Juicy Kotor

Did you know I have never been to the Bay of Kotor before?  I have a really weird relationship with Montenegro.  I spent a considerable amount of time in Podgorica before realizing that I didn't want to sleep the night there. (all it took was a 3 hour walk that confirmed no good pizza to be had and I'm sorry but what exactly do you expect to offer me if your pizza game is so weak?)  But aside from that, and aside from the arduous katabasis I had taken from the Kosovo border a year and a half prior, I didn't have a lot of experience with Montenegro. 

Oh, wait, that's not true at all.  I also drove through Montenegro in May of 2010 with GDN, and the border guards made us pay 10 euro for a "Green Tax" or something for our car and we were also hassled in Podgorica by a cop who stopped us and claimed we went through a red light when several other cars followed us (sans Albanian plates) and were not stopped.  We felt the cold sting of racial profiling in that moment but we countered with the sting of Western privilege which ultimately won the day.*

Anyway, the Bay of Kotor was really pretty but it really made you realize why the Montengrins and the Balkan littoral was never really taken seriously as a place for port development.  The mountains are so sharp and there are no major waterways flowing into the Adriatic that things just sort of ended there.  We had a nice house right on the water and could see several cruise ships passing through into bay which were hideously ugly but there was little I could do about it.  I was actually really sick by this point and spent most of my time in agony hoping I would get over the flu or whatever I picked up in Latvia.  

Tell me about it!  My entire time in Montenegro was a constant reminder of what a constant struggle life is.

We made routine pilgrimages to Kotor the city and other areas around the bay, which were really beautiful.  We also went to Cetinje and did the embassy tour of the city, which was pretty fun but I can only imagine being a young diplomat in the late 1800s and being totally pissed off that I was sent to a tiny principality.  Still, they probably had pretty bumpin' parties. 

After this, I took the bus to Podgorica where I decided to walk to the airport because I had nothing but time, and on my way there I saw a family drag an enormous squealing pig out of a barn and then slaughter it.  That was pretty real.  

*I'm no stranger to getting stopped by cops in Montenegro at other times, as well.  When we drove to Podgorica to drop my brother off for his flight back to wherever (probably Istanbul or whatever hub services Baku at the most reasonable rate) my dad was apparently taking the speed limit as a suggestion.  This is something I think is a totally reasonable assumption to make, considering my experiences with motoring in the Balkans, but that's neither here nor there in this story.  We were stopped by some policeman and told that we had to pay 300 euros, at the local police station the next business day.  My brother, who is no stranger to corruption, suggested asking the driver "if there was another way to resolve this" because we were tourists and passing through the country.  For some reason the cop just let us go because he probably didn't want to do the paperwork.  

Bouncing Through Beograd

Belgrade, you saucy minx, we tango again.  Belgrade was just a quick stopover as I de-planed and made my way to the centre of the city by bus and spent the afternoon totally enjoying every aspect my life basking in the Balkan sun, after shivering feverishly in the icy, salty Baltic gales.  So I did what I have done every time I have visited Belgrade since 2007: I went to Ruski Tsar for an absolutely delicious calzone and went to a park with a beer to sit and just soak it up, you know?  I also used this time to do some reading (on the Wikipedia app on my iTouch) about…Russian literature or something.  Yes, Soviet dissident lit.  My fav.  It was a review some American girl had written about Children of the Arbat.  I agreed with her general synopsis, even if I only read the book in 2006 and can only remember a couple of really intense details that made me pretty happy I was born in the West.   

I also bought my ticket to Korcula, which was an insane 50 euro, and then I went and sat on the fortress walls on the cliffs over the Danube to watch the sun go down.  If you have never done this, then there is actually nothing you can tell me that will impress me.  This is probably the most beautiful view in the world and a pretty straight-line vision to the Austrians approaching from the north via the Great Hungarian Plain, as well as offensive graffiti below and hot Serbian babes posing for pouty pictures taken by their hulking bouncer boyfriends in tracksuits.  It's really the most perfect place on earth. 

