Author: Fred Hoyt

It occurred to me yesterday, as I walked through the park near our hotel, waiting for my transfer to the airport, where European history and American history diverge, particularly in the 20th century.  In the park, there was an American aviator monument.  Curious, I sought it out.  It praised the 378 American airmen who lost their lives in Romania in World War II.  By contrast, in one of the museums I visited, I saw that over 100,000 Romanians died after the country switched sides, over 200,000 Jews disappeared, and the country lost over 2 million in the War.  Quite a difference, one which again made me glad my grandparents were fortunate enough to have left Europe before World War I.

I took the students to the airport and saw them off, then returned to spend the afternoon in Bucharest.  There were two museums I wanted to see–when we were there two years ago, the Royal Palace and the National History museum were closed.  I thought I’d take them in, only to discover museums are closed on Monday and Tuesday in Bucharest, at least those two.  (The government is planning to cut the budget by 25% next month, so there may be more closings–and more protests; something like 20% of Romanians work for the government).  Instead, I did what I like to do–wander around.  The Atheneum, home of the George Enescu Philharmonic, for example, was open; built turn of the last century, it offers 600 seats and 52 boxes, making me wish I could have stayed for the performance of Mozart later in the week.  There’re also a lot of Beaux-Arts building (I finally figured out what they were) that helped Bucharest vie for the title of the “Paris of the East.”  One had a glass-covered mall with shops and a tiffany-type dome, the palaces of the bourgeoisie.  I sauntered past one of the palaces of Vlad Terpes, the model for Dracula; he was a local prince who borrowed some of the Turkish tortures to fight the Turks and other people he didn’t like, and a few of the churches spared by the former Romanian dictator.  I had lunch (beef ragout and sausage=hot dogs and beans) in one of Bucharest’s oldest and finest, a gothic restaurant in the old quarter.  And I did something I usually do in China, but for some reason, haven’t in Europe–which was a walk in the park, which led me to the plaque that I mentioned above.  It was a great place to people watch.

When I left for Baia Mare, the capital of the district of Maramures (a part of Romania that borders the Ukraine and Hungary, both of which have at various times coveted or invaded, or ruled the area, which joined Romania after World War I), I had visions of an idyllic bucolic region with wooden churches and farmers.  The idyllic vision was shattered by my seat mate, an American from Los Angeles, who was going to Baia Mare to check on his company’s aluminum processing plant, which fabricates parts for Airbus! As it turns out, this is in the heart of what was mining country, but with the environmental and other costs, it’s no longer profitable to mine the area, and so various towns around here are scrambling to find a new economic base to avert high unemployment; about half the population worked in the mines.  One has built a ski resort, but Baia Mare seems to have a diversified economy, if the diversity of auto dealers I saw on the way in is any indication.  I knew it was going to be a different experience, too, when I realized the hotel had a pool, but after all, it’s a Best Western.  I had a nice swim last night for the first time on the trip!

This morning, my local guide showed up, and told me he was scheduled for a half -day tour of the city.  The first stop was a mineral museum, which testified to the importance of mining (I think these were mostly tailings, but spectacular crystals); the name of the city means Great Mine.  We then went to the old town, one that is being renovated and restored to its 17th century glory, including the home of the prince who defeated the Turks and was given the town as a reward.  Maybe the most elegant Gothic church in it burned down a hundred years ago, leaving only one of the Prague-style towers; I found out that the four towers around the main one signified that the priest could dispense justice.

I asked the guide if we could arrange a tour out in the countryside–the 80 or so kilometers through the Mara Valley to a town that sounds like spaghetti (I think it’s Sigheti); he rearranged his schedule, and I got in his Dacia (a local car, made in joint venture with Nissan, named for the tribe the Romans defeated, then intermarried with, providing the Romanians with their name), and off we went through the mountains.

The countryside I’d come to see was, happily, there.  We saw a lot of horsepower–provided by horses; farmers with hoes in the fields; and best of all, the wooden houses, gates, and churches I’d seen in Bucharest that provided my inspiration to visit Maramures in the first place.  In places there were separate villages for Hungarians (my guide told me Hungarians can teach Hungarian in school; Romanian is a second language).  One of the highlights was the “merry cemetery,”  which has painted tombstones that indicate people there are not afraid of death.  Some are poignant, like the one cursing the taxi driver that killed a girl in front of her house; others are funny, but they’re all in books on the country as one of the places to visit.  As we arrived, a funeral was leaving the church!

One of the sights was a prison that the Austrians had built in the 1890s, the Romanians had used during independence, and the Soviets used afterward.  The prison now housed a museum that talked about the torture/terror of the Soviet regime, and I learned a lot about the tortured (in more ways than one) period after World War II–how the Russians manipulated a “free election” to take over the country, instituting a terror that landed a lot of politicians and intellectuals in the prison, etc.  We’d seen something similar in Budapest about what happened there; the Soviets used the location (code name Danube work colony) because it was so close to the Soviet border that escapees would have a hard time escaping.

We had dinner at a picturesque restaurant beside a stream.  My guide said, “fish or polenta”.  I said, I’ll get the fish, if you’ll get the polenta, and we’ll split.  Turned out the fish was a grilled trout, alongside the trout pond it was raised in.

As we were returning, he said there’s one church you have to see; it’s the tallest wooden church (without a foundation and without nails, if you want to know the complete category) and I’ll try to send a picture of it later because it was a Catholic Church, not the dominant Romanian Orthodox.

I’m back now, with a chance to swim before I turn in–and get taken to Sibiu tomorrow.  The “take me someplace spectacular I’ve never been before” tour continues.

Yesterday was unusual for this trip–in that we had nice weather, warm and sunny, for the first time in two weeks, and a free day till 6 p.m., for the first time on the trip.  My understanding is that students spent it a variety of ways: visiting the nearby museums, one documenting the terror of living under communism (our Soviet guide waxed nostalgically for the days when Mother Russia embraced her family!), another housing one of the finest Spanish painting exhibits outside of Spain; the spa (30 florints for a drink of sulphur water from the spa), shopping (Kelsey bought a musical instrument of some sort, a fleugelhorn), and general hanging out.

At 7:45 in the morning, Alex, Michael, and I left by train for Esztergom, the religious capital of a Catholic country, and the burial place of many prelates including Cardinal Mindtzety, who hid in the American Embassy after the 1956 uprising until he was allowed, 15 years later, to leave; he was reburied at Esztergom after the end of Communism.  After an hour and a half train ride, we arrived at the city, which houses a huge Basilica that fronts on the Danube, and that I’d seen often enough to want to visit, for the views, if nothing else.

