A very special city

Last week we were on vacation. We traveled through DDR, or what used to be DDR during the cold war. Now, of course, it’s part of the re-united Germany. We spent most of the time in Berlin. It’s an awesome city, with a very special atmosphere.  

Berlin has been at the heart of European history for almost a century.  Berlin was the capital of the nazi regime before and during the 2^nd World War. The Berlin wall was an important border in the divided Europe during the cold war.  The fall of the Berlin wall marked the collapse of the communist block and the end of the cold war.

Today Berlin is the capital of the re-united Germany, which is the economic engine of the European Union.

There are plenty of interesting sights. The Reichstag building and the Brandenburger Tor, which was just inside the Soviet sector, and a few meters from the wall, where John F Kennedy gave his famous speech (“Ich bin ein Berliner”). 

The DDR museum gives an impression of everyday life in East Germany.

Checkpoint Charlie, manned by the US Army, was the site for many dramatic events, in real life, and in spy thrillers, such as “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” by LeCarre.

Today there is a big McDonald’s restaurant at Checkpoint Charlie, and for 2 Euros, you can get your picture taken with men in military uniforms at the checkpoint.  Capitalism vs. Communism 2-0.

I remember 1990 when the wall was taken down. Gorbachov was still the leader of the Soviet Union, and I was still a physics student in the university. Late August (or early September), I sat in a small apartment in Leningrad (presently St Petersburg) together with some Russian students. They had made borscht (the Russian soup) for us. We were drinking beer and smoking White Sea Channel  (Soviet cigarettes, terrible stuff) while watching Roger Waters on TV, performing The Wall live in Berlin. It was amazing.

Now I’m sitting in the airport waiting for the Aeroflot flight SU2175 to Moscow.  Here I go again. Business trip this time.     

(Picture taken last week at the Parisien Platz, by the Brandenburg Gate. During the Cold War, the Parisien Platz was was in The Soviet sector, and part of the so-called Death Zone. After the fall of the wall, the area has been re-built and taken over by the Americans; US Embassy to the left and Starbucks to the right.)

Who the Hell was Stroganoff?

I’m out traveling again. No need to say where. It’s almost become an habit. I survived another trip on the old Antonov 24, and arrived safely on Putin’s side of the border.

The driver took me to the hotel. Then I went to the café to get a dark Piligrim and something to eat. Irina was behind the counter, with a shy smile as usual. She gave me the menu, and I looked through it to find something to eat. Pizza? No, it’s terrible. Some Russian dish? I found beef Stroganoff on the menu. An international dish, but at least a Russian name.

 But who the Hell was Stroganoff? The chef who invented this popular dish? I Googled it and found the answer. Beef Stroganoff goes back to a Russian family of very rich merchants, during the Tsar era. The beer was good and the Stroganoff was eatable. I asked Irina for another beer, but not another Stroganoff.

Today I was working with our Russian collaborators. Not much to say about it, not much I’m allowed to say about it. But the lunch was good. Seafood from arctic waters. Herring and cod and caviar.

Then I started the trip back home, by car, through northern wilderness in early spring. Snow was mostly gone, but lakes still covered by ice, and no signs of green leaves yet.

We stopped at the cafe in Titovka, to get a cup of bad instant coffee and a rest. It’s become a habit.

When we passed through the Army town of Sputnik, I asked the driver if he had been in military service. I told him I had, in the navy, during the cold war (I will write about my merits in battle some time later).

 “You were our enemies,” I said, “the evil empire in the east.”

 Then we got a good laugh, on our way to the border between two countries that have never been at war.

 (Some pictures I took today, from top to bottom: Murmansk seen from the other side of the fjord. The cafe in Titovka, made from 3-4 old yellow railroad cars tied together. Not much of a cafe, but you can get a cup of coffee or a coke, and use the restroom for 15 Rubles. Nikel seen from the road ()my driver don't want to stop there). It was a sunny day, but the town was obscured by the smoke from the Nickel factory.)

After the election

This morning at 9am, my Russian driver picked me up at the hotel in Murmansk. Mission completed; I was going home. He was taking me to the Russian border, or more precisely, to the nearest airport across the border.

We drove through the winter-white wilderness of north-west Russia. We crossed a scenic mountain pass with two or three war memorials by the road. There were big battles during WW2. The Russians are good at building memorials.

