{"id":2773,"date":"2021-10-14T13:11:12","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T11:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/herito.pl\/?post_type=artykul&p=2773"},"modified":"2023-07-17T14:41:51","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T12:41:51","slug":"notes-from-a-journey","status":"publish","type":"artykul","link":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/artykul\/notes-from-a-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes From a Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dictator Shevchenko<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Some time ago, riding a train from Budapest to Belgrade, I involuntarily overheard a conversation between two other passengers. One of them was Bulgarian and the other Serb, both were speaking their own language and to make communication easier, they supplemented their words with dynamic gestures, thanks to which I could understand them too. The Bulgarian regarded himself as a specialist on the East \u2013 he told his neighbour about Moscow and St. Petersburg, about Novosibirsk and Novorossiysk, and also perhaps about Leninoshithole or Flycrappings, about the strange lifestyle there, but above all about the terrifying corruption.<\/p>\n

\u2013 It is even worse than in our country! \u2013 he claimed seriously, which made the Serb shake his head in disbelief \u2013 And no democracy at all \u2013 insisted the Bulgarian \u2013 Putin is a true tsar. But this is nothing. For in Belarus\u2026 There is this dictator there, his name is\u2026 \u2013 He hesitated for a moment \u2013 Shevchenko!\u2026 And he even made it illegal to use the title \u201cpresident\u201d! For there is to be only one president in the country. And all the others, directors, what have you, they are not allowed to use this title!\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2013 What a nut! \u2013 sighed the Serb compassionately.<\/p>\n

I stopped listening. I imagined the poor Serb visiting Kyiv one day and seeing the statue of Shevchenko in front of the university. And then, who knows, perhaps he will see similar monuments scattered all over Ukraine. And he will realise that even for the Orthodox Serb brothers it is impossible to understand these Ukrainians. Fair enough if they erected monuments to their own dictators. But to those oppressing their neighbours?…<\/p>\n

Perhaps someone will explain to him that Shevchenko is not a foreign dictator but our very own poet. But wherever we look, we have foreign dictators in Ukraine, just to name the uncountable Lenins in Malorus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat nuts!\u201d \u2013 the Serb will sigh. And he will be right.<\/p>\n

Festival poetry <\/strong><\/h1>\n

I have noticed that festival poetry is a peculiar genre, which has to fulfil a number of simple conditions to be received properly. Firstly, the text should be short enough not to make the audience tired; secondly, it has to be simple enough to be painlessly translatable into any language; and thirdly, it must contain some powerful metaphor, image, unexpected comparison, story, or anecdote \u2013 something striking.<\/p>\n

But there is one more condition, which may prove absolutely sufficient even if the text does not meet any of the remaining criteria or is not a text at all, but a sequence of words or simply sounds. The author himself has to be the text or a performance, a striking event. And then he can read anything or even nothing, and just stand in silence on the stage for a couple of minutes \u2013 which was a forte of the late Nazar Honczar, who drove the enthusiastic audience almost mad.<\/p>\n

Americans call such figures freaks, which is a bit more racy than our native \u201ceccentrics\u201d. The Ukrainian diaspora uses a much more colourful term: \u201cslightly over the edge\u201d.<\/p>\n

At a festival in the Turkish Ordu such freaks were aplenty: one was singing his own poems, one was dancing, one was showing slides and a sartorially colourful Turkish woman changed her headgear after every recited poem \u2013 Mongolian, Eskimo, a French Rococo bonnet. Each of these hats, she said, had been brought from a journey and she had visited 98 countries all over the world. I read in the brochure that this extravagant lady worked as a business consultant for various investment companies. I would like to see these firms.<\/p>\n

But the festival audience in Ordu applauded not freaks and other hoaxers but a small Macedonian aged around 80, with a non-Macedonian name Esad Bairam, who read uncomplicated sentimental-patriotic doggerel full of hot sun, charming eyes and the wounds of battle. In the 19th century similar poetry was also written in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The old man was the only participant who did not speak English, but he spoke to a Greek woman in Greek, to an Albanian woman in Albanian, to a Bulgarian in Bulgarian and to a Croat woman and me, a Ukrainian, in Serbian. He lived in a small world where the global language was of no use, for of real importance were the languages of his neighbours. He knew them all, although he himself wrote in Turkish \u2013 the language of his ancestors, who once lived in the Balkans, before their mighty Ottoman Empire evaporated one day like a glorious dream.<\/p>\n