The city sits on a great bend in the Danube, and has been inhabited for almost 2000 years, by Celts, and Romans (we passed a major ruin that is being excavated of Roman baths; the Roman name refers to the hot springs in the area), Magyars, and during the Turkish occupation, Turks.  The Esztergom Hill was the site of a castle, now a museum, that was the first royal palace of the Arpad dynasty; one of the rooms was reputedly where St. Stephan was crowned king in 1000, and ordered the Magyars to convert to Catholicism.  The Basilica offers a grand view of the river–which bends south at that point–and 800 florints, about 4 dollars, lets you climb a tower for 274 steps that provides an even better view of the Danube Valley.  The Basilica also contains, as many important churches do, a Treasury of religious artifacts that demonstrate the piety and wealth of the church–copes, monstrances, and my favorites, drinking horns and gold/jeweled staffs from both Esztergom and Hungary.  Some of the relics were from King Mathias Corvus, whose church we saw on Buda hill.   In the old prelate’s palace, we saw a Christian museum, with artwork from the 11th to the 19th centuries, containing some stunning pictures and objects, including a “Christ’s coffin” used in parades.  The church on the site was razed during the Turkish occupation (there were Turkish tombs in the Castle area), then rebuilt over a period of years in the 19th century.  I had hoped to visit another site on the way back, but we had just enough time to get back, get something to eat (it was both a Sunday and a holiday–Monday is Pentecost, which means Catholic Europe shuts down, and the two Hungarian restaurants I had fancied patronizing were closed), and board our train for the Carpathian Mountains, and the last stop on our tour (Bucharest).

It seems fitting that our trip, which started in a non-European Union country, ends in one of the newest (and poorest) entrants into the EU.  Romania appears from the train (I’m still on it as I write the above) the least prosperous country we’ve visited.  There’re a lot more horses supplying horsepower than we’ve seen in the countryside, but the trip through the mountains made for a slow trip (17 hours) but interesting scenery.

The train was about an hour late into Bucharest, but we still had ample time to shower and change before embarking on our tour of the city.  Over 2 million people call Bucharest home, and most seemed to be driving today.  Fewer of them, I believe, were tourists than in the other countries we’ve visited.

Bucharest seems to have some of the characteristics of many of the countries we’ve visited.  It was part of the Ottoman empire; parts of Romania were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (where I’m going tomorrow) did not get to become part of Romania until 1919, when it was ceded at the Treaty of Trianon, a decision our Hungarian guide denounced; Romania constructed an arc d’ triomphe to commemorate the occasion.  Germans played a role in it, from the Hohenzollern King Carol, who brought credibility to the country in 1866 (and whose descendent, Michael, invited the Russians in to get rid of the Nazis and correct Romania’s misguided decision to go with the Nazis; the Soviets promptly offered him the choice of abdication or death.  He chose abdication, and is still alive today, and reclaimed some of his property after the 1989 Revolution) to the Schwabians who were invited in to settle the border lands and help fend off the Ottoman Empire.  Bucharest in the late 19th century sought to be the Paris of the East (didn’t everyone?) and built the impressive fin de siecle buildings that distinguish so many European cities, and a wide street and mansions that was supposed to resemble the Champs Elysee–the ties with the French language and culture, so important in 19th century Europe, for Romania led to its siding with Britain and France against Austria-Hungary, and hence the additions after 1919.  Finally, like much of Eastern Europe, it was part of the Soviet bloc during the Cold War.  Ceausescu, who became the last Soviet dictator of the country, pursued a semi-independent policy toward Russia, which earned him some praise from the West (and a medal from the British); by 1989, however, when Gorbachev warned him, “things are changing,” C. is reputed to have said, “not here; the people love me.”  Over 1,000 Romanians lost their lives in the revolution that followed.  Christmas day, 1989, Carolyn and I were in Paris, watching the events on TV–a block from the Romanian Embassy, where the pro and anti Communist expatriates and their supporters marched every night–when C. was shot. Our guide said it’s not entirely clear who executed C.

If nothing else, Ceausescu in my opinion should have been at a minimum voted out of office for what he did to architecture.  He closed most monasteries and churches, and destroyed blocks of Bucharest in an effort to create a “modern” Ceausescu city.  In the center, he built the second largest building in the world, known in some circles as Ceausescu’s palace, and a wide street with fountains leading to it;  8% of the building is occupied.

Our guide has been one of the best.  He and I got talking, and it turned out the tour company Carolyn and I came here with have used him (and will be using him this Wednesday; he confirmed what I knew–Tauck is one of the best companies, and I know they use only the best guides).  His company has taken us to two of the best restaurants we’ve been to on the trip (most have been hotel restaurants) with filling European fare–meat and potatoes.  One overlooked a lake, and we chose off the menu.  Hence, I was able to sample Sascha’s tripe soup, which he said is “an acquired taste.”  One spoonful was not enough for me to acquire it. Tonight’s final dinner was in a palatial restaurant that could have been meant for royalty; the meal was cabbage rolls and polenta, with a yummy pastry dessert.  Quite fitting finale.

We stopped at the country’s outdoor museum, which had a number of wooden homes from the Maramures area where I’m going tomorrow.  One of the reasons I decided to go there was what I saw at the museum.  As the students begin to journey home (4 are staying somewhere in Europe; Sascha will be visiting his parents in Germany), I’ll begin my next journey.  My closing words to them were Chinese (which I translated)–“a peaceful journey” not just home, but through life.  Yi lu ping an.

The past few days have been spent at the border between the Roman and barbarian worlds–along the Danube.  While it’s not blue, it is an enjoyable river for cruising, as we discovered yesterday on our relaxing journey from Vienna to the once twin cities of Buda and Pest, which are today, and have been for the past century, unified as Budapest.  The hydrofoil trip took about 6 hours, which was about as fast as a bus–and because the roads were flooded, probably took less time!

Budapest has Roman ruins, not uncommon along the Danube, where the Romans had settlements to help fend off the barbarians; one of those settled areas takes its name proudly from the days it was a Roman possession–Romania.  Budapest contents itself with more recent history–having been the capital of Hungary until the 16th century, when, at the battle of Mohacs, Turkish armies conquered the city, and ruled Eastern Hungary until the previously mentioned Prince Eugene of Savoy led Austrian armies to free the city from the Turks over a century plus later, and made Hungary part of the Austrian Empire.  After years of restlessness under Austrian rule, including a bloody revolution in 1848, Hungary became a kingdom (Austria an empire) under a common ruler, Franz Joseph.   His wife, Elizabeth, better known as Cissy in Europe, was a strong supporter of Hungarian autonomy; hence, she’s got one of the nine bridges named after her.  Budapest’s main historical remnants are from the Austrian period, though there are renowned hot spring baths that the Turks made famous (Europeans hated to bathe in those days), and Roman ruins.  Budapest’s other historical claim to fame (and its tie to my travels last summer) is that it was the westernmost point of the Mongol advance in 1241.  It was before the gates of Buda that the Mongol armies paused, not because of European military prowess, but because of the death of the khan, which necessitated a return to the grasslands of Mongolia for the election of his successor.  It was as far as the Mongols got, although for a century afterwards, brought a peace to the world between Beijing and Budapest, ended by the Black Death.

In other words, Budapest has helped define what happened to Europe.

