Transcarpathia

Transcarpathia is a jumble of wooded valleys running beneath bare mountains. DEC Camp is based in a former Soviet youth lodge on the hillside at the tail end of a dishevelled old road that leads down into a village that's name nobody seemed to know.  The camp was modern, well lit and, in the frigid Carpathian winter, wonderfully, wonderfully warm.  A pipe channelling hot water ran beside my bed on the fourth floor which was often so warm that I had to leave my window open.  The views through that window where predictably fantastic, particularly when the sunrise broke in an orange glow above the hills.  I shared my room with Nick and a Ukrainian Vitalic and we shared the camp with teachers, counsellors, psychiatrists, doctors, a small horde of adolescents and an army of hard-as-nails babushkas who kept the place clean and served us food of an almost unbelievably low calibre.  My favourite thing about DEC Camp was the secret hut down an icy pathway beyond the prying eyes of children that contained a wooden panelled sauna and a tiled pool exposed to the freezing winter air; it was a place where shit went down.

In my spare time I would take walks down to the village or out in the forest.  The village was the sort of place that's either gorgeously rustic or desperately poor depending on your perspective.  Unlike elsewhere in Ukraine, the USSR's grip had always been weak in these hills and the ugly high rises that scarred towns out on the steppe had never been built here.  Instead, ramshackle cottages and hoarded stocks of timber roofed with pine beams or aluminium clung to an icy stream that wound its way between two high ridges.  From time to time I would walk past some sign of the modern world like a rusty old generator - collapsed but still just about functional - or a tractor half buried in snow.  Some people travelled around the village in beaten down Skodas, relics from the 1980s.  Most though rode tobogans or carriages pulled by horses whose breath hung white in the chilly air.  On the hillside bales of hay, made by hand like they do in Romania, stood beneath powdery shawls of snow.  It was poverty, but it was so, so pretty.

The people who lived there in the lawless western most extremity of the former Soviet Union are called the Hutsuls and, unlike the city slicking Russian speakers that I met in Kyiv, they are fiercely proud of their Ukrainian language.   Often, they considering Russian the language of a foreign oppressor; I never made anyone so angry as the waitress who I thanked with Spasiba rather than the Ukrainian Diakuju. Historically a Habsburg dominion, many people here still set their clocks to +1 time, rather than the Kyivite +2, in accordance with the old Austro-Hungarian empire.

Past the village and our camp, the road roughened and then faded into snow beneath thick pine trees.   The air out in the forest was nearly always still and hardly anything moved.  I'd hoped to see a bear or some wolves but I never found any animals.  I liked the atmosphere out there though; it was peaceful.  I passed streams and I wondered where they led.  The Danube?  The Dnipro?  The Dnister?  If I followed this one would it lead down through Moldova, past the breakaway Republic of Transdnister where the USSR has never fallen, down into the Black Sea?

I took the overnight train from Kyiv to Transcarpathia after meeting my co-workers at the station.  The train was an agreeably old-school affair; leather beds, wooden carriages and black tea served by frosty Soviet waitresses.  Nick and I shared our compartment with two great Russian bears.  I began unpacking whilst Nick and one of our room mates ducked out for a smoke.  I was left alone with the man in the bed opposite mine who, rather alarmingly, began to strip.   He somehow managed to inhabit all of the space beside the door and, unable to push past him, I saw it all.  His body was huge and hairy and the sandblasted mountains of the Hindu Kush were writ large across his great sagging mass.  When this burly Cossack had finally squeezed into his pyjamas I breathed a terrible sigh of relief.
After escaping, I was anctious to find the others, having seen quite enough of my own cabin, so I ducked into the room where my co-workers were staying.  We drank tea and chatted for a while and then I headed off to go to sleep.  Unfortunately I confused my mattress with a duvet and passed a sleepless night lying on the bare leather of my bed under its suffocating bulk.
That morning the sun rose upon the startling beauty of the Carpathian Mountains.  It had been dark when we left Kyiv and my first sight of the Ukrainian countryside was of rolling snow covered hills, icy mountain streams and thick pine forest fading into the distance towards Romania.  We left our train in Volovets, a pretty provincial town nestled within a gentle valley. From the station we rode in one of those minibuses that are ubiquitous to mountain-regions across the world.  From time to time we passed small villages but mostly the road, and the valleys, were empty.  This stretch of our journey was my first experience of the sort of frantic folksy accordion music with drunkenly shouted lyrics that is played everywhere in Ukraine and sounds like the blueprint for every Gogol Bordello song.