The bus ride was pretty horrific though.  I actually have no idea where it even went.  I recall at one point getting out to get stamped into Croatia, and I am assuming I went through Bosnia, but try ascertaining that from looking at my passport.  Anyway I woke up totally disoriented somewhere outside of Neum and I was all "lolz, been here" and then we finally arrived at the ferry to begin the less-than-arduous journey to Korcula, which I could see from the terminal.  It was all pretty simple, actually.  Then at the bus terminal in Korcula my parents were there to casually greet me and were all, "Oh hey"--you know, the way you do when you're in Marco Polo's hometown and it's NDB.

Hansa, Baby Hansa

Once, when my dad sold my Eagle Talon, I changed my Facebook status to "Trading a Talon for Talinn" assuming the proceeds would be used to finance a trip through the mighty Hanse and beyond.  So far I have not yet been to Talinn but the ferry from Helsinki to Talinn overnight sounds like a cheap and very reasonable proposition compared to the staggering price of even breathing in downtown Helsinki.  The Baltics are just such a place of intrigue and circumstance.  Being in Riga made me feel like I had really accomplished something in this life.  Probably similar to how Peter the Great felt when he did all that stuff and then founded St Petersburg.  Who wouldn't want to have command of the Baltic littoral?  Riga is such am important city in history, and indeed in my own life, that it was pretty symbolic for me to be there.  I even had a Lego city that I called Riga when I was 7 or 8, so that definitely means something.  I also find it very flattering when someone asks me if I'm from the Baltic because it's like being Scandinavian but with a touch of realism.

loooool

So you can imagine how fresh and bright-eyed I was when I staggered off the bus at 5am on the waterfront in Riga looking like one of those leperous mole people and just wanted to throw myself into the Baltic and drift off in a nice deep sleep.  Instead I collected my things and made my way to the hostel where I was way too early to check in.  I then went to the market which is composed of hangars from the 30s and is quite the sight to behold.  Those Letts were so resourceful before the takeover by the Soviets.  I ate shashlik and cabbage rolls for breakfast with mini donuts, apple strudel and lots of coffee.  Yeah, I'm a fat mess.  Deal with it. 

I'd love to identify each of these items for you but I have literally not idea what any of this is aside from that red thing which I only know the Hungarian word for, almapaprika.

Anyway, I was so tired in Riga and throughout the entire day I was becoming increasingly sick, culminating in a terrible fever that kept me up all night with sweats and delirium.  Part of this may have also been due to the fact that there were some truly atrocious people in this hostel, like a guy from Spain who kept hitting on these two Swiss German girls who were trying to ignore him and talk to each other in their native tongue.  After he took his shirt off and did a bunch of pushups right in front of them while they were talking, the following conversation took place that made me wish the Anglo-American axis hadn't been quite so exuberant in their push to overtake French as the global lingua-franca:

Spanish Guy: Yeah I really like Riga. Tomorrow I'm going to go clothes shopping, check out what they've got here.
German Girl: Where will you go?
SG: Oh, probably Zara. They have a Zara in the mall.
GG: Don't you already know all about Zara?
SG: Why?
GG: Because it's Spanish, and you're from Spain.
SG: I know! I get all of my clothes at Zara.
GG: So wouldn't it just be better to buy it in Spain?
SG: I want to see what they have here.
GG: But isn't there better selection in Spain?  Won't it be the exact same thing?
SG: We'll see.

So yeah, that was a treat.  Apart from that my time in Riga was spent buying vintage postcards, handkerchiefs from old ladies, wandering around the Occupation Museum, and also conversing with a man at the hostel I thought was Kim Jong Ill but later turned out not to be. 

Don't even start with me. 

Advancing to Baltic Avenue

After the excitement of the tractor factory wore down I made my way back to the flat and planned my escape from Belarus.  Okay, I know what you're thinking--"you've only been there 3 days!" and it's true and no one's fault but my one.  I had purchased a ticket from Riga to Belgrade on AirBaltic and I thought it was for the Friday but turned out to be for the Wednesday.  The good news is that I didn't have to go through the absolutely horrifying prospect of registering, but the bad news was that I was leaving Belarus later that evening.  

