Forest Mushrooms and Vodka

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The night before we leave St. Petersburg, Elena and her childhood friend, Dula, breathlessly excited, bring home bags and boxes of forest mushrooms. Bob and I haven’t eaten and we hope the noises coming from the kitchen mean we will be invited to join them for a meal.

Finally, Elena knocks on the door saying “10 minutes! 10 minutes…come!” When Elena says “I must go out first, I smell a rat and grab my purse to join her. “I am buying the vodka,” I insist, glad I had my wits about me on this one at least! The four of us sit down to the little table set with her best for a wonderful meal of musky black mushrooms stewed with potatoes and “grass” salad…toasting with Vodka, (Bob with water because he doesn’t like the taste of alcohol) every few minutes. Bob and I gratefully hit the sack, leaving the two to themselves to finish off the bottle late into the night.

Our last night in St. Petersburg, we invite Elena and Dula to their favorite restaurant (an inexpensive one we never would have found ourselves) for Shashlik of beef, pork and lamb, eggplant appetizers, “grass” salad with tomatoes, cheese, olives and cucumbers, “beautiful water with gas from the Caucasus mountains” and more vodka…all the while entertained by a resident karaoke singer singing traditional Russian songs and served by a lovely man who treats us all like extended family.

Afterward we buy Elena a bottle of Tequila and she gives me a knit neck scarf and a Russian nesting doll. Dula gives me a little bag of mushrooms she dried herself. We all hug and reluctantly leave for a midnight overnight train that will arrive at 8am in Moscow.

A Day With Sasha

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I had watched “Russian Ark,” a movie about the history of the Hermitage before I left home so I was excited when we found Sasha, a university educated art historian, to take us through the museum (actually 5 linked buildings) set in a magnificent palace from which the tsars ruled Russia for one and a half centuries. Sasha had an unusually sophisticated command of the English language and an ironic sense of humor and made sure we knew the history and context of each painting we viewed…until we were absolutely exhausted.

We managed to keep up with him, however, when afterward he says “da da, you must experience a few more places” so off we trudged to see babushkas selling a few possessions…knick knacks, flowers and little piles of vegetables on the street, to buy historical propagada posters designed by Soviet-era Futurist artists in a little hidden art supply shop, to see the little Dostoevsky Museum which unfortunately was closed and finally by 10pm to view thirty-somethings drinking beer in a modern upscale bar right out of the Village in Manhattan…we were even instructed to go upstairs to see the industrial design bathrooms which had fixtures that looked like they were designed by Siemens and purchased from the KaDeWa Department store in Berlin.

Sasha was obviously very proud of this new Russia. Only we already knew that about 1% of the people, who buy everything they own on the black market, can afford a place like this where a beer will cost the equivalent of 20% of their monthly wage.

On The Street In St Petersburg

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Video

We hail down a minibus, just like we did in Viet Nam, which takes us across the Neva River to Nevsky pr (like Rodeo Drive in LA which has to have some of the most expensive stores in the world) where we peer into windows…looking for T-shirts..and graffiti. View image Hungry, we walk some steps down to the door of the Propaganda Cafe only because we are illiterate in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet and the restaurant thankfully has a menu in English. We find out later the Propaganda is a chain of expensive cafes all over the city catering to Westerners…a young Brit behind us is on the phone trying to peddle cheap tables to someone who seems skeptical.

We find a Georgian restaurant that night (with a “river” running through it, stained glass windows and walls carved with Georgian motifs) and relish traditional mutton and cabbage stew, stuffed peppers and sweet cheese blinis for dessert. Next to our table are three men, I imagine to be closing a business deal, toasting with vodka and chasers of cranberry juice at every shake of the hand (of course between multiple mobile phone calls).

The ‘Venice of the North’, with its numerous canals and more than 400 bridges, is the result of a vast urban project begun in 1703 under Peter the Great. Later known as Leningrad (in the former USSR), the city is closely associated with the October Revolution. Its architectural heritage reconciles the very different Baroque and pure neoclassical styles, as can be seen in the Admiralty, the Winter Palace, the Marble Palace and the Hermitage. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Beslan…Russia’s 9/11

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St. Petersburg, Russia September 6, 2004:
We had been monitoring the hostage crisis in Beslan, North Ossetia, all through Europe…but was one day late to witness a demonstration in Palace Square on Monday where 40,000 people gathered to express outrage at the terrorists.