Steppeing In

My journey to Ukraine began at the godless hour of three A.M. when I woke in Glasgow after two hours sleep, the shattered husk of a man. I ate a quick breakfast and left my hotel room. Deciding that I probably wasn't up to anything as mind-bogglingly complex and potentially lethal as stairs I took the lift down to the foyer where I handed in my keys and tried my best to ask for directions to the airport. “Which terminal are you flying from?” “Dunno; one of them. Where are they all?” In the early morning Glasgow's outskirts were utterly dark and silent but for the harsh strip-illumination of street lamps and the coursing, throbbing motorway. Fortunately, the first terminal I tried turned out to be the right one and I arrived for my six o'clock flight.

My first flight, from Glasgow to Amsterdam, arrived in plenty of time for me to wait for four hours for my second. This is the first time I have been in the Netherlands and departures has done very little to sell the country to me. For one thing, most of the horizontal escalators have been turned off. For me, these are one of the few highlights of airports and, in my fragile condition, I found their inactivity very distressing.

All flight paths lead to Amsterdam so it's surprising that there is only one shop in departures which mostly sold t-shirts. Amsterdam is doubtless a city of many and varied charms but one would be hard pressed to guess this from these which almost all concerned weed and hookers. I can sort of understand the rationale for a person buying a t-shirt as a memento of that golden summer long ago when, flush in the blossom of youth, they sacrificed time and money to travel to a country with relaxed narcotics legislation in order to consume soft drugs legally rather than risk a caution back home; maybe a scrupulous respect for the letter of British common law? Well, at least it's a story for the grandchildren. However, I am genuinely baffled why anybody would want to wear a t-shirt indicating that they have paid for sex.

When my plane did eventually take off it was into a clear blue sky. Across Europe, we soared above and below the cloud line until a dense fog enveloped our plane outside Kyiv. The winds, which had been calm, began to buffet us to and fro as the lights went down in the cabin.  All I could see through the fog was a red flickering from the wings.  We sailed down until our descent was interrupted by a sudden lurch upwards as our first landing was aborted. After circling the airport for twenty minutes the pilot decided to make another attempt and this time the plane ran aground to the sound of passengers clapping.

Reykjavik part 3. Cafes, Restaurants and Bars

In summer, Iceland is a pot of coffee by day, bottle of wine by night kind of country and Reykjavik is famous for its cafes and its nightlife.  On Saturday morning we visited the Laundromat on Austurstraeti; a breezy, colourful cafe which pulled a young, hipster crowd in the centre of the city.  The following day we went to a more homely coffee house down a discrete stair from the capital's main shopping street; Laugavegur.  After so long away from civilization, it was great to relax with a cappuccino again; my first in over month.  Both of the cafes we visited were pretty friendly, chilled places with excellent decor.  In the Laudromat maps of Europe from the '60s and '70s ran down the walls next to signs with messages like "We like babies and boobs."  The other cafe, sadly I have forgotten the name, was more conservatively furnished in creamy whites, mint greens and wooden panelling.  It reminded me a lot of the wonderful cafe at Glaumbaer in the north that we visited three weeks earlier.

On Friday evening we dined in a restaurant by the port where we ate kebabs of Haddock, Hallibut, Potatoes, Vegetables and Mink Whale.  The fish, which came straight from the harbour, was as fresh as possible.  Of course, the shock was whale.  Though whaling is illegal in most European countries it has resurfaced in Iceland at very low levels since 2006; 30 Mink Whales and 9 Fin Whales.  Generally speaking, I believe that if you eat one animal you should eat them all irrespective of how cute or fluffy they are.  However, if ever there were an exception it is surely whales which, though neither cute nor fluffy, are a highly intelligent endangered species.  The Icelandic government are highly responsible and take over-farming seriously; this summer Puffin hunting has been temporarily banned because of concerns over depleting stocks.  Inevitably though their is some danger caused by human error or less scrupulous whalers flaunting legal restrictions.  Honestly, I don't know if I believe it is conscionable to eat Whale.  For that reason I ordered a very good but relatively unexciting Hallibut kebab, part of which I traded with Emily.  Unlike Shark, Whale meat is very tasty; it calls to mind a tender beef steak with a mild intonation of the salty sea water.

