Play with Fire

I love Moscow. Some things you can't describe, and sometimes some things are too good to share. Moscow memories are only my own.

Non-conformist: Getting to grips with the Avant Garde

Loft is an Art gallery in St. Petersburg. Its exhibitions are housed in an old Bread factory, close to that vapourish Bread Museum.  I had been told by several Russian it did actually exist. Maybe? Like Paravda meant Truth, but what do I know? Brutus is an honourable man.

Modern art non-conformist art, is difficult, but debate about weather its worthwhile is over. If you're against modern art, you have to to move with the times. The real question  is weather what  you're looking at it is good or not. A lot of Art in Loft was. But as I said its difficult, so I eased the experience with a Bloody Mary.

I had met some couch surfers and we went to the Opera. Not the Marinisky, the tickets were sold out, that was the opera house the old Irish Lady had told me about. But to the St. Petersburg Opera house. They were playing the Carpetner of Livonia, by Donizzetti. It was ok, good because it was opera but not for much else. It hadn't been performed in over 100 hundred years and I could understand why. I felt sorry for the company, the material they were working with just wasn't up to scratch.  It sounded like a re-hash of Rossini, and midway through the second act,  I was unmistakably hearing a snippet from Mozart's Queen of the night. Still it was good, I love Opera, and seeing it for 200 Russians was a bargain.

I was with two Irish Couch Surfers, Russia, is not as sensitive too Race and Religion as we are in England and we all audibly winced, when the money lender was portrayed as a Shylockesque Jew, and the servant, a Blacked up girl. It was like a return to the classical Black and white minstrels.

Its stays light late in St. Petersburg at 10 it was still +20 degrees when we left. We were on the way to meet some Russians. They were the avante garde, arty types, poets, writers; skinny jeans,  have made it to Russia.  I told them I had been to Loft; they nodded their approval. "Da"

I'd sunk a couple of glasses at the Opera (you needed too) and with the Bloody Mary I was feeling a little tipsy, which added danger an otherwise benign trip. When these Russians weren't painting, sculpting, smoking Cigarellos and quoting Puskin, they climb roofs. Its one of those reclaim the urban environment movements; like Par Cour. They treat the city as a giant climbing frame, finding roofs to get good views, climbing things like Children.

We broke into a bell tower and climbed the ramshackle interior. As I hauled myself over and above some scaffolding  I was feeling the drink and almost slipped on the third floor. But, I  have a strong will for self preservation and my grip tightened, I'd be damned if I was going to end my days in some god damn,  bell tower. I've always fancied meeting my maker in some sort of Blaze of Glory. We reached the top, and I presume like mountaineers I was overcome with the feeling of what next? I knew, though, as did the Russians, we cracked some cans of Beer and I lit up a fat Russian Cigar.

They took us to a street called the John Lennon Street, more of the Avante Garde. Apparently some aged Russian Hippy lives there, but Summer of Love is long over, of course you never know, Russia is stuck in the past, but behind the blast metal door of his flat there was no answer. They took us too a Bar. The bars in Russia postivley try and turn customers away. It was in a cellar, and you had to ring two bells to get in. It was called the Friendship and was only supposed to be for friends of the owners, very friendly.

"Good for business? I presume."
"It won't be cool if everyone knows about it.
The markets still getting started here, but true, true.

I got battered at the friendship. Talking to these Russians, the children of the new Russia. The Beer was reactively and relatively cheap Beer and I hammered them down, one after the other, like an endless series of Russian dolls. We all did, but I think that's what you do in Russia.

Cultural Bread and Butter.

The museam for bread in St. Petersburg? This I must see. I had heard two things about food under the USSR. The first being that when Khrushchev visted New Yrok and was taken Super market, he was so impressed by the selection and prices that he demanded "Who is the man responsible for food distribution in New York State." The evil empire was never, ever, ever going to win.

The second crumb of knowledge I knew about Soviet bread was that in the Battle of Stalingrad, corn had become so scarce that they  replaced flour with sawdust. All of these things could have been revealed to me at the Bread Museum. But, when I went to the address it had been replaced by a Bank. Bread to Banking, now thats capitalism.

I was disappointed so I cut off a thick crust of culture and went to the Hermitage. In the Romanov's former winter palace, it houses one of the worlds finest selection of art. Its tremendous, there is no denying it. From Ancient Egypt to the Impressionists, this is one of the definitive collections of western civilization. The building too, is beyond impressive, the scale enormous, It is next to the Admiralty, the reason St Petersburg was built and right at the end of Karensky Aveneue.   I wandered round the Dutch and Spanish art. I saw too many famous oils that they all blend into one. A mass of canvas and memory, intersected by a few names.  On the way out, I saw him though, his ugly head peaking out of me. I'd recongise that face anywhere. Challenging me with his constant questioning. The bust had no sign, but the ugliest man in Athens is instanly reconginisible. "Socrates! My old friend" I cried. I took a snap and made my way out.

Half way down Karensky Avenue, there is a sign in Russian which is a relic from the war, about the only visible sign, I saw of the the siege. It reads  "Citizens! When the shelling starts the other side of the road is safer". That's very practical advice. In the Hostel there was a further sign, in a similar friendly tone the west has taught me to associate with soviet Russia "Dear Friends! Please to not flush comdoms down the loo" Sturdy advice also.

