Text – Page 28 – Citizen Reporter

Remembering the 25th

It is the 25th of April, although I may be far from Portugal, here in some corner of Ulan Bataar, Mongolia, I still wanted to pause from the travel posts, videos and audios and pay my respects. To the countless who stood up to fascism and repression in the name of liberation and social justice. They marched and sang in the streets of Lisbon, after so many decades of suffering and war without end. They kicked out a tyrant and in doing so took great steps to improving the quality of people’s lives in Portugal. For all these reasons and more, today I pause and say thanks to all those who helped make it possible.

In searching for videos I know well and have never seen before I came across this recounting of that day, which includes photos and audio testimony. Its in Portuguese, but even if you can’t understand I think you can decipher the passion in the voices and the power of the images.

Post Trans-Siberian Irkutsk

Irkutsk, Russia: land of engineering, the trans-siberian railroad, an oil pipline to China, raw materials, and a whole lot of water. After 36 hours from Novosibirsk to Irkutsk I arrived tired of the cramped train cabin but well fed after two elderly Russian ladies felt it was their job to keep me fed and call me to the table every 4-5 hours.

The trans-siberian train is much less the tourist vehicle than I imagined, with April being the off-season, I found myself the lone non-Russian for several rail cars. As a result it seemed the notoriously cold train conductors memorized my name and would come over to explain little things about the train to me, where things are located and how to work knobs and buttons. My cabin mates seemed fascinated that I came to Russia and actually wanted to go such a long distance on THIS train. They also seemed fascinated by how skinny I am.

While this famous train might be a dream for alot of travellers from around the world, in Russia the train is still very much a way of life. Love it or hate it, they know exactly how to approach it, what to bring, what to wear, and ways to both take care of themselves and pass the time. Watching grandmothers and grandchildren, it became clear that this is a time-honored tradition being passed on generation to generation regardless of what kind of government is in place or how the world economy is doing.

Me, I’m on my way to Ulan Batar, but first I’d like to see this lake Baikal. So a brief pause with limited internet to test the waters, and then its on to the vast nation known as Mongolia!

Coal from Kemerovo

Many of you out there are hoping I’ll write more about Tomsk, and in time, I surely will. But one aspect of this trip that certainly overwhelms and makes it impossible to write much is the fact that I am nonstop on my way somewhere. A factor that I’m extremely thankful to great friends for keeping it that way. I suppose I’ll have plenty of time for writing and navel gazing once I get on the Trans-Siberian in the coming week.

I left Tomsk reluctantly as the more days I was there, the more interesting things kept happening. Yet it is good to stick with the plan and not overstay one’s welcome, so I hit the road via relatively modern bus en route to Kemerovo (pop. 485,000). Amazingly Kemerovo was no where on my list of places to go on this trip, but thanks to the magic of the internets, I received a warm invite from a Kemerovienne who heard I was in the region, had lived in the United States for a time, and suggested I come see this bustling city. And so like any good traveling journalist and curious mind, I said yes.

Kemerovo isn’t only an industrial town, but you wouldn’t know it as the bus crosses the bridge over the river Tom and directly in front of you three huge smokestacks from the coal powerplant pump out some dark smoke. Looking further up the river the power plant has plenty of friends, with different kinds of factories and smokestacks dotting the landscape as far as the eye can say. The industrial photographer in me says “this is heaven”, if heaven were a cold, grey, collection of old industrial buildings.

Coincidentally, with all the news over the past few weeks about the mining disaster in the US, Kemerovo is a coal mining city. When I heard this I asked if we could visit any type of mining shrine or museum, and to my great pleasure my wonderful hostess said “Of course!” – and off we went.

It is an odd reality in an era of so much talk about the need for energy alternatives and green technology, and all the possibilities that exist, coming to Kemerovo is a reminder that while green is good and green is needed, coal is still king for a huge part of the world. As the bus pulls past the coal plant, my eyes are fixed on the sagging tunnels and the never ending system of pipes. A giant poster on the side of the building features an image of a smiling toddler, although its in Russian, I know what the poster says – “making a clean world for your healthy children!”

Secret Cities

As we stroll through the snow-ice-slush filled streets of Tomsk, my new friends here have come to understand my penchant for abandoned places and forgotten history. It just so happens that Siberia has plenty of forgotten history and strange stories that could keep a citizen reporter like me busy for a long time. The trick is getting access when you’re an outsider and you don’t speak the language.

My favorite story so far is about a place only 7 kilometers outside of Tomsk, a town by the name of Seversk. Some may remember it from when it was called Tomsk-7, the town where 3 important nuclear reactors were located. What makes this town stand out more than the already impressive number of nuclear facilities it houses, is that during the Soviet Union the government decided for security purposes, the existence of these towns should be kept a secret, and access to these towns would be restricted. How do you restrict access to a town? They took a page from the medieval days of kings and kingdoms, they built a wall around it. To get in one must have official permission, or be a resident, and surely NOT be a foreigner.

