Illyrian Elysium (10/14/2006)

Viola: "What country, friends, is this?"
Captain: "This is Illyria, lady."
Viola: "And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium"
- Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, I.ii.

Every year, thespians at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival perform Shakespeare at Lovrjenac Fortress, a medieval bastion which overlooks Old Town and the Adriatic. The performances -- in the open air within walls that pre-date the Bard -- are a true spectacle, punctuating days of Renaissance revelry for locals and tourists. While the repertoire changes, a constant is "Hamlet." This can't be coincidence: After all, some argue, Lovrjenac is more authentically medieval than Elsinore, Denmark -- and since no document explicity states that Shakespeare didn't wander south during his "dark years," he may, in fact, have based Hamlet on a lost foray to Dubrovnik. Thus, there is no evidence that the Denmark isn't a thinly disguised Dalmatia.

Except this: Nothing is rotten in the state of Dubrovnik.

Keep your towers, your cathedrals, your museums, and your main drags with names you rip out of foreign mythology. Dalmatia's pearl lacks the groovitude of London, the wandering alleys of medieval Prague; it holds no candles to Berlin's nightlife, can't boast the pulse of New York or flaunt Nobel Prize Winners a la Cape Town. It fans on the modern awesomeness of my beloved Wellington, hasn't the tangible history of Vienna, and lives without the wide allees of grand dame Paris.

But Lady Dubrovnik takes them all.

Dubrovnik is the Europe we dream of -- a city whose limestone streets echo antiquity, and whose medieval walls are lapped by the tranquil Adriatic. The city shines in the sun and glistens in the rain. It survived communism but doesn't reek of it; it was shelled less than 15 years ago, and rebuilt itself as it was -- not in bland, eyebrowless, uberefficient apartment blocks. It has the luxuries of a modern town, but hides them well -- find what you will, but you're better off getting lost in the Renaissance alleyways. When you stroll the streets at night, drunk tourists and "human doings" aren't spilling or spewing in front of you. If you're lucky -- you read that correctly -- to have a dousing of rain, the empty alleys shimmer in the full moon.

The city delights throngs of tourists without whoring itself to the corporate dollar. Medieval towns north of the Alps -- that's you, Rothenburg -- flaunt the Golden Arches, while Dubrovnik rejected them. There is one, count 'em one, western hotel in town (outside the walls), and the majority of visitors only stay for a day and depart on their cruise ships. It's far enough from the main tourist route to deter Eurailing students and Japanese throngs, but accessible enough for an easy holiday.

And then, the environs. The daytripping opportunities are nonpareil -- take a ferry to Mljet National Park (which Odysseus fancied), drive to the world's newest country (Montenegro) or the regional hotbed (Bosnia), sail along miles of untouched coastline, or bottle wine and brandy amateur cellars.

It's got the history, too. Croatia has the second largest Roman amphitheatre outside the Coliseum and the second-longest wall after China. It also gave the world the necktie (cravat), the fountain and ballpoint pens, Marco Polo ("Mark The Chicken"), and who knows, maybe "Hamlet."

Not that it needs it, though, since it plays host to "Twelfth Night" just fine -- and it should flaunt the sure thing rather than claim a tragedy. The play is enough of a marketing piece: after all, Viola does discover plenty to do in Illyria. She falls in love, cross-dresses, watches hilarity ensue, and finds her brother. Though she was, in fact, right about his whereabouts all along.

Matt

Silhouettes and Minarets (10/6/2006)

Hi Everyone:

The call to prayer was echoing througout Mostar as Julie, Christie, and I ascended a minaret -- the tightest-wound staircase I've seen -- partly with no lamp or window illumination. Out of darkness into light, if you will.

No European country evokes a bloodier image than Bosnia -- one which descended into torpid war following independence, and one whose name still evokes more fear than awe. (I can vouch for this, having received a few "you're nuts"es when I told people I'd be hanging in the Balkans). But with war a full decade in the past, the danger is gone, but the scars remain. And perhaps there is no better microcosm than Mostar.

In 1993, when a united Muslim and Christian force beat back the occupying Serbs, Mostarites turned on each other -- they fought for two years, ultimately ending with the Croat Christians leveling the Muslim West Bank and shipping the inhabitants to detention camps (Yay religion!). War historians said the only comparable destruction of the last century was Dresden. So it goes.Ten years on, Mostar has rebounded remarkably well. The wounds are still fresh: we passed a de-mining truck on the way in, and repeatedly remarked on the cannonball and bulletholes in the stone walls. Many buildings, even along the tourist route, are still uninhabitable. Part of me hopes the holes are patched soon -- the city is too charming to live with its scars -- but another part hopes they stay. After all, as Dr. Lecter mused, our scars remind us that the past is real.

I loved Mostar. The bazaars, cobblestone streets, new Old Bridge, minarets which illuminate at nightfall, pristine food, and evervescent Turkish delight evoke an Ottoman past unheard of in Croatia. While the tourists abounded, the city is far enough off the route to the busloads. And of course, the odd begging Gypsy reminded us that -- Ottoman shmottoman -- we hadn't left Eastern Europe.And then there's Medjugorje. A mere 20 miles -- and loads of Catholic bucks -- away, the otherwise obscure town is a poster for religious kitsch. Overlooking the "town center" is the hill where, 25 years ago, the Virgin Mary appeared to six teenagers, three of whom still claim to have a daily dialogue with her. Today, the town is bombarded with pilgrims hoping for the same priviledge. While many undoubtedly go home sans BVM sighting, they can at least take a glow-in-the-dark Mary or a Jesus pencil case -- proving, Weber be damned, that the Catholics can evoke that spirit of capitalism too.

So, while Bosnia will need decades to shed its dangerous reputation, its pockmarked alleys can teach you volumes. Just don't tell anyone -- it'll leave more for the rest of us.

Matt

No Harm, No Vowel: Crna Gora (10/5/2006)

Hi.

In May, I was sitting in a stuffy Montreal conference room doing "SEVIS" cheers with overenthusiastic study-abroad officers. My neighbor, of whose name I remember nothing save the "-ova", was constantly checking exit polls on her cell phone. Not ours, mind you, but her own: as we toiled, her compatriots were dropping their divorce papers in the ballot box.

Welcome to Montenegro (Crna Gora), who recently unhitched the yolk of Serbian doormatdom and became the world's newest nation. (Score: now I needn't visit East Timor!) How it's going survive its growing pains remains to be seen -- but let time sort out the details.Our day-trip destination, Kotor, is Montenegro's calling card now that the country has quit being "Serbia and". The city, a tiny town of 5,600 at the tail end of Kotor Fjord -- the largest in southern Europe, and one whose protection from the open Adriatic gives it a constant tranquility. Thank you, glaciers.If New Zealand evokes "Lord of the Rings" and old Montreal "Les Miserables," then Kotor is clearly "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins."**

Enter its medieval gates (epee and plume in tow, tibi volente), and wander its tiny streets -- it's too small to get lost in, and too pretty not to gawk at. It's what we travelers have always wanted from Central Europe; indeed, it's ironic that the continent's best Central European specimen is closer to Greece and Italy than Prague or Budapest.

Of course, no excursion would be whole without a 1500-step hike up to Kotor Fortress, a medieval bastion which hangs Great-Wallishly over the city. In addition to crafting your thighs a la Auckland, the fortress tests your "Choose your own adventure book" wits. If you choose wisely, you are rewarded with steep, unmarked, untended "staircases." If you choose unwisely, you are either stonewalled by ancient fortifications or are staring over hundred-foot cliffs. If you really choose unwisely, you are staring over hundred-foot cliffs while toe-tapping around world-record deposits of goat dung.

As Julie, Christie, and I (Omar Sharif) stood at the summit, the newly-independent Montenegrin flag whipped proudly above us. While this five-month-old baby is too young to poetically deem "a mighty fine country altogether," it is spunky and vivacious -- which, if you're going to be independent, is probably a good first step.

Take that, Serbia.
Matt

** PS: If you never read "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins," by Dr. Seuss, you were clearly literarily repressed as a child.

Dervishes and Dyevushkas (6/25/2006)

I was ready for hell in Tajikistan. The poorest Soviet republic, one that decended into bloody civil war almost the day after secession from Moscow, and one so hard to reach that globalization doesn't bother (take that, Friedman), I had mentally written this travelogue before I arrived. The intro to Les Mis - the greatest prologue in literary history, by the way - was my first paragraph, and I was ready to rant about how you can take a republic out of communism, but not vise-versa.

Pleasantly, Dushanbe surprised me. Not that I would recommend it for a holiday -- indeed, there is next to nothing to do downtown, each day is about 99 degrees with no breeze, and there is virtually no infrastructure to cater to tourists. But therein lies the charm. Glance beyond the hassles: the lack of customer service; the ain't-going-away Soviet bureaucracy; and the hot, stagnant air; and you get a purely "local" experience -- free of the fabrications of the great world capitals.

