Low Rent District

Some things just stick with you. There may not be a good or logical reason for it, but that’s how we human beings work.

There are things I remember from childhood that I am confident most other people remember as well. Take the word “Baltic,” for instance. When I hear that word, it means one thing – Baltic Avenue on the Monopoly game board. Tell me it’s not the same for you. Baltic Avenue is a notoriously cheap property to buy. It’s even worthy of a sigh of relief if you happen to land on it when an opponent owns it and has erected houses or hotels at this address – because you know it’s going to be a cheap night’s stay.

Yes, Baltic Avenue represents the low rent district of town, just after passing Go, grouped together with its equally dumpy partner in purple, Mediterranean Avenue, with each going for the decidedly non-princely sum of $60. Compare that with their near neighbors just on the other side of Go – Park Place for $350 and Boardwalk for $400 – and you have a rather stark example of “the wrong side of the tracks.”

Look down in the lower right hand corner of the board for the part of the world from which I’m writing.

For the past month or so, I’ve basically been living in this low rent district. I’m in the Baltics as I write this.

Of course, for those who have gone beyond Monopoly and into the real world, you may be aware that the so-called Baltic States are the 3 former Soviet Republics of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. They’re in the far northeastern corner of Europe along the Baltic Sea, they’re tiny (combined population of about 6 million), they’re still shaking off the hangover of forced Soviet-style Communism, and they are among the newest members of the EU.

To stretch the Monopoly analogy just a bit further, after which I promise I’ll drop it, I have been almost completely swathed in purple for about the past two and a half months, considering I was down in the Mediterranean (Avenue) region of Greece and Albania for so long before heading up here. And I certainly can’t complain. Both regions have been delightful, and this is by far the best time of year to be here.

Tracing My Path

I didn’t come straight from my last posted port of call, Albania, to the Baltics. Recognizing that my experience in northeastern Europe has been effectively zero, I thought it would make sense to take a more roundabout route to get to the Baltics. Here’s the trail to date:

Southern Albania –> Berlin –> Dresden–> Prague–> Krakow–> Vilnius (Lithuania)–> Riga (Latvia)–> Tallinn (Estonia)–> ????

The only place on this list I’d been to previously is Prague, and that was in the 90’s, so it was practically new to me as well.

What I can say about this region is that it has been bathed in conflicts of one kind or another for so long that it seems like it has virtually never been without conflict. The story of so many of these places involves Russia, Germany, the Soviets, the Nazis, the Soviets again, and then various versions of post-Communism peace and independence since around 1990.

We’ve all seen movies about many of these eras, and as a recreational student of World War II I have read plenty of books about that particular “high point” in the history of the region. But it’s hard to fully grasp for an American; even an American like me who has been to so many places around the world and seen the history of violence and suffering that was a reality so recently.

Here in northeastern Europe, a place to which so many Americans can trace their roots, the people have been overrun and then brutally occupied by outside forces so many times it is actually hard to keep track. As I go through museums and listen to tour guides talking about all of the changes in who the bad guys were, it tends to become a blur.

In the meantime, during the past 150 years the United States has basically just been the United States. No one has invaded the country, and the realistic threat of it happening has been miniscule at virtually all times. We really can’t understand. But I’m here in the Baltics, and that makes the reality of the disruption, suffering, and misery so much more vivid than history books have ever done for me.

Starting in Berlin

Of all the places I’ve been this month, Berlin is the best known, most popular, and probably most important. It was, after all, the capital of Nazi Germany. I did indeed stand on top of the underground bunker where Hitler committed suicide. It’s a nondescript parking lot now, which is by design in order to prevent it from becoming some kind of pilgrimage site for neo-Nazi idiots.

I also did everything you would expect to do in Berlin: learn more about the Cold War years when it was a tense and divided city, see the remaining pieces of the Berlin wall, walk past the overly touristy Checkpoint Charlie, look at all the street art, recognize that the city has become a hipster and alternative haven, and admire the fact that Germans speak English much, much better than they did a few years back.

