Two things: I was unfair to Vilnius here, and I never found out what happened to Matt the Australian. Oh, and I’d forgotten about the Navy SEAL guy! That night was so awesome. Oh, one last thing – Girls Aloud are still awesome. FACT.
So, since my last email, I’ve nearly been mugged, helped an Australian with his love-life, joined in a celebration of the overthrow of the Soviet Union and, for the first time since leaving England, lost something. Read on!
The reason why this update has been so delayed is because I wanted to do an overview of the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. As I leave this evening for Gdansk in Poland, this seems like as good a time as any to get that done.
The first stop on this leg of the tour was Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. Tallinn is a city that is basically schitzophrenic. In the centre is the Old Town, a perfectly-preseved monument to Estonia circa the fifteenth century. Preserved is perhaps not the right word; Tallinn’s Old Town is not really preserved at all, in as much as the crumbling walls and condemned derelicts are still very much in evidence. In many respects it felt to me more like the Spanish and Portugese towns that my dad took me to for family holidays when I was younger. My overwhelming memory of those towns was they they, too, were old and decaying; not so much through caustic neglect or malice, but just because the focus of the world had moved on to other places, and neither the time, nor the money, nor the inclination existed to stop the rot. But Tallinn shouldn’t really be subject to that reasoning. Since it seceded from the Soviet Union, sometime between 1989 and 1991, Tallinn has been a boom town, as is evidenced when you cross into New Town. The change is marked enough that it could be delineated by a line. On the other side you find the shopping malls, sky scrapers, the teams that made both Kazaa and Skype, and the hoards of financiers, innovators and tourist board officials that have given Estonia the fastest-growing economy in Europe. Personally, I like their approach. By seemingly choosing not to artificially extend the life of the Old Town, but concurrently refusing to overrun it with modern developments, Tallinn’s city planners have managed to retain a kind of authenticity that is utterly absent from, say, Paris or Brugge. On the other hand, this status quo won’t last forever, which is one reason why I feel fairly privileged to have seen Tallinn now. Which I suppose was the point.
But, yes, while I was there, Tallinn did end up with one thing in common with Paris – it was a city in which I nearly got mugged. As I was just entering a museum, a pair of skinhead yoot’s accosted me and asked me for some money. When I refused, the more articulate of the two said “Well, what if we rob you?” “What?” I said – because that’s always a good thing to say when you’re stalling for time – “What if we rob you!” he howled, while his friend behind him pulled a chain taut in his hands and waved it menacingly. I gave them my best look of scorn and derission – the raised eyebow, sneery mouth, the works – then just opened the door and went into the museum. What were they going to do, follow me in there? Or maybe pull me back out, bodily? They were absolutely the shittest muggers ever. They were only about 15 as well. Poor dears, I can believe that they didn’t even want the money for drugs, but rather just to boost their Pokemon card collection. They were rubbish.
While there, I randomly bumped into Matt, and Australian guy I had previously met in Stockholm. So I basically hung out with him and this other Canadian guy called Peter. One night we went out to a restaurant – a traditional Estonian restaurant – run by this guy who had done just about everything. He had been in the US special forces (his family fled Estonia for New York in the 50s), had written a book, was a prolific painter (Jimmy Carter had had one of his painting on the wall in the residence of the West Wing), and led his own band, covering fifties and sixties rock ‘n’ roll, which played most nights in this restaurant, which he owned, along with a farm outside of the city, which he tended to himself by hand. He was married to a ballett dancer. So we spent the evening chatting to him and at the end he gave us a CD of his music, whoch basically consisted of Estonian translations of Janis Joplin and the like. I still have it, purely because it contains an Estonian language cover of Gampie’s classic smash hit “Alice? Who the f*** is Alice?”, potentially sung by a bunch of old dudes on accoustic guitars. That would be hilarious.
Well, after a few days, Matt and I decided it was time to leave Tallinn. As we were both headed towards Riga (Latvia, yo) we decided to join forces and form a super-awesome coach-travelling rock team. A couple of words about Matt: he’s tall, Australian and had been in Tallinn for nearly ten days (I got bored after three) because he met a girl and didn’t want to leave. The most he got for his trouble was a ‘frenchie’ (as we used to say, classily, in high school), but she was apparently on the rebound and – hey, I didn’t really care about the details, I can’t believe you do either. I mention this only because it was all he talked about between Tallinn and Riga. That’s a five hour bus trip, so after about an hour I decided that the delecate vocal harmonies of Girls Aloud was probably preferable to any more talk of Tiine and suchlike. I’ve decided that What Will The Neighbours Say was actually a really good album, and should probably get Chemistry when I get back home. Pop-tastic!
