Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
APRIL 29, 2022 – If you view Russia on a globe, you’ll see that the country is so vast, as the sun sets in the Russian Far East, it rises on St. Petersburg, f/k/a Leningrad, in the far west. For my three days in Leningrad, I’d barely reached Peter the Great’s “window to the West.” …
APRIL 28, 2022 – My tour of Leningrad was mostly self-directed—strolling along the canals, admiring the Italian architecture, the Bronze Horseman (statue of Peter the Great on horseback; commissioned by Catherine the Great); and inspecting the Aurora (the Russian cruiser that fired a blank shell to signal the beginning of the October 1917 Revolution). In …
APRIL 27, 2022 – As I wrote in my letter home, “The aesthetic shortcomings of my accommodations, though, were compensated a thousandfold by the beauty of Leningrad itself . . . The gilded dome of the imposing St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the tall, narrow gold spire of Peter and Paul Fortress, and the striking gold tower-spire …
APRIL 26, 2022 – (Cont.) My initial reaction was that the two guys had been masquerading as Intourist agents but were in fact, KGB. My second was that I’d been set up for entrapment, and I didn’t want to wind up in labor camp in Siberia. My third thought was, Where the hell is my …
APRIL 25, 2022 – On its way eastward 111 miles to the Russian border, the Soviet train sped through birch forests ablaze with autumn color and past tranquil, mystical lakes. The scenery was reminiscent of music by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. I thought particularly about Sibelius’s Karelia Suite, inspired by the troubled history of Karelia, …
April 25, 2022 – My interest in Russia pre-dated my travels behind the Iron Curtain. When my sisters and I were young, every year a few days before Christmas our family would visit the Ibele’s in the Kenwood neighborhood of Minneapolis. Warren Ibele was Dean of the Engineering School at the U of MN, and …
APRIL 23, 2022 – After catching my breath in Malmö, I traveled back to Stockholm, my “jumping off” point for Finland and . . . Russia. In the Swedish capital, I spent three days with my cousin Anders, who, like our cousins in Malmö, was keenly interested in hearing about Poland and equally curious about …
APRIL 22, 2022 – Upon returning to my cousin Merith’s family apartment in Malmö, I gave my eager audience—Merith, Peter (her husband, the Polish count), and my cousin Mats-Åke (Merith’s brother)—an exhaustive account of my travels across Poland. After a long nap, I began the project of writing home about it. Through the prism of …
APRIL 21, 2022 – The next day I began my long trek from Zakopane back to Świnoujście via Wrocław—for me, a stopover city, which I explored on foot for an hour between arrival and departure. A German city (“Breslau”) before WW II, Wrocław, in its 1,000-year history, had been under Polish, Hungarian, Bohemian, Austrian, and …
APRIL 20, 2022 – After my dispiriting day at Auschwitz, I needed to repair to the mountains for some rigorous hiking. I retraced my steps to Krakow, then headed due south 100 km by train and bus to Zakopane. I’d heard and read much about the place, a resort town at the base of the …
APRIL 19, 2022 – It was in Krakow—at the youth hostel where I stayed—where I experienced the most memorable theater poster-based “class” (see 4/12/22 post). One of the other guests, Jerzy, was a young artist from Lublin. He spoke slow but understandable English and our conversation attracted the attention of six Polish students at the …
APRIL 18, 2022 – From Gdansk I traveled to Warsaw, then to Krakow. This former capital of the Nazi’s General Government during WW II had largely avoided the crushing destruction that had befallen Gdansk and Warsaw. In Krakow, therefore, “old” meant “original”—not, “reconstructed after the war”—and in many places, “original” meant the 14th century (St. …
APRIL 17, 2022 – It was a Sunday in Gdansk, and from my contacts the day before I’d learned about the dedication of a memorial at Stutthof, a Nazi concentration camp 21 miles east of Gdansk. I learned what bus route would take me there, and hiked to the bus stop a short distance to …
APRIL 16, 2022 – (Cont.) The procession led to a dark red brick, two-story abbey. I followed the leaders right to the front stoop and watched them disappear into the building. And there on the concrete steps I stood, an improbable observer—a 26-year-old, Protestant “amerikánsky”—in the company of three Polish Catholic nuns. I turned my …
APRIL 15, 2022 – I’d reached the convention center by unconventional means. On my way to a bus stop where I’d been told I could find a public ride, I saw a bus parked along the street. The vehicle was bedecked with signs—including Solidarity posters. Its passengers stood on the sidewalk beside it, and I …
APRIL 14, 2022 – South of Gdansk, the train passed within sight of Malbork Castle—the largest in the world. Completed in 1405, according to my guidebook, the structure was built by the Teutonic Order of Knights (think “German Crusaders”). The Poles had laid siege to the castle in 1410 after one of history’s turning points, …
APRIL 13, 2022 – During my days in the capital, which included mass, pro-Solidarity demonstrations that I joined to get a closer look, I learned three things about Poland that would’ve escaped me without on-the-ground exposure. First was the psychological proximity of WW II. For many Americans, that conflict was epitomized by Pearl Harbor, D-Day, …
APRIL 12, 2022 – Most of my time in Warsaw was spent in Stare Miasto (“Old Town”). This appellation, however, was misleading. In WW II, German bombing had obliterated it. In an inspirational demonstration of resilience after the war, Poland had assigned top priority to the painstaking reconstruction of Stare Miasto—so masterfully executed that until …
APRIL 11, 2022 – My next stop was Warsaw. If it wasn’t the birthplace of the Solidarity Movement, it was a cauldron of history and the vortex of current political protest. I covered much of the city on foot, including stops at various shops, bookstores, and a music store where, for next to nothing, I …
APRIL 10, 2022 – In Poznan I found a cheap hotel near the university. I seemed to be the only customer. The threadbare lobby, creaky elevator, and stick furniture in my room looked untouched since 1950. A hard rain discouraged exploration of the town, and since I hadn’t slept aboard the overnight ferry from Sweden, …
APRIL 9, 2022 – From my first hour in Poland to the last, I met more people, had more substantive conversations than in any other country of my travels. The country was on fire politically. Everyone I met was engaged in the upheaval of the country and wanted to tell me about it. In no …
APRIL 8, 2022 – Blogger’s note: In keeping with the duration of my long train trips in Poland, the length of this post violates my self-imposed limit of 500 words. (“A-a-a-l-l aboard!”) As a long-haul traveler, I’d learned to roll with the bumps—especially aboard trains. In Poland, however, I encountered the worst train conditions of …
APRIL 7, 2022 – I can best characterize my impression of Poland in September 1981 via a giant Venn diagram depicting Polish: 1. Social unity; 2. Catholicism; 3. Sophistication in the arts and understanding of history and politics; and 4. Hatred of the Russians. Within the substantial overlap of these “circles” I found the essence …
APRIL 6, 2022 – Well after suppertime, I boarded a train in Malmö for the hour-long trip to Ystad at the very southern tip of Sweden. There I boarded a Polish ferry bound for Świnoujście across the Baltic—formerly the German city of “Stettin” before the westward re-arrangement of Polish borders after WW II. Nearly all …
APRIL 5, 2022 – From Bøda, I traveled by train down past the Arctic Circle to Trondheim, where I spent a full Sunday kicking around this ancient, northern city before taking another long train ride south to Bergen. Norwegians are generally well-behaved, but it was in Trondheim where I experienced a mean prank. “Mean” was …