When in a new country, I believe that one should try all of the local foods.  I intensely admire Bruce Parry's willingness to eat anything.  Though the idea faintly horrified me, heads of Sheep are considered a delicacy by many Icelanders so, on Saturday evening Emily, Steff and I found a restaurant in the centre of town where we could have them prepared for us.  Sheep's heads are cooked in advance; it can take three hours or more for the meat to soften.  Therefore, we were not left too long, in a blur of dry mouths and fluttery stomachs before the heads arrived replete with all their skin, mouths and ears intact.  From empty sockets the rams stared out blindly as upwards wafted the stench of boiled skin and fat.  In death the sheep appeared looked oddly dignified and really, profoundly sad.  My hands started to shake and I tried hard not to cry genuinally uncertain of what came next.  Could I do this?  I turned to my friend, feeling filthy, and asked them to cut the head from ear to mouth and  rip the jaw apart for me.  Then, I ate my meal.  First the tounge, then the interior of the jaw and finally the small area of meat around the base of the skull.  There is very little meat actually on a sheep's head which is mostly fat, bone and other undesirable substances.  I have no idea how this fucking tradition got started.  Of course, all meat is taken from dead animals, there is no reason why it should be better to eat an animal's head but not it's body.  It is not the same though, with the face their is no illusions to hide behind, you are made aware that this is an animal, this is what you are eating and that this is what you have become.

That night, our last in Reykjavik, we decided to drink in Iceland's pubs and bars.  Of course, alcohol is expensive in Iceland because of the country's low PPP and restrictive licensing and tax laws so we headed to the cheapest place we could find along the city's main party street which happened to be a gay bar.  Barbara is an Elizabeth II themed night club in the dead centre of town.  At 400 kr the beer here was half the price of the other place we visited, a rock club a couple of doors down.  Icelanders famously party lately and when we arrived at nine their was hardly anyone there.  A couple of small groups sat beside as at the tables which lined the wall running perpendicular from the bar.  By half eleven, the music was blaring and the place was packed with dancing people.  The streets, quiet by day, thronged with inebriated Icelanders as we made our way back to the hostel.

Reykjavik part 2; Museums and buildings

Probably the bulk of our time in Reykjavik was spent in museums.  The first that we visited, Reykjavik 871 plus or minus 2, stood across the road from the Salvation Army Hostel, our crib for the weekend.  Orientated around the insitu remains of an early settlement in a dimly lit room, this museum, is a good example of how archaeology can be brought to life by good presentation.  The exhibition is spartan; some spacious displays and touchscreens cling to the outer wall so that attention is focused where it should be; on the archaeological record.  The site itself was a long turf hall occupied during the mid- and late-tenth century.  An intuitive, interactive display lets visitors view the settlement as it was and as it is at different levels of construction; fully formed, without roof, without walls etc.  Stripped down an rather simple; Reykjavik 871 was an inspiring example of what archaeologists can actually achieve with enough scraping the dirt and some moody lighting.

The largest museum in Reykjavik, the National Museum, lies in a sleepy suburb a short walk from the city center, past a picturesque artificial lake flanked by Iceland's poshest houses and the friendly ducks which live on the water.  This collection is housed in an exceptionally hideous Soviet-esque building which does no justice to the remarkable assembly inside.  Iceland was one of the last parts of the word to be colonized by humans and the museum's material is arranged chronologically from the settlement a millennia ago to the modern day.  When walking past the many beautiful artifacts on display it is clear that Iceland is a country with an exceptionally rich historic material culture.  A thread of artistic creativity running through Icelandic history is illustrated by sumptuous realia; intricately carved horns, richly embroidered clothing and painting of astounding beauty.  When in Reykjavik, I recommend setting aside a good few hours to explore this striking, starkly beautiful collection at leisure.