With the fall of the Soviet Union in the beginning of the 1990’s, it was decided that these towns (most at least) should be able to choose if they want to stay closed off by walls and armed guards. Amazingly, many voted to stay that way. Why? Perhaps it was fear of the outside world. Fear that their lives would change in a way they never wanted. Whatever the reason, it is amazing to think that 7 km from where I sit at this very moment, there is a massive wall that surrounds a town of 100,000 people who in order to go to work in the morning, must show papers to military personnel at a checkpoint.

Take this already interesting situation and add the facts that 1 – Through nuclear disarmament deals between the US and Russia, 2 of Seversk’s reactors have been shut down, and 2 – in 1993 there was an explosion at one the facilities resulting in a radio active cloud – what you get is a very confusing and difficult situation within the walls of Seversk. Or at least, that’s what I think when I consider potentially large unemployment plus an extreme environmental hazard, bottled up in one town.

Coming up next – A podcast about Seversk and life in a secret city. I can’t get inside, but I’m hoping to speak with someone who comes outside on a regular basis, maybe I’ll even get to go to the wall just to see it first-hand.

Siberia is Below

It is 5:08am in Tomsk, Russia; 2:08am in Moscow, Midnight in Amsterdam, 6pm back in New Jersey, and 3pm in LA. I didn’t have to come to Siberia to give you a run down of time zones, but after taking off and landing a couple of times today, I feel like I’m really living in all of these. As I look down to see scattered lights of unknown Siberian towns, I’m like an astronaut looking down at earth, watching land masses go by and fairly often; in awe of it’s vastness.

Beautiful girl next to me has a book. It’s probably nothing special as far as books go, but looking over at it’s pages spilling over with Cyrillic text, in my eyes it is some ancient text drafted by a highly advanced society. The girl herself- a beautiful scholar with the wisdom to understand it all and dare I think it- to explain it all to me during the next four hours aboard Siberian Airlines flight bla bla with nonstop service to Tomsk. “angleski?” I ask in my makeshift Russian dilect I create on the spot. “very bad” she responds. We smile at each other….

A Place Like Lloret

As the bus drove further and further out of Barcelona, I stared out the window, following the coastline as it occasionally disappeared behind a hill or houses. I watched the Costa Brava unfold in front of me, just as the sun was going down at the end of a beautiful spring day in March. Looking at the landscape on the way to Lloret, I found myself wondering if that beach town up ahead was it, hmm not this one, perhaps its the next one. After doing this several times, I dosed off.

Waking up not 20 minutes later, it was now clearly dark out and the bus was moving slowly along regular two lane roads. The sign ahead read “Lloret de Mar – Centro” or something to that effect. As I scanned the lights outside, I noted an abundance of neon signs: “Go-Go Dancers”, “Exotic Dancers”, and so on. Welcome to the outskirts of Lloret, just a little tap from a city that when you arrive after nightfall, the atmosphere punches you in the face.

It punches you in the face with neon signs, blasting club music, and teenagers screaming, singing and chanting about anything and everything. I’m making my way from the bus station to the beach by walking down what should be the glorious mainstreet of this vacation hotspot, where the elderly come to stroll leisurely during the day, and adolescents come to go wild, in many cases, for the first time ever away from home.

It’s a Sunday afternoon and we have a 3 hour break between games. I walk away from the beach to buy some food supplies at a local supermarket, which happens to be on that infamous avenue with all the neon and vomit. The crepe man is smiling as people queue up in front of him, he greets me and starts showing me how many industrial size containers of batter he made fresh this morning. “I make them fresh every morning” he assures me while opening many different cabinets behind him revealing tall white 5 liter jugs. I start asking a bit more about his business when we’re suddenly interrupted by a loud cheering. Behind me a bus had pulled up, the doors open and out pour dozens upon dozens of Portuguese teenagers, ripe from a 12 hour bus ride from Porto. They look up and around as if they’ve landed on another planet, clinging to their hand luggage on wheels and travel pillows. The crepe man motions towards them with his spatula: “New groups arriving everyday, twice a day… even more next week for Easter vacation, they come here in their last year of high school- thousands of them.” He says this with half a smile. For him it means more business. But it also means tonight after he closes up, countless kids will smash bottles and urinate on the wall next to his crepe stand.

Its all in the game, people working in Lloret seem to say without saying it. This is what their city does, as an infamous and celebrated destination for youth from Portugal, England, the Netherlands, etc. They are there to cook the food, make the beds, run the nightclubs, and oh yeah – wash the streets every morning once the kids have passed out. Just in time for the elderly who get up for their daily constitutional along the beach.

Lloret could be any spring break town in many countries around the world. The place where the kids want to go, the place that although I may look upon with a sense of disgust, to them represents freedom and excitement.

On my way home from the obligatory post-frisbee party on my first night around 2am, I take the long way home, passing through some of Lloret’s narrow streets and alleys. Weaving through the bodies that seem to be strewn around randomly, I run into a thick crowd of kids singing in Portuguese. I take off my headphones to listen closely…. “Viva.. Viva Lloret” they sing. Why would anyone feel like they needed to sing praises to the city they are in, late at night, I wondered. Then I walked on past the kids making out here and there, and the groups of 6 and 8 kids laughing and walking arm-in-arm. I realized right there was the inspiration for their songs of praise, a thank you to the place that they feel has given them what they wanted.