Kazan cathedral is a little further along, it has sweeping, stone collonades that gather pilgrims into its interior. Id seen this design before, despite the Neo-classicism of it, the features were unmistakably based on Bernin's exeriour of the St. Peter's Basilica. As an aside, across Eastern Europe I had seen just shy of a score of cathedrals all domed. None were as impressive as the Haga Sophia. It is still the worlds largest unsupported concrete dome. Its elegance is only enduring, its memory forever, magicly and mystically engraved on my mind. The Muslims would say "You will never build a dome as grand as the Haga Sophia" And as far as I can tell that's exactly right.

The Scale of St. Petersburg is over large, all its public buildings, pre and during communism are inhumanly grandiose. But while the communists, and the fascist only sort scale, the level of complexity and beauty in the imperial work is astounding. Floral relief on everything. Statutes on all corners. Gold guilt everywhere.

Just of set from Karansky prospect is the Church of the Saviour on Blood. Its a candy cane store, of onion domes and liquorice All-sort towers. The interior is colourful to the extreme, its so garish its transcends awful and managed to turn full circle back into beauty. Outside I brought a corn on the cob. I was picking bits out my teeth for the rest of the day. I had purchased it of a relic of the USSR. An old Baboshka who looked mean, but cooked well. They seem to be all over Russia, selling tickets for trains, collecting money for toilets, sweeping up and manning desks. Everything these women do is done with an attitude of dignified irritation. Its as if everything of trivial importance but monumental convince has been given to these gate keepers with zero toleration of other human beings. Its not my lack of Russian either, I spoke to a Russian couch surfer about it, and they have a word for them, but it has slipped my mind.

The Unstoppable Veteran.

I saw him crossing the road at a red light on Nevisky prospect, he must have been a veteran of the Great Patroitc war. He was wearing more medals then a regiment of Horse Guards, and grasped between two hardened knuckles, on aged gorilla arms were an armoury of Carrier bags. He was with an equally impressive gentlemen armed to the teeth with rolls of bedding, dressed in an oversized navy uniform, which must have fit when they were both Russia's finest fighting men.

I noticed him because he crossed at the red, directly into swerving, Mercedes and BWMs, absuivley honking "Get back" from their horns. I winced in thought of the inevitable and I wasn't the only one, his companion had tried to pull him back and a young lady had made a brief dash in front of me to try and restrain him. But he was unrestrainable and unconquerable, indefatigable, he shrugged them both off and marched on. We shouldn't have been worried, this hero of the war, who had survived German bullets knew German cars couldn't stop him. He made slow progress never looking left or right only, forward, forward, on, on. When he reached the opposite side he pulled a 180 pivot turn, dropped his bags, harrumphed up his shoulders and mocked us all in jocular Russian. I couldn't understand it but I knew what it meant 

"Hey, what are you waiting for."

We all laughed, everyone, languishing on the other side.

Sasha

"You are foolish, to take train if you only talk English"

"I thought I might be, it sounds about right"

Sasha was the first Russian I met and one of the best. I'd taken the night train Plansky, from Riga, to St. Petersburg and met him on the train. I think he may have became a sort of protector. I had sat down  and a Russian started shouting at me. I think he may have been trying to rob me, but Russian is such a mystery to me, I could have just sat in his Seat. Like a Cossack at War Sasha, started shouting howling and the man retreated in confusion; like Napolean out of Moscow. That was how we met.

I asked Sasha what the man had wanted, but he said it didn't matter. But he followed it with:

"I will sit next to you, so no one will rob you." In a benevolent way I think he was trying to scare me, because the train didn't seem threatening at all. Like all night trains it was just full of tired people.

As we left Riga, the train entered the boggy grass land marsh and birch that I had seen entering Riga. It looked miserable, really bleak. Sasha had been in Riga on business on a real estate trip. Prices in Riga have fallen by 2/3 since the finical crisis hit, there are more empty properties here than in Ireland. He lived in St. Petersburg, at the border he showed me his passport, it still said USSR, he had been born in Belarus.

St. Petersburg is built in 700 Islands, it has over 100 bridges. It was built by Peter the Great, probably Russia best leader, although Putin might get a shoe in. Russia is like no country I have visited, they have the west but this is different. Crylicc is indecipherable, the language incomprehensible to my ears. It felt like I was visiting a civilization not a city.

Sasha was friendly, I told him that I had presumed Russians were all surly, he said.

"Yes, But I'm not real Russian. Im from Belarus"

He spoke English well, but with a make piece syntax, that was amusing.

"In St.Petersburg you will make Big party"
"Don't flush toilet paper down loo, you will have chance of seeing real flood".

The water in St. Petersburg comes out the tap Brown. I wasn't sure at first, I thought my eyes might tired eyes might be tricking me, so I poured a glass and let it settle. It was definitely Brown.

I asked the receptionist at the Hostel if it was drinkable.
"This is not recommended. At least, you must boil it first". I  played it safe and stuck to the bottled beer.

Sasha said that I was just going to miss the White nights. The city is at such a high lattiude that at the end of may to mid june, the sun never properly sets. Twilight lasts to midnight and the sun rises a few hours later. Even though I was in may, the city had a sombre glow till well past two, but I supposed could be my wish for romantisicim re interpretating, light pollution.

