UUS BLOGID

G'day, I thought it would be appropiate to change to a new blog as I now have a new place of residence. My new blog address is www.franson.blogspot.com Please check it out.

Luke

I left Europe

Sorry for my momentary absence from posting new entries, but I have been quite busy traveling around Europe. I had a wonderful time traveling around Sweden with my parents. We went back to Jönköping and saw Maj Brit and her family. It was nice to see them again, and I enjoyed seeing the city once more. It was strange to see the city without all my favourite international students residing there. Next we went to the glass blowing region of Sweden. Mum and Dad enjoyed seeing all the glass working. For my part I enjoyed relaxing in the city of Kalmar. We toured the island nearby and an old castle. We even watched a few world cup games.


I took Ryan Air to Riga and very soon I was on a bus back to Tartu. It was amazing to go from a land of such weath to then be in Riga which is still overcoming its Soviet past. I was quite happy to cross the border and head back into Estonia. I met with Carola and Little Liis and we went out for dinner.




The next day was my last full day in Tartu. I did a bit of shopping with Carola. I purchased a jersey of the local football club, which I thought was a nice souviner. We had a wonderful BBQ on the beach. Monday morning there was much to be done. All the little things like closing my bank account and saying goodbye to people. We had a wonderful lunch with Jacob, Liis, and Little Liis. Kai also stopped by. It was very sad to leave. I did not want to say goodbye to such wonderful friends. I was very glad Carola was coming with me.

Carola and I drove to Lithueania in an intense heat without AC. After fighting trafic in Riga we finally arrived to an old manor house that used to be owned by Carola’s great grandfather. The family that owns it now and is renovating it was there to welcome us. They had a wonderful dinner all prepared for us, it was very very nice. We spent the night in the manor house.

We spent the next night in Riga and watched the Sweden England football match. Here we said goobye to Carola’s car. It was so wonderful to be rid of this car. It always seemed to be on the edge of breaking down. We had a nice time with friends.

So many bags. We had way too much stuff. We took a taxi to the bus station and luckily we were able to move all our stuff in one go to the bus stop. We had to pay 10 euros extra for the baggage, but it was much better than any airline. If we had tried to take that much stuff on an airplane they would have charged us an extra 200 euros. Thus began our trip to Munich. We had two stops in Lithueania, and then on to Berlin. We did not stop in Poland except to cross the borders. The border crossing was generally an hour-long process. It was very interesting to see how things gradually became more western european in their orientation.

We arrived in Berlin the next morning, a couple of hours late. Carola asked, and the Eurolines representative said that the only bus to Munich was scheduled to leave two hours ago. This was a positive and negative development. It is bad to be delayed when you really want to get somewhere, but it would have been a wonderful oportunity to expore Berlin a little bit. However, it turned out that a bus was waiting for us, only the Russian driver was off doing something somewhere and would not answer his mobile. Our estonian travel agent from the previous bus was furious at him, as he made he bus even later. This second bus to Munich was a Russian-only afair. If you did not know Russian you did not understand anything.

Finally we arrived in Munich and hauled all our bags off and on two different trains only to find out that our third train had been canceled due to flooding on the tracks. So, Carola’s brother came to pick us up. We had two Latvians joining us by this time as well. Carola’s brother headed down the autobahn at about 200km/h. The lithueanian boy said, a little nervously, I’m not going to tell my mother about this. We finally arrived in Rosenheim, glad to be there. The Lithueanians had to continue on another bus and then another train. Carola’s family prepared a wonderful dinner for us, and then it was time for bed.

Over the next week Carola was very gracious and was my tour guide around southern Germany. Everything was so interesting and wonderful it is hard to know where to begin. We saw crazy football fans in Munich, climbed a mountain in the Alps, visited Saltzburg Austria and just generally relaxed and enjoyed spending time together. We have the next 5 months apart so it was very nice to be able to spend some nice time together because it will be hard to be apart for so long.




Yesterday I took a cheap flight up from Stuttgart, DE and came to Stockholm. I got an expensive hotel room and quickly fell asleep. This morning I got on a plane to Newark. This is where I am now. I will spend four hours in Newark and then on to Denver. Thus comes to a close this chapter of my life. But I am very excited about starting graduate school, and I cherish the friends that I have made during my stay in Tartu. It has been a wonderful experience. I look forward to working again full time and seeing family in Colorado. It is a strange mix of emotions when one enjoys being around so many people from so many places. I can’t complain though, I wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything.