Tajikistan is the former USSR's oddball, a Persian race dwarfed by Turkic neighbors. It lacks Kazakhstan's oil, Kyrgyzstan's "don't worry be happy"ness, Uzbekistan's historical allure, and Turkmenistan's "North Korea of Central Asia" draw. Its borders are artifically concocted - one of Stalin's greatest hits - and to this day pit rival clans against each other. Gotta give Joe credit, though, he did a helluva job -- mines along the Tajik-Uzbek border increase daily.(Interesting addendum here: Joe also renamed the city "Stalinabad" in a typical fit of self-flattery. But when Khrushchev publicly proclaimed "Stalin: a bad", The Party re-christened the city "Dushanbe" ... which is simply the local word for "Monday". No one ever accused the Bolsheviks of being creative.)

The lack of globalization is due to a number of factors, most noticably the civil war that tore through the country immediately after the Fall. Most of the Russian colonists (and their "1917" chant) pulled out, leaving the communist infrastructure with a Persian facade. Perhaps the lack of material goods makes the city charming -- it is far cleaner than any other Soviet city I've visited, and it doesn't drown in the haze of industrial waste.

Tajikistan is resoundingly Muslim, though Soviet Islam differs distinctly from Sunni and Shi'a. While those schools bicker over Caliph authorities, Tajiks are too busy swigging vodka and simmering pork. I only saw two mosques in town, and the calls to prayer that echo throughout the rest of the Middle East are resoundingly absent. That said, most women are covered in shoulder-to-ankle, single-piece dresses, with the occasional few covering their head as well. When it's culture and not oppression, though, the decor lends an air of timelessness -- after all, if the Soviets couldn't enforce a dress code, perhaps no one will.

A last word on Dushanbe. Although the city is banal, strolling around can be quite pleasant. The number of trees is staggering -- most streets have two full rows on each side (which, when it's 98 and dry, how do the trees survive? Perhaps that's where the Aral Sea went...), and large parks stretch through downtown. The mountains aren't far away, and escapes into alpine air are quite refreshing after baking downtown. Of course, when you return to your hotel tired and hot, ready to shower the city away, you can't be surprised if the water or power aren't there to meet you. So it goes.

So no, Dushanbe is far from hell. But come unprepared, and you'll wind up with far more than another case of the Mondays.

Suprême ombre, suprême aurore (5/24/2006)

"Oh Canada, we stand on God for thee."
- Best mis-heard song lyric ever. Really.

Thumbing through my high-school yearbook, I noticed that several classmates claimed "Montreal '98" as an extracurricular activity. This is hardly a surprise: to many New England teenagers, Maisonneuve's city is the promised land -- a Jericho that they storm each April in search of "milk" (beer) and "honey" (figure it out). Five hours from Boston, and voila, let the Molson flow.My memories of Montreal differed. Not one for underaged barhopping, I always looked upon the city with disdain -- you waste your money getting hammered, I'll go to Europe, thank you very much. Plus, my two previous trips had been in the dead of winter. Yeah, fun. So when my office decided to send me to an educators' conference, I was admittedly skeptical. But it's free, so no complaining.

Les Quebecois slapped me back to reality. Fresh off its mid-nineties obsession with separatism, the city has revived itself as a commercial and cultural hub -- Canada's second-largest city and the soul of French Canada (Quebec City is the heart. Sorry.). The Rue Sainte-Catherine has morphed from a pre-Giuliani Times Square to a quasi-Magnificent Mile. The locals are friendly and bubbly, and it doesn't hurt when you needn't fight through -30 temperatures to talk to them. Especially about hockey. Just don't mention Les Canadiens bowing out to a sub-Mason Dixon Line team, or Les Nordiques moving to Colorado.

Montreal's ironies amused me, though. Their Metro plasters advertisements for "Where's Waldo?" books under the moniker "Ou est Charlie?", perhaps a backhanded, Vietnam-era slap. On my first night there, I turned on the TV only to stumble on "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut," which for the unindoctrinated, features a U.S. war on Canada (against whom, in real life, we are 0-2).

Quirks aside, most fascinating was the Quebecois identity -- French Canadian, damnit, and that's not quite French and not exactly Canadian (discuss.) The provincial flag - perhaps my favorite in the world - flies on masts even with the maple leaf (if the national flag shows up at all). The banner thrusts Quebecois roots right at you -- the cross (duh), a blue background (the Virgin Mary), and four white fleur-de-lis (which either harken back to the French kings or hint that all Quebecois are privy to the lost secrets of the Priory of Scion.)

The Quebecois joie de vivre also manifests itself in the few square blocks of old Montreal. Despite what tour books claim, you won't find Paris du Nord, but a centuries-old town that remained relatively untouched while a metropolis swelled around it. With no Louis Napoleon to build unbarricadable boulevards, perhaps the cobblestone streets harken are more indicative of Paris primeval than anything you'll find in the French capital herself. Hell, I wouldn't have been surprised if I found myself staring down Enjolras or Marius as I swung a wrong turn.

And so, Montreal, you're forgiven. You're far more than an enterprise that hoards cash from New England's juveniles, greater than a -30 hellhole where your citizens can't walk outside, and even better than other towns that have failed to keep their professional baseball teams.

Tres bien, mon ami. Tres bien.

The Canterbury Tales (1/5/2006)

Hi Everyone:

And just like that, it ended. Twenty-three days and 4500 kilometers after touching down in Auckland, and nearly three years after launching our initial plans, we head 17 timezones into the past with 2000 photos and enough stories to numb your collective crania. And here we stand, tired and exhilarated, accomplished and eager to plan second trips.

The slide back into the West begins with a few days in Christchurch, hub of the Canterbury region and perhaps the world's most British city outside the Isles. Punts glide along the Avon River, and fin-de-ciecle trams loop around the main streets. The town even has a resident wizard and town crier, the latter of whom ends his daily announcements by proclaiming "God Save the Queen". (And no, yesterday we resisted the irony and did not punt on the 4th.)

Although Christchurch has a strong Kiwi flair behind its English facade, it far from typifies New Zealand. The NZ is experience is one of sweeping wildnerness, one that defies logic to pack so much into two tiny islands. Simply put, NZ resets your standards - it doesn't just assault your senses, it razes them to the ground and sows salt on the remains. In a day, you can drive from golden, tranquil beaches to violent surf pounding limestone cliffs (as we did on 12/24), and in another drive from windswept, rolling, rocky hills, through pine forests, across flat plains and arrive at jade mountain lakes (last Tuesday). Add to that, the weather is so unpredictable that you may have a baking overcast day or see rain out of a pale blue sky.

But alas, it's over. Three years of anticipation, ten countries visited since to dub "Nice, but not New Zealand", and we are heading home utterly satisfied. If I thought my original standard was too lofty, the Kiwis saw it, said thanks, and blew it right out of the Tasman Sea.

Thanks to all of you who put up with my inane blabber about this mystical Garden of Eden that I hadn't even visited. And now that I have, brace yourself, since it's only going to get worse.

And thank you, New Zealand.

Do Not Pass Otago (1/2/2006)

Hi Everyone:

All wasn't quiet on New Year's Day. Or Eve, for that matter. In perhaps the sauciest of Commonwealth celebrations, Chuck and I rang out 2005 with the Commonwealth's most esteemed sporting pastime, one which would likely cause wars were its participants all not subjects of Her Esteemed Majesty.

Black Caps vs. Sri Lanka. You got it: cricket.

And we understood everything. Here we were, two Yanks (yes, we suck) that get cricket. Never thought I'd be able to say that.

The 7-hour affair, a shortie even for one-day standards (most test matches stretch over 2-3 days), was thoroughly engaging. Even as the sun scorched us, the Caps and Ceylonites bowled, batted, ran, stood idly, screamed to umpires, and took the requisite tea break. And there we sat, enraptured. Cherrio, blokes.

Queenstown is NZ's party depot, a tiny town that goes positively bonkers for any occasion (I presume even Guy Fawkes Day). Since NZ is the first country to greet the new year (meaning, technically, my 2006 will be longer than yours), the Kiwis have a particular affection for the holiday. And so, on the beaches of Lake Wakatipu, with fireworks so close that ash fell on our shoulders, we rang in 2K6 Kiwi-style, slept, and THEN watched all the subsequent celebrations in Europe, Australia, and North America. Been there, done that, old news.

Before Queenstown, we explored the southwestern South Island thoroughly, and area whose luscious greenery is protected by UN dollars (meaning, technically, you're paying for it.) We took a morning cruise in the pristine Milford Sound; peered into kettle lakes that reflected mountains towering above them; pausted to stare at long, white carpets sweeping down glacial valleys; chilled with sea lions in forgotten coves; witnessed parts of a manhunt for asylum-seekers; and chatted nights away with numerous Kiwis and other worldly folk.

So today, it's back to the Southern Alps, skirting the mountains until the plains of Canterbury and Christchurch, our last hurrah in NZ. As always, the road goes ever on and on.

Matt

Ice, Ice, Baby (12/24/2005)

Hi Everyone.