Occupation

The Museum of the Occupation of Lativia, 1940 -1991 presents some dispering material. Hitler rolled in and deported the Jews, then Stalin came in after and tried to report the rest of the Latvians. It really was the definition of out of the frying pan into the fire. Thousands were sent to Serbia, most never made it back. They died in concentration camps throughout Europe and Asia. Experimented on by the KGB. Stalin really was an awful thug, 27 million killed on his watch. That sort of scale is hellishly impressive. Unforgivable. Under Stalin, in Latvia, Death had obtained a quality that wasn't finality as if found at the end of life, but it became elemental as common and as certain as Earth, Wind and Fire. 


Of course, we knew he was bad. The Allies, even thought about going on the attack the moment peace was declared; naming it Operation Unthinkable. We didn't, if was unthinkable, but might have worth it.

I was in Riga for VE day. 65 years peace in Europe. Good news. There were celerbations over Russia and Europe, lest we forget. We'll never forget. The sacrifice made by the USSR to defeat Hitler is tremendous, 19,000 citizens died everyday through the conflict The bloodiest battles of the were fought on the Eastern front, I was heading to Stalingrad, the bloodiest siege in Human history. Unimaginable violence on the Stepes of Europe. Russia has always thrown labour at problems, it mashed the Germans into the ground, with the weight of bodies. The Germans, were better led, better equipped, better trained, but they couldn't replace dead men. That's no way to fight a war, grinding another country to attrition Latvia really had it tough, losing one despot for another. 

Outside the museum they have a exhibition to Latvian independence. For us Brits, in which democracy was won so long ago, its rather nice to see such freshness in governance. Its already turned to cynicism in Latvia, with 26% unemployment, endemic corruption, but not Bitterness like in England. Politics never sleeps.

Outside the museam they have translated phrases that were written about independence in 1991. Something must have been lost.

"Why is everyone so elated?  What are they so happy about? Does this not mean that human fulfilment requires something differant other than that which we chase in the grey exhaustion of our everyday routine? What was our treasure then? What was our prosperity? Wasn't it our Spirituality?

The meaning an enigma, I was heading to Russia, and that was a greater mystery.

Riga: The Freak show and the Baltic Book club.

Riga is in the heart of the Baltics, its a pleasant place. Latvia must be the start of the Great European plain, its dispairngly flat. It looks marshy too, bad soil, and birch trees intermingled with some shoddy spruce, you can understand why this was never the craddle of civilization. It would take man an eternity to discover fire; all the wood here is damp.

Some people call Riga the Thailand of the Baltics, I presume its because off all the sex tourism as I never managed to find its tropics I never found its vice either, but then again I wasn't looking. Either way is pretty tragic. The women here look like they are trying to dress cheap, or maybe they are trying to dress classy but all the clothes are cheap. Died hair, leather skirts, fishnet tights. Its all a bit of a horror show. This of course is a little unfair. Not all the women look cheap but a vast majority do and if it is a difference in styles the fault is mine not theirs. The  men though, they look like they carry baseball bats for walking sticks and wear knuckle dusters for wedding rings and I'm certain they don't but I think there intentions to the legions of tourists who invade their city may as well be as if they did.

Which is in contrast to the city itself, because Riga is a nice place. I think the Dutch must have been here at some point, plying their trade and building their houses. It might be on Baltics but there is a touch of the Zeiter Sea here in some of their buildings. Art Nouveaux is dominant too, all built when Riga was rich. I never seem so much curved and floral relief all juxtaposed with medieval cobbled streets.

There is a Church here too, looks barque but not, the style might be called rocco but I don't know my art history. I've never seen anything like it. Its made of bronze or brass, and has a spire that saws high above the city. I went up to the top to have a look around, and saw Riga laid out below me. From up here it looked like a medeival village, but down there it had the feel of a city. Luther is the man for the religious, up here amongst the Baltic states. I saw his painting on a Church wall, his hooked nose beaking out at me. I was there listening to a Bach organ fuge and the heretic gave me the heeby-jebbies. Not Bach of course but Luther, Bach can make your hair stand on end, but only in a good way.

The central market in Riga, is inside four old zepplin hangers, built back when Airships were going to be the future of air transport. Sometimes, it looks like commerce in Riga hasn't moved on much since those heady past days. It;s so cheap you're buying several months shop for the price of a weeks, if you converted Great Britians into Latvians. Its a pity the choice isn't so great, I cant imagine what it would have been like under the communists, probably just a funeral train of old grey women selling bread and Vodka.

I brought a meal, it was mash and meatballs and an orange sauce. Finding a cheap place to eat has become a sixth sense. The seveth was for the mugging. The sauce tasted good, I recognised it from primary school but I couldnt place it, but I knew I hadn't had it for years. As I shovelled the congealed potatoes into my mouth, the memory congealed too. It was that sauce you get from straining the hoops out of spaghetti hoops, half tomato, half sugar. I am quite sure of it. It was the right colour for it too, luminous orange. I don't know what they did with the hoops but I never did find them on my plate, perhaps they sell them separability as some local cusine.

In the Hostel hunkered over the computer and nursing a Beer was a ragedy man in a ragid coat. He was American. I didnt ask him his name, I didnt really want to talk to him, but he wanted to talk to me. He was working in Moscow selling investment products. Now I know a little bit about this market, and I know you dont sell investment products be a big success and holiday in a Hostel. He was right wing, to the right of Mussolini. He didn't believe in evolution, he said it was "all wrong, damn it". He was one of those types who think the world was just shy of 5000 years.