$4 rent.  Baltic Avenue is pretty raw.

I purchased a ticket from the bus depot after doing a dry run to the station and calculating my route., and then returned later in the evening to board the night bus to Latvia, which crossed at Lithuania.  We stopped in Vilnius but I didn't get off the bus to smoke a cigarette like everyone else, so I have never actually set foot on Lithuanian soil and if I try to tell you at any time that I have then I am lying.  I also might be lying when I say that we passed through Vilnius because I don't even know if it was Vilnius or Kaunas.  But, like, we've all been there, and how many of you are able to distinguish the two by the cloak of darkness?  I'm also just not that into amber but this is hardly the place to start talking about that.  I've already insulted the Lithuanians enough with this post and by confusing Vilnius and Kaunas (because, as I am sure you know, there are also differences between Regina and Saskatoon). 

lawlz this is me at the Belarusian border because registration is an outdated bureaucratic construct designed to demobilize a population and no one is the boss of me.

It was really hard to sleep on the bus, partly due to it being a bus, partly due to the man behind me who took off his shoes and put his outrageously smelly feet up, partly from the guy across watching some Second World War documentary, and partly (mostly) due to the fact that I was approaching the border and had no idea what would happen.  At the border to Lithuania I was absolutely terrified that for some reason I should have registered, or that someone had planted pounds and pounds of cocaine in my backpack, and I was going to end up in a gulag-like situation.  Or at least have to fill out a lot of paperwork.  But alas I was free to pass without hindrance.  No customs, no questions, no trouble, no explaining myself frantically in broken, tear-choked Russian.  I can only imagine how ridiculous and incoherent I sound trying to articulate myself in Russian, and what people must think: "who IS this idiot-savant?"  In any case I had broken through the lines and was to reach Riga and the mighty Baltic by sun up.

Did you know you can Google Image search almost anything?    Apparently there is no Chance card that allows you to advance your token to Baltic Avenue, but Baltic is pretty close to GO and I'm pretty sure you "get it," you know?

Glorious Tractor Factory

So this next day in Belarus was all about Minsk.  I rose early, as usual, and made my way to the TSUM for some coffee, which I regretted because who goes to TSUM for coffee?  Amateur.  So I spent the day trying ti find all the sights of Minsk, which was more difficult than you'd think because the city has not designed itself for tourism, though that's not to suggest it has any rough and tumble areas with particular rustic charm.  Instead, it's a spotless city with even the most polished back alleys.  I spent the morning trying to find a cafe/bar called "Upteka" which of course means "pharmacy" in Russian and was a bar that was decorated like a 1940s pharmacy.  Cool, right?  According to the vague description on the travel website I found when I googled, "cool shit to do in Belarus" but it was near impossible to find when I got to the approximate address and part of me thinks it never existed in the first place.  Like, you know how when you're in Europe and the addresses don't always line up and streets change names mid block and then you're looking for 23 1/B but you can only find 23 2/A and you're like, "OMFG WHERE IS IT???" Well, imagine my delight when I finally saw a huge sign that said, "Upteka" and I was all, "lawl, it was right here the whole time."  When I walked in, however, I was alarmed to discover that it was an actual pharmacy.  

Metro Minsk

Then I went to find the tractor factory!  Belarus tractors are, quite obviously, world famous, and I was excited to see where it all happens.  When I got to the metro station I discovered the Red line was closed.  Normally this sort of thing would annoy people but everyone was very blasé about it and people were laughing and joking with the policeman who was informing them of the problems.  Everyone laughed it off. In my mind I compared this to March, 2010, in Ukraine and a group of militant babas in police garb locking arms and screaming to hold back people trying to get into the metro because the escalators were broken.  Like, actual screaming.  It was on a brink of a riot.  I also had two large militsia men surround me and force me to delete a photo from my camera.  In Minsk I asked if I could take a picture and the guard said, "Yes" but with the kind of body language and inflection that implied, "Yeah, of course you can.  Who am I to tell you what to do?  I'm not your mother."

This girl gets it.