Eight p.m. and the sun still hangs, seemingly immobile, above the Tasman Sea, not wanting to leave lush New Zealand for another go-around at blank Australia. We still have enough sunlight to get in 6 or so innings of baseball, if the Kiwis did that type of thing. I'm sitting here in shorts and a t-shirt, occasionally re-touching the much-needed sunscreen. And yes, it's Christmas Eve.

We are spending tonight and tomorrow in Franz Josef, a town at the base of the gigantic glacier of the same name. "One-horse" might be a bit generous for this place -- it makes Middlebury, Vermont, look like Manhattan. Nonetheless, its proximity to two massive ice rivers, their descendant kettle lakes, and even the shore make it a tourist haven (ok, trap) that has left us with some holiday comraderie and stuff to do while the natives celebrate with their families. The throngs of foreigners make it sort of like Christmas at the UN. With mountains.

Before me are palm trees and behind me are snow-capped peaks. To get an idea of the backdrop, pop in the lighting of the beacons scene in "The Return of the King," which was shot atop the range hovering over this town. Sadly, the view from here isn't as magnificent (they were shot from a helicopter), but the peaks are the same. The film speaks for itself, though, in justifying the place's strikingness.

NZ's ecological and geological diversity enthralls me. Three days ago, we were tramping through Abel Tasman National Park, looking down at white-sand beaches and a tranquil - hell, pacific - ocean. A few Miles from there, we passed through wine country and a few of NZ's award-winning whites (eh...). Shortly after that, we cut through some lucious, and yes, misty mountains before landing on the whitecaps of the Tasman. Then, from seemingly nowhere arose the most bizarre shoreline we've ever seen -- the "pancake rocks" (Google that), whose layers, caves, and crevices make the incoming ocean dance every time it hits them. Today, we crossed rivers and lakes that were periwinkle blue, royal blue, and battleship gray. And no, none of the above is hyperbole.

If our luck holds, the next few days will take us through glaciers, plains, fiords, and mountains. All this tucked in one corner of a (comparatively) small island. Ah, New Zealand.

All right, folks. Merry Christmas to all. And because I can say it down here, happy Boxing Day as well.

Matt

All's Well that Ends in Wellington (12/18/2005)

Hi Folks:

The South Pacific shimmered as we descended beside it, meandering between the sea and the Tararua Range, the hills (OK, low mountains) that taper off slightly enough to allow a city to punctuate them. Wellington, our location until Thursday, is the world's southernmost capital city, and damn it if it isn't one of the quaintest and coziest too.

The last few days have been filled with a lot of driving and exploring -- to and from the subtropical Bay of Islands up north, to Rotorua and its thermal pools and (true and fabricated) Maori culture, through Tongariro National Park and the shooting locals for Emyn Muil and Mordor, via Palmerston North and the NZ Rugby Museum, all culminating in Windy Wellington. Whew. All the driving took place amid luscious green meadows (think Ireland) and small towns (think Vermont) -- the latter of which the locals deem "townships". (Note to self: don't talk about them at an All Blacks-Springboks game.)

On the way, we have run the gamit on Kiwidom - participated in (I mean that literally), a Maori "hangi;" dipped into natural thermal pools; seen geysers blow off their steam, schmoozed with quirky natives, emigres, and tourists; and visited sites of natural (volcanoes), political (Parliament), and cultural ("Lord of the Rings") importance. You wear them well, NZ.

If Boston is a city on a hill, DC a city with a Hill, Auckland a city of hills, then Wellington is a city surrounded by hills - a green belt hugging the town and keep its coziness from sprawling -- one can traverse the whole thing in about 20 minutes. The pedestrian zone that bisects the centre is a nice touch, remiscent of a mid-sized European ville. Whereas my last email likened Auckland to NZ's amulet, Wellingtonians might refer to it as a choke chain -- though such nomenclature might exaggerate a bit, the capital's only visible fault thus far divides tectonic plates. Not too shabby.

One last thing: if "King Kong" opened to fanfare in LA, then Wellington saw said fanfare and raised it to "1812 Overture" proportions. Ads are atop every lamppost, proudly spouting "King Kong: 14 December 2005. Wellington." So tonight, it's off to the Embassy Theater - where Kong made his Australasian premeire five days ago - to see him on the largest screen in the Southern Hemisphere.

Take that, Montevideo.

Auckland: A's (12/14/2005)

Hi All.

My uneducated inklings tell me that Auckland is the world's only major city to watch the sun rise and set over the same ocean. Sitting between two harbors like an amulet on New Zealand's neck, the archapelago's largest city is a hint of London, a dash of San Francisco, dabbled with tiny touches of Hamburg sans St. Pauli.

Its title, "The World's Largest Polynesian City," is misleading - perhaps concocted by desperate marketers (though I doubt it). By world standards it is neither large (only 1 million people), nor particularly Polynesian (major whitey mojo). The main drag is very similar to Washington Street in Boston, and the suburbs crawl out in rows where the bays let them. Then again, the Polynesians are far from the urban folk, and a million-plus city on any of their islands undoubtedly incites wowery. And as home to a quarter of NZ's population, it's hard to ignore or deny.

Undeniable, though, are its volcanic origins, as grassy peaks and craters jut throughout the town's complexion (picture a city with a major bout of green acne.) While wondering if -- or when -- a fault line will ever devour the city whole, one can't help but applaud the Kiwis' use of the Mantle vomit. Curbstones, walkways, and breakwaters are all black basalta, desendant from the magma that birthed the landscape. The volcanoes, though, bequeathed the Kiwis massive hills, and bequeathed Chuck and me massive thighs.

Perhaps Auckland's best title, though, is plastered at you when you cross through customs: "The Gateway to New Zealand." (This, incidentally, easily beats Indonesia's "Death to Drug Traffickers" welcome.) In this sense, the town served its purpose admirably, affording us a chance to sleep for the first time in 3 days, dabble in a bit of Kiwi English, and develop legs that could roundhouse kick the entire ANZAC army clear across Belgium.

But tomorrow, the trek begins.

Matt

Khan you dig it? (10/5/2005)

Hi Everyone.

Genghis Khan wouldn’t wax poetic about Ulaanbaatar. The last (business) stop on this trip has brought us to the Mongolian capital – a city nestled in the middle of the subsiberian plain, a steppe both into deep history and an uncertain future.

Contrary to belief or biology, Genghis lives. The Mongols idolize him, and like a Byzantine icon, his image watched over several of the offices we visited. As one of history’s few figures who could walk into a bar and indisputably proclaim himself THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD, he built the largest land empire ever, brought the Black Plague to Europe, and even overtook history’s greatest restraining order to the south. Recently, scientists ran genetic tests on men from Beijing to the Caspian – 16 million of whom revealed a Y-chromosome linking them to a common 13th century ancestor. THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD was clearly a seduction artist in his spare time.

The city itself … eh. Its location is virtually accidental – the 17th settlement of a nomadic population that just happened to be here when the communists smacked them around and told them to stay put. As a result, little is particularly historical. Soviet highrises surround downtown, a grid of wide lanes, 4x4s, and packed trolleybuses. From my hotel window I have a view of the rooftops, punctuated by factories that spew less than pleasant inhabitants of the periodic table into an azure sky. The omnipresent haze is particularly disturbing, given the otherwise stunning vistas onto the hills.

Mongolia is a nation of nomads, and any foray here wouldn’t be complete without a countryside jaunt – thus the aforementioned 4x4s aren’t for convenience or compensation. Of Mongolia’s claimed 49,250 kilometers of highway, 1724 of them are paved – the rest is rolling grassland, trampled by shepherds, horsemen, and herders and dotted by gers (“gerrrrrrrrthy”) – felt-covered tents that Mongolian nomads carry, pitch, and live in wherever they feel fit. Communism, capitalism, feudalism … time decelerates here more pronouncedly than anywhere I’ve seen.

Sandwiched between a fading and emerging superpower, Mongolia finds itself at a unique crossroads. Aligning with neither, the country has to crawl back from socialism without much outside help. While capitalists have flooded Moscow, St. Petersburg, Prague, and Warsaw, and Vilnius, Mongolia still remains without a McDonald’s or western hotel 15 years after demarxification. There are relatively few English billboards, but the UN did make sure to put one on the main square, reading “Sex with children is a punishable crime.” Thank God they cleared that up.

One more stop, one more blog. Be well.
Matt

Cup o' Java! (9/29/2005)

Hi Everyone:

Spiking above and below the equator like a heart monitor, Indonesia possesses more superlatives than you'd expect. Its 17,000 islands make up the world's largest archipelago, and its 241 million-strong population makes it the world's largest Muslim country. Some anthropologists maintain that half the planet's languages are confined to Papua, its Eastern fronteir. When the volcano Krakatau blew its top in 1883, 125 foot tsunamis pelted Java and Sumatra, and wave effects were said to have been felt in the English Channel: In fact, its eruption was so violent that the police chief of Rodriguez island reported "heavy guns from eastward" (Rodriguez is off Madagascar). For centuries, the West lusted after the "Spice Islands" -- their stock of cloves and nutmeg tickling tastebuds from Amsterdam to New Amsterdam.

