I like going to cemeteries. Often, they are quieter and more pleasant than the park. Some are of artistic value. And then, I learn a bit about the local culture and history.
In Romania, I was recommended a cemetery that is even supposed to be amusing: the merry cemetery of Săpânța.
It is only 20 km from Sighet. That should be manageable by hitchhiking. But at the turnoff to Satu Mare, I stand for 25 minutes just as unsuccessfully as the Jehovah’s Witnesses on the opposite side of the road.
Depressing. As if made for a day at the cemetery. But I don’t want to give up. Not yet. Instead, I walk a few hundred meters further out of town, until after the hospital, and try again. Here, already the third car stops.
The driver is from Slovakia, but lives in Maramureș. Or he is from here, but ethnically Slovak. I didn’t understand that exactly. But then, I don’t think it really matters around here either, because people still think in terms of Habsburg regions like Ruthenia or Volhynia or Galicia. All these nation states that were created after the First World War, that’s a rather newfangled thing.
The excessively large and excessively out-of-place concrete church in Sarasău is also rather newfangled.
But the stork nests on every second or third power pole preserve the village character along the road. Three or four storks are frolicking in each nest. The birds may be endangered elsewhere, but not here. And the child-delivering birds are quite fitting indeed for a country where abortion and contraception were banned until 1989, and where childless people had to pay an annual penalty tax amounting to something like a month’s income.
Remember the photos of the overcrowded orphanages that briefly opened the world’s charity checkbooks after the fall of anti-abortion activist Nicolae Ceaușescu? Well, now you know where all those children came from. But I guess we will soon see the results again of forcing women to give birth, in places like Poland and the United States.
As it happens, the friendly driver has to go to a hardware store in Săpânța, which is located just below the cemetery. This happens often with hitchhiking: First you think that no one is stopping at all. Then a driver comes along and takes you to your destination with pinpoint accuracy. I think this is the first cemetery for which I have to pass souvenir stands and snack bars and pay a small entrance fee of 5 lei (= 1 euro).
This cemetery is so famous because every deceased person receives a wooden plaque with a personal image and a poem about his/her life, most of them allegedly amusing.
Now I regret that I don’t understand Romanian. For a while, I can listen to a Romanian visitor translating to his Spanish wife, but after a while, it’s getting too obvious that I am always staying close to them.
Thus, like the illiterate worshipers of former times before the frescoes of the Moldavian monasteries, I am dependent on the pictorial narrative. Many carvings seem to revolve around the profession of the protagonists. A doctor with an airplane signifies that he once brought the vaccine to the village. Hunters, woodcutters, and butchers are shown at work. However, I fail to understand why a hunter’s membership in the Communist Party is so prominently highlighted.
Several carvings refer to the manner of death. Some offer real criminal cases, from involuntary manslaughter in road traffic to vigilante justice by chopping off the head of a cattle thief caught in the act.
Now, I just hear that those among you who speak Romanian, will step forward to translate these limericks. Mulțumesc!
There is probably no other village in the world whose history is documented in such detail. A treasure trove for ethnologists and microhistorians.
The church, as you can see, is also quite cute. However, the artists who decorated its interior in a rather serious and conventional way receive only a fraction of the attention and recognition. Perhaps they should have let Stan Ioan Pătraș take care of the church, too.
What is unfortunately missing from all the professions depicted on the graves is an exterminator. Because exactly at noon, swarms of large insects are attacking the cemetery and indeed the whole village.
From this biblical plague – I think it is the third or the fourth one – I seek refuge in the nearby forest. If you ever come to this mysterious gate in that forest, I advise you to go walk through it and follow the path.
Because it will lead you to the tallest wooden tower in the world. The church tower stands 75 meters tall and is located in a clearing, which I guess is the result of cutting down enough timber for the construction of said tower. The newly built Peri-Peri monastery next to it clearly shows which institution in Romania does most certainly not suffer from any lack of money.
For the way back, I am standing by the main road again, and this time the second car stops. The driver is happy to take me to Sighet, but wants 10 lei for it. That’s 2 euros for 20 km, a moderate price. In Eastern Europe it is not unusual that private vehicles take gas money. The amount is usually the same as the price of a bus ticket for the same distance.
And when the woman in the back gets out halfway and also gives the driver some money, I realize that he does this for a living. With the 10 lei, he can only afford one liter of “petrol combustibil” anyway, he complains, pointing to the display of a gas station we just passed. He is right. And that despite Romania having its own oil fields, which were heavily fought over in World War II.
The only thing bothering me about this kind of not-quite-hitchhiking is the carbon footprint. Because the driver didn’t really have to go to Sighet. And at home, his Ukrainian wife is waiting. They run a guesthouse together. It remains unclear whether she is from Ukraine or whether she is an ethnic Ukrainian from Romania. But as pointed out above, it doesn’t really matter, because modern nation-states, which have only been around for 100 to 150 years, have by no means supplanted the cross-border Carpathian identity. But on this topic, I can conveniently refer to another article of mine.