Most of the Pest side is 19th century and later, a lot the monumental buildings due to the celebration of 1896–the millennium of Magyar rule (the Magyars also came from central Asia to the Hungarian plain); indeed, many of the sights we saw today came from the efforts to beautify the city in 1896 and create another “Paris of the East.”  For example, we’re around the corner from Andrassy Street, named for the famous politician who was the first prime minister of Hungary, and at one time ambassador to Paris.  The street has something like 114 villas created for the aristocracy; below it sits the oldest subway on the European continent, complete with old-fashioned cars.

At the end of Andrassy is the Heroes’ Square, which contains statues honoring the 9 chieftains who led their tribes to the Hungarian plain, including Arpad, who founded the Arpad dynasty, in 896, and his descendant, Stephan (St. Istvan), who converted the country to Catholicism (convert or die) in 1000.  Flanking the square are the art museums, one built in the classical style, the other with a mosaic that resembles an Eastern icon.  Behind the park are public baths and a major park that includes a recreated castle, a bathhouse that also looks like a castle (named for another prominent family, Szechenyi), an outdoor skating rink, a zoo, and a fine old restaurant that, when the guide was naming famous people who had eaten there, I had her include the famous Mr. and Mrs. Hoyt (who ate there in 2002).  The most impressive building exemplifying the majesty of the Kingdom of Hungary (especially after 1867 and before the treaty of Trianon carved Hungary by recreating states such as Czechoslovakia that had not been states since the 13th century, or the Kingdom of Slovenes, Croats, etc. that had never really been independent, at least not as such, and later became Yugoslavia) was the Parliament.  Opened in 1902 for a bicameral legislature of the larger Hungary, the design won a contest.  The designer, with a British background, made it resemble Parliament in Great Britain.  It has 365 windows, and more resembles a palace than many of the palaces we’ve seen.  My favorite touch was the numbered racks for cigars on benches outside the main hall; if you needed to go back in, you could leave your cigar there for later consideration.  The dome of the Parliament also houses the crown jewels, including the reputed crown of St. Stephan.  If you collect stamps (or know the coat of arms of Hungary), you’ll know that crown.

One of the other sights in the government building area is the buildings that still have the bullet holes from the 1956 uprising against the Soviets.  This morning, an elderly gentleman approached me at breakfast and asked where I was from.  He said he was now living in Vancouver, but in 1956 had been one of the freedom fighters against the Russians as a student.  Nice sense of history there, although it took almost 35 more years for the goals of the students to be realized.

The Buda side contains hills–and hence the castle and the old walled city are located there.   The area was pretty well destroyed in World War II when the Germans dug in there (the Hungarians sided with Germany to regain the larger Hungarian lands they had lost, including the areas in Rumania where I’m going to be) and the siege destroyed about 60 percent of the city. Our guide apologized that the recreated palace did not look like a palace inside, and had no royal trappings, but once upon a time the King of Hungary waxed fat off tolls levied on traffic on the Danube.  There was a chain across the river that stopped ships and was not opened till they’d paid up–and you thought Robber Barons applied to the castles on the Rhine. Consequently, at one time the castle ranked among Europe’s finest, and it looked splendid all lit up last night, when some of us took a boat trip along the Danube. Much of the castle town has been rebuilt in 18th century style, and there are some fine museums up there in addition to those in the Palace; I’ve visited the military museum (displays mostly in Magyar, a Turko-Finnish language that has few relatives in Europe other than Estonian and Finnish; a quick trip, in other words) that taught me a lot about the 1848 revolution against Hapsburg rule that made a hero of Louis Kossuth, who as I recall wound up in America, for example.  We had lunch on the Buda hill in a building with a courtyard, and took lots of pictures inside the St. Matthias church (rebuilt a number of times since 1241 as war, fire, and changing fashions dictated), with a ceramic roof that is peculiar to Hungary.  We took lots of pictures as well from the Fisherman’s bastion, a Disney-like assortment of towers that overlooks the river and the section of the city that had once been the fishermen’s area.  It, too, was part of the celebration of 1896.

On the Pest side, we spent some time in a market building that had souvenirs and reasonably priced ethnic foods including paprika and pancakes.  The guide took us to an Orthodox Church (which in the 1990s switched from the Greek patriarchate to the Russian one), in effect reminding us once again of the differences in religion between East and West.  Her walk down the street blocked off for pedestrian shopping was an architectural tour de force.  One highlight was a palace of commerce–an art nouveau shopping center with a vaulted roof to keep customers dry, and carved windows and awnings to demonstrate that the burghers could have palaces, too.  In St. Stephan’s basilica (a basilica, I learned, is a church blessed by the pope), the largest Church in Hungary–conceived in 1850s, opened finally after the turn of the century–we saw the preserved right hand of St. Stephen for 200 florint (the money is named for a Florentine banker brought here long ago to establish a currency). I returned to the church tonight for an organ concert.

I think my conclusion is still that Hungary is the beginnings of Eastern Europe.  After all, transportation costs less than a dollar and the cars do not try to run you over.

Tomorrow is our first full free day on the trip.  I realized I’ve been here in Budapest five times, and seen most of the museums I’d want to see; hence, I’m going to Estergom, the religious capital of Hungary (and for a time, when the Turks ruled Budapest, the political capital as well), and if time permits, on to Visygorod, the home of a huge castle built by one of the Hungarian Kings.  We leave tomorrow night for Bucharest, a 15-hour train ride, which gives some idea of how large Eastern Europe–and by extension, the Kingdom of Hungary–is and was.

Greetings from Vienna–and I don’t mean Illinois. We’re finally in “central” as opposed to Eastern Europe, and as far west as we’re going to be.

And Vienna certainly provides contrasts to the medieval or Russian cities we’ve visited–ironically, it was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which at one time or another included all the non-Baltic, non-Russian states that we’re visiting.  It’s more 19th century, and seemingly more Western.  Two quick items that indicate the latter: the metro cost 2.20 Euros, roughly 2.75$–most previous cities were less than $1.  Second, the drivers in Eastern Europe actually stopped for pedestrians.  Here, you’re as safe crossing the street as in Chicago.

Our guide made an interesting observation re: Vienna.  Our medieval cities that we’ve visited peaked in the medieval times; as I mentioned, Prague was the capital of the Holy Roman Empire only once in its history, and until 1918 had not been the capital of a country since the 14th century.  Hence, Prague kept its medieval old city.

By contrast, Vienna was the capital of a thriving 19th century empire of 55 million people, and as such, attempted to keep the pretensions of imperial might.  Though it had played a critical role in saving Europe from the Turkish invaders in the 1520s and 1683 (the latter with the aid of the timely arrival of Jon III Sobieski’s Polish Army), Vienna flourished after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 that basically set Europe’s boundaries for the next century.

Emperor Franz Joseph in particular, who ruled from the 1840s until his death in 1916 (just two years before the end of the Hapsburg dynasty and the end of Austria-Hungary) rebuilt much of the city in the 18th century style, tearing down the walls, adding to the Hofburg (the winter palace of the imperial family, which started in the 13th century), and left a city full of pompous, pretentious, and ponderous monuments designed to dazzle–which they do today even as the capital of a country of only 8 million Austrians.

