Kharkiv #3 - hanging out, metro and street art

Last Kharkiv post.  This is from the early June trip.

Kharkiv is a surprisingly good city to chill in. Daniel and I wandered around, stopping here and there to read a book and chattering on about this or that.  We hung out in a few of the city's many parks and a coffee shop called "Coffee Life" that is the closest thing to Starbucks I've seen in Ukraine (btw, there is a Gloria Jean's in Kyiv).  Counter service and a non-smoking section (Gloria Jean's doesn't have counter service).  It was later confirmed that it is certainly the local Starbucks equivalent when the very cool locals we were hanging out with made fun of us for going there (Gloria Jean's isn't very cool either). 

Although nowhere near as good as the art in the Moscow metro (not that I've seen it), the Kharkiv metro has some interesting stuff going on.  Even better, it isn't that crowded, and you can take photos, unlike in Moscow.  A guy I know apparently went to every metro station in Moscow just to see all the designs, which some people think is weird, but I think is a great Moscow-on-a-shoestring plan, as it seems that for the average backpacker a metro token is about all that is affordable.  If you'd like to see a collection of photos from the various Kharkiv metro stations that borders on an obsessive compulsion, click here.  And of course there is the post I just made about the Gagarin station if you'd missed it.

Here are some shots from the Kharkiv metro - this station is very "meet George Jetson."

More street art than I had expected.  There was an alley of murals sponsored by Caparol which was quite interesting, one of my favorite parts being this photo:

which is a boy playing with this Gazprom building (one of the symbols of Kharkiv, Marina told me) as if it were a lego set:

And here with Lenin, because we can:

Two more from the mural alley:

This next one was near a courtyard with some similar work.  Slipping through the gate, we were immediately tracked down by an on-guard babushka.  "What are you doing?"  "Looking at the paintings."  "Look from the other side of the gate."  Ok.

"Every window is a door" - it sounds philosophical, but it was on an abandoned building and the only way in was the broken windows.  Ta ta!

Kharkiv #2 - Searching for Gagarin

Any traveller who has ever relied on a Lonely Planet (or any guidebook for that matter) knows the pain of searching out  something labeled in the book as a "gem," only to arrive and find it closed, destroyed, or just plain disappointing.  My last day in Kharkiv I set out on a mission to find "the stained-glass portraits of Yuri Gagarin [the first man in space] above the stairs to the platforms at the pr Gagarina station."  Sounds pretty sweet, right?  I was expecting something like this, which I had already seen in another station:

Or even as cool as this - the Creator Art Nouveau style, in a cathedral in Cracow:

Being spoiled by such beautiful "stained-glass portraits," I was sure this one was going to be pretty damn good.  Who doesn't love Gagarin?  Daniel and I were staying with Marina, a great woman we met on couchsurfing, and I noticed on her wall a printout of Gagarin.  "I love him!" she gushed when I asked her about it.  So I inquired about the stained-glass portrait.  Certainly she must know about it!  But she didn't, and we set off to have a look.

We arrived at Prospekt Gagarina metro station, and we couldn't find a thing.  We were teased just by his name on the station wall, and these stars decorating the walls

 

Marina called a few friends but no one knew about it.  We didn't have the guidebook on us, and I couldn't' remember exactly where it said the portrait was located.  We asked a security guide.  "Nu....mojet byt est' takoj.. no ya ne znayo gde eta nahoditsya..."    He had no idea, and wasn't even prepared to tell us with a remote degree of confidence if it did or didn't exist.

Marina got an idea and brought me to a nearby children's store.  Here a somewhat awkward statue of Gagarin was walking down the stairs in his spacesuit.

Call me naive, but I have faith in the Lonely Planet.  I insisted that this wasn't what it was talking about.  Another phone call to a friend of Marina.  No one knew what I was on about.  As we were closeby, Marina brought me to an old factory with murals painted on the walls by various artists.  One was Gagarin, waving and smiling and he was being shot up into space.  Also cool, but I am stubborn, and really wanted to see that "stained-glass portrait."