As he drops me off in Sighet, I realize that I actually don’t get it why people put so much thought into a grave. Personally, it would be embarrassing for me to take myself or to be taken so important, whether carved, painted or by poem. No, I’d rather be buried in some hole where no one knows me.
On my journey to Kremnica, I had to stop in Bratislava for one night. I was not in the mood for writing those days, hence just a few photos:
Although I only had time for one afternoon walk and one morning stroll, I took quite a liking to Bratislava. And I began to wonder why so many elegant capital cities are located on the Danube River, with Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade being the other ones.
Definitely a city I would love to spend more time in! If someone ever needs a cat-sitter there, please let me know.
Practical advice:
When you arrive at the train station, you can get a day ticket for zones 100+101 and one for the whole network. Because I wasn’t sure how far I would go by tram, I opted for the latter, paying 6.90 € instead of 4 €. It turned out that the cheaper one is absolutely enough if you are staying in the wider Bratislava region. (The more expensive one was actually a day ticket for the whole national railways service, which came in handy the next day.)
After my brother and I unexpectedly and rather accidentally discovered a secret Yugoslav submarine port in Montenegro (please read that story first, otherwise this one won’t make any sense), we were still completely excited and out of our minds until late into the night. We probably even drank a glass of Rakia or Amaro Montenegro. Or rather half a glass each, because we are sensible guys.
The next evening, I met with a Montenegrin friend who, for some unfathomable reason, had not yet noticed how cool and adventurous I was. So I proudly, enthusiastically, extensively and possibly with some embellishment told her about our adventure in the submarine base, on board of the warships and in the sights of the Montenegrin naval snipers.
Because my idea of romantic relationships is based solely on James Bond movies, I thought that she would reply: “Oh, Andreas, you’re such a hero! But if the Montenegrin Navy is after you, you will have to go into hiding. Luckily, I have a cozy cabin in the mountains, where we can hide for a few years.”
In reality, she said: “Oh, the submarine tunnels near Luštica? I sometimes swim all the way out there in the summer.” She said it in the same tone one would use to convey the information that one had stopped by the grocer on the way home to get some milk.
I was glad that it was winter, otherwise she might have invited me to join her and would have realized that I don’t know how to swim at all.
And then she suggested: “If you are interested in such places, you should visit the military airport near Željava. That was the largest underground air base in the world.”
“How can an airport be underground?” I asked, obviously as inexperienced in airports as I am in other things.
“Željava is located in the Plješevica mountains. The runways are above ground, of course, but the hangars are built into the mountain. And the pilots can start their takeoff underground, so they spend as little time as possible on the tarmac once they leave the mountain.” That is useful when you are worried about enemy missiles.
“We could actually visit it, because it’s all abandoned now. However, the area lies directly on the border between Croatia and Bosnia, so there are still mines everywhere in the forest.” Because Croatia is rather unfriendly to refugees, Afghans, Syrians and Iranians now spend the winter in these concrete bunkers. From time to time, one of them steps on a landmine and explodes. It is always sad to see when countries are hostile towards refugees, although, just a few years ago, their own population had to seek safety from a war.
And then she said, offhandedly: “The complex in Željava is also where the Yugoslav space program was developed.”
I didn’t say anything, but I guess you could tell that the existence of a Yugoslav space program was news to me. As it probably is to you.
And so I learned that Yugoslavia had the third largest space program after the USA and the USSR. But that Yugoslavia needed money and therefore sold its space program to the USA. That the families of Yugoslav engineers were told that their fathers, husbands or sons had died, but in fact they moved to Florida. And that NASA could fly to the moon only thanks to Yugoslav technology and experts.
If I did not believe it, I should simply look up which country was the first to be visited by the astronauts of Apollo 11 after their return, my friend said. She was right: Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin paid tribute to Yugoslavia. And why were Tito and Kennedy such close friends?
However, there seems to have been a problem. Some say that Yugoslavia had fudged the calculations, which is why quite a few Apollo missions blew up at launch. Others say that the CIA was against cooperation with Yugoslavia, which is why it was no coincidence that Kennedy was shot a month after his last meeting with Tito. Some say that the USA demanded that Yugoslavia pay back the billions received, and that this is precisely what led to Yugoslavia’s bankruptcy and consequent breakup. Others blame the USA for a more active role in that breakup, allegedly out of revenge for the space fraud.
I bet you are eager to learn more about all of this. In this case, I recommend the movie “Houston, we have a Problem!”
However, I don’t know where the film is playing. Apparently it’s nowhere to be found on the western interweb. Which is again pretty suspicious. Good thing I saw it back in Montenegro…
And more reports from and about Yugoslavia, Montenegro and Croatia. Unfortunately and for some inexplicable reason, I have not yet been to Bosnia and Herzegovina. I should really rectify that soon.
After the Russian government’s call for mobilization, many Russians, especially young men, spontaneously discovered their patriotic urge to become very mobile indeed.
Considering that mobilization kicked off World War I, this is a bit disconcerting, though.
Have you also been wondering why some towns in Germany have to put a “Bad” before their name?
Well, this happens when a town misbehaves. If they are found to have done so, they need to put the “Bad” before their name on all signs and in all correspondence for three years. It actually happens more often than not.
