Central & Eastern Europe: A Travel Roundup

Global Voices Online
Thursday, November 13, 2008

Olive harvesting in Albania, John Paul II monuments in Poland, a Soviet military hardware "cemetery" in Moscow, and more: Central and Eastern Europe-based bloggers share their recent travel observations and photos.

Albania

- Stepping Stones has posted photos of two elderly Albanian village women: the first one is harvesting olives in "the old-fashioned way"; the second one has her black apron filled with "tiny daisies," which she is picking for a local company and gets paid less than $1 per kilo.

Also, Stepping Stones has spent some time at the ancient city of Apollonia and visited the Ardenice Orthodox Christian monastery:

[...] Ardenice is an old Orthodox monastery which was saved from destruction during the times of totalitarianism. 4 monks still live and work there but they were away at the seminary today so we didn't get to see them. The site has been 'reclaimed' in recent years and is being well maintained and lovingly restored after being used for everything from a restaurant to a small hotel. [...]

- Kolin of Living in Shkodër has been jogging around the city lately - "seeing 'normal' Albanian life," getting "LOTS of really strange looks" and taking pictures of the old doors to private houses:

[...] There are many of these and one street could have about 20 different kinds of doors. It is the old wooden doors that I really like.

I think to myself, what kind of story could these doors tell us if only they could speak. [...]

Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia

Balkanology Blog has posted some photos of Croatia and, following a tip from a fellow blogger (Stuart Pinfold), wrote about "the eccentricities of Google Maps in giving driving directions between certain points in Southeast Europe."

First, there is Google's Dubrovnik-Mostar route:

[...] Instead of the conventional 150-kilometre drive that less creative mapping software might recommend, Google suggests a more adventurous approach: a ferry to Italy, some driving, another ferry to Greece, and more driving through Greece, the entire length of Albania, Montenegro, and finally Bosnia. At 1541 kilometres it's a mere 10 times longer than the usual route - and so much more interesting. [...]

Then, there is the Split-Dubrovnik route:

[...] Sure enough, Google's answer does involve a drive along the Adriatic Coast - unfortunately it is on the other side of the Adriatic, between Bari and Pescara [in Italy]. [...]

And there is also the Split-Zagreb route:

[...] The result was even more surprising: "We could not calculate directions between split, croatia and zagreb, croatia." [...]

And the Belgrade-Podgorica route:

[...] Closer inspection of the driving directions reveals the problem: Google wants us to head southeast for 150km, turn around, and drive back to the outskirts of Belgrade on the same road before finally taking the correct road towards Montenegro. [...]

The author of Balkanology Blog gave up at this point, but Stuart Pinfold - the blogger who first discovered the confusion - shared some more results of Google Maps destination searches in the comment section to this post.

The Czech Republic

The Journeys of Captain Oddsocks writes about the town of Svitavy - which, among other things, is the birthplace of Oscar Schindler, the man "credited with saving the lives of over 1000 Jewish people towards the end of World War II":

[...] The Schindler home is at Poličská Ul. 24 but is still a family residence and therefore inaccessible to the public. It’s marked only by a small stone memorial in the park across the street.

[...]

One block south of the main square, the Svitavy city museum dedicates an entire wing to the story of Schindler and his Jews. Most of the displays take the form of documents and photographs and are neatly displayed in white on black panels. There are also several items exhibited in glass cases - prisoners’ uniforms, identity cards, food stamps and so on [...].

In another post, Captain Oddsocks writes about his "love/hate relationship" with "tourist information offices in the Czech Republic" and offers some tips on how "to make sure their visitors, however few or many, have such a wonderful stay that they want to go away and spread the word without being asked":

[...] I say that because I think, even though foreign tourists have been coming here freely for almost 20 years, the Czech Republic remains drastically underrated and underappreciated. Most people only go to Prague. [...]

Latvia

Latvian photographer Arnis Balcus posts photos of Latvia's oldest movie theater, Rīga, founded in 1923:

[...] It is probably also the only cinema in the country that still hires an artist to paint film ads.

Poland

- Polandian writes about the fast-growing population of Pope John Paul II statues in Poland:

[...] There are now 228 known public statues of Jan Pawel in Poland (this guy keeps a record). The Pope only died three years ago. According to a calculation I just pretended to do, if the production of Pope statues continues at this rate there will be more marble John Pauls than actual Polish people by about 2025. [...]

