Into the Heart of the Beast--Iron Curtain, Part 3

We had another opportunity to venture behind the former Iron Curtain in June, 2002, after Bridget and Jeremy moved to Moscow, Russia, and provided a reason for the trip and a home base with tour guides. This time, we traveled right into the very heart of the beast, of the former Soviet Union itself.

Things looked exotic right off the bat after landing at Sheremetyevo Airport and seeing the words on signs in the Cyrillic alphabet. We had immediate exposure to the former Communist influence in the terminal, with the horrid building architecture and the surly employees. In the neighborhoods we noticed a rather scruffy appearance, with weeds growing and unkempt public spaces.

Bridget cautioned us to be careful what we said in public, as well as in their apartment, which they were confident was bugged. (You can read more about that in Bridget's blog here.) It was forbidden to take photographs of some things, such as any underground metro station, which was a shame because they were so ornate and fascinating. On our last day I did venture taking some video shots of one station while coming down the escalator, and a stern lady scolded me for doing so--I just played the dumb tourist.

The first day we went to the city center and toured Red Square. This was the very spot where former Soviet leaders would view military parades, showing off their might to the West. Here was the Kremlin, Lenin's tomb, St. Basil's Church--all so incredibly exotic to me, as one who grew up during and was so influenced by the Cold War.

Red Square and the Kremlin


St. Basil's Church on Red Square.


From many vantage points we could see the seven sisters of Stalin across the landscape of the city. These are prominent buildings constructed from 1947 to 1953 and are symbolic of Stalin architecture. Here is one of those buildings, Moscow University.


The onion dome churches were another dominant feature. Amazing that these Russian Orthodox churches, as well as the faith of many in the population, survived so many decades of Communist repression. The famous Moscow Cathedral was demolished by the Communists in 1931, with plans to build a grand Palace of the Soviets, which never happened. The world's largest open air swimming pool was constructed in the perpetually flooded ruins in the 1950's.

We took an overnight train to St. Petersburg (formerly known as Leningrad under the Soviets), spent the full day sightseeing there, and took an overnight train back to Moscow. European influences were prominent in St. Petersburg, a beautiful city and the former capital and home of the Czars.

Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in St. Petersburg.


One day Suzanne and I ventured an unguided trip to Sergiev Posad, perhaps 50 miles northeast of Moscow. We navigated the Moscow subway system and found a bus destined to go there. It was a warm, sunny day and we were so thirsty. I purchased a bottle of "Seven-ya" soda pop for the bus ride. It was the most awful tasting imitation of lemon lime soda imaginable. Tasted more like bathroom cleaner, and, as thirsty as we were, we drank very little of it. We were proud of ourselves for pulling off this successful adventure.

Domes of numerous ancient churches in Sergiev Posad.


You can't help but notice the impact Word War II had on Russia. It is estimated 20 million Russians died in the conflict. Coming into the city from the airport there are markers showing the maximum advance of the German army. Many cities are designated as "hero cities", such as Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, and many others, due to their defense and suffering during the conflict. There is a prominent museum commemorating the "Great Patriotic War", as they call it. I don't think we Americans can fathom what it was like for them. We visited the museum and it made a strong impression on us.


We visited a most unique cemetery in Moscow, where most of the famous Russians are buried. There was a wide variety of styles of monuments on the graves. Nikita Krushchev's marker was black and white, signifying he had good and bad traits. It is noteworthy that he was buried here, rather than the Kremlin, showing he was out of favor at his death.


Western culture is taking some hold in Russia. McDonald's has several restaurants in Moscow, and it is considered upscale to the Russians. It is novel indeed to get service with a smile. We took a special bus to Ikea to enjoy a salmon dinner.



Oh, there is so much more I'd like to share about this memorable trip. But, another time and another post.

Behind the Iron Curtain, Part 2

Continued from yesterday's post--we had just checked into the Hotel Europa in downtown Kosice, Slovakia.

We slept uneventfully that evening after using the hotel's community showers, which we had all to ourselves (as it seemed there weren't many customers there that November evening). The next morning I awoke early and anxious to explore, so I headed out on foot to explore downtown Kosice and to get some Slovak currency. It was a brisk November morning, pedestrians moving quickly to their destinations. And all so exciting and exotic.



We then walked over to the train station to buy my train ticket to Austria (the language barrier was problematic), and then to a travel office to buy Suzanne's plane flight to Bratislava two days later, where she could then take a bus across the border to Vienna to meet me. Finally, we took a bus to the Hertz office and picked up our rental car.