Usually, the reason is that the municipality has overspent its budget, especially on frivolous things like a fun park with water slides or some huge museum in a small place, where there will never be enough visitors for the revenue to recover the investment. But they can also get pilloried like this if they failed to guarantee safe drinking water or didn’t act against industrial pollution. Or when a bridge collapses, although in that case, it depends whether it was a local bridge, a county bridge, a state bridge, a federal bridge or a railroad bridge. German federalism is famously complicated.
For three years, the town is then put under supervision of the respective state oversight authority
As a tourist, though, a city being branded a “bad city” shouldn’t dissuade you from visiting. This has nothing to do with the attractiveness of the city, let alone levels of crime or danger. Quite the contrary, many of those “bad” towns are really beautiful, as I recently experienced in Bad Münstereifel, Bad Mergentheim and Bad Kötzting.
Come to think of it, maybe those towns are often quite beautiful because they did overspend on frivolous things, like building parks and renovating their old towns?
I will soon be able to find out, as part of my quest to visit all geographical centers of Europe. Because one of these points, Mount Dyleň (Tillenberg) is on the Czech-German border, and the municipality on the German side is Neualbenreuth. Or Bad Neualbenreuth, as it has just been designated.
I wonder what they have done wrong. Hopefully, it wasn’t about tinkering with the border again.
Recently in Albania, three people were arrested as they tried to enter a former arms factory. The intruders from Russia and Ukraine said that they were bloggers and liked to photograph old buildings.
People who have seen too many James Bond movies are now arrogantly thinking: “Oh please, you could have come up with a better excuse!”
But I, as a world- and Balkan-experienced blogger myself, understand that this may well be true. On Mount Vrmac in Montenegro, I once met two young Russians who graciously allowed me to join them on their exploration of a military fortress. (Okay, one of the two I really suspected to be a spy, but for a different reason. More about this in the report of said trip.)
Along the coast of Montenegro, probably the most beautiful coast in Europe, there are dozens of these fortresses, all abandoned by now. They predate World War I, when Austria was still a maritime power and sought to protect its bays, harbors, and ships in the Adriatic. (Ironically, the end of Austria as a naval power began in the bay of Kotor in 1918, but that is another story, yet to be told.)
Because Montenegro is a laid-back, friendly country with responsible people, no one needs to cordon off these bunkers, tunnels, and munitions piles or put up signs yelling “No Trespassing!” at you in a rude voice. In the spirit of man’s emergence from self-imposed nonage, one simply decides for oneself through which entrances and exits to emerge and submerge.
As far as I have seen, these military installations have always been built with meter-thick walls, so they can’t really collapse. Hence, for your next family vacation in Montenegro, you can keep in mind that they are perfectly safe playgrounds for the kids.
Speaking of family holidays: When I lived in Montenegro, my brother and my mother visited me. (Every family is happy when at least one member leaves the capitalism rat race behind and becomes a vagabond, so they can visit me in a different country every year.)
And back then, I happened upon a story that shows how easily the curiosity of tourists can be misinterpreted as espionage. After all, it is quite natural to have an interest in ruins, abandoned airfields and military installations, isn’t it?
In any case, we were driving along the coast when, on Luštica peninsula, I spotted yet another one of those Austrian fortresses. I suggested that we take a look at the ruins and go explore them. My brother was excited, my mother was not. She prefers botanical gardens, coffee shops and bookstores. And at the time, she urgently wanted to be taken to a hospital.
Now, in democracy, two votes are more than one, so we decided that mom would have to wait just a little while, so that my brother could finally explore a Habsburg fortress from all sides and angles. It was raining cats and dogs, so my mom didn’t want to get out of the car. Ever thoughtful, I parked the car so that it was just in front of the cliff, with a perfect view of the stormy sea and the raging thunderstorm. That way, she wouldn’t be bored, I thought. I also left her a book, which anyone would admit is the pinnacle of thoughtfulness.
“We will only be gone for 15 minutes.”
My brother and I explored the fortress, climbed around a bit and took photos. These fortresses are all similar, probably built after the same model, planned far away in Vienna. But this one on Luštica peninsula had something which I hadn’t seen before: a shaft leading down into the depth of the fortress. Very deep down. So deep that we could not see the bottom.
Inside this shaft was a metal ladder. It looked pretty sturdy. Besides, there were two of us, so one could go ahead. If he didn’t make it back, the other one could still call for help. My brother is more tech-savvy than me and even had a flashlight with him.
Because I’m heavier, I was the first one to descend. If the ladder could support me, it would also support him. It’s hard to estimate how deep down it went, but it took a few minutes to reach the bottom. There, I found dead rats and, even more shocking, dead moles.
And then I saw something really disturbing: cables, metal pipes, electric wires, switch boxes. That didn’t look like World War I anymore. Honestly, it didn’t feel right. If I had been alone, I wouldn’t have dared to go any further, but the two of us explored the corridors and hallways, getting lost deeper and deeper in a labyrinth of cables, concrete and rubble.
Because we were deep inside the womb of mother Earth, we forgot about our own mother. We no longer paid any attention to time. That deep into the lithosphere, we didn’t even notice that the storm was turning into a hurricane.