Vanemad tulevad Tartusse!

G'day everyone, sorry about my momentary absence from the blogging world. My parents have come to visit me in Scandievia. We have been having a great time touring around Estonia and Sweden. I picked up my parents in Tallinn, where we spent a couple days reviving them from that depths of jet lag. Then we went on to Saaremaa Island. This is the biggest island in Estonia and retains a unique culture. Dad and I explored an old Soviet rocket base. Even citizens of the USSR required special papers to travel to this island, and only Soviet soliders were stationed in the rocket base on on of the pennisulas. We walked around the building ruins for maybe 45 mintues and didn't see a soul.



Carola and I also showed my parents around Tartu. It was very nice to be able to show them all the things that I had seen and all the places where I had worked and enjoyed my life in Tartu. I enjoyed playing tour guide.

We drove back up to Tallinn and took a ferry across the Baltic and docked in Stockholm the next morning. It was a relaxing way to travel, and we made it to Jönköping by the afternoon. It has been nice to meet with relatives again and see the town where I lived for six months.

Now we are going to head to the eastern islands of Sweden. I will do my best to post some interesting photos from this trip.

Horse Show

Jacob, Carola and I went to a horse show in Pärnu. It was really nice to see how Estonians conduct a horse show. It was surpisingly similar to any other horse show.

The Town of Luke, and it's manor house.

On our way to Pärnu we stopped by an Estonian town called Luke. I thought this was amazing and I just had to stop. We also stopped by an old German manor house and tooks some photos. All in all a very interesting trip.

Cottage Weekend

We went on a cottage weekend the other day. It was a farewell party for all the students here in Tartu. It was a great time with BBQ rafting and football.

We never knew what friends we had, until we came to Leningrad.

We boarded the bus at 6 am just outside our dormitory, Raatuse 22. We were early and staked out our territory in the back of the bus. It was a nice bus, quite modern and big. Everyone had two seats if they wanted. Our bus driver’s name was Raivo. We called him Raivo the drivo. I was so full of excitement that I could not sleep like any of the others. We left Tartu and headed on the road that leads to Narva, Estonia’s third-largest city. They are in the middle of improving the road to Narva, so in large sections there is nothing but dirt road, and all the bridges are under construction, so there is a minor detour over every stream. As we got farther from Tartu, the renovated and new houses got fewer and fewer. The Russian-built housing blocks got more and more frequent. We finally stopped just before Narva for food, because there is very little on the Russian side of the border. As we approached Narva there were perhaps close to 200 cargo trucks pulled alongside the road, all waiting to get into Russia. Our bus took a detour through some kind of checkpoint where heaps of cars and cargo trucks were waiting. I don’t know why, but we just passed on through without hindrance.
Raivo must have had the correct documentation. Then we entered the town of Narva and headed in the direction of Narva Castle. We arrived at the boarder just a tad too late, because a scheduled bus arrived just before us. However, there was some trouble with their documentation, so we were able to slip in front of them. I took heaps of photos of the boarder guards because I am doing a presentation in Estonian class on the boarder patrol. However, photos are illegal on international boarders, so one must be a little bit careful. Three members of our group got off the bus and walked across the boarder because they planned on staying in Russia a bit longer, therefore they must enter as individuals. In this way, our ‘bus group’ would have the same numbers going and coming. These three people didn’t follow the taking no photos rule, and nothing bad happened to them.

An Estonian boarder patrol guard got on our bus and took everyone’s passports, and then left. Within a few moments he had returned with our passports. There was no stamp in my passport. Now we were on the ‘no mans land’ between the EU and Russia. It’s not a warm friendly place. On one side of the boarder one can travel unhindered to the boarder with North Korea, and on the other side of the boarder one can travel with minor hindrance to the coast of Portugal. So, this is one big dividing line.

