11.2011 Mujal / Elsewhere

Text by: Marchall McLuhan, "Understanding Media"

2010.12 Tbilisi - Zugdidi

Picture and words by: Madis Katz


In the expensive night express from Tbilisi to Zugdidi we sat for six and a half hours. All other trains were sold out. That was about as bad as it sounds.
In Zugdidi I wanted to take pictures. That was about all I wanted or expected. When I took the – long awaited – first picture, I heard a weird noise, a muzzled click from inside my camera. A determined click of hopelessness. My camera was broken.
About the only thing I had no courage for to (nor knowledge how to) get repaired in Georgia was my old, dear camera what had just been clicking at me.
A friend happened to come to Georgia some time later, few weeks later, and that was about the only plan I had – to send it back to Estonia with him. I know an old guy here who can fix those things. (He said he can not imagine how something like that could have happened (and I still don’t know what actually happened)). He repaired it.
Some months after the trip to Zugdidi my flatmate’s mother was coming to visit him. That was about the most trustworthy possibility to get the camera back to Georgia. Mother’s hands – this always sounds tender.
Next time I was in Zugdidi I seriously considered not taking any pictures at all. And I still – now it’s almost a year later - owe 20€ to this friend who took the camera to the old guy and paid for the job.
That’s about all I have to say about this picture:

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2011 Kivimäe - Klooga-Rand

text by: Madis Katz

Hommikuse rongiga Klooga-Randa, viimase vaguni treff. Ta tuli peale, suvekleidis, ilus, rääkis telefoniga. Sauel on juba uus perroon. Futu.

Veeretasime vestlust. Selle viimase raudteejupi enne liiva, lühike ja vana raudteejupp läbi metsa, segametsa, võsametsa, mida ma juba lapsepõlvest samasugusena mäletan, selle viimase jupi rong venib. Kõigub ja vaarub. Kolm rongi päevas ukerdavad niimoodi sellesse avalikkusele arendamata randa. Kunagi oli üks iga paarikümne minuti järel. Või mitte päris nii tihti. Need rongid olid täis! Paksult! Lillelistes suvekleitides naised, õlgkaabud, maikades mehed, lapsed, perekondade viisi, või naabritelt laenuks saadud lapsedki, kõik koos, rahvast avatud akendega rongis; puidust aknad, puidust istmed. Inimesed seisid, kotid käes. Rääksid, naersid. See oli elus ja lõbus rong, või olin mina laps. Puhkuste rong. Kottides pidid olema võileivad, termos, suured rannalinad ja rätikud. Selle kõige peale on aega mõelda – ja ma alati meenutan – kuniks rong taarub seda viimast juppi.

Ma olen raudtee äärest pärit, kuid kuidas nimetatakse neid asju, mille peale rööpad toetavad? Liiprid? Siin on need veel tõrvatud puust, pehkinud, maalähedased ja metsasulavad. Ja killustik on pruun. „Seda teed pole kaua remonditud,” mõtlen veel enne perrooni. Peaasi, et nad seda kinni ei pane, rööpaid üles ei korja, muid rumalusi ei tee. Siis rong jõuab, ja näen, et siingi on uus futu peatus. Kaasaegne ja Euroopalik. Investeerivad, järelikult ei pane kinni. Väga hea. Teen perroonil isegi pikemalt asja, vaatan, ju nii kummaline see kokkulaulatatud kolmik: 1) nõukaagne rong, balti laevaremonditehases üles vuntsitud, kuid siiski rauast ja raskepärane, odav plastik pole peamine 2) jupp pehkinud palkidel lesivat raudteed kesk metsa, otsaga otse rannaliivas, hoopis teises lõhnas 3) ja tükike avaliku ruumi disaini – värske peatus. Huvitav kas sellel linnalikul peatusel on siin ka igav, nagu teismelisel maal? Rannaliivas, melutuses ja ainult kolme rongiga? Tühja kah, mina pühendan talle need viivitatud hetked. Olen tänulik, et ta annab lootust, et see rong, see jupp puhkuseraudteed oma mälestusega rõõmsatest täiskasvanud autodeta eestlastest ei kao.

I see that I’ve learned something beautiful. This beach is long, and in my mind could be called with one name. I understand that this is different for the locals. They read the beach by what is next to it, what is under the pine trees. Who lives there or has had a summer house, or name parts of the beach according to the closest settlements. For me this is one place where a train can bring me. Sand, dunes, sea, pines - saturated line, where sea and land meet. Lives, little places with little names, tasks, they are further away - somewhere, but cut off. Now my mentality is linked with the beach. Its touch, its smell, its sound, its wind, its sun.

Its touch. We walk, and the sand caresses my feet.

I’ve learned to read the little stories. Details, which make life abundant. Here, in the beginning of the beach, something like a hub for the ones who take the train, those stories here I’ve read many times. Rusty playground, brightly coloured house in ruins – it seems it has burned again – wide sand, and sea rotting its plants. I’ve read them many times, I’ve made notes. And from here I’ve walked before as well, onwards, to the horizon. No getting caught by done deeds, past readings, though. The stories are plenty, this beach is rich. Sand is caressing my feet.

She has brought a bottle of cheap wine. I have some salad. We zip the wine.

My stories are in the curves of the cost line, in the slime of green stones, in the waste from the sea, in mental pictures of beauty. This square with reed and sky, for example, it’s beautiful. And this plywood house, tiny tiny house, next to a brier bush, how captivating this “why?” is. I have no local knowledge, no settlement and history derived structures, my mind does not go off the beach. A tower of soviet border guards.

We stop at the nude beach park. They have brought fucus, wrack cakes, covered the dunes with it, helped brier to grow. Dug little holes, put up little benches in them. We stay there for salad, wine and some cigarettes. My note next to this nude park text says: “You should come here with good company.” My company is good, but there’s no sun, no for sunbathing, our clothes remain on and I underline my note for the future.

Sand caresses my feet. A dead bird, one leg laying further away. From where this pink comes, the pink on the surface of the backwater? We wander and wonder.

It’s a spa and now it’s a spa beach. Showers, beer or soft drink kiosks, they don’t work. A wooden path. Special breed of people, or a role they obtain – “homo spa mediocris.” Sparsely, luckily, as we wonder around the spa, through little roads, asphalt covered roads, I wear my sandals. This Finnish lady, I eavesdropped her telling her kid about glass pieces in the forest -- “ole varovainen, siellä on lasipalat” - and on the beach, she was wrong, they are here. It’s different around here, off the beach strip, obviously this place has a name. We’re aiming a little shop, where most of the people say hello to each other. Nevertheless it feels like a lot of civilization. There are many people in the bus stop, three at least, cars are passing by, fancy, clean cars, so proper, a parking lot here is, a shop, more people. The spa is visible, and this other building also. I think it’s a tennis club, but I’ve never bothered to remember.

Soon after a children’s camp – we tell each other our stories about it, old stories, local knowledge, I was too arrogant before – she shows me a tree dried while standing (you have a word for it, don’t you? For püstikuiv? Finns have four different words), it’s a huge and old tree, and it had its last green branches when her mother was a small girl, so she tells me.

This is a little village of summer houses. People observe us as we pass. I’ve been here before, but I wouldn’t find the house alone: this little model of a country life is a maze for a stranger. Flowers, wherever you look, flowers. Well kept houses, mown lawns, orchards. Little girls play with dolls, old people play with the perfection of doll houses. It’s a lot of work.

We meet the grandparents. And eat.

Ta tahab mind viia jalutama ümber poolsaare. Võib-olla mainib ka kilomeetritest, või nimetab seda matkaks, ma ei kuula, ma olen päri.

Me lehvitame vanavanematele, nopime veel enne väravat mõned kirsid. Värva kolksatab, me oleme pakknud veel kaks pudelit peeti, tema ema trikoo, fotoaparaadi, rätikud ja minu trendikad ujumispüksid, mis pole päriselt minu omad. Ainult ilm on veidi pilves.