Until we suddenly heard water rushing.
An enormous, thundering, powerful roar of water. As loud as the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi. Or like Iguaçu Falls in Paraná.
“We have to find the ladder and climb back up,” I shouted, over the din of the waters casting their echoes through the dark tunnels.
But my brother was more adventurous: “Let’s go see where the water is coming from.” Maybe he was also more brave because he knows hot to swim. I don’t. Our family is very poor, so they could only afford swimming lessons for one of us.
So we fought our way through the intertwined tunnels, now always following the unmistakable sound of the masses of water. It became more rhythmic, like a waterfall being turned on and off. Or like strong stormy waves slapping against a quay wall.
And suddenly we stepped into a room, no, a hall. The size of a submarine hangar. And that was probably what it was: We had discovered a secret submarine base of the Yugoslav Navy.
From the photos, you can’t even imagine how enormously huge and gigantic everything was. Especially when you’ve just crawled through small, dark tunnels and suddenly find yourself in this cathedral of seafaring. It’s like walking through the narrow streets of Rome and then stepping into the Pantheon.
The best way to get an idea of the dimensions of the submarine base is to remember the type of ships for which it was built:
“The Hunt for Red October” is closely interwoven with family history, because it was the last film that my grandfather and I saw in the cinema together. This was in 1990, at the end of the Cold War and shortly before he drowned. This was the same grandfather who had lived in Yugoslavia for a few years in the 1940s under dubious circumstances. Had he built that submarine port back then? For whom had he spied? Why had my grandfather – in West Germany, mind you – taught me the Cyrillic script? Were we, his grandsons, now to be lured into a trap? Why was no one in this family permitted a peaceful life?
All these were questions that didn’t even occur to us. The water kept sloshing over the edge of the pool, and we had to be very careful not to be washed away. The concrete was slippery and full of holes, and there was no railing. Of course, we still ventured all the way to the front, where the rain was lashing down, the wind was blowing, and the sea was greedily snapping at us.
And there, further north on the coast, we spotted two ships. We climbed – rather daringly – to the other side of the submarine port. There was a hole in the wire fence. And we pretended not to understand the sign, which – for once – said something against trespassing. But then, who in the world speaks Montenegrin?
As we approached, the two ships didn’t look all that crispy anymore.
We took a run-up, jumped on board and looked around: Ammunition for anti-aircraft guns. The galley log, with entries from spring 2006, the last days before Montenegro’s independence. A radar set that was still emitting radioactivity. A helmet in a pool of blood. What had happened here?
Just as I was posing for a souvenir photo, someone on the shore shouted at us to get the hell off the ship. Whoever it was, he sounded mighty pissed. We obeyed the order, already suspecting that we were in for a teeny bit of trouble.
It was a soldier who wanted to know how anyone could be so stupid as to walk into a Montenegrin Navy base in broad daylight, climb onto warships and take photos there. All the while, he kept his hand on his gun holster. He looked even angrier than he had sounded.
“We are terribly sorry for the inconvenience, comrade,” I said, using the salutation “druže”, because the soldier looked old enough to appeal to his nostalgic feelings for Yugoslavia. (Lesson #1: As a prisoner, you must try to make your captor like you. That makes it much harder for him to kill you.)
“We went for a walk on the coast because I wanted to show my little brother that here is the most beautiful coast in all of the Adriatic.” (Lesson #2: Compliment the country you’re in. Everyone likes it when foreigners praise their country. – Lesson #3: Show that you have responsibility for others and that this is not a one-on-one situation. Younger siblings, innocent cats or old grannies are perfect for this purpose.)
“We saw the submarine tunnels first and were absolutely amazed. Really fascinating! And then the ships here, it’s all so incredible! We thought this was a naval museum.” (Lesson #4: It’s much better for the captor to think you’re stupid and naïve than dangerous and shrewd.)
The soldier took his hand off the gun.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“From Germany,” I said, glad that we were from a NATO country. Montenegro had joined NATO in 2017, so we were allies. It would be dicier if we were Russians or something. In 2016, there had been a Russian-backed coup attempt in Montenegro, which went strangely unnoticed by the rest of Europe. Like all the warnings about Russia, even if they come from Russia itself. But that’s another topic.
“Let’s see your passports,” the soldier ordered.
Stupidly, we had left our passports in the car. Despite lesson #3, I did not mention that we also left our mother in the car. I did not want the soldier or his colleagues to question her. Because, as cool and thoughtful as my brother and I were acting, we most certainly had not inherited that trait from our mother. And escalation was the last thing we needed.
The soldier spoke into his radio, which was good. As long as there is communication, no shots are fired.
The soldier’s commander came up with the same idea I had thought of already: One of us would return to the car, get the passports and come back. The other one would stay behind as a hostage. It was clear that I would stay and my younger brother would go.
The photo is from a military exercise, but it was pretty much like that.
So my brother had to walk back through the dangerous tunnels, shafts and the submarine port, all alone, probably explain to our mother why we were gone a bit longer than expected, get our passports and make the whole long arduous journey yet another time. In the rain. And try not getting lost, not falling down some hole and not getting killed.