Below is a beautifully carved and painted representation of the time Jesus was pulled over for drunk driving:

Though the collection inside the Reykjavik Cultural House is not of so consistently high quality as the National Museum it is a relatively cheap next stop with some absolutely must see material.  Undoubtedly, the jewel in the crown of this assemblage is the exhibition of historic manuscripts on the ground floor.  Many of the most important surviving works of Icelandic literature can be seen here including a beautiful illustration of the laws of the national commonwealth and the earliest surviving copy of Njal's saga dating to the 15th c.  Both are shown below.

As in the National Museum, the Cultural House's collection is arranged chronologically.  On the first, second and third floors pleasantly folksy paintings of ships, the sea, mountains and such tried and true material give way to painfully hip modern art.  On a television screen a shaven headed yob angrily shouts "You talkin' to me?!" ad infinitum across the room from pink bean bags in the shapes of unborn children and tits.  Any trip to the Cultural House really can be considered complete without a sortie to the uppermost floor.

On Sunday afternoon we climbed to the top of the Perlan on the hill Oskjuhilo in the centre of Reykjavik.  One of the most distinctive, if not attractive, buildings in Reykjavik; the Perlan is an overwhelmingly eighties complex comprising of a high tower encircled by six cylindrical water drums.  Recently one of the water towers was emptied for a Saga-themed wax model museum which we felt looked too cheesy and expensive to visit.  However, I don't regret taking an hour out to climb the Oskjuhilo; from the roof it is possible to see right across the city to the coast.

On the path down the hill we walked past some fabricated geysers.  Quite why a person would pay to fly hundreds of miles to a country where the real things exist naturally in order to visit these I am not sure.  Nevertheless, they had attracted a small crowd of morons.  Natural geysers are incredible; I will describe them later in my blog.  The faux-geysers of Reykjavik will not be new to anybody who has noticed it is possible to adjust the water pressure of hoses.

Reykjavik part 1.

A week last Friday we bid farewell to all of the wonderful people who we had worked with at Holar and took the main road south to Reykjavik.  It seemed far longer than four weeks since we first arrived and I was said to be saying goodbye to the quiet, little town in the valley which, that summer, had been my home.  On the road we drove past the same sweeping fjords and bleak expanses of bog that we had a month before.  The landscape which had felt fresh, new and exciting before was soaked in memories and unfulfilled desires.  I knew that my time in this beautiful country was running out and that though we had seen so much there was far more still that we had not seen.  I don't believe it is ever really possible to have "done" a country.
In Reykjavik we stayed in a surprisingly swanky Salvation Army hostel in downtown.  Reykjavik is often described as a modern European capital.  This is true; the city is home to a multitude of special interest groups and one is forever turning the corner to discover an Esperanto book shop or all male leather bar.  However, the city's real charm lies in how small, even cute, it is.  This city of a hundred thousand is a place where the Prime Minister is listed in the phone book.  The streets of Reykjavik were always quiet and at night I slept like a log not five minutes walk from the city's main party street.
Undoubtedly the most famous building in Iceland is the Hallgrimskirkja, a colossal, concrete cathedral at the heart of the city which I visited twice over our weekend.  Monolithic and grey, the Hallgrimskirkja is a defiantly modern construct; a clenched Lutheran fist thrusting upwards, into the sky.  Organ festivals have been held here for the last decade and, on our first visit, Hannah, Zen and I were fortunate enough to overhear a rehearsal.  Discordant, jazzy chords reverberated off the walls complimenting the imposing atmosphere of the church perfectly.  On Saturday Zen and I decided to attend a concert where we listened to Andreas Sieling, of the Berlin Cathedral, perform pieces by Bach and Liszt.  The organ appears a ferociously difficult beast to get to grips with and this man, who turned out beautiful music, was clearly a virtuoso.

For personal reasons I did not feel able to blog during the week I spent at Kot.  However, it seems a shame to leave the Travels of a Handsome Man unfinished so I have decided to retroactively blog about the last week from Edinburgh.