Siin on järjest rohkem eramaid ja seda rõhutavaid silte. Eramaad ja tüütu väike võbelus kui jälle keelatu ja lubatu vahel eksinuna, mere poole püüeldes, vist kellegite hoovidest läbi jalutame. Ta räägib nende lapsepõlve rannateest ja arendusest ja allkirjade kogumisest ja sellest kuidas sõna murti. Selle tee peal on nüüd ees plank, metsa all aga uued rajad.

Mere ääres on pink. Me teeme suitsu- ja veinipausi. Võtan plätad jalast, torkan varbad okkalisse liiva. Ta räägib pingist ja pinkidest – asjadest, mida mändidealused inimsed mere äärde panevad. Ja aknast, suurest klaasitud puitaknast, mille keegi oma pingi ja mere vahele pani, klaasil kallis sõnum. Ja tuntud heliloojast, kes meie koolivenna pere suvila ära ostis, merd ja muusikat kuulata tahtis, selleks rannaäärde uhke pingi püstitas, nimetähed peal, nagu kombeks. Idüllist ei saanud asja. Ma loodan, et tal ikka paar korda õnnestus hästi istuda, kuid kohalikud noored olla just selle pingi – paljude seast – läbustamiseks ja lällamiseks valinud. Ma proovin uskuda, et ka neil olid omad põhjused. Võib-olla nad ei teadnud, et seal oli suure kunstniku suvila. Helilooja viis pingi kuhugi mujale.

Madalad rannamännid, okkane-käbine, liivane jalgealus, siin on mere poole nõlvake. Me ei kiirusta, risti vastupidi. Kulub vahelduseks märkamatult ära. Ranna- ja rabamännid ongi mu lemmikud. Ei ühed ega teised pole kunagi omavahel sarnased. Madalad ja kidurad, masti neist ei saa.

Siin on üks suur kivi. Kõik sobib suurepäraselt, paras aeg peatuseks, sigaretiks, väikseks veiniks. Ronime kivi otsa, vaatame. See on päris kalda lähedal, hõredalt on ümber mände. See salu on maanuki moodi. Kallas on mere poole veidi kõrgem, meri hakkaks justkui serva tagant. Madalasse vette on hoolikalt parajalt puistatud kive, taevasse kajakaid. Vaikne on, peale mere polegi midagi kuulda. Vahime, ja räägime suhetest, armastusest, inimestest. See keskkond paitab mu habrast olemist.

Me liigume mööda rannaserva. Siin ma pole kunagi enne käinud. See ümbrus on ootamatult tiha ja külluslik, ma ei saa pilku jalgade ümbruselt lahti, plätad ja minu enda jalad vehivad silme ees külluse sees. Taevas kaisutab ülaltpoolt hallikalt, vist on veel mõned sinised laigud, meri on lainetav sügavroheline, kuid mu jalge ümber toimub nii palju. Siin on kivid ja erkroheline, peene triibuga joonistatud rohi. Niiske-tumedat mullamusta, ja siis veidi kõige vahel loksuvat vett. Uss roomas üle raja. Ma ei mäletanudki, et samblad võivad olla nii värvilised, nii katsutavad olla.

Jälle lendab mõni kajakas. Rada vonkleb, tekib ja kaob, kord aimatav kividel karglejale, kord avaus põõsaste vahel.

On üks imelik aed ja maja, ju vist uusasukas, see maja on merele liiga lähedal. Tal ei olegi aias ühtegi puud. Põõsaid, lilli, midagi ei ole. Ainult suurte põllukividega väljakuna piiratud muru, ulatub päris mere ääre võsani. Siin all on kividel vahed vahel, ju igamehemaa pärast, parempoolse „väravakivi” peal silt: „Ettevaatust koerad.” Aitäh. Tahaks niisama, žesti mõttes, tõsta sildi: „Ettevaatust, koerad, kannan pisargaasi.” Koeri pole kodus, keerame randa („Eramaa mereni”), ja jääme kividele vedelema.

Seal kividel lõpebki esimene peet. Me pole veel kuhugi jõunud, kuid meil pole ka sammumeetrit, GPSi või telefoni, mis kõike oskab. Pole ka lahtritega plaani, kuhu linnukesi teha. Istume kivide otsas, kuhu me ei jõudnud. Me jäime siin lihtsalt pikemaks pidama.

Veel on siin üleerastatud rannaalalgi nurki, kus tunne läheb teiseks. Kus kividel hüpeldes, kaduvat rada jahtides, kohati niiskesse mutta astudes, head vestlust nautides, võssa ja võsast lagedale kulgedes tuleb kõiksus korraks lähemale ja lahustub. Polegi midagi, hing on helge. Ja meri pealt lage.

Täna ei olegi saar saar, on väike poolsaar suurema poolsaare küljes. Nende rannakurvide lood. See riba on täna veeta, niiskmullane, kivisid on ka ja loomulikult kõrkjaid ja kajakaid. Meri haiseb mõõdukalt. Saar ise on pisike, võsane ja kahtlemata põnev. Pidavat palju puuke olema. Tunnen kuidas poisike minus natuke pettub kui lõkkeasemeni jõuame, veini esile otsime ja ikka edasi räägime. Isegi pisike tellistest katuseta putka jääb avastamata. Poisike peab kuulama, et keegi ostis selle saare paar aastat tagasi ära, ta peab kuulama, kuidas kaks noort täiskasvanut nüüd selle mõtte otsas muretsevad. Ta peab rahulikult olema ja kuulama, kuidas üks räägib miks siin on kehv ujuda, kui teine tahab ja soovi avaldab, ega mõista kui osavalt tõmmatakse suunavaid paralleele lapsepõlve vetikatraumadega. Siin me ei uju, kustub poisikese viimane lootus.

Kõik lõpeb järsku, jutt ja järgmine omamoodi kohalolemine, sest tibama hakkab. Enesekindlalt, sihiteadlikult. Siniseid laike ei ole enam.

Lähme, edasi. Siin on jälle majad, uued, nii absurdselt ranna lähedal, nii ilmselgelt on liikunud rahad, on oldud nahhaalsed ja edukad. Mis elu see on (mis maa see on?) kui maja on sellises kohas, et päris randa peab püstitama posti, mis kannab kahte valvekaamerat, üks ühelpoolt rannast tulevatele pahategijatele, teine teiselt? Mis kakk ma olen, et siin jalutades mind jälgima peaks? Mis maailm see on? Ma tahaks neid kaameraid vastu filmida, või selle posti peale urineerida, või üldse midagi värsket välja mõelda, kuid sajab ja me saame järjest märjemaks. Ja kaamerad salvestavad vihma. 180 kraadises vaates. Kas nad enam suvilasse tulevadki, vaatavad kodust telekast? Pingid on kuidagi sümpaatsemad, kuigi koerad urineervad neilegi. Kuskil on kindlasti viimane oaas.

Kõik on märg. Liiv ja taimed, põlvini merevesi, õhk tilgub. Märg kallistab, me embame vastu. Mu nahk hingab. Loodus on äratavalt jahe. Ma kombin oma pisikeste püstiste ihukarvade kaudu. Märjad vihmapiisad seal, kus muidu riidepiir.

Ja liiv hellitab mu jalgu.

Me tuleme rohkem rannast kui ma kunagi olen käinud, kui läheneme sellele pimedate akendega majale, et teha terrassi all kuivas üks suits ja helistada vanaisale – „palun pane saun kütte.” Kuid veel on vara minna päris tagasi. Me läheme randa, oma alastuses vihma ees. Sellel liival on piiskade muster, sellel merel on hoomamatult ükskõik ja see kajakas näeb tumeda taustal väga hea välja. Kui armetu on mu karvkate! Hõre jalgadel, tihe kubemel, veepiiskadest raske, hõre rinnal, põlvini vees, alasti maailma ees. Kõik läheb segamini, ma olen õhuke, tuult ma ei sega, kedagi siin pole, keda me segaks. Lähme ujuma. Kui lihtne on hea. Kui hästi siia sobiks muusika ja kui vähe seda on vaja. Ma sukeldun ja katsun merepõhja, keerutan ja pöörlen, väljas lööb välku.