A famous piece of artwork on one of the few remaining portions of the Berlin Wall. In case you’re wondering, that’s former Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev and former East German President Erich Honecker sharing an amorous moment. Just to be clear, this picture was painted AFTER the wall fell.

I have to admit that Berlin is ground zero for Germany owning up to the fact that the Nazis committed atrocities, they really did it, and the people here can’t pretend like it didn’t happen. This shows up in the language – at least the English version of the language – you see on the signs and exhibits at the plethora of museums and memorials that are situated all around town. They basically spell out the fact that Germany instigated most of what happened in WWII, and specifically that they successfully implemented a plan to exterminate just about every Jewish person in Europe. And the hatred and killing was not restricted to Jews, as they brutally (and gleefully) snuffed out homosexuals, gypsies, mentally disabled people, and political opponents.

Perhaps most pointed in my mind is the fact that in all the writings they now refer to the Holocaust deaths as “murders.” That is a big step, because it acknowledges that these were not war casualties or even “collateral damage.” They were premeditated murders, carried out on a massive scale and based not on any kind of actual wrong the victims had committed; no wrong, that is, other than being of the wrong religion or color or sexual orientation, among other objectionable characteristics.

Still, one can’t help but feel there is a minor sense of “Hey, it was a war, and war is hell” underlying it all. I didn’t get that feeling based on reading the signs, but it was more of an intuitive thing, almost as if the clear admission of guilt and the blatant language they now use are there only as the result of the efforts of a vocal minority that was able to get its way due to effective use of modern media shaming, probably making it more palatable for the government to give in to their demands than to look bad by continuing to use softer language and obvious deflections of the charges.

It’s hard to fully explain. On the surface, they’re doing all the right things, talking about it and admitting it and recognizing that awareness is necessary because it can happen again. Of course, any cursory reading of the history of the 2nd half of the 20th century will tell us that it has happened again, repeatedly: the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; Rwanda; the Balkans…..So as much as we may be doing to remember the sins of the Holocaust in order to avoid repeating them, sadly we’re not succeeding.

I think we have to face the fact that human beings have short memories (for further proof, consider Exhibit A, the stock market and its never-ending bubbles); we don’t learn; and we are generally pretty stupid. I include myself in that group, so don’t think I’m pointing fingers.

As Exhibit B, all I have to point out is what has happened in the world, specifically in Europe, the USA, and the Middle East, this month while I have been making this jaunt through Europe: mass murders and bombings of citizens and police throughout all these regions, based on the kind of hatred and dehumanization that was exhibited in Cambodia, Rwanda, Serbia….and Nazi Germany.

It has been surreal to be traveling through this region and every day looking at the internet with considerable trepidation as I wonder if there’s going to be a new horrific headline to bump the previous day’s atrocity into the number 2 slot, causing it to be forgotten far too soon. All too often, that has been the case. I hope this disturbing trend ends soon, but if you’re one of the people who actually spends time with me and talks to me in addition to reading this blog, you know I’m not optimistic for the near term.

Lest I get off on a political and social rant, which I’m all too happy to do, I will stick to my exploration of this region and its past. But considering that most of this month has been a classic “10 countries in 7 days,” or “If it’s Tuesday this must be Belgium” kind of journey, I’ll try to make it brief. But I’ll tell you right now that I expect to fail in this effort.

After Berlin I made my way to Dresden, which is a charming city with its own major artsy/alternative vibe going on. The old town is great, though most of it has been rebuilt since the devastating firebombing by the Allies toward the end of WWII, so it’s not authentically old. I’m glad I went, though the one day I spent there was kind of a last second idea when I realized it was basically on the route from Berlin to one of the primary destinations on my list, Krakow.