I recalled how at a festival in Rotterdam, the Dutch with equal enthusiasm welcomed a mediocre poet from South Africa, who wrote in Afrikaans \u2013 a variant of 17th-century Dutch. And I imagined that at a festival in Moscow a similar welcome would be extended to a Russian-speaking poet from Kyiv, who would read moving poems in the language of Karamzin, and perhaps in private conversations he would even be able to say a few words in the language of his closest neighbours.<\/p>\n

Heritage <\/strong><\/h1>\n

A friend is leading me through the streets of Poltava, enthusiastically recounting the story of every church, house and monument. He is a patriot of his city and therefore I can sense that he is a bit ashamed of all the Lenins and Peter the Greats, of the Colonel Kelins and General Zygins, of the smell of the empire which has irreversibly permeated all the pores of this mostly Ukrainian city.<\/p>\n

We approach the building of the Agricultural University, with a modest memorial plaque dedicated to Simon Petlura. He studied here between 1895\u20131902, when the building housed the Poltava Seminary.<\/p>\n

\u2013 They were to erect a statue \u2013 my friend says \u2013 But the mayor, a big fish in Julia Tymoshenko\u2019s block, mounted a stiff resistance. And he boasted in the election campaign that he had stopped the nationalists from putting up \u201call kinds of mazepas<\/em>, petliuras<\/em>, banderas<\/em> and other quislings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 And banderas<\/em>? \u2013 My astonishment is genuine.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Well, he just wanted it to have a nice ring. When the city you have been responsible for is crumbling to pieces, you have to invent some achievements. But he lost the elections anyway.<\/p>\n

Young people with flowers take wedding pictures at the foot of the Column of Glory.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Like in Kyiv \u2013 I say.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Worse \u2013 sighs my friend \u2013 This is not even a Soviet monument but a tsarist one. Marking the 100th anniversary of the Battle on the Poltava where Ukrainians and Swedes where defeated by Russians.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Every country has such monuments as it deserves \u2013 I say philosophically.<\/p>\n

\u2013 And young couples \u2013 concurs my friend.<\/p>\n

Although the young should know better, I think to myself. They are not some NKVD veterans after all. What draws them to this imperial setting, to the Soviet aura, to Moscow priests with Putin\u2019s insignia?<\/p>\n

On top of Ivan\u2019s Mountain we see another couple photographing themselves with pigeons in their hands. The enterprising keeper brings a whole cage-full of the birds and rents them for a modest price.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Listen \u2013 the bride in a white wedding dress asks her beloved flirtatiously \u2013 it won\u2019t shit on my hand?<\/p>\n

We pass on and do not hear the answer. Leaves rustle underfoot, small clouds of mist escape upwards in the rhythm of our breaths. A most beautiful view of the sunbathed Poltava opens up from the summit.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Just a few more generations \u2013 I say optimistically \u2013 and this country will change beyond recognition.<\/p>\n

The East <\/strong><\/h1>\n

\u2013 I am going to Ordu \u2013 I tell my family, but it does not make any impression on them. Well, we are living in the 21st century, Orda traded horses for Volkswagens and is not particularly interested in our tribute any more \u2013 perhaps in cash exchanged for selected goods and services.<\/p>\n

\u201cOrdu\u201d sounds ominous but looks nice: a biggish town on the southern shore of the Black Sea, somewhere between Samsun and Trabzon or, as our Medieval chroniclers would say, between the tsarist Amisos and Trapezund.<\/p>\n