2010 Tartu-Odessa-Tbilisi, Part6 / Warsaw Train Station - Warsaw - Warsaw Train Station

Text: Me
Photos and other stuff: We



Warsaw train station - Warsaw – Warsaw train station



Elusive Warsaw. I find it hard to write about you. You give me stories, yes you have, but you haven’t become a solid memory. There is something ethereal about you. As soon as I leave, your integrity, your oneness seems to evaporate.
There was a palm tree. That made me happy. Partly a reason for all of us, unconcealed, for to be on the road was the possibility to prolong warmth, for them for the length of the trip, for me - hopefully, to some extent - for the whole circle of the year. Now the sun was shining (occasionally) and a huge palm tree, a proof that we were doing all right as compared to all this chill and rain that had accompanied us until.
It was morning and we had to drink coffee. No rush, that was the general mood. We sat down at a street cafe from where the palm tree was reassuringly visible. The stupidest thing one can do in a new city is to try too hard. Run a museum marathon or pursue for a demanded adventure. And end up drained of energy, tongue hanging well down to a waist coat. Let it embrace you, let the pace happen. Drink coffee, chat, take pictures of each other. And go and get some beers. That’s a nice start for a day in a strange city. Start walking. Walk without aim, turn or not following local signs, impressions happening here and now. We ended up in the garden of the university. Wondered around, discovered unknown plants with huge blossoms, sat down at a balustrade with a beautiful view. Had some beer, scratched our initials next to names of lovers and those city space explorers who feel that their discovery, their arrival is as important as the ones before and after. The theme of the university library came up, He knew that this building is impressive. We figured out where it lies and took an aim to it. Bought more beer on the way. Reached the library. Said our “oo!’s” and “aa!’s”, the architecture is completely worth it, but didn’t want to go in. Wandered through the entrance hall, out again from the other side, on, up to the top of the building. There’s a garden. A wonderful lush greenery, diffused borders between up and down, on, around, next to and in the building. We stayed there for hours.
/I bought two postcards from this entrance hall. One depicted a man without a face, bent down under back full of masks bound to bundle. Other had a suited man from waist down on it, and a suitcase carried by this man. Suitcase was just falling open, autumn leaves and faces dropping out. I love them, postcards. It is a compliment, nowadays, if someone, for no reason of a red-letter day sends you a postcard. He or a she, this one, has spent one’s time to make this effort, for to produce a real thing, a piece of something, a value, what will then travel honestly through time and space and will surprise you, the recipient, with its tangibility. It’s not common for us to put anything else than money and effort of purchase into gifts. A postcard is one’s time and performance, an actual value turned, but not converted, to a token of value. One can’t buy time. Postcard carries a piece of presented time without the measured mediation of money. And yet it is an obsolete medium of message. /
We saw couples taking their wedding photos in this garden. This is always a sign that you have found a spot of local pride of generally agreed beauty (cf Colosseum). For us it wasn’t an alert for mainstream, no, we were by the side of it all, constant flow of tourists, we were sitting on a bench deep in the bushes and doing well with our beers and secluded in our bubble that we had brought along from the roadside. There was voyeurism around us and we gave it another angle.









We strolled on, finally; reached the old town. There’s a square on the edge of it. Every time I go there, I feel like visiting a place where I’ve maybe been to, this “maybe” being similar to what you inherit from dreams, or childhood travels. I can’t even tell how many times I have been there, really. There were breakdancers performing in front of the monument. This time and that I know, She took pictures of them with my camera. And yet, now, already later, I find once again my memories about and from this square being mostly evaporated. Solid pictures depicting those rather average breakdancers and that’s it. “There are nice houses there,” I could say, about my memories, but that doesn’t actually take visiting the place. Could be a lucky guess.
We somewhat wandered around the old town itself, inside it. I have pictures to prove it to myself. And ended up in a round-shaped bar. A very cute one, almost nonexistent type in Estonia – layers of history and traditions of past times mixed with modern details and tastes made up the interior, people making a contribution for the atmosphere. All kinds of people, young and old, local and foreign, some with fancy suits and some with oversized taste for trend. No seats, some bar-perches, most people were supposed to stand by the thin board attached to the wall at about chest level. That was a type of gulp-and-go place. Coffee, of course, selection of drinks - but a small glass of beer being a norm - and some light dishes on offer, sandwiches and the like. A perfect lunchtime venue, humane and with some temperate per-mills. Again, an interactive book I liked to read. We had some beer and sandwiches, me quietly reading and enjoying, made our explorer-initials on the wall amongst others, and went on.
Another aimless stroll ended up in a remaining part of Warsaw Ghetto. We passed through it on our way back to the train station. I don’t know how correct it is to call it “a monument”, nevertheless it is one of the most impressive monuments I’ve seen. A street sided by empty houses, in contrast with surroundings by their style, a cut in city reality. You walk this street and think; huge black-and white portraits of people, photography’s truth value at its best looking down at you from walled up window holes of the buildings, and if that could go unnoticed, then same kind of portraits hanging down from wires connecting two sides of the street hardly can. A history’s lesson to learn, I hear sometimes being said.
It started raining. That was no drizzle any more, that was a sound downpour. So we ran, and I, as little as I wanted to admit it, ran to meet my Comrade.
Might be that all this ethereal Warsaw-issue can be addressed as a task to overcome my first Warsaw memory. We were coming back from the Czech Republic, I think, another one of those bus excursions so popular back then. I was about 17. We were supposed to spend the night in the bus. It was during some kind of a pause when one of the bus drivers approached me and asked: “What do you do at nights?”. Confusing, for sure. Those drivers usually completely avoid dealing with people behind them. I said: “I sleep.” The thing was that he “had noticed” me being talkative, or social. Or something. Actually, I have no idea what had he noticed, but he asked me to give him some company during the night, to have somebody to talk to in pursuit of avoiding sleep. Not for all the night, of course, just as long as I want to, no sweat. The other bus driver needed some sleep to be fresh the next day. I agreed, although with serious second thoughts – I was sitting next to a girl I covertly (at least so I thought) adored, fairly to no avail. But there was some win-win quality to it. Getting some karma-credit from the bus drivers side and give more space for her, for more comfortable sleeping, and at that age a feeling of doing something for everybody’s benefit was much more of an ample cause.
When all others fell asleep it was time for me to climb to the front of the bus. There were limp limbs and an occasional head hanging to the aisle, pitch black shadows in the restless dim darkness of the road and its traffic. So we sat there for hours, like pilots of a space vehicle carrying the crew in cryogenic sleep through the darkness of the space. Car lights as passing stars.
We talked about everything. Very slowly, sometimes having gaps between the words for several minutes. Even if some sleepers close to us heard us, it most probably sounded like primeval Nordic lullaby.
I got a personal pee stop, somewhere along the way. Our dark starship, engine silently humming, waiting for me to get back from my spacewalk. I felt important.
Around half past four we were deep in Warsaw. Soviet apartment blocks passing by, endless rows of gray buildings lined up by broad gray lanes. And suddenly a statue of a bear standing on a rock, far, visible and gone again, all gray. The driver gave me a road atlas of Europe, where Warsaw was two to two centimetres stain, and asked me to help to choose a correct way out from the upcoming roundabout with five or six exits. We took wrong turn at least three times. It is not easy to turn around a full size bus, even with the somewhat more loose traffic rules of the night. The other bus driver woke up. Probably he felt seasick, finally - after all this whirling - in that weird coffin-like drawer they have for sleeping, and came to us, pointed the right way out (he was a pro of night-time Warsaw navigation), and let me go to sleep.
Grey and dark tones of block houses and a stone bear in the midst of a desolate night. Elusive, deeply surreal experience for and in a young mind. Seemingly harder to overcome than presumed. Fuck, compared to that trip, all other Warsaws are as real as a sci-fi movie.