Getting from Dresden to Krakow by bus was a bit tricky, and I ended up in a situation where I had a stopover in Prague for about 9 hours on a sunny Saturday afternoon and evening before boarding an overnight bus to Krakow. It seemed like the perfect amount of time, because I know how incredibly touristy Prague is. I was last there in the late 90’s, and it was already pretty much overrun by tourists. Its popularity only growing since then, I knew I’d be surrounded by hordes.

And I was right. It was more like a lot of hard work just walking around, re-visiting the main sites (a few of which I remembered), realizing that the ubiquity of cell phone cameras makes the crowds even more annoying than the last time I was here when people didn’t feel the need to take EVERY possible picture, and deciding that, despite the blue skies and bright green spaces along the river, 9 hours was about all I needed in Prague to scratch whatever itch I may have had for the place.

Krakow was quite similar to Prague in terms of how popular it has become for tourists. And for good reason. The city is lovely, the Old Town is charming and very extensive, there’s a lot of fun and friendly energy in the air just about everywhere, and in the nice summer weather it’s a great place to be. It was my first time in Poland, and I liked it enough that I can imagine returning and visiting a few more places. There are definitely too many tourists in Krakow, but the energy of the place made it more manageable for me than Prague, allowing me to happily stay for several days.

The Centerpiece: Oświęcim

The main reason this month’s jaunt is even happening for me is that I have long wanted to visit a small Polish town about 90 minutes outside of Krakow called Oświęcim. You may be familiar with it. If not, I’m pretty sure you know it by its German name: Auschwitz.

Yes, with all my study of WWII, along with some unexplainable feelings of familiarity inside me, I have always felt strangely connected to the Holocaust and the horrors that were carried out in the Nazi concentration camps. I could try to explain by talking about the possibility of past lives and reincarnation, etc., but this would be nothing but speculation that’s irrelevant in the context of this blog post. Let’s just say that from the perspective of both historical significance and insight into the human condition, I have always felt a need to visit one of these concentration camps, but for whatever reason, I have never done so on any of my previous Europe trips. Auschwitz is undoubtedly the most (in)famous one, and it happens to be close to such a beautiful place as Krakow, so it made sense to choose it for my first.

So much has been written and spoken about Auschwitz, and I could say a lot myself, but I don’t believe there is much new for me to add. I’ll just describe a few things about my personal experience.

First, to clarify, Auschwitz is not really one place but two: Auschwitz and Birkenau. Auschwitz is the place we tend to see in movies, with the sign “Arbeit Macht Frei” over the main entry gate. It’s actually fairly small, and it is not the place where most of the industrialized slaughter took place. (Though it is ominous to walk through the gate and underneath the sign.) The mass slaughter was centered at Birkenau, also called Auschwitz II, which is about 1.5 miles down the road. There is a shuttle bus that takes you between the two locations. And at these two locations, 1.1 million people were murdered.

Entry gate of Auschwitz

Birkenau is of immense scale. It’s basically a huge piece of farmland that has lots of buildings that were used for all the inhumanities and horrors that were carried out, including gas chambers and ovens. Birkenau goes on for as far as the eye can see. The setting is bizarre, because it is surrounded by nice trees and flowing grass, all bright green and so full of life in the mid-summer weather of July. And that’s the way it must have been for the people who were there at this time of year in the 1940’s. Except they were being sent to their deaths. The contrast between the vivid life in the natural environment felt and the legacy of death it houses was striking.

For me the natural beauty gave the setting a strange sense of peace and “normalness” that was eerily like what I experienced when I went to the Killing Fields in Cambodia. Not too different from Birkenau, the Killing Fields is basically just a tract of farmland outside Phnom Penh where brutal mass killings were carried out by the Khmer Rouge back in the late 70’s, albeit less scientifically. In both locations it was such an unusual experience for me to be in a place for which I have so much reverence, where events of such gravity took place, where innocent people suffered so much, yet not directly experiencing the massive sadness and sorrow that I feel for these tragedies.

