Visit to Poland and Baltic Countries (May 2018)
Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia & Russia (St. Petersburg)
Tuesday, May 15: Arrive Krakow at the end of long 2 leg flight on KLM/Air France from LA. Wednesday am we explore parts of the main castle of Krakow which was home of the Monarch. Poland, a monarchy from about 10th century to 19th, is the only country where the King was elected, by the 10% recognized as nobles. The 2nd Republic of Poland was created at the end of World War I in 1918. For 123 years prior there was no Poland and though the Polish culture was somewhat maintained, this area was part of Russia. Preceding that it was a monarchy for which the Krakow Castle was residence. Also Poland and Lithuania were one in some past times.
Wednesday after exploring Krakow square, and rain abating, I took the hotel bicycle for a long ride up and down the Wista River. Interesting bridge with acrobatic figures interspersed in the rigging. Pleasant local guide seemed to have a reasonable command of English and knowledge of Krakow, but her delivery (speed, intonation, accent) was 75% unintelligible to me and some others in the OAT group. Krakow (and later learned Warsaw as well) very crowded with tourists, three money changers (Kantors) in every block. 1.3; million residents and 13 million tourists per year.
Thursday rainy, after Jewish ghetto and Oskar Schindler pottery factory, later converted to munitions manufacture under Nazi occupation, our bus driver sits with the heater on while the whole group walks ½ mile through the rain from the factory tour.
Joe from Kentucky. And I took Uber to/from the Polish Aviation Museum. Joe has a Piper J3, very old airplane where the pilot sits behind the passenger making it very difficult to see the instruments – but there aren’t many anyway, no radio, of VOR, just the basic six-pack. Lots of Migs including a Mig 29 at the museum. They still buy some airplanes from Russia despite NATO membership. Uber worked very well from my phone and the ride seemed quite inexpensive. Intended to join the tour guide for 7 pm local dinner, but he changed the time to 6:45 and all were gone when I got to the meeting point – of course he won’t admit that he got impatient and left me behind – or changed the time after Joe and I departed for the Air Museum. Krakow Album
Friday we drive north to Warsaw, with stops along the way at Auschwitz, then Birkenau for several hours and farther along at the monastery Shrine of Czestochowa having the Black Madonna, arriving Polonia Palace in evening. Great Polish style noodle lunch along the way. The Polonia, a very nice hotel was our home for a couple nights in 2005 near the end of a Trans-Siberia Rail trip, and Eisenhower’s home near the end of WW II, though it may have been the only hotel standing then? Warsaw was really smashed in WW II by Nazis and Russians, but rapidly and near completely rebuilt to original appearance. Warsaw dinner at SCSK Zurawia restaurant. Meal was a work of art but unfortunately no food. First course a paint-thin spray of duck pate, main small serving of meat on mashed potatoes, and huge dessert made of air. Reminiscent of a meal I had in the Savoy Hotel, London about 25 years ago. Our hotels buffet breakfasts at Polonia Palace have vodka though – and it’s not even Siberia – outstanding breakfast buffet.
Saturday, May 19: On a walking tour through Park Belwederski that has the Chopin theater and the Palace on the Island we learned that in Myslewicki Palace the Chinese and US diplomats met many times between 1968 70 preparing for Nixon’s entre to China in 1972. For fear of Soviet bugging they never spoke a word, rather wrote everything down in communication, then burned it. Warsaw residents enjoy the parks frequently as many live in 4 – 600 ft2 apartments. Saturday evening we joined the tour guide for dinner at the Radio Café, so named because the facility and some of the staff are veterans of Radio Free Europe.
Sunday morning we catch a plane from Warsaw to Vilnius, Lithuania. Pretty much killed the day with this 1 hour flight and in between transits. Here we are to meet the Warsaw airport transit bus at 8 am. At 7:50 the other travelers and guide are sitting in the bus looking through the hotel window at me relaxing with my final sips of morning coffee!
