn't work. I went to a church, which made me wonder about how the government can reconcile Marxist-style communism with religion. Mother Mary and Marx. The church wasn't anything outstanding, though a beautiful interior with some pretty icons. Back to the picture-taking. As I was a little concerned earlier about snapping some covert pics of the Lord Lenin, I was wondering if just walking around with a camera - as my Pentax is not the most inconspicuous of fotoaparats - would not get me into trouble, if not arrested, and I was running out of roubles. However, nothing happened.

I was able to steal away back to the train station, coveting pics of a full statue of Lenin, the military cemetery, and a bust of Lenin, which was being adored by a middle-aged woman; this meaning that Communism and its desire for a return to its "glory days" still remains in the hearts of many people in this de facto nation. I became lost trying to navigate my way back to the train station to find either a bus or a train back to the safer side of the west. Didn't happen. I kept looking all over the place, sitting down for a few minutes at a cafe, then finally, after about an hour and several sets of directions later, finding the train station.

The train for Chisinau was leaving at 9:30 pm, which was too late and too risky considering that I had just spoken with some members of the Tiraspol Train Station Militia upstairs about the fiasco of losing 200 leu on the train ride in. Short story even shorter. I go upstairs after some explanation in pained Russian to only have the officer-in-charge ask me about the police in America and whether or not they really do beat the hell out of their people. I just asked if I could tell him what happened, feigning humor the best I could but being cautious all the same knowing that I had my camer with me as well and knowing that he could turn on me at any moment if he wanted to. There were about six officers in the office (a 4x4 meter room) all surrounding me and I just wanted to get the hell out of there knowing that this was an awful idea. After his joke about people getting roughed up in America, he told me to be careful on the train ride back - this is what dissuaded me from such conveyance on the return - by slowly mimicking with his index finger a knife going across his throat accompanied by a haughty eruption of laughter from all around. I could feel the heat of their hysterical lava rushing towards me and growing even more intense as this officer asked me if I was transporting rockets and if I was a spy with my camera and what I took pictures of and all the while holding my own stating that I had 200 leu taken from me on the train and what could be done about that. Then he tells me a few things he likes about Trandniester: their vodka, mainly. I joke a little, "haha. Well, how about some? Where can I find it?" and so they laugh even more, I feel a little more at ease; however, not really. He tells me all over the place - I already knew this - "but be careful, otherwise you'll end up in here!" Here was a cage that serves as the Tiraspol drunk tank. I laughed and not because I though his comments were all that funny but I wanted to say to someone, anyone, that "yeah, he has absolutely no intention of wanting to help me." They let me go back downstairs. They kept laughing.

Outside, I met an elderly babushka bearing a row of medals on the breat pockets of her jacket while she was yelling at the militiaman about train times. Orders of Lenin. Orders of other things, communist.

Time to leaven Tiraspol, Chisinau green without the charm. I caught a microbus back to the other capital, praying that I would make it across the border. Once again, this country is really confusing with realizing where its borders are. The wait for us to leave caused me to sweat out two liters of water, I couldn't spare anymore. Too bad. Once on the border, I had to get out - no entry documentation, which raised the ire of the border guards - and explain why I didn't have any such identification. The microbus driver, who was probably among the most genial of people I met in the rebel republic, joked with me a little about it once I left the guard post. "How much did you have to pay?" he laughed a little. He was aware of the corruption that goes on. "Nothing!" I smiled. I had to explain to the men that I had my entry documentation taken by a guy who demanded 200 leu from me for entry who then did not reissue me such papers. I suppose they felt sorry for me and then let me go.

The rest of the evening was spent watching the sun set over the beautiful green Moldovan hills and farm pastures that dotted the horizon.

A few final thoughts about the country coming shortly...

Don't Cross Me!

2005-06-19T04:02:00.000+02:00

One of the more interesting aspects of Eastern Europe is that it has more splinters than a wood pile. Transdniester, otherwise known as Приднестровьская Молдавская Республика (Transdniestrian-Moldavan Republic) is one that is pricking the side of the Moldovan government as I type. Some quick background: the breakaway "republic" - it was never and still is not recognized by any other nation - fought a quickie conflict with Moldova, which still claims it, in 1992. This, over fears that the majority population, which is ethnically Romanian, would choose to join its neighbor to the west. Those in the disputed territory are for the most part ethnically Russian and still do not wish to join with Romania. Since that time, nastiness has been relegated to dirty-name calling (Russian from the eastern side and Moldovan from the western) and throwing empty vodka bottles at each other across the Dniester river. Not a government to sit around and wait for international recognition and a posh nice little office at the UN, the leaders took to printing their own currency, stamps, maintaining their ubiquitous military, as well as a less alacrious border patrol. As their coinage bears the infamous hammer and sickle, they remain the sole desert (or bastion if you're a diehard Red) of communism in Europe. As the Iron Curtain was clawed down by many of the fat cats who raised the dreary drapes in the first place, the Transdniestrians host what may be the largest open air museum of Soviet realist sculpture in the form of their otherwise anti-social former Soviet socialist city of Tiraspol, the makeshift capital. Alas, the rumors of every bust of Lenin east of Berlin having been beaten into powder has been greatly exaggerated. While everyone in the former Soviet Union, all the way from Krakow to Vladivostok busied themselves taking the hammer and sickle to every one of Lenin's heads, the people of Tiraspol were polishing the father of the Russian Revolution's spartan scalp, which in reality yielded about as much as any Five-Year Plan.