Jakarta is the central nervous system of the former Dutch East Indies, a city of 10 million perched in the northwest of the island of Java. The city assaults the senses -- while not aesthetcially pleasing a la the grand European capitals or as overflowingly pulsating as old Manila, riding its streets is befuddling and captivating. The sheer volume of cars is mind-boggling, and the fact that none have striations along their sides even more so. With seemingly no traffic laws and the lane markers mere suggestions, one would conclude that Jakartan traffic would be gridlocked amid a cacophany of honking horns and the Indonesian equivalent of middle fingers.

But it works. Traffic is as dense as any US megalopolis, but it flows. In my four days of trekking around the city, from office to office on and off the Jakartan K Street, we have sat in traffic for several hours -- but the traffic is always moving. Drivers consistently weave in and out, ignoring the lanes and honoring the de facto right of way of the millions of motorbikes that cut in and out. But it works. And I'm at a loss to explain it.

The most apt description of Jakarta will fall easiest on the ears of the Sim City generation -- if you've ever played it (and have had the second best city of all time, next to my Paris), you can picture Jakarta. There is no true downtown -- skyscrapers and residential shanties practically interspliced, wide boulevards parallel to one-lane roads. My hotel, on the southern edge of downtown, sits behind a grassy knoll, across the street from a mega-mall, behind which is a street of pushcarts and shacks. Small shops and kiosks dot the most major and minor streets, each merchant setting up shop where he or she pleases -- the malls are plentiful and affluent, but there is hardly a 5th Avenue or Champs Elysees. (They even sell coats. The country is on the Equator -- who the hell buys a coat?) There is no true Embassy row, since all are spread out over town, each planting its flag wherever it can find land. Next door to our hotel there is a large building housing the embassies of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and ... Peru.

Jakarta, and even Java for that matter, hardly epitomize Indonesia. With about half of its population crammed onto an island the size of Great Britain, the land is literally bursting -- of course, though, this means that the rest of the islands are filled with wide open rice fields, untouched jungles, white-sand beaches, and cultures you only read about in obscure PhD theses. Lest you try to exploit it, though, the Indonesian Customs authority puts you in place with the first sign you see when you enter customs: "Welcome to Jakarta. Death Penalty for Drug Traffickers." Nice to meet you too.

Off to Mongolia tomorrow, where Saturday's forecast is for snow.

Ciao,
Matt

Enveloped by Manila (9/23/2005)

Hi Everyone:

If Kevin Smith needed an embodiment of the "Catholicism Wow!" campaign, he needn't look further than the Philippines. The place is positively bonkers with religion -- indeed, until the UN granted East Timor its sovereignty, the Philippines wore the badge of Asia's only Catholic country, and it hasn't relinquished the torch despite a new compatriot. Signs for Jesus, the saints, and the Virgin of Guadalupe are everywhere -- today on the side of the street I literally saw two huge paintings of Jesus, Mary, followed almost immediately by an advertisement for Desperate Housewives.

Another peculiarity -- and potential PR nightmare -- is Manila's "Campaign for true beauty," a billboard movement that displays people who are attractive but don't conform to Hollywood's traditional, emaciated beauty standards. A noble cause, yes, but the billboards keep active track of the "yes" or "no" votes that people send in as to whether the billboard's subject is attractive -- thus the subject can see when an overwhelming majority vote "no."

I'm in Manila until tomorrow, showing an agricultural advisor around town and introducing himself to Chemonics projects and their beneficiaries. I've learned far more than I thought I would about agriculture and microlending, despite the fact that he repeats a substantial portion of his schtick at every meeting. Today we took a trek to a town about 2 hours south of the city to visit a rural bank -- after an introduction with the president, we ventured out to a group of women who told us of their successes drawing on microloans to start businesses. They spoke excitedly about how the loans helped them expand their mini-enterprises, enabling them to put their kids through school -- ah yes, development. After the session, the group of middle-aged women asked the advisor questions like "What ideas do you plan to bring back to Afghanistan?" -- I fielded important technical inquiries such as "How old are you?" and "Are you married?"

Manila is a sprawling city, parts of which are remnant of LA, others of Havana. The old Spanish quarter, "Intramuros," was mostly obliterated during the war, but its remnants truly inspire a glass of sangria. The LA-ness is that everything is far from everything else, the only way to get from place to place is to sit on one of the choked highways or back streets.

Those comparisons aside, though, Manila is distinctly Asian -- the streets contain so much action that people are constantly spilling out into them, and you can basically take your pick of what kiosk, shop, or restaurant you'd like to venture into and spill out from. Add to that, each street is dotted with jeepneys, wildly painted ex-US army trucks that are now the Filipinos' most popular mode of public transport. In addition to serving a purpose, the ominpresent jeepneys breathe distinct color onto a dirty, packed street -- perhaps more than anything else, they personify a city beating with a vibrant heart and energy which is impossible to quantify, let alone contain.

That's all, folks. Hope you're well.

Matt

Back from the USSR (11/20/2004)

Another travelogue from yours truly.

Flying east over the Caspian, British travel essayist Colin Thubron wrote something vaguely resembling: "If the world is disorganized and chaotic, it's only fitting that its center, its heart, would be a disorganized chaos." Amen, brutha.

Central Asia is a mix of mixes -- jigsaw boundaries arbitrarily drawn by Party leaders, national languages either ruthlessly enforced or methodically ignored, governments that have moved on from the Soviet system in name only (under the "democracy is spreading like a sunrise" list), and roads that make Russia's highways look and feel like smooth (Christie, Julie, and Tiff: I know you're recoiling right now.)

A disclaimer. Despite my colleague Mike's wishes, I wasn't exactly trekking through the backcountry and staying with horse farmers in yurts. I was in Almaty, Kazakhstan and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to oversee two conferences for work, so my knowledge of both cities consists of car trips (mostly at night), group excursions to restaurants, or small breaks when I wandered a few blocks outside our five-star Western hotels and took a glimpse of each city. That said, here are a few observations.

- Flying to a 'Stan makes you re-evaluate life several times over. I'm not talking about the whole "rich nation/poor nation" dilemma. Oh no, sitting on planes and lounges for 24 hours makes you seriously re-evaluate life. If you can survive this, you might just be ready for central Asia.

- Which brings me, of course, to Kazakh customs. Oh doctor. Just when you think "I'm on government business, what can go wrong," you get stopped by border guards wondering why you're carrying 150 burned CDs (with conference materials - but try explaning this) into their country. They said I couldn't bring in more than 10, I said fine, take them, to which they said "No, we're going to make you pay a customs tariff - how much money do you have on you?". At this point, I am worried. I'm carrying over $6K in cash for various conference expenses and make a mental note that it's interesting that customs tariffs are determined by how much cash you're carrying. Luckily, it was all resolved when my chauffeur came in and explained that I'm neither a UN spy nor a CD smuggler (that'd be funny: "yes, I flew 24 hours to sell ripped CDs for $1 each on your black market. Muhahahahaha.") All told, I arrived at the hotel with materials and finances intact. Whew.

- Almaty and Bishkek have two of the most picturesque locations in the world. Both are located at the base of the Tien Shan Mountains (or maybe the Altau mountains. I haven't quite figured it out, since maps tend to claim them as both), mighty alpine peaks which literally hover straight over the cities. That said, leave it to the Soviets to take what could be their Aspen and Vail and turn them into industrial wastelands -- in Almaty, the haze is so thick, that the mountains are either barely or not at all visible by noon. In Bishkek, it's not as bad - maybe because the city is smaller, or maybe because I hit it on a better day.

- That said, once you leave the cities, the view becomes absoultely stunning. The best way to describe it is the Rohan landscape in "Lord of the Rings" - brownish, grassy plains in front of snowy mountains. Barring the occasional smokestack spewing sulfurous venom into the air, the two locations literally look exactly the same. Fitting, then, that the Kazahs (Cossacks) are Asia's horse lords.

- Admittedly, I'd been dreading the drive from Almaty to Bishkek for months - 250 KM on Soviet highways. Save me. Then again, many of these 250 KM were "na remontye" (under repair), so we were forced into some serious offroading. If shocks and suspensions could sue, they'd have quite a market. What's worse, the roads in Kyrgyzstan are in even tougher shape, as dirt roads even make up parts of the highways.

- The conferences themselves went well. They were set up to bring commercial arbitrators from various sectors (supreme courts, private law offices, public sector, academia) to discuss the embetterment of commercial arbitration within their respective countries. Now these people are PASSIONATE about arbitration, very much in the same way Wisconsin is to the Packers. We went out to dinner (mmm...horse meat) the first night, and nearly all of the toasts were "Za arbitrazh!" ("Here's to arbitration!"). It's really a moving experience to see so many people PASSIONATE about arbitration. Because if you're not PASSIONATE about arbitration, frankly, there's nothing to be PASSIONATE about.

- This week's sign of the apocalypse: My cell phone works in Kyrgyzstan.