So, tractors.  I finally did make it to the tractor factory and the metro station was shaped like a tractor.  I had a great time walking around the grounds and seeing all the different ties of tractors and medals that they won at world tractor competitions.  World tractor competitions.  I asked security if I could go in and actually look at the tractor works in action, and I was promptly rebuffed.  When I saw the administration building and a bunch of biznezmen in terrible suits emerging from it and getting into limousines one by one.  One man was waiting for his car so I approached and asked, "Excuse me, is there a gift shop?  I'd like to buy a t-shirt that says "Minsk Tractor Factory."  He stared at me blankly for a while, then pointed across the street.  "There is a grocery store. Maybe they have shirts.  I don't know."  They didn't, but needless to say my trip to the tractor factory was a resounding success.  

Traktorski Zavod Metro Station

Umm, I feel like I did more in Minsk…I ate outside the Komarovsky market, which is massive and closed unfortunately.  I also saw a bunch of soldiers goose-stepping and I was taking pictures and a general came to me and yelled (in a fun, friendly way), "No pictures! Come back tomorrow, yes please tomorrow!" and ushered me away.  Then I went to Moloko which is the coolest bar in all of Minsk and I only learned about from reading an article in the Economist about the counterculture movement in Minsk.  Did you know I read the Economist?  I'm so worldly!

Turns out I'm not that into tracksuits after all.

Baranovichi

So I don't know if you know this, but you need an invitation letter to get into Belarus.  Thank goodness the internet exists because I have literally no idea how to accomplish most of life without it.  I used to think I was pretty crafty and clever with my Google searches to help weed out all the garbage on the internet and get me the purest information, but now I just do things like type in, "How do I get into Belarus?" or "What the hell is Pinterest?" and all the information I need pops up.  

Anyway, thankfully I was able to use Couchsurfing to find someone in Belarus willing to write me an invitation letter for 10 euro.  Isn't that nice?  So he mailed me the letter, and then I got my visa, and everything was great, but he didn't seem too concerned about how I would get the 10 euro to him.  He lived in Baranovichi and gave me his address but really didn't follow up on me to ensure that I delivered the money to him.  But don't interpret this as me thinking it wasn't important to settle my debts - my online reputation depended on me getting to Baranovichi and handing over the 10 euro note.  So I caught the bus from Nesvizh to Baranovichi, and with some screenshots from Google Maps on my iTouch, I was wandering the backroads of this small town trying to find the correct charming wooden house.  

I found it, thanks to some kindly babushki, but no one was home unfortunately.  So in a sketchy manner I lurked around the yard looking for a safe place to leave the cash.  I managed to tuck it into a window crack and it fell down the other side, then I immediately went and found wifi (this wasn't actually accomplished until much later that evening as wifi is not really a thing in Belarus) to let him know I dropped off the cash.  He emailed me the next day and said, "Oh yes, I'm sorry I forgot to say I'm out of town all week but my wife found the money.  Kthnxbye."  Great times! 

The only other reason I wanted to be in Baranovichi is because of the large ballistic missile they have on display in the city centre.  So cute!  Unfortunately I was told that the missile had been relocated to a park in suburban Minsk, and considering how large Minsk is, and how many ballistic missiles are constantly on display at any given moment in the FSU, I realized this was one white stag that I was comfortable with letting go.

Nestling into Nesvizh

So today I went to Nesvizh, which really is just an homage to the excesses of Polish aristocracy.  I would never build a castle/palace on this flat plain between Russia and Germany, but there is probably a reason why I have been unsuccessful in connecting all three seas like the Polish-Lithuanians tried in the 1700s.  All I keep hearing about is how big of a deal the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth was,  but I am always hesitant to really consider them a successful empire, or an empire at all.  I mean, did they have a postal system?  I feel like once you've reached the point where you're able to subsidize a seemingly illogical system to all corners of your contiguous territory, then you've really made it.  Based on Canada Post's inability to deliver me anything, I am often hard-pressed to really put Canada in the "country" category.

Tight sleeve.