Leaving Kosice we were struck by the extensive blocks of large concrete apartments ringing the city, a certain product of the Communist regime and architecture. But we found the road system surprisingly good vs. what we expected, and tolerable traffic. We drove to Kalusa to check our accommodations for the night. Here we had more luck communicating, as the receptionist spoke German, as did I. This was a resort area so German tourists were common. Still, the place was rather vacant--no tourists in November.


We continued on to Poruba, one of Suzanne's ancestral villages. We stopped at the church and looked around. An elderly babushka approached us, and Suzanne managed to communicate the name of her great grandmother, and the lady walked us to her distant cousin's home.

Poruba Greek Catholic Church.


Typical village street scene.


We were welcomed most graciously by these distant relatives, language barrier and all. It was clear they lived a harder life than us, as our peers had the physical appearance of our parents' generation. Fortunately, one of the younger cousins spoke some English, so we got by.


The younger generation was just starting to learn English, whereas the older generation learned Russian, since their country was allied to Russia. And German was also spoken here and there, much more so than English.

We then drove through more villages to sightsee, coming right near the border with Ukraine. We stopped at the train station to scope out where I would need to catch my 5AM train the next morning. Good thing we did because it was difficult to find, and a stranger had to help us out. In the process I was unable to start our car. Turns out the theft prevention system had locked out the ignition somehow, but we got it going after a bit of a scare.

That evening we drove to Humenne to visit relatives on Suzanne's grandfather's side. Once again the people were so welcoming and gracious, and Suzanne was invited to spend the following two nights with them so she wouldn't be alone at the hotel. Her cousins continued to be wonderfully gracious hosts the next two days.

We had a horrible abbreviated sleep that night, as some neighbors to the hotel were having some kind of party, and there was loud music playing until the wee hours. We arose around 4AM for my trip to the train station and, to our horror, all the doors exiting the hotel were locked. Fortunately, the receptionist awoke and let us out. What would people do in case of fire?

I had a long 11 hour train ride across Slovakia. It was interesting seeing all the people, villages, and scenery as it passed by. It seems all the train passengers, as well as plane passengers, or pretty much anyone else in the country had a bad case of body odor. Do they not have deodorant, we wondered. Or just different standards of hygiene. I did see remnants of the old Communist system. For instance, each train station I passed had old or shabby looking guys in uniform standing on the platform, as in this moving shot.


Crossing the former Iron Curtain border into Austria was like night vs. day. The train compartment was immaculate and modern, the employees spiffy, and English spoken everywhere.

To be continued...

Behind the Iron Curtain

I grew up in the midst of the Cold War. All my life the Soviet Union was portrayed as our dire enemy, and we were constantly threatened with nuclear annihilation. Indeed, the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 was a terrifying event, even for a fifth grader. We had drills at school where we would duck under our desks in the event of nuclear attack. Many people built underground bomb shelters in their yards.

Here is an example of the terrifying images we contemplated.



Even the space race was an offshoot of the Cold War, with the USSR achieving many firsts with Sputnik and the first man in space. The US was very motivated to be first to put a man on the moon to prove to ourselves and the world that we were better than the Russians.

My father was career Air Force, so I lived on military bases growing up and was exposed to the drills and the culture. My older brother also joined the Air Force and made it a career. The Cold War had a huge impact on me and my family.

The Iron Curtain separated the Soviet allied countries in eastern Europe from our allies in the free countries of western Europe. I served my mission in West Germany, and my brother was stationed in West Germany in the Air Force. It was hard to imagine the difficult circumstances that must have existed behind the Iron Curtain--a different world than our own.

Around 1990 we won the Cold War, as the Berlin Wall came down, the Communist regimes fell in Russia and most of its allies, and relatively unrestricted travel became possible all through Europe. It was a scant seven years later (1997) that Suzanne and I ventured a trip behind the former Iron Curtain to Slovakia to visit her distant cousins and the land of her father's ancestors. This was the far eastern part of Slovakia, not the relatively progressive Czech Republic with Prague, nor Hungary with Budapest, nor even Bratislava in the western part of the country. But the further backwaters in the east up against the border with the Ukraine.

Neither of us were novices to overseas travel, but we viewed this trip with a sense of apprehension, as well as adventure. Things got off to a rocky start when our flight out of Portland was cancelled and we had to scramble to alter our reservations for flights and hotels in Slovakia. This was before pervasive internet so we're talking long distance telephone conversations with Slovaks who may or may not speak English. We flew into Kosice in the far east of Slovakia, landing 11PM or so.