The English language St. Petersburg Times reported that “fear and horror were reflected on the faces of the people in the crowd” and many held signs reading “You Don’t Scare Us” “Ossetia, Beslan–We Are With You, and “Terrorists Are Not`People.” View image

The presidential envoy to the northwest region said “There are no words that can express our feelings about what the terrorists have done to the children and adults in Beslan. The terrorists are animals who should have no place in Russia or anywhere else in the world.” A famous St. Petersburg film director Alexei German called for ending the moratorium on the death penalty so that terrorists could be executed.

The respected editor of Izvestia, an important Russian newspaper resigned Monday for reporting that Kremlin authorities had covered up the number of hostages (over 1000) being held at the school.

St. Petersburg Homestay

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A Homestay has been arranged for us by our tour company, White Knights, with Elena who lives in (and owns) a 3 room very cluttered flat four flights up in a poorly maintained government building in the heart of St. Petersburg. The muddy alleyway leading to the door of the building is stewn with garbage and open manholes with rats…the chipped stairs, plaster peeling off the filthy walls, broken windows and a smell like damp cat litter in the air testament to the lack of resources and care. It’s a typical apartment house.

“We pay good money to the government for upkeep of the building, she says, but they do nothing!” Elena is a dear and makes sure we are comfortable in our room with two single beds…thin pieces of foam on cheap frames. Elena lives alone…she gets her married daughter who speaks English on the phone to make sure we have all our questions answered and who tells us she will be meeting a student at the apartment the next day to give him an English lesson. He tells us he is an ice skater who will be competing internationally and that he “must have English.”

Elena, who is a retired mathematics teacher only gets $17 a month retirement. She goes to work each day but it is not exactly clear what she does. Most nights she stays with her daughter or comes in very late.

She opens the small refrigerator and shows us eggs and bread we can use to make our breakfast each morning. There is virtually no other food in the tiny kitchen except some wonderful cherry jam and coffee and tea. I don’t think she means for us to eat very much. She shows us how to use the pitcher water purifier which we use to make coffee for ourselves in a small French coffee press she has on her counter.

That evening we find a neighborhood cafe where I nostalgically enjoy “lamb cooked with bones” and Lagman Soup (mutton stew with noodles) just like we had on a trek in the mountains of Khrgystan several years ago.

Traki, Karaites & Kibini Pastry

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Trakai, on the outskirts of Vilnius, Lithuania, is a small settlement placed in the middle of five large lakes that is home to about 350 members of the Keraites, a minority community originally from Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) who later migrated to Turkey. Keraite literally means “reader”. Their religion is a form of early Judaism mixed with reading of the Koran. (Imagine that !!—maybe we should inquire whether they have insights for current situations.)

Traki used to be one of Lithuania’s many capitals and the Keraites served as guards to the palace/castle…which Bob wanted to buy and occupy. We tasted the Karaites’ traditional dish called Kibinine, a small piping hot pastry stuffed full of delicious chopped meat and onions…juice squirting down one’s arms with each bite.

In an area selling crafts I met a woman who was exclaiming over two drunk locals…I asked her what country she was from and she said “San Francicsco.” She went on to say she was enjoying herself “but they won’t take our dollars here!” Speechless, I decided against asking if she had thought of visiting a money exchange window.

Life Becomes More of Adventure

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Old Town Vilnius is now on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sights. Some graffiti seems significant in this country where a staggering 91% of the 64% of the population who turned out to vote gave a resounding yes to membership in the European Union and that just this last April became a full-fledged member of NATO: “Your Life Becomes More and More of Adventure” and “The important Thing Is To Express Yourself!” are examples of graffiti everywhere.

One of the more vivid images of Europe this year, but especially of Vilnius, is the sight of slim, long-legged beauties strutting confidently with an air of success in slip-on spike heels and showing off flat tanned bare midriffs above skin tight jeans that come within an inch of the pubic bone. There are solariums (tanning beds) on every other block…no fish-white bellies here. I asked a young woman in former East Berlin what is behind the styles in dress and she answered “It is self-expression…we want to dress according to how we feel.” I asked if the school authorities allowed the students to wear these clothes to school and she said they wouldn’t DARE prevent us from dressing the way we want to dress!

But on the other hand Sasha, our guide to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, will say “these are nice girls…not prostitutes…but they have $100 in each eye!” There will be no going back to rigidly defined socialist customs in these countries!