Riga is the opposite of Tallinn. It is a city that makes no distinction between old and new whatsoever. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Riga is my least-favorite Baltic city, simply because it appears to have no identity of its own. It has precious few musea and art galleries, a below-par selection of historic buildings (although those that did remain were lovely), and an altogether too high incidence of English stag parties. I was, however, lucky enough to arrive in Riga just in time for Latvia’s Independence Day, which is held every year on Nov 18th, the day on which Latvia formally became independent of Imperial Russia in 1918, and became a republic for the first time (although the more recent independence, in 1991, also comes under the remit of the festivities). There were fireworks and parades and such, and generally a good atmosphere, in spite of Latvia having a 30% Russian population. So I hung around for that, but not much longer.
After Riga, Matt and I parted companies. It took me three or four days but I finally pursuaded him to go back to Tallinn and see if his ‘thing’ went anywhere. I did this for two reasons – firstly, because the romantic in me sincerely wishes for him to succeed, settle down in Estonia and raise a hoard of unnaturally tall half-Australian kids, and secondly because the cynic in me finds the entire situation to be utterly comical, and realises that the story would not make for a good anecdote unless he hurried back to declare his undying love. Does this make me a bad person? Not that I really care, I’d just like to be clear on the subject.
Sooo, I left Riga, and realised that I had LOST MY SCARF. This irritated me to no end as I really liked that new scarf, and had, contrary to all expectations (my own included!), failed to loose anything at all on the trip thus far. So I bought a new one. Uh, sorry, I guess that’s not interesting. Move on!
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and it’s a little bit like bacteria, in that it may seem unpleasant at first but then it grows on you. Unlike Tallinn and Riga it is resolutely un-modern; in fact, it seems to have progressed very little since the Soviet era, despite being the first of the three to overthrow the yoke. It is still very religious; on a Sunday, the streets are empty, apart from those housing one of the (many) Russian Orthodox churches, which are never large enough to house all those who want to get inside them. Strange to think that this was a country that once had an empire that stretched from the Baltics to the Black Sea. While I was here, I also went out to a town called Siailuai, near which is a monument called the Hill of Crosses. During the Soviet occupation, the Lithuanian peasants would leave crosses on this hill, commemorating the dead, deported and disappeared. Come the day, the Soviet forces would bulldoze the crosses, but at night the Lithuanians would come back, under the cover of darkness, and plant more. Since the end of the occupation, there has been no-one to bulldoze the crosses any more, but the Lithuanians still keep adding to the collection; now, the hill and surrounding countryside is covered in thousands upon thousands of crosses, dense-packed one atop the other. It’s unlike any other monument I’ve ever seen; there are no souvineer booths, no tickets, not even any toilets. To get there, you must travel three hours from Vilnius, then take an (irregular) local bus ten miles out of town, to this patch of rural farmland ungraced by either building or animal; THEN you have to walk for twenty minutes, and unless you’re driving, that walk in unavoidable. All this because it’s not an ‘attraction’, per se. It exists for the same reason as it always existed, for little old Lithuanian grandmothers to hobble along the path and leave a cross, remembering those who are gone – and, now, to be greatful that their sons and grandsons won’t be taken to someone else’s arbitrary war, that their husbands won’t be kidnapped for political dissent, and that they will probably have enough food to feed themselves in the morning. It is a humbling place, but it highlights the difference between Lithuania and the other two: it is still attatched to its past. While the other two have forgiven their history, and have modernised to meet the future, Lithuania is still busy mourning for its past.
I should point out that, while I have spent a lot of time in ‘Resistance’ musea over the last few days, I’m trying to avoid getting too indoctrinated in the anti-Soviet bias that historical documentary takes here – despite whatever the previous paragraph may suggest. It seems relatively certain that a great many atrocities took place, but alas, I’m not going to be able to make it into Russia – getting a visa is just too damn challenging – so I can’t really get any kind of balanced view on the subject. Lithuania has had a troubled past either way – it was historically very important, but has dwindled into utter obscurity, and t-shirts bearing the legend “I’ve been to Lithuania! … Where the f*** is Lithuania?” are sold with a touch of bitterness. Caught between Russia and Germany was never a comfortable place to be. It is a resolutely depressing place. I’m glad I came but will be equally glad to leave.
I suspect that I may have rambled long enough. As previously mentioned, Poland is the next port of call, and hopefully the next update will be delivered in a more timely fashion. Hope you’re all well, and look forward to hearing any news you may have.
(Such as they are…)