Where flying over was painfully long, flying back was equally as weird. In about 14 hours, I had crossed the Aral, the Caspian, the Black Sea, and the English Channel twice. I had US Dollars, Euro, Kazakh Tenge, and Kyrgyz Som in my wallet, and my first purchase was in Pound Sterling. Moreover, I am now fully convinced that turbulence in the air reflects the current state of geopolitics. Our flight from Bishkek to Baku was relatively calm - Turkmenistan, Soviet as it remains, admittedly doesn't get in anyone's face. After stopping in Baku and heading eastward over the Caucasus, the ride was continuously bumpy until the Black Sea. It only got bumpy again over the Balkans. Coincidence? Finally, we arrived at Heathrow, and I was kind of disappointed not to see love all around.

All said, I really can't compare the two countries and experiences first because I haven't seen enough of either, but also because it's easy to sit in an ivory tower (read: Regent or Hyatt) that doesn't belong in a city because it's too bloody glitzy. That said, I liked Kyrgyzstan a little better, first because it is less commercial and more Soviet (not having oil or, well, infrastructure, will do that to you), but also because it seems less westernized and a bit more genuine. It's a third-world country that (except in the Hyatt) doesn't pretend to be otherwise. Bishkek's outskirts are your stereotypical shanty villages: tin roofs atop butting dwellings, dirt roads with the occasional pedestrian, all surrounded by vast plains and impassible mountains. Throw it back 500 years, it's an ideal video game setting.

And now I sit in snow-laden Passau, Germany, where all this began and where everything and nothing has changed. My host parents are divorced and my host sisters have all grown up (this is mega- weird, mind you). But Passau's serenity will never change - and perhaps that's what keeps drawing me back here.One last anecdote: I'm sitting in an Italian restaurant in Bishkek with my group the night before we all diasporate. I'm not really saying anything when a Kyrgyz woman, a judge, turns to me and says "Vy govoritye po-russki?" ("You speak Russian?") "Nemnoshka" (a bit), I reply. She then says "Oh, well I speak English -- where are you from?" We get to talking and she mentions having done an LLM program at Harvard, blah blah. Then she says, "I was asked recently if I liked some Boston sports team -- do you know anything about that?" And then it dawned on me: 10 timezones away, beneath the mighty Tien Shan, in one of the world's poorest and most corrupt countries, the Red Sox are still champions.

Who Put the "Rain" in "Ukraine"? (4/4/2004)

Complete the following sentence: The rain in Ukraine falls gently on the...

Yeah, that one got me, too. In the afternoon of my last day (of three) in Kiev, it is raining. So I'm sitting among my "colleagues" in Chemonics' field office, typing away at a free computer and reading newspapers online. Gotta love business trips.

Pounding Kiev's pavement for parts of the last three days has made me realize a few things, though, which I thought I'd share with anyone who will listen.

1) I've tried to figure out the Kiev-Moscow dynamic, if there is one at all. It would be cliched (and stupid, and wrong) to say that Kiev is Moscow's little sister. It isn't -- it's considerably older, since Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine all stem from it. It's the birthplace of Russian and Ukrainian Orthodoxy .. For that matter, it is the origin of anything Russian. But on that note, it isn't Russia at all. Or maybe Russia just isn't Ukraine. Are you confused yet? So am I.

2) The national sport of Ukraine must be making out in public.

3) My Russian abilities have obviously slipped since my time in St. Petersburg, but it's difficult to measure how much here -- Ukrainian and Russian are different (though related) and I haven't yet been able to figure out whether people answer me in Ukrainian, Russian, Russian with a Ukranian accent, or all of the above.

4) I had expected to see Kiev more speckled with churches than Moscow (mmm...onion domes...), but it most definitely isn't. The ones they do have, though, are quite impressive: paintings that date back to the 11th century, all that jazz. The most famous is the Caves Monestary, on the south side of the city overlooking the Dneiper river. Beneath several of the churches on the hill, saints' relics are buried in underground labrynths -- you have to (or should) take a candle down to view them. Adding to the atmosphere are the Orthodox monks, walking around with their black cassocks, headdresses, and huge beards.

5) Soviet memorials rock. They really do. There are two massive ones in Kiev (that I know of), both of which overlook the river -- I have a feeling they were put there both to command maximum viewing space and to dwarf the golden-domed caves monestary, which rests between them. The first, and larger, is the "Rodina Mat'", the motherland, as close to a transplanted Pillar of Atlas as you're going to find this side of the Alps. It is an enormous statue of "Mother Russia" (probably Mother Russia, since the Soviets built it and didn't exactly recognize Mother Ukraine" -- but it could be Mother Ukraine, you never know.) raising a sword and shield in remembrance of the World War II victory. At its base are several gargantuan friezes of The Workers heading to war.

The other memorial is one of two brothers (Ukraine and Russia -- odd, since they are usually depicted as Mother Ukraine and Mother Russia), arm in arm, striding toward the advancement of socialist society under the banner "friendship of peoples." The statue itself isn't as massive as the other, but it is encircled by a huge arch -- signifying, at least for the western observer, that the days it depicts are somewhere over the rainbow.

That said, I like Soviet memorials' bluntness: this is who we're honoring, damnit, and we're going to shove it down your throat. They don't drown themselves in useless symbolism, and (thankfully) avoid wild interpretations. Artsy they are not, but at least the honorees would know they're being honored.

I guess my Ukraine e-mail is running longer than my Russia one, so I'll cut it here. Thanks for listening.

Matt

The Breaking of the Fellowship (5/12/2002)

"The world has changed... I feel it in the water... I feel it in the earth... I smell it in the air..."

Hi Everyone,

Behold Mother Russia. The world's largest land mass and history's greatest identity crisis. What is she? Peter the Great wanted a European -- he built his own Venice and lived in a Northern Versailles. Catherine the Great imported French Enlightenment and all but pushed out her national tongue. Is Russia European? Hard to fathom if 80% is in Asia. Asiatic, then? Again, hard to swallow if 97% of its coffers are in Europe. Is it modern? Argue what you will -- it touts a functioning nuclear arsenal but counts most provincial cash purchases on abaci. It is a world power that can't pave its roads. Average women earn 150% of men's salaries, and the feminists scream bloody murder to get them back into the house. Russia is indeed simultaneously Joe Gillis and Norma Desmond -- young, ambitious, and ready for anything the world is going to throw at it, but simultaneously a dying, forgotten relic of yesteryear. (heh heh -- "I am big! It's the free market economy that got small!").

And yes, Russia is big. Our Pskov trip put somewhat into perspective the true Russia -- not the aristocratic St. Petersburg or the arrogant, sprawling Moscow. The detachment of many Russians to their capitals is astounding, and one glance at the countryside confirms this. Russia is its immense landscapes -- rolling valleys, endless steppes, pristine rivers and sweeping, misty mountains. Terrorized by Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin, the countryside nevertheless possesses an inexplicable timelessness: It carries on as it always has, seemingly unaware and apathetic to Moscow's concentrated ring of power. In a related story, a Siberian village was "found" in 1991 that had never heard of Lenin, the Revolution, or even electricity.

"Russia is a mystery inside a riddle inside an enigma," commented Winston Churchill. The chap couldn't have been more accurate. Almost each city's main street remains adorned with a statue of Comrade Lenin. Though Westerners equate him with Mephistopheles, Russia's jury is still out. Some call him a light shining in darkness that the world failed to see, while others mull over why of all vodka joints in all the world did he have to wander into this one. Did he fail them? Did he know his "historically inevitable" proletariat rise never could have worked? Or did the workers fail him and did their pure laziness prevent the development of his land of socialist Mitch Buchannons? Although dwindling, the opinion "we failed because we didn't do what Lenin said" remains with old-time hardliners. On that note, though, Russian sociologists claim that America is also slowly heading toward Leninism -- not by revolution (as Russia tried) but by evolution. Think about it, "The history of society is one of class struggles..." Not that I agree, but it'sfood for thought.

Despite the shadow of its past, though, Russia is slowly inching toward western standards. Still, they're going to carry that weight a long time: Economists estimate that it would take Russia 15 years to reach Portugal's current standards, the EU's lowest. Nonetheless, it is crawling back. And you have to admire entrepreneurs who market beer that tastes like Mountain Dew.
As for me, preparing for departure hasn't been as easy as I thought it would. From experience I know that an exchange is never about the setting, but the people. And wish as one might, it's never all going to be the way it was. Let's face it: my group hails from all across the country, and there is no way that all 17 of us are going to be in the same city, much less the same room, again.
Call me a cynic, but it doesn't happen. Of course we'll keep contact with the ones we're closest to, but we'll always associate them with St. Petersburg. But the chances that more than two of us would be here at once are very low.

In other words, not fun. And the goodbyes aren't easy. So though I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at home, eating American food and driving on streets that don't give you a hernia, "parting is such sweet sorrow," and this ending is very, very bittersweet.