The soldier guarded me with wary eyes, his hand back on the gun. I looked at the ground with an innocent puppy look, pretending to be insanely worried about my brother.
Soon, a sergeant approached on a speedboat. To my relief, he was younger, friendlier and more relaxed. He immediately suggested that we move to one of the nearby buildings because it was raining. Then he offered me a cigarette. I declined, thanking him, but offered him a cigar. He declined, thanking me. We talked a bit, but more about Montenegro in general, how beautiful and interesting it was (lesson #2), that I was studying history (lesson #1) and that I wanted to show my brother this beautiful country (lesson #3).
This photo is from an exercise, too. But it’s exactly what it was like. Even the same weather.
Because I didn’t want to ask anything about ships or the Navy or other suspicious stuff, we soon ran out of things to talk about. My brother stayed away for quite a long time, and I began to suspect why. The older soldier was getting grumpy, the younger sergeant was getting bored, and I just hoped that they hadn’t sent a patrol to look for our car.
After about 45 minutes or so, my brother returned, running. He wanted to show that he had hurried. We handed the sergeant our passports. He took a notebook out of his pocket, and I saw that it was already full of names, addresses, and passport numbers. Apparently, curious photographers and bloggers enter these premises on a regular basis. I was relieved. It looked like in Montenegro, you didn’t get in trouble until you illegally entered a military base for the second time. A laid-back country, very likable.
“Did you take any photos?”
“Yes,” my brother admitted and showed his cell phone. After all, the soldier had been watching us on the ship. There was no point in lying. Besides, who sets out on this dangerous journey and then doesn’t take any photos?
The sergeant looked at the images and ordered us to delete the ones with the two ships. When he got to the photos of the submarine base, he said: “Oh, you can keep those. The submarine tunnels are no longer a restricted military area, so that’s not a problem.” I don’t know if I’ve said it before, but Montenegro is an extremely nice and friendly country.
“And you, do you also have a cell phone?” he asked me.
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, and he had to laugh. Which is what happens regularly when people see my phone.
“All right,” he said, “that’s it. If you want, you can stay here for a while, so you don’t have to walk back in the rain.” You may have noticed it already, but I’ll say it again: Montenegro is the friendliest and most amicable country in Europe!
But we preferred to set out immediately, because we still had our dear mom, who had been waiting for a few hours more than the promised 15 minutes. And because our mother is not from Montenegro, but from Germany, she would hardly be as relaxed as Montenegrin sergeants who caught two espionage suspects red-handed.
As soon as we both crawled through the fence, my brother said: “It took me so long, because I copied the photos onto the laptop.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said with a grin, feeling proud of my younger brother. It was particularly smart that he hadn’t deleted the photos on his phone, which would have only made us suspicious. It’s a real joy to work with professionals.
Our mom, on the other hand, was not proud at all. Quite the contrary. She was pissed off. And the more my brother and I were happy about the successful outing, the angrier she got. Maybe it was because the heavy rain had loosened the gravel on the slope and the car had already slid down the cliff a bit. I didn’t really think of it as a problem, because there was still at least half a meter between the car and the sea.
“But I left you a book to pass the time,” I tried to de-escalate the situation.
“Yeah, from that fucking Radoje Domanović, writing about people falling down into a canyon!”
“Oh.” I had given her an anthology of Yugoslavian storytellers to get to know the country and its people.
“And that stupid Ranko Marinković writes about heads being cut off. That didn’t make it any better.”
“Oh.” Next time, I should remember to bring some funny books.
“And can we finally go to the hospital, please?”
Oh dear, I think I had forgotten to explain before why my mother wanted to be taken to the hospital. A few hours earlier, she had broken her foot. I wanted to show them Zalazi, a village in the mountains, very high up. It’s in ruins, completely deserted, but you have a fantastic view over the bay of Kotor from there.
Unfortunately, I had only been there once, with a local hiking group, so that I didn’t have to pay too much attention to the path. Of course we got lost in the alpine territory, had to stumble across the rocks, where my mother fell and got injured so badly that we had to carry her back to the car.
For just one day, I guess all of this was a bit much for her.
Ever since, none of my family have visited me again.
I am always impressed when someone manages to learn German. It’s not the easiest of languages – though not the hardest, either – and every 50 kilometers or so, it is pronounced in a completely different way. Even I, as a native German speaker, don’t understand all fellow Germans. Let alone the Swiss.
One curious account of learning German comes from Patrick Leigh Fermor, who as an 18-year old boy walked across all of Europe, from Holland to Istanbul. On foot. Setting out in the winter of 1933/34.
In his (highly recommended) book “A Time of Gifts”, he describes how he picked up the language during the part of the journey that led him through Germany: He bought a German translation of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and, knowing the English original by heart, put two and two together, and – swoosh – he was fluent in German. Just like that. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, as Shakespeare would have rhymed.
Not being a genius like the 18-year old hobo who had gotten kicked out of school and was sleeping in barns and ditches, I was always a bit skeptical about this account.