I convinced Marina to take one more try in the metro.  This time, walking down the stairs to the platform (yes, those were the guidebooks original instructions, but we didn't have the guidebook on us), we looked up, and there we saw it.  That is we thought we saw it; you need to squint a bit and use your imagination.  By using the flash, you can actually see more in the picture than you can at the station:

Here's the other side (he's flying, if you can't tell):

I was pretty excited and decided to go tell the security guard that the whole time the stained-glass (stained with dirt, I suppose) was staring us in the face.  He looked at us as if we were something Gagarin had picked up in space and didn't even ask where it was.  Marina told me, "It is strange in Ukraine to tell him that we found it."  This much I had gathered.

On my overnight train back home that night, I sat across from an older man who wanted to chat about the old days, kak eta byla... I told him my story about the search for Gagarin.  His eyes lit up, as he is an amateur astronomer himself.  He pointed out a number of stars through the window of our train, and over the next hour or so, slowly folded out his theories on extraterrestrial life.  During Soviet times, stories of alien sightings and abductions were suppressed, he told me, but now there are plenty of books in Russian and he reads them non-stop.  But he can't find a good book in Russian on black holes and black matter, even in Moscow.

He is retired from the army, but his pension is so little that he frequently rides the overnight train to Kharkiv to pick up new supplies to sell in the bazaar in Sevastopol.  "Do you know how much the pension is for a German soldier?  Do you know how much!  More than a thousand Euros a month, and we get peanuts.  And we won the war!  They were fascists, fascists!  Ponimaesh, da?  Nazis!"  The next morning he spoke nothing of pensions or extraterrestrials, but gave me some of the treats he had picked up in Kharkiv.  Moscow chocolate-coated nuts and biscuits.  When we arrived in Simferopol, he gathered his bundles and rushed to catch his two-hour train to Sevastopol.  If you are under the mis-impression that Russian and Ukrainians are unfriendly, cold people, ride around on trains for a few days.

After all this, I finally decided on my next cross-stitch pattern (yes, I've picked up cross-stitch, a subject for another post), which I created on Photoshop from the photo on Marina's wall:

Will the Simferopol Airport be named after Amethan Sultan?

Portrait of Amethan Sultan.  Image source:  Wikipedia

According to an article in May 28th's Poluostrov, the Ukrainian minister of transportation is "not against" naming the Simferopol Airport after Amethan Sultan (1920-1971), a famous Crimean Tatar Soviet fighter pilot who twice received the award "Hero of the Soviet Union."  Kia news published the internal document last week.

Amethan Sultan's story exposes the hypocrisy of Stalin's deportation of the Crimean Tatars.  Claiming the  Crimean Tatar population had collaborated with the Nazis, Stalin deported every last Crimean Tatar to Central Asia.  Yet thousands of Crimean Tatars fought in WWII.  According to the Poluostrov article, 60,000 Crimean Tatars participated in the Great Patriotic War, with 36,000 deaths.  Some 40,000 more were actively involved, participating on the home front.

Memorial to Amethan Sultan in his home city of Alupka, Crimea.  Image source:  Wikipedia

Amethan Sultan is nothing less than a national hero.  On Victory Day, Milli Firka, a Crimean Tatar political party, sponsored billboards in Crimea reminding residents of his awards and service.  A few Crimean Tatars have proudly told me of his skills as a fighter pilot.  "When Amethan Sultan was flying, the Nazis would get nervous, and yell on their radios, 'Amethan Sultan is in the air!  Amethan Sultan is in the air!'"

Other Crimean Tatars who received Soviet awards for their service in the Great Patriotic War include Nasibulla Velilyaev, Seit Nebi Abduramanov, Uzeir Abdramanov, Abdul' Tejfuk, Seitnafe Seitveliev and Abduraim Reshidov.  Here are plaques in their memory in the play yard of Simferopol's 42nd school, the only school with Crimean Tatar language instruction in Simferopol, located in the mikrorayon Kamenka.  Amethan Sultan's plaque is the first on the left.