I'm no Darwinisit, I don't know enough about it to be one. However, I trust those who do and I'm quite confident its the best idea we have. The thing about being right and wrong, is that right and wrong is not discrete digital units but an analouge scale. If I said the world is round and you said the world is flat, we would both be wrong, but your wrong is far worse than mine. If that analogy sounds smart, its because it is, and its not mine, I first read it while reading Asimov. I tried to explain this discretion to the American, but he was a fundamentalists, and you can't talk to fundamentalists about anything; they won't change their mind and they can't change the subject, not mine either, Churchill's.

He had a stash of boiled eggs, which he would crack on the table, roll around, then peel with the long dirty nails of his thin gaunt nails. He would dictate, while chewing. He looked like a biker version of skeletor, all skin bones and an oversized greying, black leather jacket. No breaks between eggs and Phillipics for this man, he must have thought I valued his insights, which I didn't. They were racist, vile, simple,overbearing and loud. It was horrible. I called him the Boiled egg monster, a child's nightmare, a liberals too. He used liberal as if it was a dirty word. I told him I was Liberal through and through. He didn't like me and the feeling was mutual, but like riding a tiger, the conversations I had with him were so extreme in their excitement it was impossible to get off. If I had I would have been swallowed whole by his self aggrandizing and miss-placed bravado. I got the last laugh though. As I said I know a little about markets and I am certain you're not in Investment and a success if your protein for the day is boiled egg and carbohydrates, spiteful words and bilious opinions.

Riga must have been collecting the odd balls of Europe. A staging ground, for the expansion of Ripleys believe it or Not into the Great  Russian interior. There was a British man there, who might have been a sex-pat, but he didn't look it. He was in Riga for five months. He made his money writing advertisements for party balloons. I didnt understand it either. In this hostel I seemed to be the only person who had a normal source of income, or at least had. This Brit had got married to a Lithuanian woman after just three days.

He told me and I said:  "That sounds like trouble".

It was. She also had a boyfriend. She was coming to visit the Brit to talk things over. I presume money was involved.

"Whatever you do. dont mention that I told you we got married"

"I wouldn't dream of it."

 I really wouldn't. I saw the man and his "wife" later and gave them both a wide berth, you don't want to get mixed up in that sort of business.

There was a Swede on holdiay too. He was seedy and I despised him from the off.  He had just had his hair cut you could tell, and he had gone for the Sleazed, Back and Slides look. He said he liked Riga because the women were cheap. I said I thought he was a disgrace and didn't like it for the same reason. He said that he thought British girls were ugly and didn't dress sexy. I told him, that he mistook sexy for cheap and I said it would't matter because "our girls wouldn't go near you". They wouldn't he was very ugly and British girls, or the ones I know can spot a creep a mile off.

Riga was all going wrong. I was having a dreadful time. Everyone I ran into domestic or forighn seemed to have been at the methanol vodka. There Brains rotted by alcohol or embroiled in machinations so complex, confusing and sinister that soon the only sensible escape would be booze. I was getting down, In Brataslavia I thought I had found my second wind, but like a Sea Breeze it ended with the sunset. I was going to drink myself into a depressed haze, but on the steppes of the Hostel there was a girl reading Crime and Punishment.

Now literature, good literature is the way to my heart. She was Russian reading a Russian classic. To have had her language! And, her books, that would have been something! We spoke for hours about Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Solzhenitsyn. It was a great conversation. Neither of us were faking it, which is rare when you talk to anyone about books. I asked her why Russians were so good at writing, she said "What else would you do in the Winter?" I told her I'd probably drink. My flippancy almost ruined it. But it was fine, we were both Bibliophiles, we had read the Classics and both loved them. We had both been having long and lecherous affairs with the written word.

It really made Riga for me, a book club in the Baltics that made the whole trip worthwhile. I'd travel half way round the world for a talk that good, in fact that's almost what I had done. By distance on the rails I could probably have been in Siberia by now.

Mickow in Warsaw.

In Warsaw I met a Londoner. Mickow he was Polish, but he had been living in London for years. He didn't look like a Pole, he dressed like a British man. I don't know what it is but you can see us a mile away. Its the way we dress, those bright colours and shabby look.

We clocked each other from across the concourse of a concrete hulk of Warsaw central station

"Are you English?" He asked, quietly and sheepishly.

"Yes, you?"

"I live in London".

I spent a long time talking to Mickow, he helped me find my train. Back in London, I think he was quite something in the Polish community. He told me that he would help out at the job centre in London bridge translating for new entrants to London's Polish community. While we were talking he took a call from a London number. He spoke in rapid polish, it was a random Pole, who had been passed his number by another. Mikow seemed to be the go to guy, to get yourself started in the big city.

He was London through and through, he preferred it to Warsaw. Now here was something I had noticed on my travels. You could call it my great insight, the countries I had been in, the people I had met, had become a mirror on which to observe and draw my own conclusions from our own great nation. I met Australian -Londoners, Polish-Londoners, Bulgarian and Greek Londoners. They were all from London first their countries second. London is a city so large so full of character it consumes nationality. It is the international city. If you live in London for anytime no matter where you were born you're a londoner first a nationality second. Of course I suppose those born in ear-shot of Bow-bells would disagree, but they have to move with the times. The world came to London and city conquered it.