Anyway, I took a bus out to Nizhveh which really took me on the Potemkin Village Tour of Belarus.  What a charming and productive countryside!  Everything is so polished and freshly painted and picture-perfect.  I also  stopped to talk to some babushki selling grapes and other bounties of the harvest and they asked why my Russian was so perfect.  Damn these old women know how to play me and empty my wallet.  I immediately started to purchase everything in sight while flushed over with sudden and extreme bashfulness, and they told me that they were impressed and happy that I came to visit.  And then they gave me everything for free!  I don't know what game they are playing but it worked.

There was a beautiful outdoor restaurant at the castle as well and I ordered shashlik, and Georgian red wine, and some potato-based products, and also I had a "salad" that turned out to be just pineapple in mayonnaise which I have decided is just not for me.  A few tables over were also two middle aged women giggling and smoking as they poured a 750ml bottle of vodka into a plastic water bottle, and who giggled even more heartily when they noticed me noticing them and one coyly said, "We have a long bus ride." 

I was also interviewed for a Russian tv show.  Obviously it was in English because my Russian is so atrocious, but they basically wanted to know why anyone, much less a Canadian, was visiting Belarus.  I hope they didn't dub me over with some nonsensical phrases.  Anyway, they told me they would send me the link to the YouTube video but it's been a while now and I haven't heard from them…

Yeah, it's like pretty and stuff.

Minsk by the Cloak of Darkness

Once, when I lived in Vancouver, I was in the steam room of the aquatic centre at UBC and some enormous old Russian man was asking me questions about what I studied.  I told him post-Soviet economic reform and transition (because that's totes a thing) and he was asking if I had ever been to the FSU.  Well, in 2008 I had not.  In 2008 I was green as.  He said I would love Ukraine, and that Minsk was a beautiful city.  Minsk, Minsk, Minsk.  Ugh, typically colonial Russian, am I right?  I felt a little bit bad correcting him--but not too bad, you know, because being a student of the Geographies I still have no problem with letting people know I spent $25,000 learning how to point things out on a map and that I'm actually really, really good at it--and when I said, "Actually, it's Kiev" he bellowed, "Oh yes, Kiev!  Minsk is…BYELORUSSIA!"  To this day I am completely incapable of thinking about the White Russia without chortling and bellowing in accidental if reverential mimicry.  

Minsk had its own Glitzy Gal, so I'm not sure what Skopje is going to do about this now. 

Anyway Minsk.  THE be all, end all of Belarus.  It's a lovely, lovely place, though it was nearly impossible to find the hostel I was staying at.  the main issue was that there wasn't really a hostel, I was renting some apartment.  I had the address but the downtown of Minsk is difficult to navigate with all the alleys and archways and honestly with the lack of free wifi I was really having a time.  Everyone in Minsk seemed to be having more fun than me and there is nothing that stresses me out more than carrying a bag and having no idea where I will sleep that night while others have the time of their lives.  It feels me with such anxious resentment.  I finally found a vegan cafe that had wifi and I was able to figure out that the apartment was literally right above where I was sitting.  I was able to ring up, wake up the girl who was supposed to collect the money from me, and then go right to bed to prepare myself for a whirlwind tour of the capital the next day.

Keeping Abreast in Brest-Litovsk

Brest was the tits*.  It was an absolutely fantastic place to be.  I actually was terrified when I arrived because everything felt so foreign and mysterious.  I needed to borrow a cell phone, because I refuse to travel with one, and I asked some guy who was changing, like, $1 million into Roubles (he had stacks and stacks of cash).  Despite being a bit of a mafioso, he was readily willing to help.  I contacted my couch surfing host, then followed the instructions on how to get to his flat, which involved a series of buses through the city.  

Just imagine my delight at being on a bus in Belarus.  It was amazing.  The buses were so well kept.  Built in the Soviet Union, but freshly painted and so well kept.  I bought my ticket, which was like 0.0001 cents, and then sat down, giddy with excitement.  I realized I should validate my ticket so I jumped up to do so and at that moment two women boarded the bus with armbands looking to inspect the tickets.  Luckily I had validated in time but the man in the back had not (nor had he bought a ticket, which is actually more important in this case).  The two woman started screaming at him, and he would not budge or care.  Then the bus driver started hollering at the women that he had a schedule to maintain and they had to go.  So…no one really won there.  Except the man who evaded paying the fare, but did not evade public scrutiny. 