Our bus pulled into the crossing station on the Russian side. A Russian with a sour face walked through the bus and counted people. We all were given forms to fill out that asked for our visa number, passport number, dates of our stay, and our hotel name. The form was once in other languages, but now it is only in Russian. Another move by the government to make Russia welcoming to tourists. After filling out this form we had to exit the bus and leave behind our bags. As we stood in line it was hard not to notice how different things were. The toilets had no seats, and everything was put together with marginal quality and care. I finally made it to the booth and handed the lady my passport. My passport was issued in Sydney, Australia by the US consulate, so it does not look like the modern electronic passports now being demanded by the US government. In fact it looks about as basic as basic can be. The second thing is that my photo was taken when I was 18, so I look a little different now. She had flaming coloured red hair and looked at me suspiciously. I was the only American in the group. Most were Germans and they had less trouble. I think she thought it was strange for an American to be traveling without other Americans. She asked me something in Russian and I had no idea what she said. Jacob was standing next to me and he knew that she asked me if the passport was mine. He told her that it was. Then she became suspicious that Jacob, not me, owned the passport. Finally after a few more minutes of inspection, and consultation with her colleague, she let me go through. It was quite intense and I was glad she let me go. I got back on the bus and my nervous energy dissipated. Now we drove into Russia. We made it!

The first thing I noticed was a huge red blue and white flag in the center of one of the traffic circles. A few days before it was Victory Day. Victory Day is a day to celebrate the Russian victory over the Fascists [Nazis]. We instantly noticed that the road got much worse, big bumps and big potholes. We went under an overpass and it was unlike any overpass I’ve ever seen, the beams and columns of concrete used to construct it seemed like barely enough to hold up the bridge, but it did, I guess. We passed many small village houses, and the whole atmosphere was one of a 3rd world country. I saw only one obviously new building until the outskirts of St Petersburg. It had rolling steel shutters on all its windows and doors. This tells you something. Also, over one of the small rivers next to our road there was an entire bridge built over the river, but something happened and no road was ever built on either side.


There were many people out working on their gardens. Gardens help poor people to get enough food to live. One house could not afford tarpaper for their roof so they stole some big plastic banners and tacked them to their roof instead. We stopped for some cheap Russian petrol. The gas station consisted of 3 large tanks of gas with two pumps next to each one. Everything there was decrepit and in disrepair, everything except the sign out front, which was like any sign you would find in Western Europe. There was no running water, only an outhouse next to the cashiers. Raivo filled us up and we were on our way again. The road got worse again. Big potholes and the going was slow. 15 MPH was our max speed, and this is the main highway between St Petersburg and Estonia. We finally reached the St Petersburg city limits and the road got instantly better. We came to a major intersection and there was a cart with a woman selling a keg of something. It turned out to be a keg of the local drink, a drink made from black bread and sugar. It is almost like lemonade. We tried to order some the next day, but the lady just said nyet and shook her head. This is quite common actually. At one point Jacob wanted to buy some ice cream from an ice cream stand, but they just told him no and turned him away.

As we turned left down the main road to St Petersburg I noticed a drunken man passed out face-first in the tall grass. This at 10 am. Our first stop was the summer palace. This is located about 30 miles south of St Petersburg. This palace was taken by the Germans during most of the war and was destroyed quite heavily. They have spent a lot of money renovating the place. Such amazing opulence in every room. The real Amber room was taken by the German army during the war and subsequently destroyed or lost later on. This recreation of the room took so long, as every piece of amber had to be cut and put into place. The room was only reopened two years ago. After our tour of the palace we took a walk in the gardens. There was a large man made lake behind the palace. On this lake there were members of the Russian Naval Academy rowing. At one point there were two buoys that they had to navigate through. They had troubles getting their boat to go where they wanted it. All of them were enjoying the sun and had their shirts off. We continued walking around the park, at this point I got to talk with our tour guide. I asked her if they had any special activities at the palace for victory day. She said, “Our [wonderful] president loves to throw parties here” She spoke of Putin as if he was her personal saviour. Furthermore, she failed to answer my question. It was an interesting dialogue as much for what she didn’t say as what she did. We were all hungry and bought a hot dog from a vendor before we boarded the bus again. Now we were on our way to St Petersburg proper. The housing blocks became more frequent and the advertising much larger. Everywhere there were signs advertising the newest Nissan car. The car was actually advertised in USD, which I found interesting. It was a good-sized car for $12,000. I also saw a few pizza huts and KFCs, but only one McDonalds. There were many propaganda posters put up by the government for Victory Day. We drove around town and looked at everything. It was just so interesting to watch everything. The traffic was horrible, and we snaked our way to the hotel. Our hotel was a large soviet-era apartment building that has been renovated into a western style hotel. It was incredibly nice on the inside. Our hotel room was better than most American hotel rooms. Everything was very nicely done. There was even wireless internet in the rooms. There was a placard in our room that said, “Wifi – this is modern technology, New quality of Life, this is your FREEDOM!”