Monday, May 21: Sunday & Monday are our first two sunny more pleasant days. Lots of beautiful churches around Vilnius. Took a great hot air balloon ride of about 20 mi across NE to SW diagonal of the city near sunset – pretty much directly over the most scenic “old town,” landing in a mosquito patch SW of the city just at their dinner time. Max altitude was about 1000 ft. Our pilot said if we were blown over the airport we would have to climb to 1000 m, but this did not occur. On Tuesday we visit the KGB Museum which was used in Soviet times as prison and torture/interrogation facility for uncommitted Lithuanians. Tuesday a visit to Trakai on a lake west of Vilnius. Vilnius Album Wednesday we made the ~200 mile drive between three largest cities of Lithuania, from Vilnius to Klaipeda on the Baltic Coast, stopping midway for lunch at Kaunas. An interesting visit to Rumsiskes 400 acre outdoor museum of old rural dwelling and farm buildings of Lithuania. While there we were lucky to meet and talk with Irena Špakauskienė who visits the park rarely. Like thousands of Lithuanians, she was exiled by train to a Siberian work camp in 1941 at age 12. Escaped in 1958 on chance meeting with some college students from Irkutsk. A small section of the park has one of the prison rail cars, cattle cars, and a replica of the sod yurts occupied by prisoners in Siberia. Her life story is told in a recent book, Between Shades of Grey, (fiction based on history) and being produced as an American movie with a similar name. Lithuanians were distributed in more than 100 Soviet work camps. The drive revealed generally flat prime agricultural land with large fields of crops and lots of flat-land forests – (usually we think of forestry on land too hilly or mountainous for farming), 1/3 of Lithuania’s land is forest and ½ of Estonia’s. Farm land appears to be laid out in very large plots of 10s of acres. This in contrast to Albania where, upon communist breakup, the government gave everyone tiny plots of land, in the Baltics an attempt was made to identify prior owners and give property to them. The highway and everything along it outside the cities is new. We guess because all build in the last 20 years, and nothing built in the 50+ years of communism preceding. Their only nuclear power plant, which was same technology as Chernobyl, was closed in 2009 motivated by their proximity to that accident and age of the plant. Central heating for entire towns, rather than home heating, is common and they are largely switching to gas aided by a new LNG terminal on the Baltic at Kalipeda with recent imports from Norway and US.
One day at Klaipeda was spent exploring the perhaps 100 mile long Curonian Spit emanating in the south from the little known disjoint section of Russia, Kaliningrad, and terminating in the north just short of the Lithuanian mainland, thus creating an excellent seaport for the latter, while leaving Kaliningrad landlocked. This anomalous piece of geography has land borders only with Lithuania and Poland, making transport to and from Mother Russia logistically ad politically interesting. On the spit we hiked the Hill of Witches, which has many wood sculptures carves from dead trees, and an amber workshop in Nida. Amber, fossilized tree sap (coal?!), is found along the Baltic Sea become a popular jewelry item and is sold in many shops of the area. We gathered some of our own along the beach, pieces as large as a half grain of rice!
Friday, May 25: Travel day from Klaipeda to Riga. Latvia, largest city in the Baltics. Though there are no mountains and few hills, along the way we did encounter an advanced bobsled track, near the border in Sigulda, Latvia, that winds from a ridge 1200 m. down into a canyon. Good visit to Rundale Palace along the way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rundale_Palace This has a lot in common with Catherine’s Palace at Pushkin, The Duke, who started the construction, and finished after a long pause while he was out of favor, was a consort of Catherine. After exploring Riga, on the following day we visited Ligatne and the Gauga National Park, build around a 19th century paper mill and company town prosperous until just before communist times. Unique old wood architecture row houses of the company town are preserved and some buildings serve as an art school. Not very good lunch at the house of a Latvian style ‘shaman.’ Part of the morning activity was a visit to an old couple in their apartment typical of Russian occupation housing. Often one waited 7 years after becoming eligible to get into a 500 ft2 unit with a kitchen (often a family of 4 would have to take turns eating in the small kitchen), living area and bedroom. Latvia is 50% forest, Lithuania 33%. Winters are very cold but not necessarily a lot of snow, unpredictable, some years not much. Riga Album
Politics: With Russia on their border, recently taking Crimea and threatening Ukrane, the Baltic people recognize that with virtually no army, they could be crushed in a day. They highly value membership in NATO and readily contribute the 2% of GDP nominal share of support. While many Lithuanians were exported to Soviet work camps, many Russians were moved to Estonia for communist mining and other work. One result is that today more than 40% of population in Estonia is Russian, speak only Russian, and work and socialize together, a dangerous situation rendering half the population sympathetic to the Russian neighbor. Many have relatives to visit in Russia and Russia keeps the sympathy alive with easy visa access. Estonia, on the other hand, with nearly half their population Russia sympathetic, would like to give these folks citizenship. However, with requirements to learn their language and history (requirements) and their social isolation it is difficult for these ethanoic Russian “Etonians.” Another concept I could never grasp is coming through: How could anyone be displeased in the fall of communism? Consider a 20 year old, and a 60 year old. The 20 year old is in an age of communication with some knowledge of what is happening in the outside and can anticipate a new life of social and economic freedom. The 60 year old has been a communist since birth, has never known anything else and has had government provide everything for his entire life. Worse, when this suddenly ends, that person has not provided in any way to make their own in the later years. There is no savings, no ‘retirement’ no property, nothing to fall back on. The opportunity presented to the 20 year is meaningless to this person – only perhaps a worse life condition ahead!