I say I have feelings of deep sadness because that is exactly what I feel when I read firsthand accounts of people who experienced these horrors and unjust hardships. An example of these accounts is the legendary book Night by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, an Auschwitz survivor and perhaps the former concentration camp inmate who is most well-known for crusading to ensure the Holocaust is not forgotten. Coincidentally, just a few days before my visit to Auschwitz, Wiesel died at the age of 87, putting him back in the news once again.

My lack of explanation for my muted emotional reactions aside, it was an important trip for me to have made, an important full day out of my life that I think everyone should replicate in their own way, if they can. And regardless of whether you can make the trip, I highly recommend you read Wiesel’s book Night, along with the classic Man’s Search for Meaning by psychiatrist and Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl. If you’ve never delved very deeply into this topic beyond perhaps seeing the film Schindler’s List (I visited Oskar Schindler’s factory in Krakow as well), I guarantee these books will change the way you view the world.

One noteworthy anecdote is that, due to having experienced weeks of nothing but sunshine, and seeing more of the same in the early morning hours as I was leaving my room for the day, I opted not to pack my mini umbrella in my backpack. I thought about it and actively rejected it, despite being trained by all my time in the tropics to bring it even when I don’t think it will be needed. In my mind I said, “This is Europe, not the tropics, and it’s been so dry lately, I won’t need it.”

As luck would have it, and who can say if it was merely luck, as soon as I stepped off the bus outside Auschwitz and approached the entrance, it began to drizzle. The skies were gray, and the rain increased in intensity, effectively drenching me for the next several hours, leaving me cold and wet under gloomy skies for my entire time at the two camp sites. Somehow it seemed fitting, given how my minor discomfort paled in comparison to the pain and indignity so many others had suffered in those very same places. And of course, as I was getting to the very end of my day, making my way through the farthest reaches of Birkenau, the rain finally stopped, the sky began to clear up, and I dried off enough to feel comfortable again for my 2 hour bus ride home.

In the immortal words of Forrest Gump, that’s all I have to say about that.

And Then the Monopoly Game Started

The second reason for this July journey in northeast Europe, after Auschwitz, is the Baltics. This is the only realistic time of year for me to be here, and in addition to getting good weather, the days are super long. There’s nothing like the sun rising by 4 am and still seeing light in the sky at 11:30 pm. Of course, I’ve experienced a much more extreme version of this midnight sun previously in Norway during the summer, so it wasn’t my first time. But I can tell you that it doesn’t get old.

 

Now I’m going to do something that is probably very common, and which I have to assume causes these three tiny countries untold dismay. I’m going to lump them together and tell their stories as one. I apologize to all Balticians (that’s a word I just made up, meaning people from the Baltics), but it just makes sense. I know there are differences, most notably the distinct tribal groups and the vastly different languages, but when it comes to history, the similarities are undeniable.

Basically the story of these countries goes like this: for centuries, like most other regions of Europe, they each had various groupings with one another and other surrounding countries, empires, monarchies, religions, etc. Heading into the 20th century, the Baltics were all part of the Russian Empire, generally against their will, though that had been the case for over 100 years, so it was a pretty familiar setup for them by 1900.

With the ending of World War I, and correspondingly the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, things started to get interesting in the Baltics. They all became independent of Russia for about 20 years until soon after the start of WWII when the Russians, now under the heading of the Soviet Union, returned and took them back. Baltic independence of the 20’s and 30’s was sweet, but alas, far too brief. To make matters worse, the Soviets took to brutally dealing with hundreds of thousands of dissenters by either killing them straightaway or deporting them to Siberia to live in gulags, which were effectively concentration camps.

This Soviet scenario didn’t last long either, because soon thereafter (1941) the Nazis headed to the Baltics, pushing the Soviets out and taking the region for themselves. In many cases the Nazis were treated as liberators when they first arrived, because the Balticians believed they would be granted their independence as a result. Instead, of course, the Nazis clamped down on just about everything, including their usual tactic of setting up concentration camps and mass slaughtering the Jews. As a result, like so many other countries in Europe, the Baltics to this day have very small Jewish populations, despite having had thriving Jewish communities prior to WWII.