My journey to Tiraspol begins a few days before I plan to head there. Everyone warns me against it, even websites and travel guides. Non-essential travel should be avoided but such phrases when read cause are prone to cause a release of adrenaline in any traveler and so I became even more resolute in my decision to see what this seperatist republic was all about. However, I figured that the lack of a consulate in that land could bode very unwell for me and such a risk the first time visiting a "micronation" (wikipedia.com's term) and so I decided on just an afternoon of travel to feel the waters (of the Dniester).

That afternoon in Tiraspol, which is not too far from the capital Chisinau (Кишенёв), begins at the main railway station, which once through the station selling a packet of Marlborough Lights for less than a buck and track-side, is a very clean and comfortable area hosting sterile benches and a few cafes. However, there are two types of toilets in most Moldovan public places: seatless and Turkish. Please note if you are a woman traveling here or a just a guy with a gastrointestinal track run amok. This place was no exception however heavenly. The train rolls up and takes me away across green praries and farm fields alongside which rise up impoverished houses halfway dilapidated teeming with peasants yielding scythes and walking their cows across potholed two-lane highways. On the train, I was in a sleeper car which had mattresses floating all over the place along with pillows and seemed like a sort of trailer on wheels, like one of the semis with the "Wide Load" sign that has the car with flashing orange lights behind and in front of it. Inside, a group of people all Murmansk-bound. One of them, Angela (Анжела), begins talking with me in French. The two words I know in that language are expended within the first two seconds "non francais." Everyone figures me for anything but American and some of the attitude that I get once I let them in on my true identity makes me to envy those backpackers who play it safe, as well as cliche, by sewing a Canadian flag onto their rucksacks, backpacks, and anything else to deny their true nationality. After a few moments, I begin muster some Russian with her. At this point, I feel like absolute shit because I can't handle the heat (in Russian), in which I have recieved my BA. Of course, it doesn't help that Croatian has totally taken over, conducting a total linguistic offensive reminiscent of their all-out assault late in the Bosnian war, nearly overrunning the Serbs and the Bosniacs. Well, in my universe, Croatian has totally succeeding in overrunning Russian. Russian doesn't know what to think playing second fiddle to a little Adriatic lingua but at least it does better than get by as with a few words of Deutsch. All be damned if they had to play third-fiddle to damned Deutsch. Anyways, Angela and I spoke about what I was seeing here in Moldova, what she was doing in Moldova - she never said, only said that she was born here, received a PhD in philosophy and history and then taught both subjects at the university level, and why was I going to Tiraspol. I guess their bad rap has been sung in all directions and across all borders. We spoke about family: she has a daughter, Anna (Аня), and a brother who recently passed away from lung cancer. She had some pictures on her to document the funeral which was approached with anthropological coldness (even after having lost my mother, father, and a paternal grandmother; I do not know how to be comforting when confronting others who have lost) when looking at the still lifes of tear-sodden son, wife, and mother, clinging in a futile attempt to hold onto someone who is lost to them. I told her of my mother (and I suppose this where others approach others' losses with coldness as well) and she responded by speaking only of her brother's passing.

At about this time, some border guards come on the train and I mistake them for the Transdniestrian horde that is notoriously rumored to terrorize the trainside where travelers pass. No bribes, no guns, no excessive questioning, no worries. Angela and I continue talking about her teaching of philosophy and she tells me that she aslo taught religion and I wondered if she had been a professor at one of those smaller colleges that might combine classes: The History of Religious Philosophy or Kant and Catholicism through History. Soon enough, the Dniester river rolls into view and I can see that we are coming upon Bender, a city whose namesake is unintentionally the same as the Futurama character. I thought is was funny and inconsequential and gave a laugh that Angela couldn't track but soon came to realize that the city with all its derelict factories and metalworks hanging out among the countryside, the namesake more than fit.