In any case I then arrived at the correct stop for Douba's apartment (Douba being my couch surfing host, who was from Nigeria.  So yes, I know what you're thinking, and yes, he was the only Nigerian man in all of Belarus) but as all of the blocks of apartments looked alike, I had to ask a group of well-behaved teenagers if they could call him to come greet me or at least give instructions.  Not ever having encountered a dirty English-speaker before, they were naturally amused and couldn't wait to throw together all available resources to deliver me to the correct address, which they did.  At the flat there was a Polish man and his daughter, some local free-thinkers, and I think another foreigner.  It was a huge party, and we drank Moldovan wine and ate delicious zakusky.  It was a fantastic welcome and I remembered how much I love being part of the post-Soviet intelligentsia.  I live for it. 

The next day Douba showed me around the city and we went to the ethnographic museum where I learned that when they drew the line between the Soviet Union and Poland after the Second World War, they just went to villages and asked people what language they spoke, and whichever was selected, they either were part of the SU or Poland.  Or some such system of classification was employed.  And then we saw the outrageous war memorial which is the largest concrete sculpture I have ever seen, and the old fortress and then I was put on a train headed East to the capital of Minsk.   

*Is this a saying???  I remember watching "The Girl Next Door" in 2004 and some guy in it says, "Oh yeah, this guy's the tits!" in a positive way and then my roommate always said that about everything, so I just assumed it was a saying.  Obviously it's a highly inappropriate saying, but I at least want to make sure it's apropos.  

Belarushin' North

Everything about this current adventure I am going about ass-backwards.  But for some reason I was determined to cover both the Baltics and the Balkans in two weeks, and would stop at nothing.  So for 60 euros I purchased a week's worth of time in the Socialist Wonderland of Belarus, and haven't looked back since. 

I boarded the train from Budapest's Keleti Palyaudvar at around 7 at night, with loads of beer, chicken schnitzel sandwiches, and a few other treats.  I was settling in for the long haul, which involved a layovers in Bratislava, then across the border to Breclav, Bohumin, and finally to Warsaw.  Can you believe that the train to Warsaw from BP was 10 euros cheaper than the train from BP to Krakow?

Once I arrived in Warsaw I was dismayed to learn that the train I thought I was going to be taking did not run on Fridays, and here this was a Friday.  This meant I needed to wait several hours until I could get onto a train headed East at around 3pm.  It was 7am, so I had 7 hours in which to make Warsaw mine.  I was pretty tired, so this actually took a lot more effort than I would have liked.  

The train station is a real beauty located smask dab in the centre of the city, so when I emerged I could see a whole lot of Warsaw all around me and decided the first thing I needed, besides gazing longingly at the Palace of Culture, was some perogies.  As it was still early, I had to wander around the city for a considerable time before I was able to do this.  I was able to view the centre of Warsaw, eat some Polish pierogies, drink a lot of coffee at Cafe Kafka, and I bought a scarf because it was SO COLD.  I don't know if you have ever been to Warsaw at any time of the year,  but it's literally freezing all the time and you can't go there without a scarf from H&M, or at least go to H&M and buy a scarf.  

On the train I shared the cabin with a Russian couple on their way back to Moscow.  The guy was some sort of water polo coach, and when he found out I had just impulse purchased a ticket to Kyrgyzstan for October*, he imploded with giddiness and told me that he had been born in Kyrgyzia, and was technically a Kyrgyz.  We all enjoyed this ride immensely, and my favourite part was when we were held up at the Belrusian border to allow them to search every single bag. and every single nook and cranny of the train.  When it was our turn to get searched, the border babe--who was a regulation hottie--asked me to empty out my bag and then explained to me the procedure for getting registered in an incredibly patient and pleasant way.  Everything about Belarus was coming up Rory.  They made me feel good about my unwavering submission to a totalitarian regime, and if you ask me I wouldn't have it any other way.  

*Spoiler alert!