We had basically a three-hour tour of the 19th century, which took us past most of the features: the Stephendom, an enormous Cathedral that started to be built in the Gothic period and finally more or less finished in the 19th century.  Its approach is via streets that resemble Michigan Avenue and have many of the same stores.  The Ring which replaced the defense walls circles the major museums and other government buildings, including the library, the Lippanzer horse stables, the outstanding military museums and the art museum.  It is an imperial city.  Tourists agree.  They’ve made it one of the most visited cities in Europe; our guide mentioned tourism as one of the major businesses of Austria.  She pointed out that with Austria so close to the Soviet borders in the Cold War there was little foreign investment because of the fear that the Cold War might turn hot.  The country was run by joint occupation of the war-time allies until a 1955 treaty that pulled out everyone’s troops and neutralized Austria; one provision was that the Allied statues had to remain.  There’s only one–to the Russian armies that liberated the city.  The conquering Soviet general demanded the construction of a statue to his soldiers, and since there were no other building materials, he reputedly confiscated the bronze busts of Hitler and Goering, and melted them down.  We also drove past some interesting early 20th century architecture, including art deco, art nouveau, and secessionist.  The latter built a building that our guide in a malaprop called garbage, when she meant a dome that looks like a cabbage, but, she might have been right anyway.

My favorite new place was one I really wanted to visit last summer, but ran out of time–Belvediere, the summer palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy, one of the few successful Austrian generals (Austria tended to survive and expand by marrying its excess sons and daughters into other royal families, rather than winning wars).  Prince Eugene, who commanded Austrian Armies against Napoleon, was reputed to have been short, ugly, and hunchback, which led to France and Germany rejecting his application for an officer’s commission, but desperate Austria welcomed him and paid him handsomely; he was the richest man in the Empire.  His summer home reflects it–as it has the best view of the city of Vienna from sumptuous gardens.  Today an art museum, it is supposed to have one of the finest collections of Gustav Klimt.

And finally, she noted some of the musical sights that must have made 18th and 19th century Vienna one of the most exciting places to be–the home of Mahler (my personal favorite), Mozart (have you ever heard anything he wrote that you did not like?), Bruckner, etc.  The old Opera House was sold out tonight, or some of us might have heard La Traviata.

Instead we savored walking streets of Vienna, enjoying the cafes and pastries, and getting back reasonably early, which is very Viennese.

We board a hydrofoil for the trip to Budapest tomorrow at 8 a.m.  In the meantime, I’m going to snack on my Sacher Tort (named for the hotel across from the Opera House where it was invented) and take a rest.

Goodnight everyone.

I was wrong about the weather.  Today was cool, as it has been, and for much of the day, rained on and off.

I was right about Prague; its tourist attractions are not a well-kept secret, and the city had more tourists than we’ve seen since St. Petersburg.  I was even able to talk Chinese to a group from Beijing/Shanghai/Tianjin.  There’s a reason that tourists flock to this city of around 1.2 million people: it has sights (buildings, especially medieval), food (it’s the home of Budvar, which gave the name to Budweiser–which cannot use that name here), and fun (the five-story night club is the destination for many tonight; others are going to see Swan Lake).

Even in the cool rain, the city is “cool.”  Once the capital of Bohemia, Prague is now the capital of the 10 million citizens of the Czech Republic.  Like some of the other countries we’ve visited, it was reconstituted after World War I, having gone in the 14th century from a Kingdom, to an ally of Poland, to a member of the Holy Roman Empire, to an important state in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

The history is almost as complicated after 1918.  President Thomas Masaryk helped persuade Woodrow Wilson to recreate a state, Czechoslovakia, that figured prominently in the run-up to World War II.  Hitler forced the Czechs to cede the predominantly German Sudetenland in the Munich agreement, then gobbled up what was left and created the protectorates of Bohemia and Moravia.  Czechoslovakia’s fall behind the iron curtain was one of the milestones on the road to the Cold War.  I can still remember the Warsaw Pact countries suppressing the Czech efforts at independence in 1968.  After the end of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia reemerged as a democracy, and Slovakia split off by a vote in 1993.

Prague itself, perhaps because it fell to the Nazis before World War II, did not endure the destruction most European cities experienced during the War; that makes Prague’s medieval old town, like Krakow’s, a benchmark for the other old towns in Europe.

We visited the hill which contains the palace, once the home to kings, now the residence of the president of the Republic.  Built originally around 900, the current incarnation was restored to the 16th century appearance.  To be rich, Deng Xiao-ping once remarked, is glorious, and to be rich with taste is much better for posterity! The Bohemian kings had both, and the Hapsburgs did nothing to change it. The hill also has a major Gothic cathedral, with major lines that caused us to view it from the outside, and move on.

The lower medieval town may well attract even more tourists–it’s a shopping medley of souvenir stores, upscale jewelry, glass and clothing, and restaurants.  Sascha and I had lunch in a recommended Czech restaurant, in a cellar with vaulted ceilings, low light, and high prices.  But the duck and dumplings were delicious.

When we reconvened after lunch, our tour guide took us to the inside of the town hall, not usually on the tours, but nicely out of the rain.  We’d passed a few town halls I’d like to have visited, so this one will have to provide a substitute for not having visited the others.  They tend to be ornate, rather the palaces of the burghers and the bourgeoisie in the same way that the royal palaces satisfied the ornate tastes of royalty; the halls included Renaissance paintings, coats of arms, shields of the guilds, etc.  Part of the town hall was used as a prison (early), and its underground storage took the place of refrigerators.

We then strolled through the old town to the Charles Bridge, constructed by Charles IV, the only Bohemian Holy Roman Emperor, who temporarily made Prague the capital of that hodge-podge confederation that someone quipped was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.  The bridge may be the most photographed site in Prague, but was plagued (not a good word to use in Europe, which has suffered several severe plagues, leading to several monuments, including one we’ll see in Budapest); as I understand it, it was the black plague in the 14th century that caused the end of Mongol rule in Europe) by reconstruction.  It’s still a place to stroll across and take pictures–look for one eventually on the website, with picturesque statues commemorating famous Czech mostly religious heroes.

I wish I knew more about the religious history of the Czechs, because the city has churches that have a configuration I don’t think I’ve seen elsewhere–kind of a wedge shaped steeple, surrounded by four turreted towers that are quite distinctive.  In fact, the 30 years war (1618-48) started in Prague when some religious protesters were thrown out of the Castle; defenestration, it’s called, and seems to have been a routine Czech punishment.  (I don’t think it’s the inspiration for the Scout song with the refrain, “throw it out the window,” but I threatened defenestration as punishment if needed in this class).  Jon Hus I think was an early critic of the medieval church and had a following that demanded reform; there are followers of Hus today, I understand, but he was burned at the stake.