As for what I've learned, I don't know. Sure, there's all the book-stuff: Yes, my Russian has improved, though is far from fluent. Yes, I picked up a whole lot of cultural and historical tidbits that you don't get growing up in the West. I learned that communism is far from the root of all evil and that even in democracies can dictators come to power, particularly in times of economic or political chaos (case in point, until the Reichstag fire Hitler's rise to power was completely legal.)

But hey, it's over now. Thanks to everyone for all the help throughout the semester. I'll be back home in Boston tomorrow night around 8 p.m., barring delays. I look forward to seeing most of you again and shooting the breeze.

Poka!
Matt

"Grab your ticket and your suitcase,
Thunder's rollin' down this track.
You don't know where you're going now,
But you know you won't be back.
Darling if you're weary,
Lay your head upon my chest.
We'll take what we can carry
And we'll leave the rest.
Now big wheels roll through fields where sunlight streams,
Meet me in the land of hope and dreams..."
- Bruce "The New Jersey Pushkin" Springsteen

Khristos Voskres! (5/5/2002)

Hi All,

Orthodox Easter has arrived, and you know what that means. Another chance for my dear host mother (bless her soul) to stuff more food down my already overflowing esophagus. ("We've had one, yes." What about second breakfast? Elevensies? Dinner? Supper? Afternoon tea?") All is in good fun, though. Her cooking is impeccable. This morning we ate dyed eggs and a special Easter torte.Last night we headed off to church just before midnight for the beginning of Easter services, which basically involved a procession around the church, singing songs I didn't understand (disclaimer: They were in Church Slavonic, not modern Russian) and prayers featuring "Khristos Voskres!" (Christ is risen!). What my host mother had mysteriously omitted telling me was that the church she attends is IN THE MIDDLE OF A CEMETARY. Now, in principle I wouldn't have an issue with this. However, when you have to WALK there at MIDNIGHT on a night when people celebrate RESURRECTION ... not the most, shall we say, tranquilizing feeling. Added to that, the graveyard itself is pre-Soviet (meaning it wasn't kept up for 75 years) and much of the unlit road is overgrown with trees. This means that all you see are silouettes of crosses. Comforting. Yeah.

Speaking of deities, on Thursday our group returned from its last excursion, a three-day jaunt to Pskov, home of late poet Aleksander Sergeevich Pushkin (all bow.) The cult of Pushkin is far more serious and carried away than, say, the British love of Shakespeare, Austrians and their Mozart, or New Jerseyans and Springsteen. Pushkin could do no wrong. He was Russia. This was exemplified in our first few tours, which took us to estates of the poet's grandparents. Picture this: upper-middle-aged tour guide relating to bunch of students tales of pictures and landscapes that Pushkin's grandparents MAY HAVE SEEN AT SOME POINT IN THEIR LIVES. We saw three PINE TREES that REPLACED the ones Pushkin wrote a poem about. (The originals were leveled during Nazi occupation. Think the Siege of Leningrad was bad? What about the 28 million Russians that died in the war? No ... they KNOCKED DOWN PUSHKIN'S TREES!) We walked along paths that Pushkin once tread ("Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.") Well, fine, the Guide didn't go that far. But as for Pushkin's divine status in many Russian eyes, I'm not exaggerating. Pushkin builds stadiums. He lowers taxes. He challenges large oil companies. He is against weapons of mass destrucion. He loves you. You love him. He is Russia. Russia is he.

After Pushkin's lands, we headed off to Pskov and to a monestary whose name currently evades me. It was the only monestary in the former USSR which was not at some point shut down. (Stalin had a few debts to pay with the Orthodox Church for its efforts to revive patriotism during the war, so he never closed it. Personally, I don't see how someone who murders 100 million people can have debts with anyone, so I have a theory as to why he kept it open: PUSHKIN VISITED IT.) Although we couldn't enter any of the Churches (it was Holy Thursday and a lot of pilgrims were there. They get first dibs.), it was very interesting to see nonetheless. All the ladies in our group had to cover their heads and wear ankle-length skirts. It's an old Orthodoz tradition to do so, and plus, Pushkin probably would have wanted it that way.
Hope all is well in the land where the Red Sox hold a 3.5 game lead over the hated Pinstripers.

And should you, for some reason, need additonal reasons to root against them, remember this: The Yankees don't read Pushkin.

Matt

T-Shirts? In RUSSIA? (4/28/2002)

Hi Everyone,

The ironies never cease to amaze me. Several days after I had rejoiced over spring's arrival with my "Springtime for Putin and Petersburg" email, the heavens decided to dump about six inches of fresh powder on the city. Luckily, though, it cleared up within the following couple days, and we were more than glad to get back to our springtime doings.

As blue skies and vegetation become more pervasive, St. Petersburg has blossomed from damp, bleak and dormant to warm, colorful and lively. Slowly the gardens which are closed for the long winters are opening up. The city seems to have more Greek statues than Athens. It is as light at 9 p.m. as at 10 a.m., and we gain daylight by several minutes each day. We have even persuaded teachers to hold several classes outside. Life, as they say, is beautiful. In a related story, we leave in less than two weeks.Our group has one excursion left, a three-day trip to the Pskov region this Tuesday-Thursday. The itinerary doesn't look particularly diverse, though: church, monestary, church, monestary, wander around economically desperate city, church, monestary, PUSHKIN'S ESTATE (poet Aleksander Pushkin is as revered in Russia, as Shakespeare in Stradford-upon-Avon or Mozart in Salzburg, and no I am not exaggerating), church, monestary, and talking about Ted Lilly's -- oops, Derek Lowe's no-hitter.

Our last two Petersburg excursions took us to Peterhoff (ever seen fountains? No you haven't) and Tsarskoye Selo, two of the several royal palaces that circle the city. Despite the fact that their respective massive gardens and fountains were still hibernating, the palaces themselves are breathtaking. If anything, however, they prove how far removed the tsars were from reality -- people through the ELEVEN time-zones under their autonomy were starving while they huddled up in rooms made of malachite, amber, marble, or whatever. Not to sympathize with the bloodthirsty Bolsheviks, but even the Romanov aire makes one realize why there was a Revolution. (The results of which, as we saw, were rulers who hid themselves from reality while people in TWELVE time-zones under their control starved.)

On that note, three comrades (heh heh) and I last week journeyed overnight to Moscow for one last look around the sprawling stolitsa (capital). Since he was closed for inventory (?!?!?!) last time, we got our glimpse inside communism's holy sepulchre, Lenin's Red Square mausoleum. As if the aura of simply STANDING in Red Square isn't indescribable enough, the notion of walking through a dimly-lit tomb while staring in silence at a pickled dictator is beyond eerieness. No cameras or backpacks are allowed in (do they have anywhere to keep them? Of course not. Why? This is RUSSIA!). You may not stop. You may not talk. You may not chuckle. Yes, I am serious. After exiting the tomb, where you spend about 90 seconds, you file behind it to see the headstone/busts of Big Shot Commies (Stalin, Brezhnev, Andropov, Kalinin, Chernenko, Steinbrenner, and some others I can't remember). Though these graves would be intimidating on their own, they are rather anti-climactic after a run-in with pickled Lenin. And take it as you will, fresh flowers lay on Josef Stalin's tomb.

The next two weeks promise to be hectic -- seeing those last few sites, eating at those last few cafes, finishing papers and studying for finals. Then comes May 9 (Victory Day comes a day late here -- the Russians had to have their own WWII treaty), and we fly out on the 11th. I'll try to send off a final wrapup before then.

Hope all is well in your corner of the world. Keep me updated.

Matt

Zhivyot Bogemskaya Zhizn! (3/30/2002)

I know I haven't written in a while, and a lot has happened in that interim, so here goes:

At long last, the weather in St. Petersburg has improved. We have seen the sun for about TEN (count 'em, TEN) days now in a row, and I have a feeling this is some sort of record. I have now switched to wearing my light, slightly-stronger-than-a-windbreaker jacket, which is more a psychological victory than a physical one. Temperatures are only somewhat low in the morning and only become remotely annoying when Baltic winds decide to whip in off the somewhat ice-caked sea. These, however, don't come by all that often anymore and are very brief when they do. Thank God for that. Any more winter would have been unbearable.

During the last two weeks, I have visited my beloved Mariinsky Theater four times, thrice for operas and once for ballet. Though hardly an opera buff, I was adequately satisfied with all three. The first, "La Boheme" is Puccini's tale of struggling artists living the Bohemian life in 1930s ParEE. Yes, it was Jonathan Larson's source for "Rent", the pulsating musical that geared for us X-ers. It isn't just his inspiration, though: "La Boheme" IS "Rent." The characters' names correspond directly to their modern counterparts (Marcel - Mark, Rudolf - Roger, Musetta - Maureen, and so forth). Despite the Italian libretto and my three word Italiano vocabulary, I was able to follow the plot seamlessly (One wonders why, though, Puccini had a Parisian opera set in Italian...). The second opera, Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro," was also stunning, but by the fourth hour one becomes bleary-eyed and deaf to old Wolfgang's score. Ah well. The $2 I shelled out for the ticket was worth it.