Five minutes later the laughing ended. A gaggle of men walked into the car, sporting the usual blouse (fatigue-term, no...if these not-so-gentlemen were sporting a sort of cabaret-style uniform, this story which would have a much funnier twist that you are about to find) without the undershirt, the exposed "V" of each one's chest baring a fully blackforested terrain whose underbrush had probably not seen sun, nor soap, in years. The first one came to collect the official tariff for entry - seven leu, which is about 60 U.S. cents. Not bad, I thought. Yeah, some scary border crossing. I suppose things had settled down. Maybe I should have brought my better camera than my 35 mm Pentax SLR. In fact, I'm kind of sorry that things still aren't a little the same. I wouldn't really have minded paying the 30 leu bribe ($2.50) to get across the border. I guess my inside voice should just shut the hell up next time. After the more diminutive border guard had passed, taking my tariff and then handing me my entry document, a more grievous, bullish looking brute rolled up, asking for my identification - this is former Communist land after all, so I wasn't suprised, except there were no guns with the other guy and now there were guns...enough to make up for any lost nostalgic feeling of tediously terrifying border crossings. Well, I got mine and so did the border guards. He took my entry documentation, my passport and me up to the front of the car. He asked me if I understood Russian and I said "well, you're about a 90 rpm, I need you at a 45 rpm." Not really, otherwise I probably would have to be typing this with one hand; however, I asked him to speak slowly and so he just takes off like the Indy 500 leaving me in the dust of unintelligibility slurring his syllables like the spectators do their cheers. He then asks me how much money I have and fearing a fully body strip search - oh, how the scene went from congenial to menial to corruptive and menacing, like Gen. Ratko Mladic at Srebrenica - and so I tell him a rough figure after commission ;) and then Angela comes up front and speaks on my behalf and the guy just says to hell with it, he isn't allowing me entry. Angela argues with him saying I'm a student - she knew I wasn't - and that I just want to photograph monasteries - he had seen my camera. Nope. Isn't gonna happen. I walk back to my seat to collect a few of my things and my new acquaintance from Murmansk tells me that I should just pay about 30 leu. Is this price common knowledge? He comes up - and obviously the desire to get into this de facto nation tapeworming itself along the eastern belly of Moldova must have shot up recently - he asks me for 200 leu (approx $17!). I tell him how about 100 leu and he says no. Note: border crossings are not known for bargain deals. And so this Transdniestrian dick steals away with 200 of my leu...and my entry document, which in my stunned state, I forgot to ask to have back. Keep this in mind for later!

We're all back in our seats and everyone is just looking at me wondering why the hell I just didn't get off the train and wait. And of course, I'm wondering if I shouldn't have done the same thing because now I have spent enough for renting an apartment in Chisinau for a night! Angela looks at me with those pitiful eyes and I'm thinking, "yeah, yeah, yeah!" Everyone's laughing because at least they didn't get taken like this POOR fool. However, everyone's really worried for me, telling me to hide my camera, not to talk to anyone in Tiraspol, call up the embassy - well, we already covered that one. I was a little concerned about what would happen to me once I walked off the train and onto the platform. Would I be shot? be made to bow to one of Lenin's proletarian hats hoisted upon a pole and swear allegiance to it? be fined? be confiscated in my entirety? Such questions were quickly answered once we arrived in Tiraspol and I ran off the train, onto the platform, speed walking all the way just outside of the gate of the Gara (вокзал). No one stopped me or even inquired anything of me with even their eyes. I changed my Moldovan leu into Trandniestrian roubles and ran off in search of these so-called remaining vestiges of Soviet Communist kitsch.

more to come...

About Photos

2005-06-19T02:18:00.000+02:00

I'm a fan of film photography. I know I should have put aside my feelings and listened to my more pragmatic side and purchased a digital option in addition to my film cameras. Alas, there are no pictures, which I can post with my blogs - at the moment. However, I am going to work on developing my pictures and then upload them as I travel. I will update as that happens.

Chisinau and again

2005-06-18T23:26:00.000+02:00

Either I'm sick or the weather is. Now, this probably isn't the best way to begin a blog, no doubt the premiere feature, but I feel like complaining about a few things and then I realize that I am in Eastern Europe where entropy has more seats in Parliament than the ruling party (all hues of Communist red) and the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Murphy's Law are the only laws of the land. And my friend, Chris, once wrote to me in an email - at the time, I was stationed at Fort Hood, which is in the middle of nowhere Texas and whose only saving grace is that it is an hour away from Austin - that he wished his life sucked like mine so he could be funny, too. The funny part is debatable but what is not is that the more decrepit the environs into which I place myself, usually at all the wrong hours by walking off the train, provide some of the best stories I could think up. Have fun with the following posts and leave me comments. I tell myself I want to go to law school but that's only because nothing better has come along and certainly National Geographic isn't beating down my hostel/hotel door with bundles of back issues begging me to come shoot a roll of Hasseblad 6x6 for them. AP is not expletive-friendly. If all else fails, Eastern Europe, along with my military training, will help prepare me for the brutal battlefield of first-year law school.

between adriatic azure and peterburg patina

2005-06-18T20:10:00.000+02:00

between adriatic azure and peterburg patina

And you know who you are

2005-06-18T19:35:00.000+02:00

i love you. sometimes i wish i couldn't because it hurts.