Monday, May 28: Northward to Tallinn, Estonia. Along the way taking in Cēsis Castle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesis_Castle and a rest stop at a Parnu beach, billed as one of the Baltics best. However, beach water depth is little more than ankle deep for a long, long way – not a beach for any water activity. Old town Tallinn is quite ornate and interesting. It has extensive examples of the unusual Baltic city walls, which are a straight high wall outside, as most cities walls are on both sides. But the inside has a sheltered walk way (maybe horse way in times past) set just below the top of the wall. Also there are lots of accessible “rooms” within the wall at multiple levels even today being used to house shops, offices, and perhaps residences. It would appear there partial private interest use and perhaps ownership of the wall. Of course we stopped briefly at the outdoor theater host of 300 thousand participants of the Singing Revolution. Wednesday visited Catherine I’s palace where guards appearing at the door led us to anticipate seeing emergence of Estonia’s woman President – but no! Also hit Estonia’s Art museum. More exciting, I climbed St. Olaf’s tower 125 m high, reputedly highest building in the world in 16th century, but only obviously could be determined years later, when transportation was fast enough to survey all the worlds towers. Great views of the city and beyond in all directions from the exterior platform on top.
Last evening in the city we were on free time and visited the Old Tallinn city square where Estonia’s 100th anniversary celebration was in progress with music and dance on the temporary stage and a hi-wire bicycle rider biking between the two highest surrounding towers (marking signing of the Tartu Peace Treaty, this celebration is continuing over several years). I think I saw the walking police escorting the president’s car in to the area, but still didn’t get a glimpse through the shaded windows, so you’ll have to do with this link, Kersti Kaljulaid, if it’s still there when you read this. Tallinn Album
Thursday, May 31: We drive eastward toward Russia. This is the ethnic Russian dominated portion of Estonia where the surrounding civilization, homes, farms, construction, is old and worn in sharp contrast to the main highway drive across Lithuania noted above. In the Putin era cross border visiting has been facilitated by easy visas and border crossing with motive of breading and enhancing the Russia connection of Soviet days. Shades of Russian actions in eastern Ukraine. A positive, Estonia joined the EU and NATO in 2004, while perhaps Estonia would do well to promote this eastern economy more. In Narva, Estonia, at the Russian border a stop for lunch was probably the worst meal of the trip – some sort of soup containing a large cube of pork ‘pudding’ maybe dominated by fat and ?? To be fair, there were several outstanding and enjoyably meal during the three week tour.
St. Petersburg (at this link scroll, or search, down to the St. Petersburg segment for interesting observation from my 2005 visit) has many outstanding tourist attractions and caters very well to them – as a result there are many tourists. Long lines were scene and skillfully avoided by our OAT guides at The Hermitage and Peterhof. Among the many spectacular sights are churches: Peter & Paul Fortress, Church of Spilled Blood, Kazan Cathedral, and perhaps most, St. Isaacs Cathedral. Palaces: The Hermitage (Winter Palace), Catharine Palace at Pushkin (Tsar’s Village), Peterhof, and architecture as the Singer Building, the Armory and Hermitage Plaza with it’s 600 ton Alexander Column and the Armory with the 6 horse bronze sculpture on the entry arch, and numerous canals lined with majestic buildings. New from my 2005 visit, the Gulf of Finland Dam to control flooding on the Neva River and in the cities’ canals and Gazprom Tower which we only saw from a distance at Peterhof gardens.