2010 Tartu-Odessa-Tbilisi, Part6 / (Warsaw)

Text: Me
Photos and other stuff: We



Pleading for the defence of staying at a hostel in Warsaw (a hindsight)



/Alas! Hostels! A mystery you are to me.
Once I was in Oslo. A work trip. I was accommodated in a hotel. It was quite a shock. Middle class, up to the selection of tapestry and smell. I wondered for long whether the odeur of the room is part of the deal, and desired by some, or a weird heritage of previous lodgers. Heavy, peculiar, a very sweet smell. Couldn’t breathe, being afraid of inhaling a toxic amount of air fresheners, couldn’t smoke to kill it either, so the sign said, just next to a tasteless painting of flowers. Impression amplified, as this was the gist of all the places I stayed during that long pre-booked trip. I evacuated to the cold Oslo evening, lightly dressed, airline had lost my suitcase. I smoked and walked around the corner of the hotel building to find shelter from the wind. And I saw it. There was a hostel on the first floor. I was suddenly smoking behind a huge window of a hostel, just below my hotel. I saw some youth inside, an administrator wearing dreadlocks, and I felt a powerful feeling of misplacement in the world, a misplacement and injustice what might be felt by a little boy with no means in front of a showcase of a candy shop (around nineteen thirties, for milieu). These people, doing their simple evening things, maybe even boring things, at a place where they probably just slept for money, these people seemed for me, an abashed boy behind the window, smoking in the light snowfall and shivering from cold, like a unreachable world of abundance for Cinderella.
In Vienna I once tried to go to a hostel. But it was fully booked and I was sent to a cheap hotel instead. I watched those all prepared backpackers arriving, holding their LPs and having a reservation. I admit, I was somewhat proud of not having a reservation, of not having a compulsion to reach somewhere at all, but it sucked to leave. A year ago, I asked the price for somebody in Tallinn - for some tourist I picked up on the street with my offer to help – from one of the Old Town hostels. A simple question asked with shining eyes and I was gulping down everything I saw. I can remember entering another hostel in the Old Town, for as far as two steps, but I didn’t even have an excuse to get me as deep as the third or – fourth step inside. Clumsy me.
And, actually, She, when we met, was living in a beautiful art noveau building which had a hostel on the first floor. Now it is amusing to think how she couldn’t understand at all - whilst the first visits I had to her place -, how bewildered she was about why on earth I so badly wanted to see that hostel from inside. I was trying to make up excuses, reasons, whatever, let’s go and see if people will sit and play guitar in the evening! or could we go and check the prices? Cheap excuses. This hostel thing disconcerts me. I lose all my charm and self-confidence when things get close to hostel issues. A mystery, all those voices on the background, voices of my friends who casually mention all those reasons, good reasons, to enter a hostel, good reasons, like sleeping at one or a few, or living at those establishments down under, or wherever, or telling stories without even emphasising on – for me so obviously important! – setting of a hostel, be it washing laundry at their friends hostel, so casually they mention it, or sleeping in a bunk which has curtains which make a feeling of lying in a box, or getting stuffed with food by the Japanese.
It’s like reading about blow job from a book. I’m a virgin./

2010 - 2011 Tbilisi - Tbilisi Airport - Tbilisi

Text by: Madis Katz


The Ghost Train

This is about a train ride what I haven’t had. It’s about a train what I want to take just to make sure it’s there.

It all started back in September, when we arrived to Georgia. One of my travel companions had read from LP that there’s a train connection under construction between the Tbilisi train station and the airport. He made some calculations based on the given estimate of construction duration and the publishing date of this concrete LP edition, and concluded that this connection should be ready. We considered the “should be ready” factor of Georgia and didn’t get our hopes up but asked around, nevertheless. Most of the taxi drivers claimed there is no such a line. Some other people said there is a line but it works “maybe”.

It sounded somewhat unreliable, and an adventure of finding out the schedule for the “maybe” train in Georgia a bit too time demanding for the fun of it. So, when my companions had to leave, they did it using the regular “flag a taxi and bargain” way.

But I had a seed in my head, and it demanded some irrigation. After not so long I found a person who actually had taken the train. He told me how he went for it for the first time. In the middle of the night (as, for some reason, many of the planes depart and arrive in the middle of the night around here) he found himself behind closed doors of the train station. Locked inside of it. The train from the airport had brought them to Tbilisi all right, but seemingly, considering locked doors, it was hard to get away from the tracks and platforms. Nobody there to ask for advice.

He described the train (another time when he took it) as completely empty, standing there, at the station, lights lit, deserted. He entered, sat. Suddenly the train started moving. Ha sat alone in the lit railway carriage dipped in the surrounding deep darkness throughout the voyage. Even this person who was supposed to sell the tickets didn’t show up.

Soon I happened to be in the train station and as I was there I took the possibility for checking the schedule for this mysterious train. I found it, proper-looking printout, partly in English. I wrote down the times into my notebook. It felt so nostalgic, pre-internet era thing to do. This elusive schedule, when I looked at it there, fresh and written by my own hand in my notebook - it seemed so trustworthy and real.

And then I was given a reason – a friend, while leaving Georgia, forgot her Swiss army knife in her hand luggage and left it there at the airport for me to pick up. (They also had planned taking the train to the airport, but it offered them two hours of plain waiting, an extra time hard to substantiate with all the sitting around peculiar to flying.) I looked into this schedule, now with an evident aim. Trains wait there, at the airport, for ten minutes before coming back. That was not enough time, even if I would have run and hoped for no queue at the desk where the knife was waiting. Next step – interval. Between two to three hours during the night and early morning, then four hours up to noon and then six hours from there to the two-three hours interval of the evening and night period again. This particular knife-holding desk was opened only during the day. Early morning is not the prime time of the day for me, but, again, no trains between twelve and six. Anyway, just waiting for two to three hours? Because of a knife? Or rather for the sole reason of being able to take the train? I can manage considerable concessions for to have a possibility to prefer trains as transport, but that was a bit too much. Tbilisi airport is no special case amongst its kin - heavily expensive, no comfortable sitting places for non-paying customers, a building in the middle of nowhere, nowhere which is bleak. Park, please? Can somebody name an airport which would have a park next to it, where you could sit on a bench and read while surrounded by lush, quiet, friendly greenery? Asphalt and tasteless, overpriced bars – that’s the trend for the house of airports.

I took a bus instead and it was pain in the ass. Long and boring ride, “there and back again” as in real, prosaic life. Nothing remarkable happened for those pages.

Next chance came to me in January. I went to the airport for to farewell a friend. I delved into my tangible schedule again – if I kill some time, I can go for it, take the train back to the city that is. I felt this mixture of pleasure and anticipation when I was approaching the train station at the airport. Taxis slowing down next to me – I have to admit, I was alone walking there, and I had nowhere to walk to if you, as an average taxi driver, render this train solution and the accompanying fancy station building nonexistent –, me waving them to go with assured gesture of a platonic train lover. My eyes were locked at this end-of-the-line building, the airport train stop. A golden, curved form, a bit reminding a concha of a giant (let me remind – golden!) snail, accented arches descending from the arrival direction towards the ground. I reach it and step in through half opened sliding doors. It’s clean, it’s fancy and it’s completely empty. A little lady rushes to me from a small room where she was watching TV, and tells me there are no trains. What do you mean? Why? When will there be another one? We have a language problem, her Russian is bad, my Russian is bad. She says something somewhere is broken. That’s all she knows, that’s all I will know.

When I was walking back towards the airport taxi drivers who passed me did not slow down anymore. It felt like they were laughing at me. Miserable me, I went and took a seat in a bus, resentful and fully aware of what kind of pages were waiting for me.