Until recently I did not have any notions connected with the other shore of the Black Sea: just a zigzagging line on the map, without specific landscapes, plants, animals, cities and people, without the \u201cMediterranean\u201d lifestyle. In fact the area proved to be very pretty and quite unlike our Black Sea shore, both in the Crimea and adjoining the steppes. For the first time in my life I saw intensely green mountains \u2013 similar to our Carpathians \u2013 descending steeply all the way down to the sea. They say it is like that in New Zealand. Turks are relatively recent newcomers in this land. For half a millennium they taught themselves to cultivate it, to build solid houses and fast motorways, which Ukrainians can only dream of. And yet they still have not conquered this land symbolically, they have not assimilated its mythology \u2013 all these stories about Jason and the Amazons, about Troy and the Argonauts, about Genovese fortresses and Byzantine cites; they have not woven them into their cultural narrative, and last but not least, they have not learned to sell it all properly to tourists, as their Greek neighbours do, although their connection with the region\u2019s antiquity does not have a much longer pedigree.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Greeks have it easier \u2013 says Tozan, my friend \u2013 They really got it all for free, and we have to build it from scratch.<\/p>\n

We ride the funicular to the top of Boztepe Mountain which hangs over the town. The gondola flows over the rooftops, over small Orthodox churches and mosques, over picturesque streets and over the slope of the 500-metre tall mountain. I notice that down there, on Ataturk Boulevard, the tower of the funicular stands right next to a minaret, which is twice as small \u2013 such are the symbols of today\u2019s Turkey.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Don\u2019t worry \u2013 I say \u2013 Our politicians claim we don\u2019t have to join Europe for we are there anyway. Although, in fact, we are far behind you. And even behind the Greek bardak<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My friend breaks out in laughter. He had just explained to me in a pub that bardak<\/em>, a \u201cbrothel\u201d in Ukrainian, in Turkish means a \u201cglass\u201d, \u201ccup\u201d or \u201cmug\u201d. And I had told him that we used this term to describe a way of life or the nature of a regime. It is similar with the word durak<\/em> \u2013 the Ukrainian \u201cmoron\u201d which means a \u201cbus stop\u201d in Turkish.<\/p>\n

At the border <\/strong><\/h1>\n

This year\u2019s winter reminded me of one of the possible definitions of Europe, and more precisely \u2013 of its vague Eastern borders lost in the depth of Eurasia. Europe ends where the impact of both the Mediterranean and the Gulf Stream is no longer felt. That is, approximately speaking, somewhere between Tbilisi and Murmansk.<\/p>\n

Among other definitions, which I have been collecting for some time, the following seems interesting to me: the end of Europe is the territory where castles and churches end, where roads allowing a relatively fast and safe driving peter out, clean and non-stinking toilets vanish, a polite and effective police force disappears, alongside with the population speaking at least two languages and passengers waiting patiently before a metro car while other passengers are descending.<\/p>\n

According to some definitions, Ukraine belongs to Europe, while according to others it does not. Apparently such is the fate of every frontier.<\/p>\n

This year, having spent all of December and half of January without snow, we almost came to believe that we could have a winter like in London or Paris. And then, who knows, perhaps the climatic thaw will be followed by a political one. And some association agreement with the distant European Union will warm us up as efficiently as the even more distant Gulf Stream.<\/p>\n

Some 300 years ago, the English were sprightly skating on the Thames and the Dutch on their canals. Today, their descendants are watching these frolics with astonishment on paintings by old masters. Perhaps our descendants will also with similar astonishment watch photographs of anglers in waist-high boots on ice in the middle of the Dnieper. In some 300 years the steppes of the Ukraine might turn into a desert, which will be compensated for by the tropical forest growing along the Prypiat, and we will finally become what in fact we have long since been \u2013 a banana republic. From the ecological point of view it is much better than a chemical and metallurgical republic.<\/p>\n

But in mid-January it did snow in Ukraine and our prospects connected with global warming were indefinitely postponed. Perhaps what we are faced with are not bananas at all but a glacier arriving from the north \u2013 as Oleksa Vilchynski wittily describes it in his new novel. Anyway while it is snowing, I am imagining dog-sleds and herds of reindeer against the background of, say, some ice-covered steelworks in Kryvyi Rih.<\/p>\n

The end of Europe, I wrote to Oleksa, is a place where reality ends and mirages begin. The Gulf Stream flows into the Black Sea, the Ukraine joins the European Union, Georgia deploys tank brigades to defend its nationals in Russia \u2013 as far as Murmansk.<\/p>\n