Here is the Kosice airport terminal.


We walked out of the small terminal not knowing what to expect, and encountered a taxi, which took us to the city center and dropped us off around the block from our intended hotel. There we were, alone near midnight on a dark street in a very foreign place, nobody around, much less an English speaker, and not sure if we had a confirmed reservation at the hotel.

We walked into the Hotel Europa, went upstairs to a lobby, which was full of cigarette smoke and two uniformed men sitting on the couch (policemen?). Speaking to the attendant in patches of English and German we checked in and went to our room, which was ancient and spartan. The shared bathroom was down the hall. We had most definitely entered a different world.





To be continued...

Hand-me-downs

Despite the title, this post won't be about clothing, toys, or other such items. Rather, how much of our physical attributes, character, and personality do we inherit from our parents? And how much is learned or acquired?

It is obvious that looks, hair color, eye color, stature, health propensities, and other physiological traits are inherited. I and some of my siblings and children have always had a keen sense of smell, for example. This is not always a good thing, as evidenced by the frequent squabbles between my two younger brothers growing up when one couldn't stand the smell of the other's feet when they were in the same room. My son Daniel is ultra sensitive to lotion and perfume smells, which was a point of contention with his two younger sisters (nicknamed by him as losh1 (short for lotion) and losh2). My younger brother could even smell light vs. dark ("PU it's dark in here!" was the famous quote in our family). It was fascinating to learn my Walker cousins also have a keen sense of smell, which I discovered on a trip to Texas to visit them. So I assume this is passed down from my father.

Another trait I suspect comes from inheritance is a clean hands fetish I suffer from. For example, I can't stand the greasy hands resulting from eating chicken by hand, and I will get up from the table and wash them in the middle of a meal after doing so. Eating tacos is similar. If I eat a peach or orange by hand I suffer from the byproduct of sticky hands until I can wash them. My younger brother (who seems to have inherited all these things in extreme) would wash his hands for minutes several times per day. Perhaps he still does. If there is any task involving dirt or grime, such as working on a car or bike, or in the yard, I prefer to wear gloves if I can.

It would seem intelligence is inherited to some degree, though life experiences and application must affect it. Same with athletic ability, which will have an innate component as well as application. Language and accent I suspect are more learned traits. What about personality traits? What about our capacity for faith, or desire to do good? Different children in the same family can be so different.

I suspect controlled conditions have been observed where siblings, or better yet twins, have been raised in different families and environments, though I don't know the findings.

Let there be night

"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." This quote is attributed to Ben Franklin. Clearly, Ben was not a night person. I am.

General wisdom has it that rising early is the preferred practice. "The early bird gets the worm" goes the saying. I admit there are a number of benefits to rising early. I love the quiet morning hours, and the magic of the dawn and rising sun. You can beat the traffic on your commute (though it seems these days you must be exceptionally early to accomplish this). It is satisfying to have a productive early morning and feel by, say, 10 o'clock you have accomplished so much. The morning isn't so rushed and stressful if you give it an early start.

A couple of days ago I arose at 5AM to hit a couple of black Friday sales. It was a novel break in my normal routine, and I did snag some desired sale items (the early bird did get the worm!). I had a leisurely breakfast and did accomplish so much by noon. But to do this every day? Not me.

What about the other side of the coin?

I've decided my body wants to run on a 25 hour day. We should come off of daylight savings time every day of the year. In general, I don't want to go to bed yet when I know I should. My mind is active and there are things to do.

Evenings, especially late evenings, are quiet with minimal outside distractions. My mother, who is also a night person, knows to call me after 10PM because I will be home and wide awake. Except that late evening is my favorite time to play tennis--often until nearly 11PM. Easier to get courts and play longer with the reduced demand. For stores that stay open until 9PM I prefer evening shopping and less traffic. Going to work later and coming home later is another strategy for avoiding traffic. Speaking of work, I find most of my colleagues work a later schedule, so things often don't heat up until afternoon so it is difficult to leave before 5PM anyway. The internet is open 24 hours, so research, shopping, and work are all available on my computer at home. My most productive, quiet, and personal time seems to come after 9PM. That's when my body and mind seem to hum.

Which makes waking early troublesome. On days when, by choice, necessity, or otherwise, I rise early after going to bed late I can feel dragging all day, especially during sedentary activities. I can get a slight stiff neck and headache. My ideal morning activity is to lie in bed for some time and just think. Some would say I am being lazy, but my mind is working while my body rests a bit longer.