As a group we went out and found a local grocery store. The store was surprisingly modern. They sell a beer called CCCP beer, or rather USSR beer. The soviet past is nothing shameful like the Nazi past is in Germany. Yet many more people died in Stalin’s purges than at the hands of Hitler. We bought caviar, vodka and things to make sandwiches.





We had dinner on Jacob’s hotel balcony, and watched the sun slowly set on St Petersburg. It was very interesting just to have an overview of the city and look at what was going on. A huge amount of construction, cranes littered the sky. Across from our hotel was a new skateboard park and next to that was an old soviet fountain. I doubt if this fountain had seen water in the last 10 years. After our dinner we went down to the billiard bar next to our hotel. The entrance to this bar is so completely uninviting that at first we thought it was closed. We walked in and decided that this place did not feel so comfortable, so we went back to the Hotel bar and sat there with the other international students. We noticed that the mullet is making a comeback in Russia. Business in the front, party in the back. A long, dusty day and I went to bed and fell asleep immediately.

I woke up out of a deep sleep to shut off my alarm, and wondered where I was. It took me a moment to realize that I was in Russia. I quickly took a shower and headed downstairs for breakfast. We boarded the bus and headed for downtown. We stopped at the Peter and Paul Fortress, which is the historical center of the city. Within these fort walls there is the St Petersburg mint. The mint makes coins while the mint in Moscow makes the paper money. There were some well-guarded boxes of coinage standing around, waiting to be taken out on truck. After this we boarded the bus for The Hermitage.

We stopped for lunch at a nightclub. We ate next to the dance floor. They fed us a cabbage and onion soup, and then a bit of meat and potatoes. Then a metal detector guarded entrance to the nightclub. This was a little strange for me, but I guess a person bringing weapons into the nightclub was a bit of a problem at one point. Also, I assume if this is a place frequented or owned by the mafia, then they may want protection from other criminal elements.


The Hermitage blows your mind. All the major artists are represented here. Rembrandt, a whole room full of Picassos, da Vinci, Monet, Matisse, Michelangelo, and many more. Jacob’s friend who is an art student spent 6 days there and never entered the same room twice. It is free for students and utterly amazing. Trojan gold, Egyptian mummies, Greek statues, it just goes on and on. We started to leave the museum at 5pm, and didn’t actually get out of the building until 5:30. We were so late we missed our group going to take a boat tour of the city. Which was fine. We decided to buy a map and walk back to our hotel by ourselves. Carola read in my guide about a nice Georgian restaurant not too far away from us. So we headed in that direction. Everything was so interesting along the way. A Russian lady in a sombrero trying to get people to visit the Mexican restaurant. A car with NY license plates. An old Lada with a barrel of oil on top of it. At one point Jacob found a street that looked incredibly like a typical street in Berlin. We finally made it to the restaurant, and it was a bit nicer than we had anticipated, but decided to eat there nonetheless. They cook your meat on an open fire near your table and we ordered a bottle of Georgian wine, which will only become rarer as it is now banned from being imported into Russia. Such are the consequences for a Slavic country developing ties with the west. If you even dare to institute western reforms and look away from mother Russia you will find your natural gas price skyrocket, or get shut off, and your export market to Russia shut down. All the wait staff spoke English and the service was very very good. Everything was up to western standards. We finished our meal and headed for our hotel.