I left Mickow at Vilinus, we exchanged emails, but I know already we'll never get in contact. It was dust in the wind. A meeting caught by a thin net of mutual distraction, that would fall apart as soon as the train left the station. He gave me a sandwich his mother had made him. It was basic, cheese and ham, but it tasted delicious. It had been made in Warsaw the day before, but unlike my swiftly cooked Pasta chewed down the day before, the sandwich was made with the missing ingredients, I couldn't put into my own food. His mother in Warsaw, who hadn't seen her Son for two years had put her heart into the sandwich. It was home food, made with love for a prodigal son and my taste buds basked in every stolen bite.

The Cold North Wind

My time in Bratislava was sojourn, it was R&R; time to re-group, before the big push East. I spent and eternity planning, and I had realised that I was running out of time to get through to Russia. I had hoped to visit Prague and Villinus but the trains wouldn't allow it.

I had organised my Russian Visa before I had organised anything else and I hadn't seemed to have ever got round to organising that anything else, so Europe had been done on the fly.

Playing it fast and lose had distinct advantages, if I liked a place I stayed a little longer. But, those extra days in Paris, Istanbul and Belgrade I had enjoyed, but the the time had built up.  I know had to race North, I had planned to go from Vilinus through to Beleraus but I hadn't realised I needed a transit Visa, which meant I had to go through Riga in Latvia. I had more countries then days to get through left in my itinerary.

On the second day it was raining in Bratislava, it hadn't rained for days while I had been in Europe. I had been carrying around winter gear and umbrella for weeks. In the Sun of Southern Europe I had been sourly tempted to throw it all away, I'd been slinging possessions out of my Backpack from Paris to Istanbul. The umbrella and the coat almost went the way of Tolstoy, and my swimming trunks. From Gaul, Thrace, Italy the Pelopanese and Attica, the hot ball of the Sun had mocked me as I sweated around with an overloaded backpack. In Bratislava I had my moment. As the rains came tumbling down I was dry to the bone. It felt like I had outwitted God, which is always a foolish thing to think.

I brought food for the journey. I'd even cooked a pasta meal. But it wasn't real home cooking, I playing home. On the train from Slovakia I met an American and her  husband. He was Slovakian  and she was American, but he had lived in America from his childhood. It was his first trip back to the country of his birth. He was unimpressed.

"Its not what I thought it would be like. Not from the stories my family told me"

"Babe, it never would have been from the way your family talked and talked"

I told them that my guide book had told me that Slovakia was famous for beautiful women.

"Hmmm. It shouldn't be" was the wife's reply. I was inclined to agree with her.

They were moving onto Italy that night. I told them I had been there a couple of weeks previously.

"How long are you going for?"

"Four days. Do you think that's too long?"

"For all of Italy?" I asked. "Hmm, I think you could be busy"

The sandwiches I'd made for the journey disintegrated in my hands. The soft cheese had wormed its way into the dry bread and they fell apart in my hands. It was a let down, it had the integrity of a Big Mac.

In search of a second wind

The Castle and the Parliament of Budapest are really something to see. The parliaments Neo-gothic, the whole city does look a little like London. I suppose its because they were great at the same time, the Hapsburgs and the Victorians. It took me an age to walk to the citadel, I got disorientated when I got of the underground and walked the wrong way.  All these cities in Eastern Europe seem to be the same, a big castle on hill overlooking the city.

I was walking exploring  some Germans, Kim and Tina, they were on a euro trip. The castle was impressive, but to be honest I’ve seen enough of them, not Germans, castles. The museums are informative, but to be honest, I’d seen enough of them too. I was seeing the sights out of obligation rather than desire, and there are few things in life which are enjoyable under obligation.

I strolled across the bridge to have a look at the parliament, it looked like Westminster but with a dome but that might be because I had read it, or simply because I missed London and wanted to see something that reminded me of home.  That night we got battered and made a meal of salami bread and wine. It was nice,  but the evening rang hollow. Tina and Kim looked like sisters, neither were pretty. They were 25 and 25 respecivly, and respectively a Chef and a sommelier. We had gathered together the last of our Hungarians, about 20 coins coming to a total of just under 4 euros. It was all rather pathetic.

We brought a couple of bottle of wines. I choose a Reisiling and the Germans always wanting a bit of France, went for a Muscat. I'm not really into my sweet anyway.  We brought some bread and Chorizo, Cheese and Bread. It was a personal picnic, and we were ravenous. The wine supercharged our appeteites. I drank the Resiling and went to get a Cabernet Savigon, it was grim stuff, I half expected to pick some leafs out the bottle.

When I came back Kim was arguing with Tina in rapid German about the wine. I couln't follow besides I was drunk.

'Langsmear Bitte!" I chanted, but it did no good. The whole evening was getting a bit much, so I lit up a hungarian cigar, lent back and tried to enjoy myself, but the Hugarian cigar was about as good as the Hungarian wine
.
At some point I must have fallen asleep, when I woke up I could hear the Germans whispering. They had some scissors and were about to cut my hair.

"What the hell do you think your doing?" I cried.

I felt a bit uneven, of kilter, I was searching for a even keel. The situation had all become surreal. I felt groggy with the wine and the cigars. They said in unison.

"We think you would look lovely if you let us cut your hair"

I didn't want them anywhere near me; damn bats. I pulled the last of the wine from the bottom of the bottle with a long slug and a jerk of the head and said.