It was a four-hour drive, and we had plenty of time to talk. We duscussed history, fishing, cars and kids. Then we talked about moving to Kaliningrad (not me, of course), and the recent Russian presidential election.

The driver doesn't like Putin. And I expect he didn't vote for Putin, but I didn't ask directly.

"What's wrong with Putin?" I said.

I have my own opinions, but would liked to hear his views.

"The main problem is that he's been in office too long; eight years as president, then four years as prime minister. People want change. Now we fear another eight years with Putin, at least."

Putin is in control of everything; the natural resources and the state-owned compenies, newspapers and television. He even dictates the super-rich oligarks, or jail them if they don't obey. The longer he rules, the more he behaves a Tsar, or a blend of Tsar and KGB officer (which he used to be).

Still people voted for Putin. According to official figures, he got 65% of the votes. Even the dead voted for Putin, thousands of people who had been dead for years. If the false votes are subtracted, he still gets more than 50% (estimated by international observers).

Halfway we stopped in Titovka, a small place in the middle of nowhere, with a cafe that serves instant coffee and something they called pizza. Maybe it was omelette; I'm in doubt.

Then we entered the military zone, where the roads are very wide. They were built for tanks, during the cold war. Built for a Red-Army invasion, that never came, fortunately.

We passed by the medieval town of Pechenga, and the depressive and polluted mining towns Zapolyarny and Nikel, where nothing has changed in decades. Then, some 10 km (6 miles) before the border, there is a check point. A grumpy guy in army uniform looked at our passports and searched the trunk of the car. He nodded , OK, but didn't smile.

Between the check-point and the border is a transit zone. You can drive through, but stopping is prohibited. At the boarder there is double-checking. A Russian officer stamped my passport, and let me through. Then finally, at the last check point, the officer greeted me: "Welcome home".

I was out of Putin's reach, for this time. Back from the USSR.

(Some pictures taken along the road; Pechenga and Nikel.)

Back in the USSR

Not really. I just borrowed the title from that old Beatles song. The USSR is history, split into a number of more or less democratic and independent republics. I'm in the north-west corner of the biggest one; Russia, the land of Putin.

Yesterday morning, I took a plane up to the Paris of the North. It was one of these big jet planes, a Boeing 7-Something. It was windy on the coast. Very windy. The first approach for landing was aborted right before we touched ground, because the pilots struggeled to control the plane in the wind.

In the second approach, the plane tilted again. Out of the window, I looked straight into the white-topped waves of the roaring sea. I don't know how, but in some way, the skilled pilots managed to level the plane right before landing. It was a very unpleasant flight, a real adrenaline booster.

The next flight to Murmansk was on a good old Antonov 24, a small propeller plane, a piece of Soviet technology from the 1960s. It's a robust plane, built for harsh conditions, simple and reliable technology, if they just keep up with the maintainance program. I hope they do.

It's amazing how these small propeller planes fly in bad weather, and it feels quite comfortable. The small planes kind of flow on the air like a little bee, moving with the wind bursts, rather than trying to oppose it.

The Antonov 24 has nylon curtains in the circular windows, and there is full Russian service on board. It means vodka. I don't drink that stuff; it's poison, and a tragedy for the Russian society. Vodka is the main reason why the avergage expected lifetime of Russian men is less than 60 years.

When I arrived in Murmansk, my driver picked me up in the airport and took me to the hotel. The road from the airport to the city makes a detour into the forests. They started out in the wrong direction when it was built.

Moscow is a modern metropol, but Murmansk is very much like it used to be in the Soviet days. Old buses and Red-Army vehicles (and some brand new Lexus'es and BMW's) are driving in the streets. Huge nuclear-powered ice breakers are anchored on the bay.

A few miles out the fjord is the town of Severomorsk, with the big navy base and shipyard. During the cold war, it was the headquarter of the Soviet Northern Fleet. It's still in operation, but the submarines are not as many as they used to be.

Murmansk was bombed to bits and pieces by the Germans during the 2nd World War, and then rebuilt in typical Soviet style architecture. The suburbs on the hills accommodate thousands of people in massive gray concrete blocks.

I'm back in the USSR >:)

(Pictures taken today and yesterday. The first picture shows central Murmansk, with the big cranes on the harbor and the fjord. In the upper right corner is the Alyosha statue, a 35m (110 feet) high concrete statue overlooking the city, a WW2 memorial built in the 1970s. The second picture is a close-up of the Antonov 24, parked on the snow-covered runway of the Murmansk airport last night.)