On a peninsula where history is so contentious and many place names have been changed or even lost, and in a culture that still celebrates with passion year after year the Soviet Victory in the Great Patriotic War, naming the Simferopol Airport after Amethan Sultan would be a large step to recognizing not only the large achievements of the Crimean Tatar people, but the injustice of their merciless deportation and 50 year exile.  The first historical name every new visitor to Crimea would come across would not be Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Livadia Palace, but instead the name of the Soviet and Crimean Tatar hero Amethan Sultan, before even leaving the airport.

Kharkiv #1 - Fun in the city

Daniel, a friend I studied Russian with in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan last year, was coming through Ukraine last week and came through Crimea.  He convinced me to accompany him on a short trip to the East of Ukraine, which began in our minds as  few days hitting all the highlights of the area, but in the end became a few days in Kharkiv.

Kharkiv's Shevchenko statue.  While searching Google for the Wikipedia link, I was surprised to find that Ukraine's famous footballer, Andriy Shevchenko, comes out on top of poor Taras...they have too much power I tell you...too much power. 

We stayed with Marina, a really awesome woman we met on couchsurfing.  Although she worked during the day, she made sure that both nights of our stay we had a good time.  We met with her friends and went on late night walks around the city.  She had so much to show us that it wasn't until right before we left that we had a chance to take her out to dinner, which we attempted to do from the first night.

Of course, the best thing to do in any city is walk around and get to know it with a local.  But other than that?  Here's my list for Kharkiv:

1.  The Kanatnaya Doroga - The winged road!  You'd think it spelled "Soviet Death Trap" as my aunt Grace once called this contraption, but that's what made it so cool.  It is actually not just for entertainment, but a real mode of transportation, taking you over forests and wetlands to another district of Kharkiv.  Click on the video for the sound effects.

2.  Take a look at the Blahoveshchensky Cathedral, which has some pretty cool looking red and cream stripes

3.  Walk around looking at the city's architecture, which is pretty sweet, with quite a few pre-Soviet buildings.

4.  A walk around the central market, but that's a given in any town.

Next up - the Kharkiv Metro, Gagarin fever and street art

Something's missing in Beyoğlu

I wasn't too happy to read this Istanbul Eats post.  Inci Pastanesi, a veritable Istanbul institution and a perfect stop on a weekend stroll down Istiklal, is getting the chop, or rather the wrecking ball.  In the same building as the now defunct (*tear*) Emek Sinemasi, it looks like everyone is losing the fight against whatever ridiculous shopping center is going up on this block.

Inci Pastanesi is famous for their tasty profiterole, which goes down perfectly with a glass of their tasty lemonade.  The interior really gives you a feeling for what Istiklal used to feel like, and they can wrap up all their treats in candy boxes that haven't changed fashion for decades.  They are often so busy you can't find a chair, and have to down your chocolate-smeared cream puff standing at the counter.  Maybe you can tell from the picture in the Istanbul Easts post that the guys who run the place have a very specific character...a sign in the window proudly proclaims "Başka şübemiz yoktur" - We have no other branches.  They've held out against the developers until now, but it sounds futile.

Emek Sinemasi was a beautiful old theatre, which just closed in April of this year.  They didn't play the best films, but going there was never really about the film playing.  The usher was always wearing his near ancient uniform, jingling coins in his hand when he showed you a seat.  You had to pay for the toilets, which was always good for a laugh when some cinema goers thought themselves too good for this and started an argument with the bathroom attendant.  And even better, the sound quality was so bad that your eyes can't leave the Turkish subtitles because even YOU can't understand what's being said in English.  But it was all worth it as the heavy red curtains opened and closed across the screen.

İnci Pastanesi BİZİM!  :(

Thinking about Osh

Someone recently asked me if I felt any foreshadowings of the uprising/violence in Kyrgyzstan when I was in Bishkek (in Feb-May 2009).  My language skills were very basic at the time, but I remember one day my homestay family was buzzing with the rumors of revolution in the coming days.  My homestay mother warned me not to go to class.  I asked at the school, and the ever diplomatic Nargiza told me it is no problem to come to school, but "maybe you won't go to the center."  I did as I was told, going straight to school and straight home.  But the next day nothing had changed, and some other (more mischevious!) students said they had wandered down to the center to see what was going on but saw nothing.