I think the ideal solution is this. Rise early, reap all those benefits from doing so, take a nap in the middle of the day, and enjoy the late evening as well. The only way to accomplish this, though, is to move to a culture where this is the norm, or retire from regular full time employment.

Late to the Harry Potter Party

While the whole world was in a Harry Potter frenzy for seven plus years, lining up at midnight for book and movie releases, I was pretty much on the sidelines. I wasn't attracted to the fantasy story about wizards and witches. I never read a book and don't think I ever watched a movie from start to finish, even though others in the house were watching them on DVD.

Then a few months ago I noted how some people were expressing sorrow that the saga was coming to an end, with the release of the HP 7.2 movie, and there was no more HP to look forward to. I was thinking I was in a unique position in that I had all seven books (and movies) as virgin territory. I needed some new audio books to listen to, so I jumped in.

Firstly, the enjoyment of an audio book is heavily influenced by the skill of the narrator, and I'm glad to say the HP book narrator was exceptional. He maintained wide, yet consistent accents and tones for the many characters.

Books 1 and 2 were about what I expected, novel and interesting, but not terribly engaging for me. They seemed like children's or adolescents' stories. But book 3 ratcheted up a notch, and things accelerated more from there. It was no longer just a story for youth, as good guys and bad guys alike started taking on shades of gray. Most notably, Dumbledore, Harry's father, and Harry himself made mistakes and wrong choices, while Snape became increasingly interesting and multi-dimensional. And good guys started getting killed.

So now I have finished all the books, and watched all the movies except 7.2. I could say the same about the movies as the books, as far as their maturing as they progressed. Movie 6 in particular I thought was very, very good, even separate from the integral HP story thread.

In addition to everything else, I was intrigued with the Snape story, and was anxious to see how it would be resolved. I decided he must be a good guy, though a shade of gray (of course).

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed the books and am glad I read them. But am I sad they are at an end? Mostly not. I distinctly felt during Book 7 that the mini-plots seemed to be rehashes, and it was time to resolve the larger story. I am still looking forward to movie 7.2, though.

North to Alaska!

One of the highlights and most pleasant memories of my life was our family vacation to Alaska in July 1996. We (Craig, Suzanne, Daniel, Bridget, Teresa, Steven) flew to Anchorage and rented an RV.


We drove through the interior of Alaska, up to Denali National Park. We took a long ride on the park bus, seeing wildlife and views of Mt. McKinley. Teresa had a memorable experience opening the bathroom door on someone by mistake. We all still laugh about that.


We continued on to Fairbanks to an RV park which had pervasive signs "5 MPH, love Sarah". Teresa and I took an Arctic Circle tour, flying to an airfield above the Circle, and riding in a tour van all the way back to Fairbanks. It was so exotic.


The Alaska pipeline.


We walked across the Yukon River bridge at one rest stop.


We got home from the tour after 1AM and it was still rather light outside.

Alaska is so huge! The vistas, the distances--everything.


We drove back down to the Kenai Peninsula, visiting some glaciers and Homer. Teresa was enamored with sled dogs, so she and Steven went for a ride.


We turned in the RV back in Anchorage and went sightseeing downtown. Daniel had a major seizure, resulting in an ambulance ride to the hospital. They gave him some medicines to take, which made him groggy and somewhat ill for the next couple of days.


We flew to Juneau and took the ferry to Skagway. Daniel won a prize for the most gambling winnings.


We continued on the Alaska ferry system over to Sitka, Petersburg, Wrangell, and back to Juneau. It was like a poor man's cruise of the Inside Passage. On one ferry we had a four berth cabin, a three berth in another, and none on a third. Steven ran into a cable on one ferry, knocking him down. The crew saw it happen and the captain gave him a tour of the bridge and a complimentary hat, and let him blow the horn coming into port, so the minor injury was worth it.




Back in Juneau we chartered an ice field tour in an airplane. It was a rare sunny day in Juneau--the scenery was breathtaking. Bridget and I went for a run up a trail out of Juneau, and I went to an all-you-can-eat salmon bake.

I loved everything about this three week vacation. It was exotic and adventuresome. All four kids were so well behaved the whole time. The RV was wonderful, and the ideal way to traverse the interior, stopping about anywhere for the night. We had the Beach Boys music playing in the RV. The ferry trips were interesting, as were all the destinations.

I often think I'd like to go back to Alaska and try to relive those experiences. Sadly, I know it wouldn't be the same. It would lack that first time adventure, and our small children wouldn't be with us. But the memories remain precious.