We had about two hours of free time, which I had hoped to use in exploring the old Jewish quarter in Prague.  The city at one time had a thriving Jewish population, but during World War II, the Nazis destroyed it.  Hitler had hoped to make a museum here to “The Final Solution,” which was his name for the Holocaust.  The Nazis gathered Jewish artifacts from all over Europe, which remain here in a Jewish museum.  However, when some of us went to get a ticket for the synagogues (one is a memorial listing names of all the Czech victims of the Holocaust), we found that today and tomorrow are Jewish holidays, and all of the Jewish Quarters were closed.  Maybe next time.

Tomorrow, on to Vienna, for a quick visit to the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and one of the most fascinating cities and histories in Europe–or do I say that about every place we’ve visited?

The benchmark for the old towns in the cities we’ve visited is either Prague or Krakow, which are not reconstructed medieval cities, but survived the World Wars (and their many predecessors in Europe) intact.

If we could have chosen any day to spend on a bus, yesterday might have been a candidate for the eight-hour ride from Warsaw to Krakow. It has been cool, with periods of rain, but yesterday was prime hypothermia weather–40s and steady rain. You might say it put a damper on our two visits–to the Queen of Poland church in Chestowa and a 14th century castle. The castle ruins, set high on a hill, weathered much worse weather–but only 9 of us weathered the weather to get up to it–Zamku Ogrodzieniec–and fewer still could pronounce it. As I pointed out though, it’s every boy’s dream (mine anyway) to wander through a castle and pretend. As for the Queen of Poland, the Pauline church/monastery was about the only thing that the Swedes did not capture in 1655; that made the Madonna sacred to this day. When Father Roman took us through the chapel, a mass was occurring, but there was a cordon that let us go around the altar during the service.

At least the weather cooperated for our last night in Warsaw, where, after a birthday cake dinner for our four trip celebrants, about half of us took advantage of the “night of the museum.” Most of the museums in town were open, and old-time buses came out of retirement to provide free rides; nearly the whole population of Warsaw took advantage of the festivities, which went on until 3. I lasted till about 1:30, when we went to a prison museum. Built originally by the Russians to house political prisoners after an uprising in 1830, the prison was used by subsequent rulers until it was destroyed in the general destruction of Warsaw in 1944. Then we went to the Museum of Independence, where I spent some time learning about the aftermath of the First World War, and the recreation of the Polish state’s boundaries. I’d learned about Versailles, knew about some of the plebiscites (votes to determine where a city’s allegiance lay), but didn’t realize that the “Council of Ambassadors” and a series of short wars were ultimately responsible for defining Poland’s borders with its neighbors. As might be expected, in 1945, there were further adjustments, as Russia moved Poland into Germany! Those who went did so partly because we wanted to attend the concert staged by faculty from the University,  Chopin Piano Concerto #1. We weren’t sure where it was being staged, so we stood in line for about 20 minutes before we realized that we were in the wrong line–the queue was for apartments not usually open at the Royal Palace. We rushed to Maryskaya (?), a palace for the wife of Jon III Sobieski, where we were treated to a wonderful rendition of the concerto. I’m not a big fan of Chopin in general, but I certainly was that night. Incidentally, one of the innovative features of the Chopin museum that I wrote about yesterday was that it used RFID cards, which dictated that I would get English-language, moderately informative displays. Cutting edge of museumology.

Back to Cracow (or Krakow). We spent a cool, wet day doing some really cool semi-dry things. Part of that was a business visit to the University of Krakow, which was the setting for a lecture on Polish initial public offerings (IPOs). In what everyone hopes is a recovering market, Poland is privatizing some of its former state-owned enterprises to raise revenues. It is offering some of the largest IPOs currently in Europe, partly a function of a separate stock exchange-run stock exchange (i.e., not SEC or its European equivalent) that handles riskier transactions. The presenter was from PriceWaterhouseCooper, who I contacted through Jim Majernik, a PWC employee who works in Amsterdam; Jim came with me in May 2001 when we went around the world. PWC is one of the partners who provide advice to companies that seek IPOs. Each PWC country is in effect a franchised partnership, which I had not really known.

The afternoon was devoted to identifying and visiting the major sites of Krakow. The city of 800,000 is historically important in Polish history, and a tourist mecca because it was leveled by the Mongol armies (there’s my connection with Asia!), rebuilt, and, unlike most Central and Eastern European cities, has never again been destroyed. As I said earlier, it’s the old town most of the other cities have rebuilt–but it’s original. Its historical significance to Poland comes from the fact that before Poland united with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the late 16th century, it was the capital of the Polish state. During the golden age of Poland (13th and 14th centuries) it was one of the most important cities in Europe. Much of the history is left.

We visited the castle, built and rebuilt (and rebuilt to look like its 1760s equivalent), with a wondrous Renaissance courtyard. Built on a hill, the castle has an attendant church that houses not just the kings of Poland, but many of its heroes as well: President Kucyinski is being interred there, as well as Thaddeus Kosciusko, who helped America win its Revolution and was granted American citizenship; he came back to Poland to help keep Poland independent–in vain. Kings came to the castle, Wawel, to be married, crowned, or buried. The infamous German governor during WWII, Hans Frank, also lived in the castle, as did the Austrian guards while Krakow was under Austrian rule (1790s-1918). Today it is part of the historical museums.

We also visited the old town square, which is dominated by the Cloth Hall, a merchant building a block long that was most recently altered in the 18th century, but was under reconstruction today. Too bad. I remember it from 9 years ago as strikingly different from the other town halls I have seen. Also on the square is St.Mary’s Church, which is interesting on the outside because its twin towers are different (the town ran out of money), but the inside is truly spectacular. It has a wooden altar that is one of the largest in the world; it’s late Gothic, made by a German woodworker, who took 12 years to complete it.

The other highlight of Krakow is poignant–the old Jewish sector. Casimir the Great invited Jews to settle in Krakow in the 15th century, and they came, mostly from Germany (Regensburg was one of the towns mentioned; it was where the Parliament of the Holy Roman Empire met, a city I visited last summer. I was struck by the interconnectedness of medieval trade). At one time (before WWII), Jews comprised about a quarter of the population of the city. Today, however, fewer than a thousand remain. What struck me, however, was how much more of the area was rebuilt than when I was here in 2002. There’re museums, delicatessens, restaurants, plaques–historical memories and a chic part of the city.

Some of us this evening attended a concert in the baroque Sts. Peter and Paul church, which featured baroque music. Especially neat was the version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. It feels like fall outside! The flooding, however, endangers our plans to visit the extermination camp of Auschwitz. We’ll know at 8 a.m.

We’re leaving Krakow Tuesday, having realized it’s all it’s cracked up to be.

 

Warsaw is the only city on our itinerary that I’ve not been to, but I feel a connection anyway. My brother has been scanning family documents, and there’s one picture of my grandfather in a Russian army uniform (his family was from the Kiev area), the picture being taken in a Warsaw studio; we think he was stationed here, so if I feel as though I might have been here before, in a sense I have.