But now, somebody discovered an interview with Patrick Leigh Fermor from 1989, in which he – 55 years later – still remembered passages from the German translation of “Hamlet”. [Watch from minute 10:35.]
Extraordinary. And he also learned Hungarian, Romanian, Romani, Greek and Turkish on the same walk.
The German came in very handy when, during World War II, Patrick Leigh Fermor kidnapped the German commander on Nazi-occupied Crete.
So, you see, kids: If you want to have an exciting life, learn languages!
In Yugoslavia, there are certain prejudices about each of the republics, most, if not all of which are now independent countries: Slovenes, they say, are so snobbish that they don’t even consider themselves part of the Balkans. Serbs always see themselves as victims of some global conspiracy, even when they trip over their own shoelaces. Croats are a bit ustasha. Bosnians would never eat burek with cheese. And so on.
But the most persistent prejudices are held about Montenegrins. Allegedly, they are the laziest people in the world.
Having lived in beautiful Montenegro, I can disclose that there is nothing to this prejudice. Absolutely nothing. Quite the contrary. Often, I could observe with my own eyes how the Montenegrin boss personally came to the construction site at 10:30 a.m. and laboriously gave instructions to the Albanian, Macedonian, Bosnian and Ukrainian workers. Sometimes even before going to a café for second breakfast. And he did that up to three or four days a week!
Granted, there are Montenegrins who earn their money practically in their sleep, either renting holiday homes or “working” as translators. And you can get into museums for free, because tearing off the ticket is too much effort. But things like that make the country likable, don’t they?
After all, with more laziness, there would have been fewer Balkan wars. It’s surely no coincidence that the supposedly hard-working Germans are the ones responsible for all world wars so far. And it would be better for the environment if we spent less time toiling and consuming. In a nutshell: With more laziness, the world would be better off, people would be happier, society would be fairer.
But back to Montenegro:
As if to satirize the stereotype, the country holds an annual competition in lying down. Sadly, it hasn’t been adopted by the Olympic Games yet, because the IOC has been unable to sell the TV broadcasting rights. (Although I personally think that a lot of Olympic disciplines are far more boring to watch.)
The competition was held for the 12th time this summer, in the small village of Brezna, far from the nearest town. Ideal conditions for the athletes to relax and focus on their sport without too many distractions.
If lying down made you think of a cozy bed, you need to think again. As the event is also about showing the world how relaxing Montenegrin nature is, the athletes lie under a tree. All of them under the same tree, in a circle of camaraderie. This way, they can lend each other moral support, exchange training and nutrition tips, and arrange to meet for a beer after the Olympics.
This year it was more exciting than ever, I heard from people who were following the event closely. Of the initial nine brave contestants, two remained, and after several days the competition climaxed in a gripping duel. Like Fischer against Spassky. Or Ali against Frazier. Only less brutal, with no fists flying and no pieces being kicked off the board. Here, everything takes place in the head. And in the back muscles.
Because lying down for days on end is not that easy. Try for yourself and see how long you can hold out!
The champion, Žarko Pejanović, limped off the pitch after 60 hours, aching with pain, but proud. He had won 350 euros, a pizza and a seat in parliament (sports committee).
Although one would think that a lying-down champion is a pretty relaxed guy, Mr. Pejanović gets mighty angry when he has to read that people call him “the laziest man in Montenegro”. A mistake committed by the newspaper Dan. With all the pent-up energy of a master relaxer, Mr. Pejanović stormed the editorial offices, beat up the journalists and trashed some desks.
Now, Mr. Pejanović can try to beat his own record of lying down while in prison.
The following clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) is still one of the best contributions in the debate about (not only British) monarchy:
I found the following transcript of the dialogue:
[ARTHUR and PATSY riding. They stop and look. We see a castle in the distance, and before it a PEASANT is working away on his knees trying to dig up the earth with his bare hands and a twig. ARTHUR and PATSY ride up, and stop before the PEASANT]
ARTHUR: Old woman!
DENNIS: Man!
ARTHUR: Man. I’m sorry. Old man, What knight live in that castle over there?
DENNIS: I’m thirty-seven.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: I’m thirty-seven … I’m not old.
ARTHUR: Well – I can’t just say: ‘Hey, Man!’
DENNIS: Well you could say: ‘Dennis’
ARTHUR: I didn’t know you were called Dennis.
DENNIS: You didn’t bother to find out, did you?
ARTHUR: I’ve said I’m sorry about the old woman, but from the behind you looked …
DENNIS: What I object to is that you automatically treat me like an inferior …
ARTHUR: Well … I AM king.
DENNIS: Oh, very nice. King, eh! And how d’you get that? By exploiting the workers! By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the social and economic differences in our society! If there’s EVER going to be any progress …
[An OLD WOMAN appears.]
OLD WOMAN: Dennis! There’s some lovely filth down here … Oh! how d’you do?
ARTHUR: How d’you do, good lady … I am Arthur, King of the Britons … Whose castle is that?
OLD WOMAN: King of the WHO?
ARTHUR: The Britons.
OLD WOMAN: Who are the Britons?
