20120122
20120120
Mujal / Elsewhere
I’m Ğ.
You cannot pronounce my name.
You even don’t know my name.
I wake up in the middle of the night and I eat carrots.
While I eat carrots, I listen to him leaning against the wall of the kitchen.
I realized that I was the same person despite going to wherever I could go.
The place where I am not in seems peaceful to me.
I’d like to go till the end of my life. I’d like to go through end of my life and consider.
Who is the bravest one?
Sometimes I drink soup.
Rarely milk.
I’m Ğ.
Does it make sense even if we change the places we live although we cannot change?
Continually carrots.
Mujal / Elsewhere
/--/
Struggling to find a glimpse of a calm moment, I found it on a beach, next to the city. What I never expected. We were still so close to a busy city and at this place there was even nothing - except nature. It was the most positive experience I have ever made. I realized even if I could manage to find a completely empty space it wouldn‘t be empty, I would be in it.
I have never experienced an empty space, not just physically, but mentally. I live a life where I am often so busy fulfilling the demands and the expectations of other people, that I am not able to step back and enjoy life in a true empty space.
But I got another chance on one of the trips: The few minutes silence alone in the woods I came as close as I have ever gotten to feeling an empty space, I have rarely felt so alive. Being somewhere, elsewhere, a kind of lost in the hugh nature.
/---/
Mujal / Elsewhere
text editing: matarebeliblog
Going to a total unknown place without the possibility of informing about that spot before the trip, was a very unusual and strange experience in the beginning. But at the latest after the second trip, I really liked that little Estonian adventure and was looking forward to every next journey. With every trip my picture of Estonia got bigger and bigger and I somehow felt, that I learned something about the country and the people there on
every single tour.
/---/
While I was reflecting for the regular discussions to given topics during our trips was the time when I realised, that going to Estonia was also going elsewhere for me. Sure, normally that should be logically. But to be honest, it never came to my mind before. Humans always try to do something new, something they have never done before, something their friends haven‘t done, something they cannot do at home. But it would be really simple to go elsewhere in your own country, experience something totally new in the neighbourhood. Just start looking at things closer and not from an somehow arrogant
point of view. Of course going elsewhere is always more intensive when you do not speak the language of a country, for example. But it is possible to go elsewhere everywhere.
/---/
At the beginning going to Estonia meant going elsewhere for me. Of course, I read something about the country in books and travelguides, saw one documentary about the european cultural capital 2011 on TV and read about Estonia in newspapers from time to time. But nevertheless it was a dark spot in the map of my mind.
Estonia? Why are you going to Estonia? That is what a lot of people in Austria asked me.
Estonia? Why does a girl from Austria come to Estonia? That was the question I heard the most, here in Estonia.
You could have chosen Spain or Italy or another country were it is nicely warm, was the comment of people in both countries.
Yes, I know! But I wanted to go to Estonia!
I wanted to go – e l s e w h e r e!
/--/
Mujal / Elsewhere
Mujal / Elsewhere
Something originally unfamiliar is not weird. Something familiar becomig unfamiliar intensifies the feeling of elsewhere.
Someone familiar is intensively unfamiliar when being spiritually elsewhere.
20111113
20110802
2010.12 Tbilisi - Zugdidi
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:
______________________________________
'
20110724
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.
20110421
2010 Tartu-Odessa-Tbilisi, Part6 / Warsaw Train Station - Warsaw - Warsaw Train Station
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.
20110420
2010 Tartu-Odessa-Tbilisi, Part6 / (Warsaw)
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./
20110417
2010 - 2011 Tbilisi - Tbilisi Airport - Tbilisi
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.