And now, say three weeks ago, two quests were arriving from Estonia. I was thinking about going to welcome them at the airport. By train, of course - I could take a book with me and sit through my time of waiting in a best manner. But I felt some unease about just walking to the train station and decided to make some enquiries first. After all, I had collected four-five phone numbers of the train station from different sources. Just in case. Now it was the case. I started calling. One was a fax machine. None of the others answered. For an hour. I gave up with the train station, checked the airport web page instead. They had train schedule there online, checking and - same as mine. Still, better to be safe than sorry - I called to the airport. The schedule has changed, they said, but they don’t know it. Who might know it, I enquired. Train station. Somebody else, maybe? I didn’t give up. Information line 09. Ok, thank you.

I call 09. Can you speak English? She calls for someone by name. I can hear the sounds of an office on the background. The English speaker arrives and takes over. I start getting the information about train times. After fourth departure time - and the process of telling times is slow, like she would have to google each one of them separately - I understand that she can’t grasp the concept of “half past”. In Estonian, also in Russian, you say “half to” to signify the same thing. To say half past four you’d say “half five” or “half to five”. That insight made me careful, very very careful, and I started going over all the times I had written down thus far. Just to be sure. After I had five asked and checked, I stopped. I had the most usable ones and continuing (the initial plan was to write them all down) would have meant a huge phone bill for me and a glass of sugar water for her. Hard work it was. Some of those times matched with the ones I already had, some of them had seemingly changed.

For other reasons I finally didn’t welcome them at the airport. But I had a new schedule. What a success . I was proud. I mean, how many people actually knew that schedule? As a foreigner I felt as a very special insider.

I told those two Estonian quests about my little adventures around the airport train issues. They had also heard that there is a train connecting the airport with city centre, seemingly the rumour is very viable outside of Georgia. We planned to go to a myth-busting mission – just, notwithstanding, take the train, there and back again. And that would be that.

We didn’t do it*, though.

So, I didn’t know much more than I did three weeks ago when today we decided to go to the airport to welcome some friends. We would have had to play cards for two hours once there, but as we were three it sounded like an ok plan – a match of Rummy 500 in the middle of the night at the airport, why not. I had Information concerning train schedule, gained from the reliable and recommended source just some time ago. That didn’t sound like something one should have doubt in. As at the airport they had said that there is a new schedule I thought it’s quite safe bet to presume that it hasn’t changed again in past three weeks.

We were running late and rushed to the train station. Caused some confusion with our questions – where does it depart from? And reached to an old guy who pointed at airport train schedule. That was something different. Four trains, two in the morning , two during the day time. Nothing there what I had heard about. Four trains instead of eight, and departing at almost completely reversed times. Well. Is it new, I ask. Oh, no, the old guy says, it has been like that for the past half of the year or so.

I’ll bet if one checks the airport home page now, the train schedule is still there. The same worthless schedule what I have in my notebook - or I actually have a somewhat upgraded (or somewhere-graded) version of it - the trustworthy and real-looking schedule in it’s beautiful, handwritten and nostalgic form. Internet might be the fast medium for the information, but seemingly it can’t speed in solitude – I mean six months should be enough time to update something on the web, no? Especially if it concerns transport what people might actually want to take. (Yet, maybe it can speed in solitude – I just checked the web page myself. There’s a schedule there I have never seen before. Maybe this is a schedule for the better future, delivered beforehand? Or maybe I should start collecting them, different ghost-times for a simple trip of Railway station – Airport – Railway station.)

Here the fastest medium for the information about the train schedule between an international airport and the capital city of the country called Georgia is a A5 printout glued to the window of the ticket office on the third floor of the main train station building.

And yet this airport home page looks so modern, I think, there at the vagzal, while I write down the “new” schedule in my notebook. With a pencil, this time.

*The plan itself is alive, nevertheless.

April, 2011.