When we crossed the border from Latvia to Poland, it was obvious to us that we had crossed what was once a major border–from the Soviet Union (aka Mother Russia) into one of its former satellites; the Baltic states had been part of Russia itself. Poland has had a checkered history depending on the fortunes of what are now its larger neighbors, especially Russia and Germany. Before the 18th century partitions that divided Poland among Austria, Germany, and Russia, Poland was a major player in Europe, especially in the 17th century. Warsaw became the capital in 1596, when Lithuanian and Poland united, because the city was closer to the center of the new country than Krakow, which had been the capital of Poland (where we’ll be tomorrow), and the country’s armies played a major role in turning back the Turkish armies from the gates of Vienna in the late 17th century. Jon III Sobieski led troops that raised the siege at a critical moment, sparing Europe one of its many frightening moments from the East. We’re staying at the Sobieski Hotel, and saw one of his summer palaces today.

The trip to the city was long (Poland has some of the worst roads in the European Union, and, bad combination, among the most cars; and like the U.S., one season is under construction), but interesting. The Polish-Lithuanian border area, said Sascha, is one of the vacation spots of Europe; it looks like Northern Wisconsin, with pine trees and lakes, and when I saw a rack of canoes and kayaks, it was all I could do to stay on the bus.

Warsaw is a city of nearly 2 million (in a country of about 38 million); the second biggest Polish city (at least at one time) was Chicago. When I went to Lane Tech, I could have taken Polish, which was offered as a foreign language (French was not). Like the other cities we’ve visited, Warsaw has an old town, with a difference; most of the old town is new, courtesy of World War II.

Here’s how that happened. The Polish state which reemerged after Versailles helped defend Western Europe from the latest scourge of the East–the Soviets, helping defeat the Soviets in 1919-20, which prevented further “Red” incursions into Europe. In 1939, Hitler and Stalin’s foreign ministers signed a treaty that helped divide Poland again, part of the Great Patriotic War that the Russians have conveniently erased from their public celebrations on May 9. The Russian reoccupation in 1939 led to the massacre of Polish officers at Katyn Forest, which was recently in the news because the Polish president and most high ranking military and political officials were killed on their way to commemorate the massacre; there’s a big and moving exhibit in front of the now-unoccupied president’s palace. Elections are next month (ironically, the first constitution in Europe was Poland’s in 1791, which was one of the triggers to the partition of Poland by its more autocratically inclined neighbors; the Polish king was elected).

When Hitler scrapped his treaties and invaded Russia, Poland fell under the Germans, who had little love for the Poles; many of the extermination camps were in Poland (e.g., Auschwitz). What I’m building up to are the two great uprisings that destroyed 85 percent of the city and probably that many inhabitants. In 1943, an uprising in the ghetto by the desperate remaining Jews (at one time, over 300,000; today 1,000 and one synagogue) led to the total destruction of that section of the city. It’s not been rebuilt, but a major museum will open in 2012; we saw a monument where German Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1970 got down on his knees and repented the role of Germany in the extermination of the Jews (and gypsies and Poles). In 1944, in anticipation of a Soviet liberation of the city (and somewhat fearful that the Russians would put a puppet government in place), the government-in-exile ordered partisan troops to liberate the city in conjunction with the expected Russian arrival. To the great dismay of the partisans, the Russians sat on the opposite bank of the Vistula River and watched the carnage (and refused to let Allied planes land in Russian airports, which minimized resupply and logistical support); 63 days later, Hitler was so enraged that he ordered the city razed, and when the Russians did move into the city, not much was left.

As I said, you’d never know it, because there’s been a painstaking restoration of the old town, and it looks, well, old. Many of the churches were spared during the war (somehow), but they frequently did non-church use during the Soviet occupation. The old town (and the newer town) look like the pictures from the period of the 1780s, which is when I think the restorers were aiming. We’ve visited restored palaces, city gates, town squares, town halls, etc.–and they do pass for the 1780s, at least to us tourists.

When we waited for our bus at 1:30, there was the beginning of a student equivalent of a bar crawl. Sascha said it’s something like in Berlin (his favorite city, I think), where the night clubs sponsor a parade, giving a float to each university, which wends its way through the streets, attracting crowds who dance; I put ours on a short lease, though, since we had an afternoon partly scheduled to see the Chopin statue and a famous former royal park, and partly for free time with a ride back guaranteed to the hotel. I spent the free time at the Chopin museum, since it’s the composer’s 200th birthday. Like many Russian empire intellectuals, Chopin left Warsaw at age 20 for Paris, and never returned, but the Poles celebrate him as one of their own; as German troops invaded in 1939, I believe Polish radio played a Chopin Polinaise. I also like European museums because they have a “reduced rate” for seniors, which is how I think it should be!

Tonight is “Night at the Museum,” when the museums are open late (till 3 a.m.) and free. They have special programs, including opening parts of the museum that are usually off limits. Several of us are planning to attend a Chopin concert at 11 p.m. in one of the Palaces, which should make our 8:30 start for Krakow seem even earlier.

Now if only I could find the photo shop where my grandfather had his picture taken.

If it’s Thursday, we must be in Vilnius. We spent most of the day getting here, transiting through Latvia to Lithuania. As we got farther south, the agriculture seemed more “regular”–which is to say, more like back home, with some cows, and a lot less forest. The northern areas looked more like the North Woods of Wisconsin, with miles and miles of tall pines.

Again, we’ve changed languages (Lithuanian, we were told, is as close as any language today to Sanskrit), currency (I think travelers are going to welcome the eurozone all being on the euro; right now, many are using their own currencies. Our guide says the Baltic citizens love to travel and use the euro, then love to use their own currencies when they get home), and their own histories. I suspect personal views of the three are rather like those Wisconsin and Illinois share–except the Baltic peoples do speak different languages.

Lithuania is the largest of the Baltic countries, at around 3.5 million, with a large diaspora in the United States and elsewhere, including Jim Meizelis’ family (Jim was a long-time friend of my Scout troop, who has asked me to find the real meaning of his name). Our guide told us Lithuania was the only Kingdom in the Baltic, a short-lived state that “married” to Poland, and wound up with an area from the Baltic almost to the Black Sea at one time. It then “enjoyed” the fate of its northern brothers, enduring war and revolution, including a threatened attack from the Turks. Vilnius is the largest city in the country, with about 600,000 population. Though it was the capital of historical Lithuania (the kingdom apparently lasted for only one king), Vilnius, I just learned, was part of Poland in the interwar period, when Lithuania (like Latvia and Estonia) gained their independence. Even today, Lithuania has a large Polish minority, and a small enough Russian minority to have given the Russians citizenship after 1991, which was unusual in the Baltics.

We had about a three-hour tour of the old town, which has some very distinctive Churches. Lithuania was a bastion of Catholicism (I think I heard 95% Catholic), bolstered by the Pope’s sending of the Jesuits here to spearhead the counter reformation (we’re learning a lot of European history; as one of the students marveled, “They’ve got a lot more of it than we do”). The result was the founding of a university that is the second oldest in Europe–it still exists today, hampered by Lithuania’s joining the European Union (along with NATO; someone needs a geography lesson!); we passed it today. It’s near the Presidential Palace, which was the governor’s house under Russian rule, the Nazi HQ etc., etc.