[...]

Kitsch is the word that springs, unfortunately, to mind. You have to wonder what John Paul would have thought of all this idolatry, and you have to conclude that it wouldn’t have been positive. [...]

- 20 east explores Warsaw landmarks connected to Heinrich, count von Brühl - the palace at Saski Square and the palace in Młociny:

[...] We’ve walked past it many times but not ventured over the fence. The other weekend, I went out for a walk alone into the wilder parts of the neighbouring land and after working my way around a small lake and then up a steep slope I found myself standing face to face with the palace without having to deliberately break any boundaries. I imagined the place would be deserted but I think there’s a caretaker living in the north wing because I saw a tricycle parked there (visible in the next picture) and curtains in the windows. There’s a weird looking guy, about 45 years old, rides around the neighbourhood on a tricycle made for a 6 year old. I thought he was just the local mutant but it seems he might be the palace caretaker. [...]

Russia

- Eagle and the Bear writes about "a strange assemblage of Soviet military hardware" at Khodynka Field in Moscow - here and here:

[...] Listen up, kids — this kind of thing doesn’t happen in America or Europe: A completely unsupervised collection of Soviet air power, Hinds and MIGs, relics that once hunted down Afghani goat-herders now at your disposal for war games and stupid pictures. [...]

LJ user akry has also devoted several posts (RUS) to Khodynka military hardware "cemetery" and has posted over a hundred photos taken there:

[...] We were shocked by what we saw there. The once mighty, beautiful machines have been left to rot under the rain, their blister windows broken, their insides sticking out... And these are the helicopters and aircrafts that used to protect us... [...]

Serbia

- A Yankee-in-Belgrade writes about the "long and tumultuous history" of Serbia's capital:

[...] When the Scordisci (a Celtic tribe) set uptheir stronghold Singidunum at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers in the third century, the city at the "crossroads of the worlds" had been already been conquered by the Byzantines, the Gepidae, the Sarmatians, the Eastern Goths, the Slavs, the Avars, the Francs, the Bulgarians, the Hungarians, the Ottomans, the Austrians, the Germans... each of whom gave the city their respective names: Singedon, Nandor, Fehervar, Nandor Alba, Alba Graeca, Grieschisch Weisenburg, Alba Bulgarica, Taurunum... However, its Slavic name Belgrade, meaning White City, has lasted the longest. [...]

- At the Balkan Crew, GV author Danica Radovanovic writes about places she loves best in Belgrade:

[...] 2. Markets, open lively markets with food and other goods. Someone said that you have to go first to the open market when you visit some city in order to know better the soul of the city and its habitants, people who live there. [...]

- Viktor Markovic of Belgraded.com writes that the travel tips he shared in The Guardian last week "are a good sneak preview of what's coming soon at Belgraded - a series of articles entitled 'Hundred things to do in Belgrade'." Viktor invites readers to contribute their own "top secret Belgrade tips."

Albania: Homemade Raki

Global Voices Online
Tuesday, October 24, 2006


"...After two weeks, the grapes were ready to be turned into raki. First they were loaded into the still..." - Step by step, Our Man in Tirana shows how a container full of homegrown grapes eventually yields 12 liters of homemade raki.

Notes on Montenegro and Transnistria

Global Voices Online
Friday, September 22, 2006

In his yesterday's Balkans Blog Roundup, Ljubisa Bojic quoted this passage on Montenegro by a Serbian blogger:

[...] I know how things operate down there. Its also a privatised state - I wonder how long it will be before the Europeans become intolerant of all those Russian businessmen who own hotels and casino's on the coast. EU membership doesnt come for free.

According to a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, "worries about Russian investors are the talk in many Montenegrin cafes and bars": "[...] Russian Federation investors are sixth, after central European countries and Britain, with 2.7 percent of investments here over the past four years."

One Russian blogger - Sergei, LJ user dromo, 27, a native of Moscow - now lives in a coastal town of Budva, Montenegro, selling real estate. Here's how he ended up there (RUS):

Before [moving to Montenegro], for eight years I worked in big companies like Beeline, R-Style, IBS. But at some point I got tired of being a [tiny part] in a huge mechanism, and I happened to know a little bit of Serbian by that time. And so, totally accidentally, I've found myself here, in Montenegro, and I'm rather happy about it.