"Hurrrghhh, Im going to go to bed".

But I didn't though. I was in the doldrums. That night someone was snoring in the dorm and I couldn’t get to sleep. So I went out and brought some night nurse, another bottle of Hungarian wine and drank them. I’d had just about enough of Budapest so left in the morning.

Spirits were down, Id been moving so fast and seeing so many new things that a surly look or smile from a local as I got off a train could determine weather I liked the city or not. The weather could determine my thoughts on the populace, capricious by nature,  transit, and rail transport only compounded my fickle mind. Everything was blurring into one. The cities were becoming similar, the languages the inhabitants spoke all sounded the same and were incomprehensible jibber jabber.

I needed to regroup and re plan, so I headed up to Bratislava chasing a second wind. It arrived , a gust of confidence and Bravado, that was induced by the Sun of Slovakia. I’d meant to be staying for one day, but got a second as the hostel was clean and I was tired. I’d bagged myself a single room for the price of a dorm. As ever there was a castle over looking a city and cobbled streets of the old town were worth a couple of afternoons stroll. I was tightening the budget again so I brought a few packs of salamis and some  bread and had a feast under the castle.

On the second day it was a deluge, the skies  were grey and with the rain the depression descended. I kept meeting travelers who told me horror stories of risky Russians and dodgy poles . I’d met a Australian who had been bottled for his wallet in Warsaw and a Swiss who had had to bribe his way across Russia. I had to man up though, I was being a Pussey. The stories anyone ever tells on the road are the bad ones. The trips which work out fine aren’t interesting.  Still I was a little worried. Id once again built a pyramid of connections to get me up to Riga in Latvia, but this time I could n’t miss any of them . I had to be in Riga on the 9^th to catch an overnight train to St. Petersburg for the tenth and I didn’t want any border issues, so the fear remained; the coward hiding at the back of my mind.

Trading the Huff

In 2008 when this recession was still just a few bankers mislaying a few zeros from their crib sheets. It wasn’t the Greeks who were the the bad news bears of Europe but the Hungarians. They had a currency that was rapidly leaking dignity, and was in risk of becoming one of those useless currencies, like the Zimbawean dollar or the Riechmark pound.

I know this because I used to work in and around money markets, and in particular I had a friend who broked the Hungarian Florrint. Or the Huff, as its known in finance. He  matched buyers of the HUF with the sellers of the HUF and made the difference on the spread in between the two prices. For him the recession was a real cuff-huff-le.

By the end of 2008 he was having a hard time of it. Many of the  clients he broked for were broke, the Huff was became near impossible to sell,  and currency  was devaluing so fast it was in real risk of disappearing altogether. It was a very stresfull period , he actually contracted  a stomach ulcer.

I saw him perhaps two months ago, he has left finance and money markets altogether, working in the for more leisurely and far less rewarding field of Auto insurance. I told him that he needs to get back in the game. We’re still in a slump but volumes are up and there is profit to be made. He was having none of it.

“Stu, you don’t understand it was horrible. I’d be on the phone trying to sell and there would be tanks. Tanks,. Actual tanks, outside their parliament!”. Once bitten twice shy.

This almpost crisis, an almost fire was  put out by a deluge of money from the IMF. In Budapest  its just shy of two years since then and you couldn't tell that the economy almost went into meltdown. The city is teaming with business.

I went to the Central market, just by the banks of the Danube. Its housed in a three storey Hanger esque space, made of Brick , glass and steel. In england we would say it looks Victorian. The three floors stock fresh food. There are innumerable sausage sellers, it’s a real Butchers paradise, bakeries, and grocers.

There are also old women selling jars of picked vegetables. All folded up leaves, onions, gherkins, pressed faced and squeezed against the glass. Anything pickeled and squeezed against  glass looks unattractive. It was a vegans Damion Herst exhibition. At my high school they had jars of pickled animals, entombed and slowly breaking apart in jars of  formaldehyde,  these  preservative vegetable vats  took me back to those salad days and I had to look away.

On the third floor, besides and behind the inevitable tourist tat, are a row of stores selling Hungarians finest foods at Hungary's finest prices.  I’d wanted some Hungarian fare for sometime. I’d tried the fish of Istanbul, the white Cheese heavy foods of Bulgaria and the meat parcel pastry packets of Serbia and of course the unforgeable, Red Rum in Slovenia. In Hungary I knew what I wanted. Goulash.

I brought a bowl for 800 Hungaroians. It looked like the colour of mud with bits in. It tasted like spiced earth with boot leather. It was tough and a little spicy, from the ones I’d met I suppose its bit like Hungarian women.

The Goulash was tasty,  filling; hearty perhaps would be the best description. I ordered a few beers too.  And began to really get on the go- Lash. I wandered past some shops selling chess sets, and some more selling Key rings, took me back to Agrophobia at The Grand Bazzar. I could feel pin pricks of sweat on the back of my neck, but this wasn’t so bad, there were n't as many god damn, bats. I ordered a Lagnos from a shop, ran by a real formidable women, her glare could  burn steel, her massive forarms could have snapped me in half. She must have been the prodiginy of the last Warsaw pacts Olympic shot put team.