ARTHUR: All of us are … we are all Britons. [DENNIS winks at the OLD WOMAN.] … and I am your king ….
OLD WOMAN: Ooooh! I didn’t know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective …
DENNIS: You’re fooling yourself. We’re living in a dictatorship, A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes …
OLD WOMAN: There you are, bringing class into it again …
DENNIS: That’s what it’s all about … If only –
ARTHUR: Please, please good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
OLD WOMAN: No one lives there.
ARTHUR: Well, who is your lord?
OLD WOMAN: We don’t have a lord.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: I told you, We’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune, we take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.
ARTHUR: Yes.
DENNIS: … But all the decision of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly …
ARTHUR: Yes, I see.
DENNIS: … meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs.
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: … but a two-thirds majority in the case of …
ARTHUR: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet.
OLD WOMAN: Order, eh — who does he think he is?
ARTHUR: I am your king!
OLD WOMAN: Well, I didn’t vote for you.
ARTHUR: You don’t vote for kings.
OLD WOMAN: Well, how did you become king, then?
ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held Excalibur aloft from the bosom of the water to signify by Divine Providence … that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur … That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: Listen, strange women lying on their backs in ponds handing out swords … that’s no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just ’cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: I mean, if I went around saying I was an Emperor because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, people would put me away!
ARTHUR: (Grabbing him by the collar) Shut up, will you. Shut up!
DENNIS: Ah! NOW … we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARTHUR: Shut up!
[PEOPLE (i.e. other PEASANTS) are appearing and watching.]
DENNIS: (calling) Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help, help, I’m being repressed!
ARTHUR: (aware that people are now coming out and watching) Bloody peasant! (pushes DENNIS over into mud and prepares to ride off)
DENNIS: Oh, Did you hear that! What a give-away.
ARTHUR: Come on, patsy.
[They ride off.]
DENNIS: (in the background as we PULL OUT) did you see him repressing me, then? That’s what I’ve been on about …
Having lived in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as the country officially calls itself, for two years, I was surprised about the absence of a significant movement to abolish the monarchy. – We celebrate people getting get rid of their dictators all around the world, yet we are unable to overthrow a monarchy.
As you know, I am currently searching for the geographical center of Europe, which, over the next few months, will take me to obscure villages from Ukraine to Sweden, from France to Belarus, from Estonia to Belgium.
But such a geographical center can also have practical relevance, as we will learn today, using the example of Brazil. Like Germany, Austria, Mexico, the USA and a number of other countries, Brazil is a federal republic. As in many federal republics, the individual states can’t always see eye to eye with each other. There are always some who believe that they generate all the revenue, while the others are scroungers.
Often, these differences can be traced back to geography. Alaskans aren’t rich because they are ingenious and hard-working, but because there is oil and because they live far away and in sub-zero temperatures, which means that nobody will move there and the revenues get shared among fewer people. Hence the annual check. Or let’s take solar energy: It just can’t work in the USA, because they don’t have as much sun as Germany.
Which explains why so many Americans like to spend their winters in ever-sunny places like Grafenwöhr, Vilseck, Hohenfels, Kaiserslautern or Baumholder.
And then there is the long-lasting impact of history, for which I point you to the episode about Black Wall Street.
In Brazil, there have been and still are major differences between rural regions (where large landowners act like lords of the manor) and cities (where people are aware of their civil rights). Between mining areas (Minas Gerais even has the mines in its name), which dump mercury into the rivers, and coffee states, which need clean water. Between logging states and beach states, the latter ones worried about declining tourism if too much of the rainforest is cut down. Between German-dominated states like Santa Catarina and African-dominated states like Bahia.
We also have these geographic and historical differences between states in Germany and in Austria, but they rarely turn into anything serious. Because sooner or later, somebody looks at the map of the world and realizes that we are teeny-tiny countries. Globally irrelevant. Brazil is 100 times the size of Austria and 24 times the size of Germany.
Brazil is also older. It gained independence from Portugal in 1822 and became an empire. Almost 50 years before the German Reich was founded.
Incidentally, the first emperor was the son of the Portuguese king, who had enjoyed his vacation in Brazil so much that he didn’t want to return to Portugal. The empire lasted for two emperors, Pedro I and Pedro II, until 1889, when a military coup established the republic. (30 years before Germany finally became a republic.) Fortunately, just before the demise of the empire, Crown Princess Isabel had taken advantage of her father’s vacation to act as regent and abolish slavery.
For once, that was something useful done by an heir to the throne. Not some stupid assassination like the Austrian crown prince in Sarajevo. Not to mention the Hohenzollerns, who went on to campaign for the Nazi Party. By the way, about the latter, there will be a fun event at the end of September, where we can finally meet in person. Please show up in large numbers and in good spirits!
But back to Brazil: Because the new republic was a federal republic (“the United States of Brazil” was its official name), there was a dispute about the capital. Until then, Salvador and Rio de Janeiro had been capital cities, each for about 200 years. But of course they were/are also the capitals of their respective states, Rio de Janeiro (now I mean the state of the same name, not the city) and Bahia, respectively.