Exact Center of Europe

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On the outskirts of Vilnius is European Park where The French National Geographic Institute places the center of Europe at 54 degrees North Latitude, 25 degrees 19′ East Longitude. Recently a monument was erected that is topped with golden stars and a mini amphitheater to gaze upwards at them.

When Lithuanian student, Gitaras Karosas, a student of Vilnius Art Academy, found out that the center of Europe was here he set up a contemporary art museum and now the exhibition spans an area of several acres and displays over 90 works by artists from 27 countries to express their own unique visions of the Center of Europe. One piece of art is LNK INFOMEDIS, registered in the World Guinness Book, which is a 700 meter maze of 3000 bulky, broken Soviet television sets brought by people and shaped like a tree with a rapidly decaying concrete Lenin at it’s center.Now people write their names or phone numbers on the TV screens.

Interesting Lithuania

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The Baltics…Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Are these in Central Europe or do we call this Eastern Europe…where is the line? We stop a few days in Vilnius Lithuania on the way to St. Petersburg Russia. It is an interesting country that has long identified itself as European (read–not Russian).

The political centre of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the 13th to the end of the 18th century, Vilnius has had a profound influence on the cultural and architectural development of much of eastern Europe. Despite invasions and partial destruction, it has preserved an impressive complex of Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and classical buildings as well as its medieval layout and natural setting. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In 1989 an estimated 2,000,000 Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians literally joined hands in a human chain stretching the 650 kilometers between Vilnius and Tallinn to protest the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The following December 20 the Lithuanian Communist Party declares itself independent from the Communist Party of the USSR. In January 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev is heckled by 300,000 pro-independence demonstrators in Vilnius and in March the first free elections are held since 1940 but the following April Moscow imposes an economic blockade. The following January 1991 Soviet troops kill 14 unarmed civilians in an assault on Vilnius’ Television Tower. By August the Soviet putsch collapses, troops leave the buildings they’ve been occupying, and Lenin’s statue is removed from the city Center.

Lithuania is gaining status within the world community. The Dalai Lama visited Lithuania in 2001 and in 2002 George W. is the first ever US president to visit Vilnius. And of course, we NBA fans immediately think of the Trail Blazer’s own Arvydas Sabonis who put Lithuania’s basketball program on the map.

On the political front, according to the English language events magazine, “at present people are tired of populist politics, political infighting and they just want stability and peaceful life. Just this year they again voted in the conservative former President Valdad Adamkus (President 1998-2003) who everyone hopes will be a steady and successful person to “stand the test of power” as a partner in the Eu and Nato.

Bob & The Europeans

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There is something in the European demeaner/attitude that brings out my anti-establishment posturing. On the flight from the U.S. to Frankfurt (Lufthansa Air) my seat was broken. “No problem,” said the sweet little blond frauline in braids. “We’ll find you another seat after everyone boards.” “Perhaps in first class” I suggest. (87.3% joking but it’s always worth a try). “I DON’T THINK SO” was the authoritarian autocratic response of this idealic frauline now converted to “big nurse.”

On boarding an open top tour bus in Berlin I ask the attendant (100% joking) whether this is the bus to Paris? I DON’T THINK SO.” is the less than friendly response while he is thinking “scheiskoff!” In Krakow our taxi driver parked his upscale white Mercedes next to a bright orange-colored street rod. “Maybe you ought to paint your taxi that color,” I suggested. Predictably…”I DON’T THINK SO!” Suspect that my attempts at humor need a total revamping.

Europeans perceive Americans as large, loud and naive. (This does not apply to me of course.) I think that the Europeans are a bit dorky. Especially men wearing shorts and regular shoes with black socks. Oh well.

Traveling continues to be a learning experience–the perception/interpretation of other cultures as well as our ability to tolerate/adapt/react is a challenge. The language barrier contributes to frustration but that is my problem, not theirs. I’m in their country. Still working on the smile. But occasionally it is difficult to smile when confronted/frustrated. Am going to schedule a session with the Buddah who seems to have a corner on smiling.

Most encounters however are rewarding. And each day offers the promise of a new adventure/experience–and that is exciting. However, it seems that adrenaline rushes are good for a day or two–then need a day of R&R. This sort of thing did not seem as necessary back in my frivilous youth. The R&R days usually are not planned…they just occur as in “crash.”
Later,
RLG