We somewhat misjudged the scale of our map. I’m not sure how long we walked, but it was somewhere between 3-4 hours. But it was so nice to be away from the tourist spots and out of our tourist bus. Now we could experience some of the real St Petersburg. We started to head for the bridge that we would need to cross the Neva River. Each bridge has a specific time that it is closed and raised in order to let ships pass. We had to make it over the bridge by 1am or else we would be stuck on the left bank of the river for another hour. Our walk took us by the German, American, and Belarusian consulates. It was very interesting to see the American consulate. There was quite a bit of security outside, but less than outside the Tallinn Embassy. I would have liked to go inside, but my passport was locked away in the hotel safe. We kept on walking. We came to the park that we wanted to walk through. The gate was locked and there were still people inside. The park was closed with hundreds of people inside and a restaurant still open within the gates. There was a young couple that wanted to get out, but didn’t know how to get their baby over the fence. They enlisted the help of two Russian guys to ‘catch’ their baby as it came over the fence. The top of the fence had lots of sharp points and the father made motions indicating that they were talking about what would happen to the baby if it didn’t make it over the fence all the way. Furthermore, there was a couple that were walking their large dogs in the park. They had no idea how they were going to get their dogs over this fence. So, we jumped the fence ourselves and went inside the park. One guy was walking along in the park and threw his empty bottle to the ground as if littering was the most normal thing in the world. A beautiful spring day and it was still light at 10pm. We walked through this park, jumped the fence to get out again, and found a local grocery store. Inside this store they had vodka of course. But the interesting thing was that they had vodka with photos on the label. There was ‘vodka for sauna,’ ‘vodka for hunting,’ ‘vodka for fishing,’ and ‘vodka for being a guest’. It was all quite hilarious.
We left, and kept on walking. We came across a plaque that said that this was the first place in Russia to get electric street lighting. They had examples of the historical progression of street light styles in St Petersburg. We walked down a street that was called “the celebration of the oppressed proletariat over the bourgeoisie” We also came to a huge monumental courthouse with a huge bust of Lenin at the top. All of it was fascinating. We came upon an old Lutheran church. This church had been converted into a public swimming pool during soviet times. Now it has been turned back into a church. However, the concept that one can just convert a church into a public swimming pool is amazing to me. We finally came to the bridge, but we were only halfway home. We continued walking, and the sidewalk ended and the street became less well paved. Towering apartment blocks rose on either side of us. On our map there were huge grey areas on the map. These were generally abandoned factories. We also walked along an old cemetery, a very crowded cemetery. Most of the graves were adorned with orthodox crosses with a photo of the person in the center. Just about every grave was well kept, and flowers grew everywhere. Here, in this part of the city one got a good feeling for what it was like in soviet times. Really, here little has changed. By this time it was almost close to midnight. There were three Russian men repairing their broken down lada in front of their apartment building. There was a huge park in front of our hotel, and it would have been shorter to walk through it, but it was unlit and we thought it was probably a better decision to just walk along the lit, populated street. By this time we were so incredibly tired that it was a wonderful sight to see our hotel appear on the skyline. My bed felt so good. Jacob and I went for a beer before we went to bed. A Russian guy dressed in a Swedish hockey jersey came over and asked us where we were from. In cases like this I sometimes let people assume that I am from Germany. The guy said that he had been stationed in East Germany when he was in the Russian Army. He said that he liked Germany a lot, but then out of nowhere he said, “But America, it is going down” Strange experience.

Our guide asked us the next morning how we got back from downtown, as we were not on the bus. We told her that we walked. She was amazed. She said that the bus ride from the center took them 20 minutes in light traffic. So that gives you some feel for how long we walked. Our next stop was to be the first museum in Russia. This museum was created by Peter the Great. Peter was an amateur dentist and anthropologist. He traveled the world looking for new and amazing things. There is a huge Native American collection, and an Asian exhibit as well. There are also over 100 jars containing dead babies, including conjoined twins in a jar. It was quite gruesome. The most interesting thing for me was the marble bust of Benjamin Franklin. We thought about not going to this museum and going to the Hermitage again instead. However, by the time we could have walked over the bridge, there would have been barely enough time to see anything. I could have spent a week in the Hermitage, just walking around. However, I think we made quite good use of our time.



Our next stop was the battleship Aurora. From this ship the guns were fired as a signal to storm the Winter Palace, and start the Bolshevik revolution. The students of a nearby naval academy now maintain it. I have no idea how many Russian navy cadets there are, but St Petersburg seemed to be full of them. I think I saw five different buildings dedicated to the education of Naval personnel. As we got off our bus in front of the warship, a man came up to us trying to sell souvenirs. He saw that our bus was from Estonia and he started to tell us how much stuff was in Estonian. I was curious to see how good his Estonian was, so I started to talk with him in Estonian. He knew the basics, but more complicated constructions left him speaking in Russian. I guess that he figured that if I knew Estonian then I must know Russian as well. There was a bus full of American high school students on the ship. Jacob overheard one of the Americans telling the American girls, “make sure to have an American guy with you at all times” Jacob found this funny because he has been to the much more dangerous parts of Moscow, and this sunny tourist area in St Petersburg was like a walk in the park for him. However, I can understand just how these Americans must have felt. I know that if I had not been living in Estonia I would have not been as comfortable in Russia. As our bus pulled away from the warship we drove by the old commodity exchange. I would have liked to learn more about the economic history of St Petersburg, maybe I could find a history book on the subject.