Below is the translation of some of his notes (RUS) on life and real estate business in the newest European state (population: 630,548):

July 27, 2006: My [local] colleagues at the agency keep wondering why Russians love [property with] sea view so much - haven't they seen the sea in their lives, what's there to see? And the really smart and rich ones don't want to live right by the water - they buy houses in the mountains, from which you get a 180-degree view of the sea, and they drive to the beach. Nobility nests being built on the slopes of the Montenegrin mountains - a pleasure to look at. And they say that with every 100 meters above the sea, the temperature goes down one degree. At the 500-meter altitude, it could be, say, not 30, but the cool 25 degrees [Celcius]. Food for thought.

August 13, 2006: Went to Montenegro on business. [...] It's like, you know, traveling from Moscow to Russia. I was in the town of Mojkovac, deep inside the country, some 200 kilometers from the coast. What a strange feeling, to be making your way through the clouds not on a plane, but by car. To be driving through [dark clouds] - and suddenly to see that a couple kilometers away, at another slope, [it is sunny]. When you live in a big city, you tell yourself that the sun is somewhere out there, behind the clouds. Here people live together with the clouds, and someone always has the sun, and you can even see it, over there, right across the canyon. This isn't the first time I catch myself thinking in Photoshop associations - we are used to knowing that all that's beautiful around us is artificial, and the idea that the bright colors can exist without Photoshop seems wild. But, just imagine it, it does happen in real life.

The locals like to joke that if you take Montenegro and iron it out - you'll have Europe. Thank god, tefal hasn't had time to get to this country yet.

August 18, 2006: One of my colleagues, named Dragan [...], speaks Russian pretty well. When I asked him where he learned the language, he answered with a sly smile: in Bosnia, I was there in the mid-90s, on a "tourist trip." Russian volunteers [soldiers] taught our [Dragan] Russian during the Bosnian war. I should check how well he can curse.

August 31, 2006: In the village of Blizikuci, not far from St. Stefan, a new asphalt has been laid [on the road]. They placed a sign nearby: Cuvamo put, hvala ruskim komsijama - "The road has been taken care of - thanks to the Russian neighbors." :) And on TV recently, deputy minister of economics said that a draft law is being prepared for foreigners to be able to only rent the land, not buy it.

September 6, 2006: Montenegro Airlines - Fly Our Two Planes!

September 11, 2006: I've heard the sound of Albanian for the first time in my life. I've understood why the Russian accent in Serbian resembles the Albanian one. I've understood that it's necessary to study Albanian. Got reminded that [Shqiptar], the name Albanians call themselves, is translated from Albanian as something like "the sons of the eagles." I was wearing a t-shirt with "Srbija" written on it. I survived.

September 18, 2006: We've started a rather painful divorce from our local partners - so painful that I worry about my personal safety. It's all serious, you know - remember what happened to [Paul Tatum] in Moscow in the [wild] 90s? [...]

The reason for divorce was a series of systematic failures to process our clients' paperwork properly and, to put it mildly, a strange price policy. Of course, they aren't excited about the fact that we'll start working with others and directly. [...]

Meanwhile, I've become the director of the Montenegrin firm, have rented an office and soon I'll be buying furniture for it. The office is in a very decent place and, if all goes well, we'll become the best agency in Montenegro.

September 22, 2006: We rode on the Adriatic highway [...] today - and passed a group of artillery [vehicles] with VJ - Vojska Jugoslavije [Yugoslav Army] on their [license plates] [...]. My Montenegrin colleagues started honking to them and greeting them with "three fingers." It's scary to think what was happening here when the army was on its way to fight, not just moving cannons from one place to another. Patriots.

***

Ukrainian blogger Dmytro Hubenko - LJ user dmytro, 26, Kyiv - ruminates on the degrees and expressions of patriotism, too (UKR):

What is easier/harder for you to take: a Russian-language book published by a Ukrainian entrepreneur in Ukraine - or a Ukrainian-language book published by a foreign investor (perhaps, even in another country)? Let's assume that the quality [...] of both books is more or less the same. In other words, which aspect of patriotism is closer to you - cultural or economic? (I, no doubt, prefer cultural [patriotism].)