2010 Tartu-Odessa-Tbilisi, Part5 - Suwalki – Warsaw train station

Text: Me
Photos and other stuff: We


Suwalki – Warsaw train station


In this train, while I was awake, everybody seemed far away, including myself. I slept, and I was awake, if not to say I was in between. I was sleeping, and yet not, like a plumule in fall and not. When the train stopped, I woke up, looked around, somewhat registered people relaying, moving. I was tired, I was grumpy, I wished to be somewhere else, even if not quite certain where exactly. This place probably included fresh towels, warmth, possibly a sauna with naked people, free drinks on demand and no time limit for all that.
People moved around like gray shadows. Or like unaccented lives in reality - unnoticed, insignificant, incomplete; individual, but not pronounced as such.
I can remember experiencing the presence of powerful women once, in a train, from Tartu to Tallinn. Vituperate me, feminists, but those ladies walked by me, just went by the aisle, and it wasn’t even a question whether they were travelling in the first class or not, it was the fact that all the males watched them as they passed. I just had to. Maybe they where famous, I wouldn’t know, I’m way too ignorant, but they were something, very much pronounced something. I had to look, this presence was powerful. Sheer force what made me feel small and boyish, insignificant in comparison. Women. They were Women. Impressive, how some people Are and some cope with being. And yet they looked so ordinary.
In this train to Bialystok, dowsing in and out, everything was yon, off. I was absent from the environment. I wanted to have a cigarette. And dozed off again.
There was a stop, and I saw a red train from the window, parked on parallel tracks. Beautiful old train, with round lights and round corners. Pungent in this petulant morningness. I was thinking of taking a picture. And I was thinking that the train is too far. She woke up, seemingly, as She told me “take a picture!”, I said I can’t, it is too far. But I took the picture. Grumpy. I wanted a cigarette.
It was a surprisingly long train ride, this first one. I’ve seen those places on the roadmap of Europe, Suwalki and Bialystok, I’ve been to both, been in between them, going from one to another and vice versa, even slept in Bialystok somewhere in the mid nineties, when bus excursions where still very popular in this part of the world (“three star” hotel at the outskirts, with security guys armed with machine guns guarding the entrance). All that, and still I’ve managed to be thoughtless enough to be surprised by the amount of time it took for the train to reach to Bialystok.
I was weary. I can’t recall what was the case with the tickets - did we buy Bialystok-Warsaw already from Suwalki or what, or did we somehow know that we could buy tickets on the train, or was there, in the reality which didn’t include me anyway, an option nr 3.
But when we got out of the train, and I was silent as I contemplated all the best possible ways to have this long awaited cigarette and ways to let Bialystok – a new place – embrace me, He saw a train on the opposite tracks, and he knew something about time and schedule, and He claimed it to be our train, he claimed it to leave in any second. She agreed. I don’t like to rush. Especially if I want to smoke.
We ran. Only few words about that. Imagine - me running with my impedimenta. Or let’s cut it down to one word: fuck.
It was our train, yes. And they were right to run. We sat there, She, He and Me, a stump by the time. Now I have been a smoker for a while, but this was the first really serious case of a hunger for a cigarette. For the whole ride I had thoughts in my head about smoking, and about how my mother told me that it is hard to quit. And how, now, I myself had reached to understanding it to be true, an understanding elegantly plain and self evident. I wasn’t quite myself. I was narrow. My capacity was narrow. And I blamed cigarettes. Kids! Never start smoking! Or, maybe, only pipe. Or cigars.
This second one was a polite train, polite in everything. Rather new, spruce, quite comfortable, carrying a full load of polite, neatly dressed people to work. Polite smile or two from fellow passengers, polite was the attendant, if there was anyone like such. I felt like an addict, and I felt like the morning rain - the damp one who got it descended upon him. An uncomfortable feeling, a bit similar to sitting in a crowded minibus after a two days of a winter hike. Untidy amongst the tidy.
And I have a mental picture of Him smiling conspiratorially, from behind a newspaper he was reading. I’m quite sure the newspaper was in polish.
This weariness of mine lasted well until the first cigarette in Warsaw. When they were busy finding out options for continuation, I was ignorantly smoking. Grumpy and narrow me, broadening himself up again. I think I didn’t even say anything to them. As soon as the train arrived, I walked directly over to the main door of the railway station and out.
And smoked.
All that felt like an airport, rather than a train station. This place, messy portal of arrivals and departures; you, poor smoker, standing there like in a river, clasping against the wall not to be carried away by the constant flow of people. Observing taxis, observing this heavily controlled strain of transport, cars, buses, bringing in more people, taking some away. Suitcases on wheels, all trendy and modern, backpacks, in some variety. Again you’re an alien, different, again you’re standing there where everybody else are moving, at the intermission between coming and going - you are neither. It is not nice to smoke at a place like that. It’s like trying to enjoy a peaceful cigarette at the doorway of rush hour metro, psychologically speaking. And yet this is the place where you’re supposed to go, you relict of unhealthy times! This door smoking is mostly common for airports. Train stations tend to be more humane and offer a snug nook or somewhat looser rules. Airports! It maybe wouldn’t be so bad if you wouldn’t harass even the people who like to have their air without the filter – I mean your air tastes tired, mishandled, exhausted, worn. What do you do to it? Let it go through security checks also?
Istambul – I had to spend five hours there in this airless building and go through security check after every cigarette. Oslo – you couldn’t even smoke on the same side of the road with the door, no, under some overpass, in a corner with the tenderness of concrete above, under and around you. Feeling like a broken down car rather than a human being. Helsinki – after way too many days of almost constant flying, bit before home, a hopeful cigarette at the door with a lovely caress of heavy chilly wind. Tallinn – awful, but with benches and some puny plants in pots they are somewhat trying. I might mix them up, actually, those places and cigarettes. All of them went through my head though in Warsaw. And as I was remembering about those glass cubicles in some airports - I felt a shiver, and tried to be happy. To look at the bright side of this cigarette. So I looked up.
I’ve been in Warsaw for many times, but never there for her. Coming from somewhere or going, it is on the way. And now when I looked up there was one of my repetitious thoughts there, illustrated again. From the gap between two sides of roof in front of the station I could see few buildings, glimpse view of the city, a grand small view. Something I think about Warsaw – she has style. Mixing together old and brave new, managing to keep it intact and building budgets uncut, ideas taken to actual life. Warsaw has a city touch to it.
I entered the station building again and found them. They had been going between different desks, finding out the possible ways and routes for continuation, and now had some printouts with schedules on them. I took a picture of impressively huge main timetable, looked at the printouts and thought that we are lazy. We go and ask, let the information be printed out for us, and this revered timetable will soon be a relict of times gone by as I am as a devoted smoker. Minified but still there. I felt like another cigarette. I was still too narrow for all this information and decisions.
We walked out again, to the other side of the station. That was a more peaceful place for a cigarette. Backdoor facing a car park. Space and size again. Not like smoking in a river this time, rather like smoking at the edge of a huge pond with still, asphalt-gray, rotting water, some waste wrecks drifting around for to variegate.
I smoked, impedimenta scattered around me, and we discussed. Mainly between two options – to go on or to stay for the night. Warsaw is a transport hub already, inside Europe in railway sense. We had many possibilities. To go to Odessa, straight away – of course! possible! Could even take a train to Odessa coming from Berlin. Expensive though. And Lviv. And another route, different trains to Odessa, transfer options and straight options. Suddenly options, options, options.
To go or not to go? I was protecting the idea that we’d stay for the night. Leave our luggage at the station, get a cheap hostel, and take this deserved respite. Enjoy Warsaw. I hadn’t actually visited Warsaw, I said, and He seemingly knew a lot about this city, and so He could share, and maybe let’s just rest and have a wine in the hostel. I even said that I have never ever stayed at the youth hostel, and that could be interesting, all first times together in Warsaw, communicate to strange foreigners and try to figure out the nature of youth hostels. Seemed like a sensible side issue to solve for me. And pillows, blankets, beds, shower – have to admit, I’m getting somewhat comfortable.
I got voted out. Warsaw is not our aim, Odessa is our first aim, we could spend a day and take a night train and that would be enough. They used arguments that had my own touch to them. It was decided. We go. Mystery of youth hostels has to wait some more. And one gets a pillow on the night trains also.
We bought the tickets, after some more questions and running around the desks. You know how it is, you ask a question from one desk, get the answer from the other and then try to find the third one where you should buy the tickets. And this ticket lady, she made a joke. After all that, in this grumpy morning, she, who looked unbelievably grumpy - especially after we stated that we all want to pay separately and by card - she made a joke and got us off guard. We made a lot of fuzz around the issue of being able to be in the same coupe. Her English, nor her Russian, was good enough to keep up, somewhat of a confusion there. And then she says, while printing the tickets already: “Men can go, girl has to see how she can.”
???
He later said that he was thinking about Poland being a catholic country and maybe there’s a rule, or something, that boys and girls should be proper and separated. I had a plain “what?” in my head (still not particularly sharp), and She said “WHAT?” The ticket lady gave us a light smile, cracking the grumpiness, indicating a joke had just been made. We laughed, a bit strained laughter, while cursing in Estonian.
I was not sad to say my farewells to Comrade Suitcase, it was merely “see you later”.
Hello Warsaw, dear, we have one day.