Donetsk. The Bridge of Friendship <\/strong><\/h1>\n

All cities are tacky in their own way, and Soviet ones especially so. I more or less got used to Kyiv’s tackiness \u00e0 la americano<\/em> but the Donetsk one I rediscovered for myself quite recently.<\/p>\n

Its principal expressions are of course the sculptures \u2013 from the gilded opera tenor Anatoly Solovyanenko, resembling Elvis Presley, to the singer Josif Kobzon, a spitting image of the Russian godfather Semion Mogilevich, only wearing a wig. But what seems the funniest thing to me is the bridge of Ukrainian-Russian friendship in a small park behind Rinat Akhmetov\u2019s stadium \u2013 a bizarre structure on a high slope over the Kalmius, resembling a swimming pool trampoline or perhaps a parachute tower.<\/p>\n

A friend who showed me all this is certain that the \u201cbridge\u201d is ironic in its intent. Such a taunt of Malorussians targeted at Russians, middle finger in the pocket, a suggestion: well, we have built our five or six metres and you, if you are willing, have to built the remaining thousand metres or even more across the artificial lake down there.<\/p>\n

It seems doubtful to me, for I know that Russians are serious people and they are not particularly fond of irony, especially Malorussian irony. They are much more eager to complete some causeway to Tuzla or a gas pipe under the Baltic or even the Black Sea. And let the Malorussians fiddle with friendship on their own, they are crazy about it.<\/p>\n

The friend shows me the refined decorations of the \u201cbridge of friendship\u201d \u2013 two amply built girls in a wreath and kokoshnik<\/em>, cranberry and birches, coats of arms and flags, and the best of them all \u2013 a representation of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet with balloons, who are holding hands (paws? trotters?), whilst joyfully marching towards the common Eastern Slav future.<\/p>\n

\u2013 The other way round \u2013 I opine \u2013 The Pooh should be tiny like Medvedev and Piglet two heads taller, like Yanukovych.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Exactly \u2013 concurs my friend \u2013 I even wanted to write about it but I didn\u2019t have the courage.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Why?! \u2013 I ask astonished.<\/p>\n

\u2013 I would be killed.<\/p>\n

I am looking disbelievingly at his unmoving face and try to work it out: a joke or is he being serious? These guys from Donetsk are unfathomable! \u201cI think he is joking.\u201d \u2013 I finally reassure myself. And suddenly realise that my countrymen have been repeating in their minds the same reassuring mantra for two years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/section>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":3217,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[1054,391,954],"region":[],"kraj":[],"magazyn":[231],"class_list":["post-2773","artykul","type-artykul","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-central-europe-en-en","tag-essay","tag-europa-srodkowa-en","magazyn-herito-10en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNotes From a Journey - herito<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Some time ago, riding a train from Budapest to Belgrade, I involuntarily overheard a conversation between two other passengers. 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The Bulgarian regarded himself as a specialist on the East \u2013 he told his neighbour about Moscow and St. Petersburg, about Novosibirsk and Novorossiysk, and also perhaps about Leninoshithole or Flycrappings, about the strange lifestyle there, but above all about the terrifying corruption.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/artykul\/notes-from-a-journey\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/artykul\/notes-from-a-journey\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/artykul\/notes-from-a-journey\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fortepan_191556-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/fortepan_191556-scaled.jpg","width":2560,"height":1632,"caption":"Notatki z podr\u00f3\u017cy"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/artykul\/notes-from-a-journey\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Artykuly","item":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/artykul\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Notes From a Journey"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/#website","url":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/","name":"herito","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/#organization","name":"herito","url":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cropped-herito-nowe-logo-web.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cropped-herito-nowe-logo-web.png","width":1000,"height":347,"caption":"herito"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artykul\/2773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artykul"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/artykul"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artykul\/2773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8898,"href":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artykul\/2773\/revisions\/8898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2773"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=2773"},{"taxonomy":"kraj","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kraj?post=2773"},{"taxonomy":"magazyn","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/herito.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazyn?post=2773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}