I ordered a Lagnos of her, its deep fried bread. She slammed it onto a piece of card, punched on some sour crème and then gave it a shot gun blast of grated cheese. I got out of there sharp-ish and took a nibble. Of course like all fast food it was  delicious. One bite began dumping serotonin to brain, in reaction to its overwhelming fat and oil content. You could probably use them as fuel if you ever run out of fire lighters, they are so packed with energy. The cuisine, in Hungry reminded me of its people. Heavy, tough, hearty, warming, but  a little bit  of an aquirted taste.

It's a terrible thought but I'd probably have been a Nazi.

The girl at the Hostel desk was surly, a real winter chill. I'd asked her for a map, I knew she had them, everyone had them but she ignored me. I was only being polite, I'd already spied them behind the Iron curtain of a desk. So I broke detante, lent over and seized one. It was a pity because the rest of the Hungarian I met seemed nice enough chaps, a little quiet, but I suppose I can be overbearing so the fault is probably as much mine as theirs,. that is if difference is a fault at all.


The map was a touristic classic, It had all the sites of historical interests marked and some which weren't.  It had numbers from 1-300 of things to see and do. I get the impression that it was compliled by an over zealous, underling in Hungrys ministry of culture. Not every statue is a site, and most definitely not of interest. The nearest number, number 15,  was the Great Synagogue, in the centre of what was the Great Jewish quarter, now of course just the Jewish quarter. The synagogue is still grand. Its enormous, comparable to Christendoms cathedrals. It was built in 1854 by Budapests large Jewish community but in the Moorish style. The Jews once composed 25% plus of the population of Budapest. Of course like much of Europe, Hitler and his goons did their best to put an end to such wonderful diversity.

I knew a Hungarian, in fact I knew a Hungarian Jew and to quote him "A Hungarian Jew is the only man who can enter a revolving door behind you and come out in front", Tenacity, you always have to admire that. Budapest's community is recovering, tenaciously fighting back, but it has been ravaged and I don't suppose it will ever be what it once was was, even if they are amazing at the revolving door trick. Before the war there were 250,000 by the end it was less than 150,000 the difference can be made up by murder . It is difficult not to judge in the face of such cold, bloody facts, really, how could this have happened? We saw it to quote Churchill circa April 1944. " There is no doubt that this persecution of Jews in Hungary and their expulsion from enemy territory is probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world". 


Would I have seen it? Probably not. You have to pinch yourself, you have to be honest, would you have gone along with what was happening? I expect so. That is the chilling truth, if you stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back at you, he'll smirk, snigger and whisper in you ear "in all probability in 1944 you would have been complicit in the State operated industry of murder". Its a horrible thought, something I'll never forget, I truly wish I could. 


The Jewish quarter would have been bursting then, now its quiet. The Synagogue was only repaired in 1991 from the ravages of the war and then the soviets. Even time can't heal these wounds. In light of the depressing fact that I would have probably been a Nazi symperthiser, I can take heart in the brilliance that just maybe, if I am the man I like to think I am (And I know I'm not), I would have been either Budapestian, Giorgio Perlasca or Raoul Wallenberg. They both masqueraded as diplomats, they both danced daily with death, matching wits with the Nazi Death machine and winning. In various capacities at great personal risk to themselves they saved thousands, tens of thousands of Budapest's Jews. Unimaginable bravery, these two boys were real good eggs; a credit to humanity. Wallenberg died somewhere in Russia, he was arrested by the Soviets at the end of the war, I couldn't find out why. And, after the war Perlasca returned to his native Italy, he never mentioned what he had achieved. It took the Jews he saved some 40 years to track him down, find him and thank him. That is unquestionable heroics, integrity, the beam of redemptive light in an otherwise ghastly, horrific story. 


The Synagogue is the physical manifestation of what is a long and awful saga of persecution and murder. And in this tale, in which there is almost nothing good to say and a tragic absence of good men. In the light of the horrible truth that I may well have been a Nazi sympathiser, I will pretend I would have been one of these better men. The better Angels of our Nature. That is what you have to do, otherwise you simply can't explain it. Afterall, this would never happen on my watch would it?

A Night at the Opera

I took the train from Slovenia to Budapest. It was nondesript, the train not the city. I slept for much of the journey.  At a place called Hodus-Hodus, they switched engines. I watched it, I like that big industry stuff, but it was taking so long I didn't care for it any more and went to buy a coffee. It didn't take that long, and I almost missed the train. I almost got Duffilled as Theroux would say. I had to sprint after it screaming, I thought Id been marooned in some backwater, with no money, no passport and a half spilt cappuccino. The kindly driver stopped the train. You don't get that in England do you.

I arrived in Budapest and got lost. Lost really badly, I taken a picture of a map from my computer to where I wanted to stay. Google maps, screwed me over, or I just screwed myself. Same difference. I rang on the address I had taken, I already knew it wouldn't be a Hostel and was confirmed by the angry Hungarian on the end of the Buzzer. Fuck you, I said as he shouted at me. I ran away, I was worried he might come after me. I ended up wandering around Budapest for two hours. Backpack and all. I fucking hate my back pack. I had to buy a Burger King whopper to regroup,did the trick but the dogs charged me for Ketchup, beside I was still Hungry in Hungry and now thin on the Hungarians.