After learning that Richard Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman" was only 2.5 hours (rather than the regular Wagner, which I hear is something like 9), I decided to give good ol' German opera a try last night. Disappointingly, I was unable to understand much of the text (I attribute this to the singers' Russian accents as well as the fact that any tongue sung in opera-style is virtually indecipherable).

Speaking of German, a Deutsche named Sylvia has been living with my American friends in the dormitory for the past two weeks. She's from, of all places, Rostock (where I worked for a month in summer 2000), and has given me a good opportunity to practice my Teutonic language skills, even when I know I should be completely Russifying myself. A group of us went out the other night with a couple sailors that we met on the way to Murmansk in February, and trying to hold simultaneous conversations in Russian, English, and German can definitely make your cerebrum shiver. Ah well, that, of course, is the fun of it.

Teaching English for two hours once a week (Thursdays) has also provided a lot of challenge and entertainment. Trying to explain puns (such as "You can't elope!") as well as filling their crania with useless, random knowledge about the English-speaking world has been quite amusing. For exmaple, last week I told them about the error in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution ("We the people of the United States, in order to form a MORE PERFECT union..." The word "perfect" means "can't get better", and therefore nothing can be "more perfect" than anything else, meaning "more perfect" makes no sense and is therefore wrong.) Anyway, I asked them how they could correct while conveying the same idea. One student came up with "a perfect union". I responded that perhaps that could be acceptable, but that the signers of the Constitution were probably not that stupid and realized that there is no such thing as a perfect, harmonious union. (This made me hesitate, though, when I realized I was telling people born in the USSR that there is no such thing as a "perfect union.") They didn't seem to mind, though. Another point of amusement was when I brought up the saying "The customer is always right." For those of you who have been to Russia, where customer service is about as developed as human colonization of Saturn, you can relate to the blank stares I recieved.

Our civilization class has now dived into the topic of women in Russia, which has been simultaneously disturbing and enlightening. For example, American feminism (as I understand it) aims to integrate women as deeply as possible into the workforce. Russian feminism, on the other hand, maintains that women should get out of the workforce and raise the families. If nothing else, it's an interesting contrast. The more disturbing statistics were about abortion. In Soviet times, for every baby that a woman bore, she averaged betwen FIVE to SIX abortions.
Let's let this sink in: FIVE to SIX abortions. The tiny communist Ring of Power outlawed birth control (one should build the population to spread socialism to the unbelievers!) but allowed abortion. (Of course this makes no sense, but they also outlawed "The Lord of the Rings" whilst allowing "The Hobbit".") All abortions, of course, were carried out with neither anasthesia nor antibiotics, which sent the mortality rate skyrocketing. About 25 percent of women who had abortions died from them. After the procedure, women were allowed two hours to say in the room where it was performed, before having to vacate the premesis.

Five to six abortions per child. Wow. On the topic of population, Mother Russia's numbers continue to slide. The population is comprised of 47% men and 53% women, a larger difference than during WWII and the Stalinist purges. A common wisecrack over here says "All is well on the Finnish-Chinese border..." Hey, who knows?

Ah well, there are a lot of other things to write, but I think I'll leave them for now. This email is as lengthy as need be.

I hope you all are well. Let me know how things are in your respected corners of the planet.

So long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye.

Matt

A Tale of Three Cities (3/11/2002)

Hi Everyone,

Most of you haven't heard from me in a while because I've been running around both St. Petersburg as well as a couple other places. Here's a wrap-up.

As you can guess by the fact that I am writing to you now, the Siberia trip didn't come through. In short, we had originally planned a trip that would revolve around stays in Irkutsk (a Slavic settlement, very important in forging Siberian unity) and Ulan-Ude (in comparison to Irkutsk, a Mongolian city which the Lonely Planet Guide Book describes as "downright weird". Instead, our plans were changed from city life to country life at almost the last minute. The new plan involved a five-day stay on Baikal's largest island (Olkhon), which has no telephones or any other connections with the outside world. Added to that the need to drive across ice to get there, and it's not exactly my cup of tea. Yes, it would have been very interesting, the experience of a lifetime, yaddy yadda, but alas, I'm not the spirited traveller of my youth (Hey, at 21, I can call 17 "my youth.") But anyway, here's what has gone on...From February 28th till March 3 I was with the world's most beauiful lady (Christine) in the world's most beautiful city (Prague). Needless to say, it was gorgeous, a lot of fun, and over too quickly. The Gothic, untouched by war atmosphere gives it a virtually fairy-tale-like aire. This, added to open borders, means the one downside that St. Pete lacks: more tourists than the average healthy human should see in a lifetime. (Yes, I KNOW I was a tourist, so I really shouldn't complain. But still...) In short, make it to Prague. Have some beer and gulasch at U Fleku and even check out their Dunkin' Donuts -- it's the only one I know of overseas and is definitely worth a stop.

Following Spire Town, I returned to St. Pete for the most uplifting of all things known to man: midterms. Three in three days, all the while packing for Moscow and trying to reach a harrowing decision about Irkutsk. Nonetheless, I got through them, though won't find out how I did till the first few days following vacation.

Wedensday night our CIEE Fellowship, if you will, gathered at Moscow train station for a midnight ride to the capital. Despite Prague's pulchritude and St. Pete's still-trying-to-recover-ness, nothing prepares one for the Muscovite aura. An unofficial statistic (unofficial because I heard it from a friend and not any sort of record book) claims that a whopping 95% of Russia's finances are in Moscow -- a grandiose statistic that explains why the capital bestrides like a colossus over the rest of the world's biggest land.

Moscow is both threatening and endearing, unfriendly and cozy, daunting and fascinating. Several friends and I returned to Red Square more than once after our official tour had ended -- simply standing there inspires one a feeling incomprable with one from any other geographical location. To let it sink in that you are gazing at what your parents and grandparents knew as the epicenter of human evil is mind-boggling.

At the center of the square is, of course, Lenin's tomb, which as luck would have it, was closed for an "inventory check" and is scheduled to reopen on April 16. Allow me to rant for a second -- how does one undertake an INVENTORY CHECK of a TOMB? Now, I know it is FAR bigger than, say, the average mausoleum (is there even such thing?), but HOW can one have an INVENTORY CHECK that one cannot undertake in, say, an hour?!? Never having been there, I believe I can do an inventory check from the confines of St. Pete:

Dead Lenins: 1

Anyhow... enough ranting. A couple friends and I plan on going back at some point (when might be a problem, though), because the one thing one doesn't want to miss in Russia is Pickled Uncle Vladi. On that note, one would not believe the cult of personality that has (or had) sprung up around our bearded, bald friend. For example, in Moscow train station, the major back wall is graced with the following inscription: "On March 11, 1918, in this train station, in company of the SOVIET GOVERNMENT, from Petrograd to MOSCOW, arrived VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN." On most of the old buildings in Moscow and St. Petersburg there is some sort of plaque commemorating "Lenin lived here." "Lenin overnighted here." "Lenin stopped and asked for directions here" or something similar.

Anyway, I'll let you know how things are coming. Keep me updated about happenings back home.

Matt
"Tri - elfiiskim vkadykam v podzbednyi predyel;
Sem - dlya gnomov, tsaryashchikh v podgornom prosmore;
Devyat - smertnym, chey vyveren srok i udel,
I odno - blastelinu na chyornom prestolye
V Mordore, gdye vekobehnaya tma:
Chtoby vsekh otyckat, voedino sozvat
I edinoyu chyornoyu volyey skovat
V Mordore, gdye vekobehnaya tma"

"The Empire of Evil" (2/26/2002)

Hi Everyone,

Well, the Olympics have closed but it appears that the Russian complaining about them will last till doom cracks. Today's "Izvestia", a national newspaper, leads with the headline "Oh sport, you are war!" and continues to accuse the Americans of rigging everything for themselves and friendly nations. For example, it makes the blatant accusation that the U.S. set up Sara Hughes' victory in the women's figure skating (disregarding the fact that the Italian judge had ranked the Russian Svetlana Slutskaya fourth, but whatever...) as well as spearheading the movement to issue two pairs figure skating golds rather than the one. Ah well, let 'em complain, I guess.

As for the US-Russia hockey game, a few other crazy students and I stayed up to watch it live on Russian TV (it started at 2 a.m.). I had feared that being an American in an all-Russian environment would be akin to watching a Red Sox game in the South Bronx, but surprisingly, the locals were actually quite pleasant and hurled no moronic insults at the opposition (such as my favorite Yankee Stadium "insult": "Go back to Haaaaahvahd!"

Anyway, I'm getting cut off here. The Internet at the cafe is acting weirdly.