Now we headed out of St Petersburg for Peterhoff, another royal palace. Everyone was getting quite hungry, and we spotted a McDonalds. There was a quiet revolution going on in the back of the bus to take us to McDonalds, but we drove past before anyone got up the courage to ask the bus driver to stop. After a while we arrived at Peterhoff. As we exited the bus, a three-man band started to play the Estonian national anthem. The Estonian national anthem goes by the same tune as the Finnish national anthem. So, as we exited the bus the Finish girl on board got quite a surprise to hear her national anthem being played. After a while a German tour bus pulled up and they played the German national anthem. Then when I was in the bathroom I heard them play the American national anthem. That was a strange moment to be at an opulent Russian palace and hear the American national anthem.


Peter the Great built Peterhoff to commemorate the Russian victory over the Swedish. There is a statue in the gardens depicting Peter ripping open the mouth of a lion, the Swedish national symbol. He modeled this palace on Versailles. There are massive golden fountains everywhere. None of the water shooting out of the fountains is powered by a pump; it is merely gravity-fed from a source far away. The sun was out and it was a great day to just walk around and see the gardens. Jacob and I sat down and wrote some postcards in the garden while Carola went to go see Peter’s guesthouse. The palace is actually right next to the Baltic, so one can walk right out and see the Baltic Sea. There are fast ferries that can take you into St Petersburg from the Palace. As we walked around the gardens there were men painting and patching everywhere. A few were drinking beer while they worked. As we exited the gardens we noticed a small traveling carnival set up in a park. We had some time to kill before we had to be back at the buss, so we took a look. There were rides everywhere, and most had names in English. Just outside the carnival was a lady grazing her reindeer. I took a picture of her and she started yelling at me in Russian, so I think she did not want me taking photos of her. We finished writing a few more postcards and headed for the bus. We gave the postcards to our tour guide to take to the post office. I guess in Europe it is uncommon for the postman who delivers your mail to also pick up your mail. Come to think of it, that was also uncommon in Australia. So, she was kind enough to mail our huge stack of postcards. We got on the bus and started to leave. The three people in our group who planned to stay and head on to Moscow left us at this point. I think they took the ferry back to St Petersburg. Raivo started up the bus and we began our long, bumpy trip home.

Everyone was hungry. So, we stopped at what looked like our best chance for food, a small marketplace surrounded by large apartment blocks. We walked into one place, but it was only an alcohol shop. Sixteen international students stood there and stared at the startled shopkeeper, and he stared back. Nobody said much, but it became clear that this was not the place that we needed to be. An ice cream vendor, smelling sweet profits, started yelling at us as soon as we exited the alcohol shop. We found a grocery store nearby and took the chance to get some food for our trip back to Estonia.
As we checked out at the cashier, she asked each and every one of us if we had a discount card given by that particular store. It did not deter her that this was obviously a group of foreigners who didn’t have the card. It was her duty to ask and she was going to do it. On the way out of the supermarket Jacob tried to order some of this special russian drink that is made out of black bread and sugar. The lady told him that she didn't have any more left. After our exchange she packed up and left. I guess we reminded her that if she wasn't selling anything then she had no reason to just sit there. We all got rounded back up onto the bus and started making sandwiches. It was a very delicious but bumpy meal. Raivo did his best to avoid the large gaping holes in the ground, but it was impossible to miss them all. Now I see why the Mercedes SUV is so popular in Russia. You get out of a major city and you need as much car as possible to get you over the roads.