I'd come to Budapest because my old pal Google had told me that you could get cheap as chips tickets to the Opera . I love the opera, anyone who goes would and does. La Clemenza di Tito was playing. I just made it. I brought the Plebeian tickets and they were at Plebeian prices, just 1400 Hungarians, and they weren't the cheapest seats in the house. You could they weren't for the rich folk you had to enter through a side door and miss all that architectural glory. It didnt matter everyone feels like royalty at the Opera. Sumptuous, ornate, that's who you would describe all opera houses, but Budapests is double decadent, its a Sofflait of grandiose design. The Accousitcs were very good too.

Im a big fan of Wolfgang, if you have ears, who wouldn't be. Rossini does Cheek, Beethoven Nature,  Bach is the master of the interwoven melody, but Mozart does relationships, man v woman, rich v poor, the musical social commentator. He is the master of his class and a very good friend of mine. Le Nozze De Figgoro, released just before the French revolution hammers class. The Magic Flute is the Liberals hymn to good governance, La Clemenza di Tito is all about magnanimity. It was a double dose of love for me, it was about rome. I was sitting next to a bunch of frenchies and even they couldn't ruin it for me, with there sniffing and opening and shutting of camera cases. They ruined it for the lady infront, she turned round and told them to shut up. They left after the first act. Shocking. The chappie who played Titus was superb a real strong voice, he could have been Imperator in a different life. I almost cried, Opera gets me like that, but I cry at anything, I'm an absoulte child. It was in Italien, but it didnt matter you feel it, not hear it.

Afterwards I met an elderly Irish lady. I never did catch her name she must have been about seventy and a real opera buff. She had been all over the world seeing performance, La Scala, some place in St. Petersburg, I' never heard of. Covant garden. A very interesting old woman, she brought me a glass of wine, the old flirt. I felt a bit creepy so I said my good byes and had a wander around the Hostels area. There was a peep show just outside, you could have take a peek for 100 Hungarians, but after Amsterdam that stuff just creeps me out. To Voyeuristic for I the voyeur, so I brought a Beer and then two more went back to the Hostel and wrote this nonsense. 

Eating Red Rum in Ljubljana.

In Ljubliana I ate a horse. I was chomping at the bit for a bit of meat and I had heard that in Sloveina they make a meal out of Red Rums.

Minced up in a Burger was how I ate my thourghbred, I saddled it up with some Ketchup and Mayo. It must have come from good breeding stock becasue there was n't a gram of fat on it. The meat was juicy and moist, delicous too. Disguting you say? Come now, why the long face? M-eat is Eat. Ill be licking my lips next time I watch the Grand National.

Ljuliana has a coffee culture, House after house serves good cups of the Black stuff, especially by the river in the old town, under the shadow of the Castle. The city is pretty, cholcate box nice. It reminded me of some of the smaller cities in Belgium and a little bit of Italy, but its only becasue the Renasance was here too. Ljubliana, looks like a counter reformation town. There is Barque everywhere and with its residual beauty, the Popes can still hit hard.

The Slovians have their own style here too, I think it might be called Cessionist, its nice. Looks like Art deco, just before Art Deco. I climbed up to the Citdel, that was a struggle, I had to take a nap at the top, under the morning sun. When I woke up I paid 5 Europes to see a bad 3D film about the city.

Apparently tradition dictates that it was founded by Jason and the Argonaughts. I dont believe it, he would have been a long way from home if he had, and I think the Archeology is with me. The video skipped from 388 AD to 1850AD, so we can assume that nothing of interest happened in the interveneing 1200 years. Of course it did, for a start the castle had been built in the 12th Centuary and Napolean and his goons had taken the pound of flesh in the early 1800s.

Slovenia was the power house of Titos Yugoslavia and its easy to see when you compare it to, Belgrade or Sofia .It has a distinctly Western European feel, that could place it anywhere from Ravenna to Brussles, Bruge to Bravaeria. The prices were western European too, they werent the cheap eats normally found on the Balkland express. I was having a mare spending money on Horse and coffess, I didnt mind though, the city is very nice, in the evening I watched some superb Acapella singers.

Gatsby, Babys, Bribes to Slovenia

I was back on the Balklan express charging through the night. The Slovienians, I had met in Belgrade had been such diplomats for the coutnrz that I it would have been bad manners not to visit their country. It was a long night journey and after the German incidence of the dog in the night I was to selfish to share the cabin.

I had an argument with the conducter asking if I could be put alone. I followed him through the carriges, arguing in English and then German. Like the train we were on, he wasnt moving, and I was deperate to be on my own. I had asked at the station how much a first class cabin was, it wasnt expensive but was out of my price range, but I regretted not paying it now. I went back to the cabin, and a young mother entered with her baby.

Next door were a pair of Macedonian Politics students doing a quick tour of the Balklands, they wanted to know why I wasnt coming to Sjkope, eveyone here is proud of there country and wants to show it off. Its a nice touch. I was to busz though, I had seven days to make it to the Baltic states and I was a little bit behind on time. I had met a couch surfer in Belgrade though, who was sorting me out a bed in Krakow.

I setteled down with Gatsby and a bottle of Gin I had brought in Belgrade, it was a long journey and I ways hoping, gin dependant, I could polish off the Great mans rise and demise in a day and a night. It wasnt to be , the baby started crying, the morther started shusshing and I was swiging from the bottle. It wailed on and on and the Jazz age or the booze couldnt distract me. I had, had just about enough of this. I picked up my wallet and went to find the conductor so I could pay him a bribe.