Gotta go.
Matt

"Tri - elfiiskim vkadykam v podzbednyi predyel;
Sem - dlya gnomov, tsaryashchikh v podgornom prosmore;
Devyat - smertnym, chey vyveren srok i udel,
I odno - blastelinu na chyornom prestolyeV Mordore, gdye vekobehnaya tma:
Chtoby vsekh otyckat, voedino sozvat
I edinoyu chyornoyu volyey skovat
V Mordore, gdye vekobehnaya tma"

The Polar Express (2/18/2002)

Hi Everyone,

Well, several hours ago I pulled into St. Petersburg on the second 28-hour train trip in less than three days. Four friends and I decided, arguably out of temporary insanity, to take a weekend trip to Murmansk. Yes, THAT Murmansk: where the doomed submarine Kursk was launched, where "The Hunt for Red October" partially took place, and which was closed to all non-military personnel during the Soviet days (with good reason: it houses Russia's nuclear northern fleet).Our trip began Friday afternoon. After several hours of chatting and occasionally snacking on the entourage of food that we brought, we entered into conversations with a slew of members of the Russian navy: some cadets headed for Arctic traning, others nuclear scientists. Most had never met an American before and were extremely pumped up about meeting people from "over there." Luckily, we will get to meet up with several again in St. Petersburg after a month or so when they return from their time on the nuclear icebreakers.

In any case, we arrived in Murmansk at around 6:30 p.m. after 28 hours on the train and nearly 1000 miles behind us. (The song that greeted us at the edge of the world was, of course, "Crazy" by Madame Britney Spears. Great. Once you think you go far enough to escape pop trash, it blindsides you.) The temperature was, surprisingly and thankfully, not all that cold: the air, however, was considerably cleaner than in St. Pete. It snowed lightly for perhaps six of the twelve hours we spent there - though the whole city was blanketed in a gorgeous layer of white powder, too much like dust to even stick together for snowballs. We ate, visited the few outdoor, foot-accessible tourist attractions, as well as a few cafes as the night wore on. The city (400,000 people, the largest city in the world north of the Arctic Circle) was surprisingly quaint and well-kept for something out of the main tourist circuit. If nothing else, at least I can say I have been above the Arctic Circle and that the Indian and Southern Oceans are the only ones I have yet to see.

As great as the city was, our small fellowship crashed from tiredness as soon as we boarded our sleeper car at around 6:30 a.m. Twenty-nine hours later, we arrived back in our good ol' gray haven, St. Petersburg. No, I didn't see the US-Russia 2-2 tie hockey game, but did watch part of our thrashing of Finland from our restaurant in Murmansk (fittingly named "The Bear.") Hopefully that's a sign of good things to come.

I hope that things are going well in the States, Germany, Australia, or wherever you happen to be.

Poka,
Matt

Uncle Banya (2/7/2002)

Privyet Rebyata,

Greetings from the Great Empire of Slavdom. Things here have warmed up, meaning, of course, that the weather is far worse than it had been when temperatures were around -5 (pre-wind chill of course). Now that inches of snow and ice are melting, coupled with the horendous public sanitation system, the streets are filled with contaminated water and loads of muck and mire. Joy. This should last through this weekend, when all should freeze again and the whole process commences again.

Other than the weather, though, things are very well. School is simultaneously stimulating and frustrating; I feel like the average household pet, i.e. understand a good deal but can say nothing. Ah well. Language comes.

Novgorod, where my group spent this past weekend, was a lot of fun. It's a smaller city (250,000 people) and is far more typically Russian than the European St. Pete. We did the usual student group stuff (city tour, all the large churches, monestaries, etc.) but also had our share of free time as well. This, of course, we used to take pictures of ourselves with Lenin statues and such. We also ate what our advisors claim is the best example of old Russian food - a three-course, I-have-no-idea-what-this-is-supposed-to-be-but-I-love-it-anyway meal in a restaurant which seems to be a cross between a medevial dungeon and the Gryffindor dining hall in "Harry Potter". Quite the atmosphere, I must say. Then, of course, the power went out halfway through and we had to eat the rest of the meal by candlelight. Ah, Russia.One of the other things we did in Novgorod (as well as the previous week in St. Petersburg) was to visit a banya. For those unacquainted with them, they are basically saunas on steroids, where the heat and humidity are enough to make you sweat gallons within a few minutes. In addition to the heat, the banya trip involves hitting oneself with birch branches so as to (supposedly) bring all the blood to the surface and clean one's pores.

Finally, because we get cheap student tickets ($2-6) to the Mariinsky and other theaters in town, I have begun exploring their repertoire. Tuesday, a group of six of us headed to the Mariinsky to check out "Romeo and Juliet", Prokofiev's ballet version of the world's most overrated love story. I was floored. I've never seen a ballet or even a "regular" performance of R&J that powerful, emotional, and expressive. It was amazing - Boston Ballet, despite its worldwide reputation, doesn't come near it. As a result, I got more ballet tickets for "Don Quixote" in two weeks. Tomorrow I'm off to a performance of "The Cherry Orchard" by your favorite playwright and mine, Anton Chekhov.

Anyway, I am pretty sure I will be spending my spring break in Siberia (Irkutsk, Lake Baikal region) this year, but more on that when I find out the details.

Keep in touch. And let me know how things are in the town that is home to America's latest champions.

Matt

Yes, Virginia, there is a Sun! (1/28/2002)

Hi Everyone,

I understand that my last couple emails didn't come in their entirety, or at all, so I'm just going to assume that no one got anything and go from there.

Anyway, the biggest news in St. Petersburg is the appearance of the "sun," which I was beginning to believe to be a Russian fairy tale until (ironically enough) Sunday, the first time I saw it since I've been over here. Not to say that the presence of a sun positively influences temperatures, though: today it hovered at around 20-25 degrees (not factoring in the windchill) and the past weekend was even colder. So while enduring near sub-zero temperatures, I've been exploring the city and trying to improve my Russian. The latter, of course, is giving me the problems I'd expected. (And people say German is hard?!?!?!) To improve my reading, I picked up a copy of "Garry Potter i Taynaya Komnata" ("Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets") and am already through the first chapter. Not to say it didn't take me forever, though...

School is good and completely in Russian. I take classes in grammar (3x a week), translation (2x), conversation (3x), newspaper (2x), civilization (1x) and literature (1x). The latter two are lecture classes with about 18 students in them, whereas the rest have about nine. Not bad for individual attention, and of course, the more you hear and speak Russian, the better it gets (At least I keep telling myself that.)Next weekend we (the group) are off to Novgorod for two days and a night, a trip that should be a lot of fun should barring ungodly temperatures (which, of course, we will get). More on that after we get back. As to how I'm going to stay up till 6 a.m. watching the Super Bowl I haven't figured out yet, but I'll figure something out. Granted that Boston teams get to play for a championship once every 57 years, this is a no-miss opportunity.

OK, I should go.

Keep in touch.
Matt

"tri - elfiiskim vkadykam v podzbednyi predyel;
sem - dlya gnomov, tsaryashchikh v podgornom prosmore;
devyat - smertnym, chey vyveren srok i udel,
i odno - blastelinu na chyornom prestolyev Mordore, gdye vekobehnaya tma:
Chtoby vsekh otyckat, voedino sozvatI edinoyu chyornoyu volyey skovat
V Mordore, gdye vekobehnaya tma."

From Russia with Love (1/19/2002)

Privyet, Tovarishchi! (Hi Everyone),

Greetings from St. Petersburg. Before I begin, here's my contact information for the coming four months. All mail can be sent to the exchange organization's office, rather than my home address. Also, PLEASE don't send packages. The reasons are twofold:

1) Russian customs officials open EVERYTHING they get. This means, if they like the contents, they're theirs.

2) If by chance they DO get to me, customs charges 100 percent duties on everything. Thus, anything sent has to be paid for twice (once when purchasing it, once when getting it from customs.) Therefore, please avoid packages. I'm only here four months anyway, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal.

Anyway, mail can be sent to the following:

St. Petersburg State University
Matthew Burke
CIEE Russian Language Program
St. Petersburg State University
Universitetskaia Naberzhnaya 7-9
St. Petersburg 199034
Russia

Yes, it is long, but this is the way it was given to me, ergo it's the way I pass it on. My home address is

Ulitsa Nalichnaya
Dom 45, Apt. 398
St. Petersburg (Don't know the Zip.)
Telephone #: 011-7-356-78-29

I'm currently settling into (to say the least) quite the new experience. I'm living on Vasilevsky Island, the largest of St. Petersburg 42 islands, close to the city's westernmost point. My host family consists of just a host mother, Olga Petrovna Vishevetskaya. Her son, 23, recently married and moved out. I haven't met him yet, but she is quite pleasant and very eager to help me learn more and more Russian. I am her fourth exchange student, and coincidentally enough, last semester's was also a Bostonian.

Living conditions are, well, not western. The apartment is tiny, albeit quite cozy, and the neighboorhood isn't the greatest. Not that this fazes me much, though: I did want to integrate myself as much as possible and not be too separated from the city's ongoings. After all, I'm only here four months and then I have the rest of my life to enjoy the good ol' US.

School begins on Monday and our program is VERY full. It seems like almost every weekend there's something planned, such as trips to nearby cities of Pskov and Novgorod, as well as a mid-semester excursion to Moscow. I'll report on those as they come.

Anyway, I should get going. Keep in touch (Email is the best way), and I'll keep you updated.

Paka,
Matt