The sun set very slowly and it was still quite light by the time we could see Narva castle on the horizon. We arrived at the boarder control station and this time we were asked to take all of our bags with us. I left our food in the bus because there was no way I was going to pack all that up and take it through customs with me. All this took time, and I was the last one off the bus. By the time in got inside the station a long line had formed of people waiting to have their bags x-rayed. So, I decided to use the toilets or marginal quality found in the station. By the time I came out there was no line and the x-ray machine was shut down with a chain across the entrance. There were a group of Russian guards standing around talking to each other and I made some motions asking if it was ok if I passed through the other doorway. They said it was ok so I did. I was the only member of my group who didn’t have to x-ray my bags, only because I chose to go to the bathroom. Strange. So then I got my passport stamped without much trouble. Raivo was out with the authorities that were searching the bus inside and out for I don’t know what or who. They really don’t care what you bring into Russia, but they are deeply concerned about what you take out. A few days later I was talking with the Polish teacher that I tutor in English, she was also on the trip. She said that up until recently the authorities made you bring your bags because they would then search them for things that they wanted. Anything that a border guard wanted to take home to their family instantly became contraband that must be seized. And foreigners who just want to get out and get home don’t want to get into a fight with the authorities over a bottle of vodka. I think that because we were traveling with a tour guide we were slightly immune to this. But they used to do it to everyone, until recently.


Then we were all hanging around outside the bus talking to each other while people were using the bathroom. The boarder guard started yelling at us to get into the bus. At the boarder there is a duty-free shop, but one is not allowed to walk to it, even though it is 300 feet away. We had to load everyone onto the bus, and the bus traveled 250 feet forward, and then we all exited and went into the duty free shop. As I got on the bus I noticed that the Russians had rummaged through our stuff, looking for contraband. As far as I could tell nothing was stolen however. Everything in this shop was quoted in Euros, which was interesting in itself. The smokers bought cigarettes because they are about 10% of the price in Germany. I had a look at the shop, but did not buy anything.


We got back into the bus and headed back into the EU. The Estonian Boarder guard came back on board and took all our passports. Now I got a stamp in my passport, but none of the EU citizens did. I took some more photos for my presentation, and before long we were back in Estonia. It felt so good to be able to read the road signs and it felt like coming home. A couple of the Germans were so glad to be back, I think they went through a bit of culture shock in Russia. Now we stopped at McDonalds and lots of people went in to get a meal. However, we still had our sandwiches and we ate those. It was a very relaxing trip back to Tartu. Our bus pulled in front of Raatuse and I thanked Raivo the Drivo, and headed straight for bed. I was dead tired. Such was my trip to Russia.

From Detroit to Dorpat

As I said earlier, Carola and I went to lie on the bank of the Emajõgi yesterday. The day was so nice and the sun was so warm it would have been a crime not to go outside. We had a nice drive out into the countryside and had a picnic in the grass among all the new flowers blooming. We actually got so warm it sounded like a good idea to jump in the river for a bit. We forgot a towel, so we just waded in a bit, but it was so nice to feel the cool water on your skin, and then jump out and get warmed by the sun. Such things seemed so impossible and far off in January, now they are actually here. We layed in the sun and studied the Estonian language most of the afternoon. All in all a very nice day.

On the way to the river we passed a whole line of old American cars out for a weekend drive. One was flying the American flag out of its sunroof. Estonia is not France. It is interesting to see the American flag flying in front of a building built by Kruschev. JFK would enjoy that I think, in partial thanks to him the cold war ended much more nicely than anyone had imagined in could. And now people can drive old American cars around on a Saturday.

Your friendly neighbourhood collective farm.

Carola and I went to the banks of the emajõgi river yesterday. Along the way we came across an old abandoned communal farm. During soviet times all local farms were nationalized and everyone was forced to work for the communal farm. Such is the life of an Estonian farmer. There is a fine line between sharing capital and absconding with capital. The USSR turned out to do much of the latter.
Most of these old collective farms are abandoned now, and I find it quite interesting to see them, and how they all work. America now produces an incredible amount of food, using only 2% of its population. No farmer anywhere else in the world is as productive. The differences come in stark relief after viewing the remants of the command economy.

Super Alko

I went into the local 'SuperAlko' to get a beer with Jacob, and we noticed skinheads manning the entrance. It seems that the store get so busy in the summer, the owners hire local skinheads to monitor traffic into and out of the alcohol shop. Not very welcoming to the local minority population, but in Estonia I don't think one loses too much business in any event. Skinheads. the new Falk.

Võluflööt - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I just got back from watching The Magic Flute, by Mozart. The majority of the Opera was in Estonian, but two songs were sung in German. The songs in German were done by an American singer. She sang in German, and spoke in Estonian. There were English subtitles, however they should really be called headtitles, because they were on a screen suspended from the ceiling. We had quite good seats, we were placed almost directly in front of the stage, but back far enough so that we could read the subtitles.