Are you confused yet? Well hang on, because around 1944 as the tide of the war was turning against the Nazis, the Soviets pushed back from the east and effectively re-took the Baltics by driving the Nazis out in their successful push toward Berlin. Yet again, of course, the Baltics were anything but independent. The Soviets had them, they made them Soviet republics, deported hundreds of thousands more to Siberian gulags, and held a tight grip on power through their standard tactics of KGB spying and disastrous Communist economic policies. Needless to say, decades of forced dismal life behind the Iron Curtain ensued for the tiny populations of the Baltics.

Finally, with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990-91, the three Baltic countries once again became independent. This status has persisted now for around 25 years, and in the past few years they have all become full-fledged members of the European Union, including the introduction of the Euro currency. We can only hope Baltic independence lasts a long time, but it would be  rather shortsighted to ignore the fact that there is still a much larger neighbor just to the east, with a rather aggressive President by the name of Putin. Yeah, there’s no guarantee the final chapter of the Baltic story has been written. Not by a long shot.

In retrospect, doesn’t it make sense that I elected to tell the three stories as one? As I have been going through these countries doing a lot of historical tourism, all the museums have begun to seem the same. Whether in Lithuania or Latvia or Estonia, it is always the same thing: the Russians, then independence, then the Soviets, then the Nazis, then the Soviets, and now independence. Oh, and on top of that, the capital cities of each country are all centered around an Old Town that seems to be out of an old European fairy tale, with stately buildings and quiet cobblestone streets. Sometimes while roaming these streets I am tempted to forget which of the three countries I’m in.

Outside of the cities the countries are all sparsely populated, very green, and full of plenty of trees and other beautiful nature. They all even have some nice beaches on the Baltic Sea. It’s not exactly Crete or California, but it’s definitely clean outdoor living with a certain rugged, wild feeling. It gives me a sense of freedom, and I can even say that if the weather were more agreeable to my rather unique disposition, these could be some beautiful areas in which to live and have a sense of getting away from it all.

My Path

To give just a quick overview of each of the Baltic countries, I’ll pick up the narrative from Krakow, post-Auschwitz. I took yet another overnight bus journey to Vilnius, Lithuania, my first stop in the Baltics. I’m reasonably confident you didn’t know the capital of Lithuania is called Vilnius. Don’t feel bad; most people don’t.

The Lithuanian flag

I did know this, however, and I’d heard great things about it over the past few years. I was fortunate that my good friend from Ubud, Karolina, is Lithuanian and happens to be spending a couple of months back home visiting in Vilnius. She graciously invited me to stay with her. Although she knows I’m a serious traveler, I don’t think she ever truly believed I would make good on the many declarations I made to her in Ubud that I would come visit Lithuania. And then I did.

If there’s one thing you need to know about Lithuania, it’s that, oddly enough, their so-called second religion is basketball. They are crazy about basketball in this tiny country of fewer than 3 million people, so much so that they’ve produced a large cadre of NBA players and even won 3 bronze medals in the Olympics in the 25 years that they’ve been an independent country. In 2004 they even became the second country ever to defeat the US Dream Team.

Whatever is the root cause of the love of basketball, it’s pretty cool because it provides a bond between someone like me from the country where basketball was invented (in my hometown, no less) and a tiny country that could easily be seen as insignificant to a culturally insensitive American. I like to think I’m not culturally insensitive, and I am also impressed by the modernity Lithuania displays so soon after emerging from the Soviet economic rubble.

Heading north from Lithuania I came to Latvia, whose capital is Riga. Latvia felt reasonably different from Lithuania, though their languages are at least in the same branch of Indo-European languages. In contrast, Estonian is a tongue-twisting language that is part of the tiny, esoteric, notoriously difficult Finno-Urgic class. Let’s just say Estonian is not a language you want to learn at any time other than as a baby in your crib, when it’s a more or less natural process – if your mother happens to be Estonian, that is.