A few days ago, dmytro returned from Transnistria, "the unrecognized state [that] has been de facto independent from [Moldova] since September 2, 1990."

Unlike Montenegro, whose people have recently voted for and gained independence from Serbia, Transnistria's ultimate goal isn't just independence from Moldova, but a union with the Russian Federation. In the two-question referendum this past Sunday, 97.1 percent of voters voted in favor of the region's 16-year-old independence course and the eventual union with Russia (2.3 percent oppose this) and 94.6 percent voted against a union with Moldova (3.4 percent support it). Nearly 79 percent of Transnistria's 390,000 registered voters took part in the referendum; the region's overall population is 547,500 people.

LJ user dmytro has posted photos and comments (UKR) from his trip to Transnistria (to view the photos, please visit the original entry):

[photo]

[Tiraspol] - the former capital of [Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic] (an autonomy [that used to be] part of the [Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic]). Just 100 kilometers from [Odesa]...

[photo]

Anti-Moldovan campaign ads with the slogan "There is no place for alien words in our country" - on the photo, the Russian words "bread" and "bun" are transliterated in the Latin script. A retrospective to 1990, when the first push toward [breaking away from Moldova] was latinization of the [Moldovan language]. By the way, there was no campaigning whatsoever "against" independence and joining Russia.

[...]

[photo]

This is [Bendery]. A monument to those who died fighting against Moldovans in 1992 [some 1,500 people].

[photo]

The old Bendery fortress located inside a military base. We were not allowed to visit it [...]. Too bad. I think that because of paranoically keeping itself closed, [Transnistria] loses lots of tourists - and not just the political ones.

[photo]

Transnistria is sadly known for being trilingual - unfortunately, [the three languages - Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian] are visible only on the government and road signs. In reality, the official language of [Transnistria] is Russian only.

To my mind, [Transnistria] is integrated with at least three states. With Russia - politically [...]. With Ukraine - economically, on the level of medium-size business (in supermarkets [...], there are mainly Ukrainian-made goods). And with Moldova - through transportation (mini-buses run every 20 minutes from Tiraspol to [Chisinau], while it's very difficult to get to Odesa). [...]

Central & Eastern Europe: International Women's Day

Global Voices Online
Wednesday, March 8, 2006

March 8 has been an official day off in Russia and Ukraine, and here are some bloggers' reactions to the holiday - in Russia and Ukraine, as well as elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe.

Scott W. Clark of Foreign Notes, a Kyiv-based blog, is not happy about the universality of the day off:

[...] everyone, or most everyone, has it off including the elevator repairman for our building. Hiking up 13 floors with the littlest Clark in hand is not my idea of the perfect holiday.

Oleksandr, a Ukrainian living in Montreal and writing Messages From Canada, wonders why March 8 is considered an international holiday when it's more of a Soviet holiday and should be treated as such:

Like my sister's friend said: I am not Soviet Union woman ("sovetskaya zhenshyna"), so that I don't celebrate this holiday at all. Me too, I am not Soviet Union man, so that if I met any of my female friends this day in Ukraine, I would say just "have a nice day" ;)

Konstantin Dlutskiy of Russian Marketing Blog and Konstantin of Russian Blog both reproduce Soviet-time March 8 posters: "Down with kitchen slavery" from the former and "[Soviet-Chinese] friendship is unbreakable" from the latter.

Sergey Belyakov of the Novgorod-based RUBLog sends his warmest wishes to the women of the world and reminds the rest of the humankind that it's not too late to buy flowers online, thus revealing yet another aspect of March 8 - as any other holiday, it's very good for commerce:

For mens:

In Russia, it is usual to present flowers on 8th March. You still have time to make it, with Send Flowers or Flowers 2 Russia.

Norvezhskiy Lesnoy (LJ user nl) has created a generic March 8 greeting (RUS) for Moscow's Bolshoi Gorod bloglike website: every year, press services of "presidents, governors, heads of oil corporations, etc." across Russia have to revise their last year's greetings - and often they repeat themselves or each other; by taking it a step further and combining quotes from various official addresses, NL helps those busy men save time and avoid embarrassment.

Olga Sagareva criticizes (RUS) a recent order issued by Chechnya's new prime minister Ramzan Kadyrov: from now on, women in Chechnya are required to wear headscarves in government institutions and on TV.