The main features we saw were the baroque churches (which is why I mentioned we went for baroque), not quite as over the top as some I saw last summer in Germany; a late gothic church that Napoleon is reputed to have said he wanted to put in his hand and take back to Paris; his soldiers used it to stable their horses in winter and burned the wooden fixtures to stay warm; a “black Madonna”–the oak wood aged; parts of a city wall; and the former Jewish ghetto. At one time, Vilnius had a large Jewish population, almost 40 percent of the city’s population. It was known as the Jerusalem of the North, and I want to say that Jascha Heifetz, THE violinist of my youth, was born here. The Nazis wiped out over 300,000 Jews during the Holocaust, and a lot of Lithuanians as well. It’s a similar story elsewhere in Europe, and I’m sure we’ll have more to report after our next stop, which is Warsaw.

The Baltics have been a real treat, and I think our students have enjoyed them. A little rigor-mortis (in Riga!) set in this morning from last night’s two birthday celebrations, so everyone is enjoying a quiet evening tonight. At least Sascha and I are.

Reval–better known by its Estonian name (at least here), Tallinn–is a city in Estonia with a long and storied history. I hadn’t thought about it, but northern Europe, specifically the Baltic Countries, were sometimes players in the game of Empire, but frequently pawns. Until Peter the Great stamped his footprint on the area, the Danes, Swedish, and Poles fought over it. In fact, Tallinn means city of the Danes. That was reinforced when we crossed into Estonia from Russia at the city of Narva, to be greeted by a wondrous 14th century fort we were told the Danes had built.

The border crossing taught an epigrammatic lesson about the contrast between Russia and its former satellites (the Baltic countries were absorbed into the Soviet Union during the Second World War–one of the unstated ironies of the Great Patriot’s Day is that the Great Patriotic War starts in 1941, but Russia invaded Poland and fought with Finland starting in 1939–and absorbed the Baltic states as a result of its treaty with Nazi Germany). In 1991 when the Soviet Union disintegrated, the three Baltic countries declared independence.

When we pulled up to the Russian passport/control area, the driver spoke to Dr. Vitzthum, explaining that for an extra 2 euros a person (about 3$), we could be spared having to take our bags off the bus; that smacked of a bribe as much as a convenience, so we refused. When we got to the Narva side, the officer took our passports and stamped them for no charge!

The last day in St. Petersburg, we were able to really see the city. The night before, most of us took the Metro downtown, where the size of the festive crowd, and the jostling, reminded me of Shanghai or Beijing–that’s how crowded it was. A number of us looked for a boat ride (St. Petersburg, built on swamp, is at the delta of the Neva River; the many canals are one way to travel) with a tour. Unfortunately, by the time we traipsed around looking for an English-speaking boat, the boats had stopped running. The walk along Nevsky Prospect, with its many converted palaces and monuments, reminded me once again that capital cities tend to be built to overwhelm, and the Russian royal family certainly overwhelmed with ponderous pretentiousness.

The next day, the bus took us down Nevsky Prospect, where we stopped for pictures at the Church of the Spilled Blood, built in the Moscow style (i.e., non-Peter, non-Western), onion domed) to honor Alexander II. It was erected on the spot of his assassination in the 1880s.

We then left the city for our exit from Russia, but first we stopped at the Peterhof, one of the many legacies of Peter the Great. Located between the city and the naval base further West, Peterhof spared almost no expense to dazzle visitors with the wealth of Russia. Perhaps its most well known feature is the gardens, which feature fountains and statues coated with gold leaf that make for great pictures. All I could think of was what took the Russians so long to rebel against what was obviously an ostentatiously rich system, much of it at the expense of the peasants. But it was a last chance for blini pancakes and caviar. That was my lunch.

On to Estonia. As we crossed the border, we could almost tell we were in a different country. With a population slightly over a million, speaking their own language, with a currency abbreviated as “eek” (Estonian kroner), the Estonians declared their independence of Russia in 1918, then fought a two-year war for Independence, and another less bloody revolution in the 1990s to escape from the Soviet Union. It’s only recently that the country was able to erect a monument to the former event.

Tallinn’s old city is a two-part gem. The hill was occupied by the church and knights; hence, the hill contains the fort, with towers enjoying colorful names (fat Mary, see the kitchen from the tower), and several imposing churches including the imposing orthodox church in honor of Alexander Nevsky, built by the Russians at the beginning of the 20th century. The irony is not lost on Estonians; the country converted to Lutheranism after the reformation, when it was under northern European rule, and Nevsky was a prince who helped turn back the Teutonic knights in a storied Russian victory captured best in the 1930s propaganda film warning Germany that Germans who came to conquer Russia had never done so. Though about 20-30% of the population is Russian by birth, the Estonians have required a reading and spoken knowledge of Estonian (a Finno Turkish language, not Romance based) for citizenship, which has, in effect, reversed the privileges once enjoyed by the Russians in Estonia.

The lower city–once divided by a wall from its upper protection–housed merchants, and also some spectacular churches. It was fun walking the city in the evening, as some of us did, because we could linger on the streets and read the signs on the buildings–such as the one housing the oldest pharmacy (1422) in Europe. Simply put, the lower city–claiming to be the home to marzipan–is cute.

It says a lot about tourist season that the town hall, one of my targets for visiting during our free time, opens only after May 15. The climate here is cool (it was 6 degrees Celsius at night), and the farming we saw (and the forests–Estonia is heavily forested) were about as far along as Wisconsin two or three weeks ago. The growing season is short, and I was struck by the relative absence of livestock along the road–it’s about 300 miles from Tallinn, which is across from Finland, to Riga.

When we crossed from Estonia into Lithuania, we changed currency (the Lat), but did not have to go through customs. The relatively easy entry between the member states of the EU is one major improvement since the last time I was in this area. Then, we got to a customs stop during lunch and waited about an hour until the officers were ready to resume. Another benefit from being in the EU is the support a small population like Estonia (Riga is the biggest city in the Baltic, with 800,000) gets. Our guide pointed out that the superhighway we were traveling on had been built with funds from the EU.

When it does warm up here (I was here in August, and it does get warm), Estonia has beaches and islands that attract hordes from elsewhere in Europe, perhaps the same way and for the same reasons as Wisconsin. We went through the resort town of Parnau for a short break and quick look at what had been a Russian resort spa. While some of the houses and hotels were unmistakably Soviet (i.e., too much concrete), turn of the century elegance mirrored the elegance of the home Peter the Great built there in the early 18th century.

We got to Riga late afternoon Tuesday, and I’ll have more to say about that tomorrow. We’re here for two nights.

St. Petersburg — May 9, 2010

The tour of Russia began (for me) on Friday night, when I joined Prof. Vitzthum and his friends from Ruhrgas, where we’d visited earlier in the day, at a local bistro for dinner. When we were done, it was around 9 o’clock, and, far north, it was still light at 9 o’clock. Sascha suggested walking back by way of Red Square on the chance it was opened. When we got there, the square was still closed, but the approaches were opened–and the Kremlin area is especially beautiful at night.