2010 Tartu-Odessa-Tbilisi, Part4 - Bauska-Suwalki

Text: Me
Photos and other stuff: We


Bauska-Suwalki


Bauska was a complete success of a choice. From local bus station we had to walk less than a kilometre to reach to a spot nearly as good as it gets. Stood there for a while, and consumerist in me couldn’t get my eyes off from a little supermarket just thirty meters away. We could buy water and some cookies and snacks and that would be so smart thing to do. But there’s always some consideration - hitchhiker doesn’t want to leave the road. Maybe a dream ride, not to mention a simply kind enough person, would drive by exactly at that time? A convertible! Or an old Volga! Or a jolly company of youngsters with a decent amount of beer! Leaving two at the roadside when you are actually three is not a good tone at all. Especially in Finland, appearance of a “hiding” member might cause the car literally to flee. But the memory of shortage of supplies was fresh enough and I went for it, for shopping and this accompanying little anxiety.
Just when I was contemplating about the possible reasons for this apparently heavy discount on Värska, really good mineral water from Estonia, and the amount what I should buy, She rushed in calling me – a truck had stopped!
“Does he take three?” I’m slow, I ask questions. Rare case, to get on those transit ships of dry land - in a nice world a real symbiosis partner for the hitchhikers - with three, especially inclined towards masculine. But we ran, grabbing stuff from the roadside while running as this huge thing blocked road quite remarkably, and climbed on. Me on the seat, She and Him on the lower bunk. And this mess of a boarding gave me a concern for the rest of the day – I wasn’t sure if my laptop bag got on or not. He couldn’t remember for sure if he picked it up, and She was sure that she didn’t, and neither did I. If hitchhiking with too many valuables, no difference in what kind of category the value is measured, you pay a toll in anxiety. Avoid! at all times. But this time I had no choice. My impedimenta, or my life in a packed form if you wish - I was carrying everything I needed for a year.
The ride was quite a catch. We heard that we can get to Poland. It was allowed to smoke inside and he offered cigarettes (and sunflower seeds for to help to avoid the wish to have one) and was generally strongly on the nice side of the scale, though language turned out to be rather behind a barrier.
A long and calm voyage it was. Trucks, they don’t go particularly fast, but they make it up in stability. They go and go and you feel there is nothing what can intervene with that. Road ships, billowy and comfortable, even if you’re the one who doesn’t have a bed but a plain seat.
It is against the rules to have four people up in the cabin. It's meant for two. Schengen, and all that, but border facilities are still there and sometimes officers also. Old habits die hard I guess. When a Latvian-Lithuanian border was closing up, the driver turned his smiling face to us and that was a sign - He and She hid behind the curtain and had to go with my voiceover. This was fun, felt like kids misbehaving. Truck slows down, weaves through lanes and round ways at the border installations, you’re all attention trying to sport officials. We got through, nobody there. Interesting if you made it exciting in your head - another valuable ability of kids. And useful for hitchhikers.
In Lithuania we had to make a half an hour stop. Rule of law and order for general safety can intervene with the stabile onflow of kilometres. It comes in a shape of a round piece of paper with enigmatic graphs on it - the logger. It records everything - speed, driving time vs standing time, stuff like that. You have to make a stop and rest, or otherwise the logger will know that you didn't and will tell on you to the first traffic policeman curious enough to ask. Half an hour of He and She hiding in the cabin of the truck - hiding by drivers request, as seemingly even truckers might have grassers amongst - parked closely between other trucks, and me having a coffee with the driver outside. Handing two cups of coffee up to the cabin for people who did not exist - with a bit of imagination it felt conspiratorial all right.
One more border was coming up, the Polish border, already in darkness, and again some smell of adventure, unexpectedness. We were closing up, and flashlight spotlights and parked cars with special colours visible from the distance made it evident, that the border officers were there.
We did get stopped. Driver remained cool and calm, suddenly sporting the best sort of truckers arrogance - arrogance towards authorities. He opened his door and looked down from his high king-of-the-road seat at the tiny young placeman. All his posture was saying - what? Young official was watching us, he looked confused, didn't say anything, and then just waved us to go.
Now, when we were in Poland and moving again, the driver seemed amused by this successful little prank. Arrogance was gone, he was this warm half-bold fellow again, nibbling on a sunflower seed and smiling.
Once in Poland, we had a huge decision to confront. Most optimistic pre-trip prognosis included hitchhiking all the way to Warsaw, or, even above optimistic – Lviv. The other possibility stated taking a train to Warsaw, either from Suwalki or Bialystok. Now we had to figure something out as it was quite late, dark and raining. The place, where the truck driver was going to go, is a “truck sleeping place” near Suwalki. Near, but far from being in it, or walkable. There are few places like that near Suwalki and along that road from Lithuania to Poland. They are special as they are huge. Literally most of the transit from the Baltics and some on-the-ground transit from Finland comes down and goes up that road, through the narrow strip between Kaliningrad and Belarussia where Lithuania and Poland meet. So every evening you see these vast parking places slowly getting bristled with trucks, sometimes as little as 50 centimetres between two, and can observe some really virtuous parking abilities. But, when the evening is falling you’re stranded there as a hitchhiker. Usually there is no speed limit nearby, which, together with darkness diminishes your probabilities to get a ride. Ordinarily there is a restaurant sporting some kind of accommodation facilities as well, but this surpasses average hitchhikers budget. We were considering our options - pushing on towards Suwalki and Bialystok ignoring the rain and darkness, or paying that money for accommodation, or walk on at random hoping to spot some more “simple” shelter for the night.
First step was to let him park the truck and go and have something to eat at the restaurant, while at the same time trying to ask if there is a train stop nearby or maybe there are night trains going from Suwalki (you’ll never know, and as Estonians we simply believe that train traffic just has to be better where ever else). He, our driver, was a tremendous help with that issue. He mobilized some of the local stuff to get the phone numbers and information we needed, and did all the calling and talking for us.
Those places specializing on sleeping or resting truck drivers are worthy of their own story in full right, but it has to be left out now, as this after all is a train blog. Let just say that if you don’t come with a really fucking big machine you are a complete alien. Even though everybody knows who you are – a hitchhiker. Another fold there for females, as there is a strong possibility and a second thought behind those curious-looking trucker faces – is she a prostitute? But this is yet again another kind of a symbiosis.
I was having a cigarette outside, under the eave, and suddenly I hear a cow going “ammmuuu..”. WTF, I wonder, as it is pitch dark, raining and there are no fields around that vast parking place next to a loud road. Why should a cow get so close to a disturbing place (for a cow, I’m bold enough to presume) like that? It took me almost the full length of a cigarette to figure that out – cow sounds came from speakers placed all around sleeping trucks.
Train enquiries carried some fruit eventually, but no too good news – next train was early in the morning, a bit before six. And then, surprisingly enough, the truck driver offered yet another possibility – we all sleep together in the cabin of the truck! He was seemingly really worried about us being there in the dark and him not being able to take us as far as Suwalki (prevented by the logger and upcoming lack of truck-suitable parking places). That sounded like a crazy plan, so we took a bit of time for consideration. And decided to go for it. Let’s do it! How, although, was something of a interesting imagination work.
We all, after food and few modest drinks, and probably for amazement of those neighbouring truck drivers who noticed, climbed to the cabin. It took some clumsy arranging (and it was nice to discover that I still had my laptop), but the driver went on the upper bunk, me and She shared the lower bunk and He was lying over two front seats and a high floor in between them. Even comfy, I’d say, and for all of us. Surreal, but nice. Drifting asleep while listening rain drum on the tin roof, noises from the road and an occasional “ammmuuuu...” of a comforting cow.
Wake up call came early, though – 4AM. Another set of clumsy rearranging and we were on the road again without further ado. He dropped us in Suwalki and gave rather vague directions for getting to the train station while apologizing that he can’t take us there – too complicated to approach with a truck. That was a warm farewell, he even came out of the truck, into the rain, to make one more attempt to explain where we should go. The feelings are always bigger than visible or shared at those occasions, I’d say, as some kind of a bond grows between the ride and the rider when a long time and a vast distance is shared in this confined and by nature private space of a car or a cabin, no difference if this time has been talked through or not. Another fluid emotion released while getting out, always in a haste, and trying to find something to say but never really able to articulate. After all, he was a real jackpot for us. Not to mention the serious distance we covered with him, thanks to what we probably gained at least one extra day in Odessa, but all this help with train information, insisting on paying for some of our food (to which He answered by paying the beers we had), offering us shelter in his cabin. He really took us under his wing.
And then you’re outside again. In our case, we were outside in the rain, half past four in the morning, in the mingy light of an early daybreak, in the little settlement by the transit road through that settlement. Shortly: 4.30 AM somewhere in Poland.
After years of affectionate hitchhiking I’ve learned to despise the road infrastructure. This thing, the road, is designed so exclusively for cars that you should never leave one. Bigger street, a transit street in the city (seemingly having pavements) and a roadway through countryside – there’s not much difference. You are not “outside” in any other sense than that you are outside of a car. Nature or landscape never reaches the roadway, it will always be only a view; being outside of a car at any main road is like being stuck on a postcard with a horrible soundtrack.
While we walked through quiet sleeping neighbourhood of well-mannered private houses the light had time to gain some strength and rain stopped falling. But this was an exhausting walk. I had almost forgotten about my Comrade, and now Me and Him were carrying it between us again. Stripes cutting into shoulders, the weight, the early morning. I was getting grumpy and trying to hide it. I was even ready to pay for the taxi but got voted out. When we finally saw the train station and a train in front of it - I felt relieved. Relieved like after something really important and demanding finally done, finished, out with that. Even to such an extent that I discovered my head emptying of everything, emotions, thoughts, shedding away. I was just standing there, in the damp morning, looking at the train saying “Bialystok” in LED lights, looking at some suits going to work with the same train – “you fuckers, you can’t imagine where we have been!” – observing some train attendants smoking their cigarettes from the palm, and nothing.
She wrapped herself in a blanket when on the train - we were still damp from the rain, he fell asleep as he was and probably I did also. I remember myself thinking that I should feel something. I should maybe even do something. As this was kind of a milestone, objective reached, a special moment. From hitchhiking to trains, we fucking finally reached trains! Nothing.
It was a simple new suburban train. Efficient, may be, but ugly.