The Latvian flag

I say Latvia is different from Lithuania mainly because the people look fairly different. In particular, I found the Latvian ladies to be more Russian looking, and might I say more attractive to my particular tastes. And that’s not to take anything away from the Lithuanians, because I saw a great many attractive females there as well. As far as the city itself, Riga seemed a bit more lively than Vilnius, perhaps reflecting a more brash, Russian-style attitude. I also had a particularly enjoyable day at one of the Latvian beaches on the Baltic Sea.

Last of the triumvirate is my present location, Estonia. A prize goes to you if you know that the capital of Estonia is Tallinn. But I doubt I’ll be handing that prize out to many readers.

The Estonian flag

Estonia is the smallest of the three Baltic states at a mere 1.3 million people. It’s on the far northern tip of the region, possessing a large coastline and sitting just beneath Finland, with Tallinn on the northern coast and looking directly across 50 miles of Baltic Sea at Helsinki on the southern coast of Finland.

Despite having the smallest population, Estonia has two intra-Baltic distinctions going for it: it has the most attractive ladies of the three (in my opinion, at least), and it is the most technologically advanced. Allow me to clarify both of these rankings.

First, if you’ve read this blog for a while, I hope it’s obvious that I’m not some kind of sexist or chauvinistic guy whose sole purpose for traveling and writing is to rank the relative attractiveness of the different female populations around the globe. However, you may not be aware that the Baltic states are well known for having very attractive ladies, and when I enter a region like that, it’s hard not to be on the lookout so as to be able to compare my own opinion with the commonly held beliefs.

Unlike Brazil, which I was very disappointed to find vastly underperforms its formidable reputation for feminine beauty, I have to say that the Baltics have lived up to their billing. (I would include Poland in that assessment, because I was quite impressed there as well.) And while it may not be the most important thing about a country or a region, for a “red-blooded” guy like myself (whatever that expression actually means), seeing a lot of good looking girls can only add to the pleasantness of a place. The Baltics score highly in that regard. And on my personal scale, Estonia is the best of the three.

Advantage: Estonia

As far as technological prowess, Estonia is well known globally for being one of the most advanced societies, possibly even #1. Almost everything is electronic here, and the country and government have happily adopted the nickname of “e-Stonia”, reflecting the fact that pretty much all government and personal activities can be carried out online. That includes voting, signing contracts, creating companies, filling out and paying taxes, and just about everything else you can think of. There is very little time wasted in Estonian dealing with inefficient government bureaucracy. And that’s what I call a good use of technology, unlike most things we do with computers – not to take anything away from Pokemon GO, or whatever this thing I’ve been hearing about it called.

And then there’s the elephant in the room. It’s actually an 800 pound gorilla: Skype was created here. Estonians are mighty proud of that fact and willing to take credit for it by using “the royal we,” as in “We created Skype.” In reality, it was a few programmers, but such details are no barrier to the whole country taking credit for it.

The fact is, there are a lot of great programmers in Estonia, and it has led to a strong ecosystem for other technology companies and startups, which has helped the economy progress more quickly beyond the ruins of Communism than those of its Baltic neighbors. This is a country that is going places, and you can feel it on the streets and in the cafes here in Tallinn. It doesn’t have any of that post-Communism hangover feeling that I get in a lot of other countries that were under the cloak of Soviet domination.

There is so much more I could say, but this post is already about 4 times as long as I intended, so I have to cut it off – as much for my sake as yours. I’ll just say that I’m glad that I finally made it to the Baltics. The whole region is a breath of fresh air, both literally and figuratively. I would love to return and stay much longer. Though first the Estonians have to earn their reputation for technological wizardry: come up with a way of keeping summer weather here year round, and avoid the winter days with 19 hours of darkness.

They came up with Skype, didn’t they? I don’t think my request is too much to ask. I guess there’s only one small problem; if they succeed, this won’t be such a low rent district any more.