From sometime in the 12th century, the Kremlin (I think the word means fortress) has guarded (and symbolized) Moscow. Within its walls, the Russian leaders expanded the empire to the Caucasus mostly in the18th century, to the Pacific ocean and central Asia in the 19th, and to Eastern Europe and through the Communist International into Asia, Latin America, etc. in the 20th. The Romanov dynasty and its predecessors lived in the Kremlin until Peter the Great moved the capital (in Russian fashion, he was an absolute ruler and said he was moving to a new city–St. Petersburg, 400 miles north, providing a window to Europe that Peter looked to for inspiration). Even when St. Petersburg was the capital (until the Bolsheviks, fearing western intervention, moved the capital back to the center of the Eurasian continent), czars came for coronation and wedding to the wonderful cathedrals in the Kremlin. Sascha and I were able to get pictures in front of the gingerbread Church of St. Basil, with its onion domes, red square decorated for the 65th anniversary (minus the Lenin mausoleum, buried as it were behind bunting and stands for the May 9th celebration), the famous Gum department store (which now houses western-brand boutiques), and walked around the festive area.

The next day, we went back with students. Our tour started when the Kremlin opened, and we were able to visit the Orthodox domes of the churches within, and get nice views of the whole city. The President of Russia still has offices in the Kremlin, and frequently hosts heads of state, but it’s no longer the residence of important or royal people. But, as I exclaimed, “I now can say I was in Russia,” because the Kremlin/Red Square area is one of the places that is unique–nowhere else in the world. Security was pretty tight because of the festivities and the attraction of foreign visitors; we found that out when one of the guards in the Kremlin saw us changing into our yellow trip shirts and urged (that’s a kind word) us to take the picture and change back again because otherwise people might think we were a terrorist group!

The afternoon highlight was a visit to the hills overlooking the Olympic stadia from the 1980 Olympics, which the U.S. and other countries boycotted because the Russians had invaded Afghanistan (I think there’s a lesson there!). It was a nice view of the city, and also of the famous Stalin-built Moscow University, a major high-rise that is either quasi-Gothic or quasi-gauche depending on your point of view. It’s one of seven buildings in Moscow that Stalin built in the early 1950s that are quite recognizable. One has now been converted to a 5-star hotel (a Hilton I believe); there’s one like it in Shanghai and one in Beijing, testimony to a long buried Sino Soviet pact that fueled American fears in the 1950s that there was a communist conspiracy to surround the west.

Our sleeper for St. Petersburg didn’t leave until nearly midnight, so we got dropped off at Old Arbat street, a kitschy-in place that when I was here in 2002 had lots of street vendors selling souvenirs, and some nice antique stores balancing the tchotke dealers.The street has been gentrified (I’ve been to a number of streets like it, for example an old market recreation in Hangzhou).The street vendors are gone (except for painters, etc.), and one has to go into the stores for the matryoshka (the dolls within the dolls), there were bands and musicians, and great restaurants serving everything from borscht and blini to sushi (we had dinner at one that served both).It was especially suitable for people watching, which we did until it was time to go to the train station.Partly because of the holiday on Sunday, there was little traffic on the train, and we pretty much had a car to ourselves.We had four-person sleepers, with magazines (Russian Sport) and TV (Russian TV), and a rather leisurely voyage to St. Petersburg.

When we got to the city Peter dictated, we immediately went to breakfast and realized that our bus was going to be impeded by the day’s activities every bit as much as it would have been in Moscow. The parade was to start in a few hours, and the crowds gathered and the traffic got controlled. We realized when our bus had to back down a street that it was going to be an interesting day to let someone else drive.

Perhaps different than Moscow, St. Petersburg seems historically dominated by three things–the first, the effort to outdo Louis the 14th. To be a real ruler in Europe, one benchmarked against the Sun King in France. Hence, Peter’s efforts to build palaces (though he was a relatively plain living man–we stopped at his cabin, conveniently across from a large souvenir shop–he encouraged other nobles to copy European models; he himself seems to have preferred Holland, a result of an in disguise tour he undertook) that would rival Versailles. His daughter, Elizabeth I (?), was even more outlandish. She constructed the Summer Palace which we visited. Its combination of gold and mirrors, and the famous Amber Room, are so over the top that the style is called Elizabeth baroque, even though the baroque period had ended elsewhere in Europe. Its gardens are stunning as well, and the comparison/contrast between the richness enjoyed by the royalty, and the poverty of the peasantry always made me wonder why the Russian Revolution took over 300 years. The monumental approach to architecture in particular, and its aping of Europe, makes St. Petersburg much more comfortable I think for Europeans and Americans than the larger city, Moscow. Ironically, the Summer Palace was behind German lines, and the Germans trashed it. One of the first acts of world communist leader Stalin was to pour money to rebuild this symbol of mother Russia, but Russian history is full of ironies.

The second influence in St. Petersburg (and perhaps in Russia as well) is Napoleonic. While the big battles were fought closer to Moscow, and in fact the French armies got to Moscow, there are major victory items here too. One I think is a very western-looking Church of St. Isaac, which was at one time the largest Church in Russia.

The third formative influence was the decline of the Romanov dynasty and the emergence of Communism in its wake. The city’s most distinctive (read Russian style) is the Church of Spilt Blood, a colorful gem constructed in memory of the assassinated Alexander II?, the most liberal of the monarchs. And of course the Russian revolutions of 1917, the first overthrowing the czar, and the second, the October Revolution, overthrowing the overthrowers, when the Germans allowed Lenin to return to St. Petersburg from Switzerland, and the rest is history. We saw the cruiser Aurora today, which reputedly fired the first shot of the revolution.

Now that I think of it–as I should today–World War II as well greatly impacted Leningrad. 1 million Leningraders (St. Petersburg became Leningrad during Soviet times) died in the 900-day siege; the Russians have put the death toll from World War II at 26+ million. We stopped at a memorial to the Siege of Leningrad. When you get off the train here, the first sign you see is “Heroic City, Leningrad.” We’re hoping for fireworks tonight.

One other thing about this 65th celebration.For the first time, Russians are inviting their former allies to participate in the parade.Perhaps a sign that the vision Roosevelt had for a peaceful post-war world, fostered by the allies, the United States, United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia, may be finally coming to pass.This is certainly a wealthier and less gloomy country than I remembered from my first visit in 2002.Visually, Russia has moved so far along the globalization curve (we had lunch at McDonald’s yesterday) that I was glad we were able to visit historical reminders that we’ve traveled different roads in the past.Maybe that’s why the still extant Communist Party objected to inviting the 1945 Allies!

I was told that Russia set May 9 rather than May 8 for victory day because (and they’re both possible answers): a) the peace was signed late at night which was the next day in Moscow, and/or b) the Russians wanted to celebrate the beginning of peace rather than the end of the war. Given the ensuing cold war, that wish is yet another irony in the history of a country that is very ironic.