2010 Tartu-Odessa-Tbilisi, Part3 - Valka-Bauska

Text: Me
Photos and other stuff: We


Valka-Bauska


That’s the thing with crashing places for one night. If it is a building - half-built, just abandoned or whatever else what has a roof and a floor: in the evening it is a practical solution to the problem, in the morning it has gained a smallish “home touch”. It’s not plain roadside building any more, it is a roof under which you’ve slept. Is it the general feeling of a morning, or expectancy of departure, or those ten little things everybody does in the beginning of a new day - but it feels special. It already has YOU written over it, and it has written itself in you for an eternity we call life. This feeling I’m groping about here is awkward, frail, but I suspect it in smiling and knowing something I still don’t.
We had coffee. With a little merited coffetiera I carry around. Coffee itself was something average as my favourite, carefully hoped for supply for the year abroad – “Sao intenso” – got mangled in humane logistics and was somewhere in Austria by the time we took off. This is my morning thing nr 1. Coffee. And it has to be good.
We washed our eyes. Brushed teeth while embraced by uncut grass around the house. Packed our things. And the road again, aiming Riga. There was another issue to compete with an obvious aim to move on: eyewashing and teethbrushing and coffee drinking had had a diminishing effect on our water supply, siding a complete lack of a food supply.
We got picked up - and morning might really be wiser than evening: after not so long of a waiting time – by a drug salesman. Young talkative guy, diligent, and as a salesman very comfortable in conversation. Easygoing ride. Felt awkward to sit in this clean car of a suit-wearing seemingly successful youngster and remember about morning on pallets. He took us to the outskirts of Valmiera, to the neighbourhood so common around cities - trade areas which are built more for cars than for people, and we had to have an inappropriate walk for a kilometre or so out to the nearest suitable hitchhiking spot. Now me and Him were carrying Comrade Suitcase between us, with a Egyptian head scarf for one shoulder and leather strap remaining from camp wheel solution for the other.
This felt like a real thing already. Near some indifferent overpass, getting hungry, singing some stupid songs, doing some stupid things. Trying to use that limited amount of options there for hitchhikers to kill waiting time without leaving the roadside as good as we could. And here being a bunch of three has its benefits. You can make jokes and have somebody else laugh on them. You can sing and get actually stopped for sound contamination. Or they tag along, and honestly, secretly I’ve been thinking (wishful thinking) that if there is one person who is worse singer than I am, then this is Him. All this crap what is visible at the roadside is just so much easier to bare, if there is someone to whom to reflect impressions. With whom to share a bubble of existence, sanguine bubble devoted to better future down the road (or in a car).
Old Soviet Paz-bus stops and She goes there. I am further away trying to manage all my flabby stuff. And it is somehow intense this moment where you are about to find out who the driver is or – as is the case with one particular Peugeot on Tallinn-Tartu stopping mostly for girls – if he, for example, is wearing clothes or not. First he says, Paz-driver, that we should get on, chop-chop, and when She asks where are they going, he goes: “What’s the difference where we are going!? We are going straight ahead! Straight! Clear!?”. Crystal clear! We climbed on board.
Jolly company, old men, rough around the edges. The bus driver had his own world in its full right and time hadn’t moved much in that world of his, say, since late seventies.
All those old Paz’es in Baltics have streamers and stickers around drivers place. Always there, telling a story where this mature bus has been (carrying diligent worker groups, summer days maybe, a motivational excursion, joint personnel ride to pick potatoes), where the driver has been, or where he would like to be instead (if sporting variety of stickers from the “west”). A good old Paz bus is like a book with drivers picture on the cover. Interactive book – you sit there and read, imagine and remember with your whole body.
Hichhikers sometimes have favourite rides, wished and longed for, statistics neatly kept. Collecting car brands or types, or aiming for most expensive, or cabriolets, or rides on “vehicles on duty”. I like “old and awkward”. These guys definitely qualified.
Not too much of communicating during this ride, though. We shared only Russian as a language and seemingly that as well only with the driver. But still there were accompanying jokes and sly smiles - just have to be! - about going off the road, when we made a little detour to go to some old gas station - which shared it’s era of prime time with the Paz bus - and filled some huge plastic canisters with petrol. When hitchhiking you don’t always exactly understand what is going on or why. And then you discover yourself carrying huge bags of dog food somewhere in a little Muslim village in eastern Greece, for example. You get somewhat used to that, not understanding.
They dropped us at the roadside in a place with two distinctive features: red brick old bus stop and a sign on the other side of the road, near to a turn to a small-small road. Sign said “Inciems”. They turned left, took a small dirt track. We stayed there for two hours.
This was a place which offered a view on Latvia where nothing is actually visible. Field. And some trees there, scattered around, some bushes. I have spent some serious roadside thinking time trying to find some way for to describe this type of a hitchhiking setting. Thing is – they are rather common in Baltics. But so utterly characterless, that it is even hard to effectively insult those.. those.. places. And weather offered embracing drizzle from its chummy side. There we reached the common condition of hitchhiking nr n, where jokes and stories get a bit stupid, mildly said; we built theories about Inciems being a secret Las Vegas of Latvia, just there, at the end of this tiny dirt road, and jolly old men, like our ride, they know, play and are building it even bigger.
We dreamed of sandwiches. This wise girl of a She had brought some candies. Life savers. But we were slow-witted enough to forget to bring a little Estonian flag, for waving as soon as you see Estonian car plate. Those little things really work, and the spot guaranteed a fine amount of reminders of the lack passing by.
Relief came in a shape of a red car, this time. Driver, he was studying agriculture or rural economy or something like that and was working as something and his face I cannot remember either. Sometimes all those drivers you meet, they just melt into some vague mental image, revolving around third or fourth or whatever little unimportant issue. For example, him - and I think he might have had dark curly hair - I remember it was weird to look for shared themes for conversation as none of us knows anything about agriculture, and I remember He said something nice about that, his selection of profession that is, and I think we did find something common which might have been films – but – the issue here, in his case, around which all that revolves, is a picture in my memory: two apples.
He took us - another little detour - to a place at (ex) Rigafilm studio area, as told the metal typesetting above the gate. Huge fenced territory, now filled with little companies - oil change for cars, tires, some refurbished office of a starting business, stuff like that - and an occasional prop or part of set remaining here and there. He went to get something from one of those small businesses, germinating all around on the shabby remains of the glory of the soviet film industry. And we waited in the car. Now – the apples: there was an apple tree near the office. And She told me to go there and pick some apples. I have a memory of smiling to some people standing near to the door, and getting closer to the tree. And I have a memory of eating an apple in the car and really enjoying it. But I can’t remember if I imagined it or did it. (I remember a second thought as well, thought which wondered around the politeness of such a straightforward act against apples in this country. I really could imagine a little Latvian grandmother who makes jam for all the office in the autumn. Well, I couldn’t imagine her sitting there with a salt gun, watching those apples, but yes, we, at this point, at the outskirts of Riga, we were really-really hungry already. But this is irrelevant, isn’t it) Unfair towards this maybe-curly-haired driver, but – we don’t choose ourselves what defines us. Sometimes all that we are revolves around two apples maybe imagined in some ones head.
I don’t remember Riga. How did we get to the bus station? I have no idea. Standing there, in the corner of the hall of the bus station, with all my bags and His bag and Her bag scattered around me. And feeling like shit – I was tired, hungry and sweating heavily.
Somewhere along the way plan had developed. According to one really basic and practical principle of hitchhiking - when in transit avoid the cities, they suck you stuck - we thought of flinging ourselves out again as fast as possible. It’s a mess to use public transport in unfamiliar urban area to get to good hitchhiking spots. Public transportation systems are never meant for that. Sometimes it’s much wiser to get some kind of intercity solution, and reach to some small place on the desired direction. Some town what would be small enough to walk through, and where there is a nice possibility of speeds being low and roads rather narrow. It will cost you some money, but worth every santim paid. There is a very nice train option, almost perfect, if coming back to Estonia and already in Riga; but for going the other way around we had to take a bus to Bauska, as went our best guess.
He and She were looking for tickets, I guarded the luggage. They came back with the tickets for a bus in something like forty minutes. A fact that enthused us to but some speed on the other part of the plan – to eat at the buffet on the second floor. And use civilized toilet facilities. They in principle ran upstairs, and sure, fuelled by the stomach in need, I would have had also, but now Comrade Suitcase was solely on me, and pulling this thing up on to the second floor made me feel like my body just started to digest itself.
Eating can feel like a bliss. Simple contentedness. And then you have a coffee. And don’t talk much. Observe the quiet comfort of digesting.