[...] no one has probably told Kadyrov that March 8 is the day of fighting for women's rights, and this is the reason it was so dear to the Soviet people, and not to them alone.

(A year ago, Kadyrov's March 8 present to the Chechen women was - very inappropriately - the dead body of his main opponent, Aslan Maskhadov.)

Jane Keeler, an American teaching English in Vladimir, notes this in her From Russia With Blog:

I find it fascinating to read about the history of IWD, and it's kind of disappointing to see how it has evolved. On one hand, I got chocolate, cards and potpourri from various people all because I am in possession of a vagina. Easiest chocolate I've ever received.

Becca at the Polish blog Boo mentions the holiday's popularity in Poland and its growing "recognition everywhere," but isn't sure Iowa United Methodist Women's suggested activity for the day has much value:

Right, you'd like women 'wherever' they live, to go into churches and ring the bells 'all day'.

Annabengan of annasblog marks how the meaning of March 8 seems to differ in her native Sweden and in Albania, where she now works:

In Sweden it's not really a "happy event" it's kind of a heavy day full of shame and guilt as we read and hear about inequality concerning salaries of men and women, the ratio women - men in Boards of private enterprises that still exist, gender based violence, women's rights etc etc. I understand zero Albanian so I don't know what's up in the Albanian news papers and media today - maybe it's the same...?

Finally, Pestiside.hu, a Hungarian blog, has forgotten about the holiday: "Honestly, Dear, the Dog Ate Our Flowers" is the title of the relevant post. Last year's entries are offered as compensation, though.

UPDATE:

Konstantin Dlutskiy of Russian Marketing Blog cites some interesting holiday-related statistics:

1. Prices on flowers rose on average 170%.
2. L'Oreal Paris made 40% of its planned sales of perfume on one day only.
3. Tables at Moscow restaurants were all booked 2 weeks before the day.

Stephan Clark of Everybody I Love You reports on how he combined his Russian lesson with a little celebration with his teacher, and also notes that the mobile network in Kharkiv, Ukraine, was overloaded on March 8:

[...] My tutor had received roses and tulips before getting my flowers, and her daughter was all dressed up and entertaining guests when I came over for my thrice-weekly lesson. Others I know measure the day in text messages -- and if one woman got sixteen, I'm sure every other woman in the country got four, or seven, or twelve or twenty-two. Just trying to send a text-message today was hard. [...]

Lyndon of Scraps of Moscow recounts what he did on March 8 as a kid in the Soviet Union in the mid-80s and links to his last year's March 8 post, which dealt almost exclusively with the TV coverage of Aslan Maskhadov's death:

[...] I am sure that appetites at more than one 8th of March feast were spoiled by the extensive footage of Maskhadov's body (turns out that "destroyed" is a polite way of saying "killed" - his body was very much intact, although pretty beaten up), in a pool of blood, from every conceivable angle. [...]

Katerina, a Russian co-blogger at The Accidental Russophile, writes about the reasons people still celebrate this Soviet holiday and describes what an ideal March 8 should be like and how it normally goes.

LJ user yellow-reporter posts an AFP picture of Moscow feminists protesting next to a huge panties-shaped poster with this message (RUS) on it:

"Flowers - today, shackles - everyday?"

One commenter calls this "fanatism," the other describes the protesters as "losers" (RUS).

Rachel of Pustolovina: adventure in Serbian describes a very eventful day in Belgrade, filled with protest, activism as well as some "very stereotypically feminine" activities. She concludes:

I enjoyed all of those tasks & I suppose that's what International Women's Day, feminism, etc. is all about: doing tasks because you want to do them, not because they're expected of you.

UPDATE 2:

Having forgotten to celebrate the International Women's Day, Gazing into the Abyss writes about how the holiday is perceived in the Czech Republic now:

[...] If I brought flowers home yesterday - well, I could; there is no such thing as too many flowers. But if I brought flowers with congratulations on International Women's Day, oh my! - it would mean that either I am completely crazy after all, or I make tasteless jokes. That's what remains of a once high-minded idea: a tasteless joke.

Most of us here in the West's East would like to forget about the past, just as I have forgotten about the Woman's Day. But the past won't forget about us.