Not being a fan of huge cities, I haven’t been to Rio de Janeiro. But in Salvador, you can clearly see that it was once the capital. However, you also notice that this era has been over since 1763. Slowly the paint peels off the plaster, little trees are growing on the roofs, and the history is long forgotten. Until this blog brings it back to life.
By the way, just left of the house in the last picture was where I was staying. It was affordable.
Because Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, São Paulo and many other cities were fighting over who would be the capital, they asked the people who should always be consulted in the event of a dispute: the lawyers. In 1891, these experts on everything and anything wrote into the constitution that a new capital should be established on neutral territory that does not belong to any state. A tried and tested solution. This is how, for example, Canberra in Australia or Washington in the USA came into being, which also do not belong to any of the previously existing states.
And where should this new capital be?
Well, of course, right in the middle of the country, in its geographical center.
What the lawyers didn’t know because, unlike me, they were not world-traveling or at least Brazil-traveling lawyers: In the center of Brazil, it looks like this.
Well, if you always hang out in Florianópolis, Blumenau or Pomerode, you can’t even imagine what the rest of the country looks like. And thus, the midpoint-finding commission got to work. A task which was complicated by Brazil changing its shape and size, because it kept attacking its neighbors and gobbling up territory from Paraguay, Uruguay, Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia. (The latter is a particularly tragic case, because Bolivia lost not only large parts of its territory, but also the sea.)
Why it’s always the enormously huge countries who believe that they have to own yet more land, I don’t know. Maybe Russia can answer that.
At any rate, Brazilian geographers found an approximate central point, which was, of course, in the middle of the jungle and far away from all cities, people and politicians. There, the new capital, creatively named Brasília, was to be built. For this purpose, a new territory was created that did not belong to any state, but was directly subordinate to the federal government. Like the District of Columbia in the USA or the Australian Capital Territory in Australia. Why the German federal structure, which prides itself on being the most complex one, hasn’t picked up on this idea yet, is beyond me.
When the government asked the military, two men volunteered for the long and arduous battle towards not-yet-existent Brasília.
Jair Bolsonaro, a rather simple minded man, was on fire: “I will burn down this whole fucking forest!”
Cândido Rondon, of indigenous descent, engineer and positivist, was also enthusiastic: “I will use the search for the geographical center to lay telegraph lines, survey the country, discover previously unknown indigenous tribes in the Amazon, tell them about the blessings of the republic, and thus unite the country.”
Fortunately, Rondon got the job.
For 24 years, he traveled through the most remote areas of Brazil, laying 4000 miles of telegraph lines. While he was at it, he extended the lines to Bolivia and Peru. He encountered indigenous communities, for whom he was the first representative of the Brazilian state to come in contact with. Bolsonaro would have shot them all; Rondon set up a gramophone and played the Brazilian national anthem, informing them that they were now citizens of the republic, with equal rights to everyone else. He created a foundation and a national park to protect indigenous peoples and their ecosystem.
In between, he was considered lost in the jungle for a few years, brokered a peace agreement between Colombia and Peru, mapped newly discovered rivers, collected plants and animals for research and saved Theodore Roosevelt’s life. A man straight out of a novel.
The only tragedy was that when Rondon returned from the jungle after 24 years of laying telegraph lines, the radio had been invented. Hardly anyone needed a telegraph anymore.
On 7 September 1922, the centenary of Brazil’s independence, the foundation stone of the new capital Brasília was laid at the point which had been carefully measured and calibrated. More or less.
And then – nothing happened.
The constitutional mandate to build a new capital was simply ignored.
For decades, Brazil was otherwise occupied. Military coup. World Cup. Another coup. Carnival. In between, Brazil defeated the Nazis in World War II. (Many people don’t know that.) Another military coup. Until in 1956 – 34 years after the foundation stone was laid -, construction of the new capital finally began. The plan was bold and modern, but unfortunately the 1950s were the age of the automobile. City planners at that time did not think about people, but about vehicles. So there were eternally long distances between buildings, plenty of parking spaces, but no streetcar. It was not until 2001 that a subway was finally added.
As I said, quite modern. But also artificial and sterile, like the depressing new buildings around Canary Wharf in London. No corner pubs, no spaces for culture, for informal meetings, no retreats in overgrown parks, nothing that touches the soul or the heart.
Even a military coup, like the one in 1964, looks kind of ridiculous there.
Maybe it was just a coup against the bleak architecture?
But I don’t want to judge too harshly. After all, I haven’t been to Brasília myself. If you have been, I am curious about your impressions!
Anyway, Oscar Niemeyer, the architect, said in 2001: “This experiment was not successful.”
That’s okay, ideas fail. But if you fail, it’s still better to fail in style. Like in Salvador.
By the way, if the 34 years from the laying of the foundation stone to the beginning of the actual construction seem long to you: The coup plotters who overthrew the emperor in 1889 and proclaimed a republic recognized that this was not the proper way of doing things and stipulated that, ultimately, the people should vote on the form of government (monarchy or republic). That referendum took place in 1993, a mere 104 years later. The republic won against the monarchy by 7:1.
Links:
All articles of the series “One Hundred Years Ago …”.
The Happy Hermit 