Both my first home stay and the Kyrgyz students I lived with told me how the Kyrgyz didn't really like the Uzbeks, but I never heard anything forshadowing the horrors now raging in the south.

I suppose it is easy to disregard places such as Kyrgyzstan when violence and ethnic clashes flare.  I don't mean disregard the news, or the conflict, but the places themselves.  When we hear of a faraway place in crisis, if we don't know anything else about it, it seems natural to assume it is already a sort of wasteland, waiting for such a conflict.  Or maybe this is just me.  When I first saw a picture of a Rwandan landscape, lush and green, I was so amazed at how beautiful it was.  Hearing about the genocide as a child, I had pictured a hot, dry African desert, not fertile valleys.

But maybe I'm not the only one, maybe this is part of a larger problem.

When a crisis occurs in a place we know, or even just in a place where we have loved ones, it becomes so much more real.  It becomes a tragedy, perhaps a national one, perhaps a personal one...how do planes crashing into skyscrapers become all that 9/11 means today?  In our minds, certain images become the disaster.  Fire fighters and the New York City skyline, those who worked in the WTC...who doesn't' know someone in - or at least something about - New York City?  But if we don't have any associations for these faraway places, who can blame us (I think by "us" maybe I mean Americans, but I'm not sure) for being apathetic, ignoring the story and retreating to our own worlds?

As I read through the latest about Kyrgyzstan, and the violence in the south, I feel so attached to this story, and to this place.  There are plenty of things about media coverage of the conflict that bother me - headlining "ethnic conflict" without describing the complicated history of ethnicity in the region (although the New York Times takes the smallest of stabs at that today), and announcing that aid is arriving without mentioning reports that those distributing aid may be purposely withholding it from Uzbeks.

But the thing that bothers me most isn't rational, and an attempt to rectify it would never pass the editing desk of a major newspaper.

In short:  I want these reports to make people feel the way I do - I want them to impart what is special about this place, so it is not just another news story but a tragedy.  Osh is not some hot, dusty backwater that was waiting for this,  it is not something "south of Borat."  It's not Paris, it's not Samarkand, but it's got its own thing and I'd like to think that everyone that's been there has known it.


I wrote this post after visiting in May 2009.  In the post I quote from Kapuscinski's Imperium, where I think he sums up the feeling I had of Osh, even though he was writing about Uzbekistan:

They have sat for generations in this chaykhana, which is old, perhaps older than the
fortress and the mosque. Many things are different now - many, but not all. One
can say that the world is changing, but it is not changing completely; in any
case it is not changing to the degree that an Uzbek cannot sit in a chaykhana
and drink tea even during working hours.

Sitting in a chaykhane along one of Osh's main streets:

On Soloman's Throne, a UNESCO World Heritage Site which used to be a sacred pilgrimage point for Muslims and is now a great lookout point for the city, crowded with locals on the weekends:

I think of the village of Arslanbob a few hours from Osh, and I wonder what is happening in the remote, mostly Uzbek village.  Unfortunately, I can't find any news in English or Russian about the town. [Edit 18/06/10:  I received a reply from the Community Based Tourism Director, Hayat, in Arslanbob, and he said that, like always, Arslanbob is peaceful and quiet.]

By no means am I attempting the holier than thou road - I will readily admit that there are plenty of world headlines I skim because I have no attachment to the places in which they occur.  But something like Osh really forces me to think about the grand scale of human tragedy occurring every day, and the millions of people - including myself - who know nothing about it.

Kyrgyzstan

I've had a few emails from friends and family who knew of my plans to travel to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan this summer expressing their concern.  Please don't worry as I have cancelled the trip.

I read this today on Eternal Remont, from from Turkmen Initiative of Human Rights, just one of the heartbreaking stories arising out of this conflict:
About 30 women together with their children were forcedly deported to Uzbekistan from the Sakar etrap of the Lebap velayat in Turkmenistan. All these women are natives of the Bukhara velayat in Uzbekistan, who married Turkmen citizens, lived as married couples for several years and whose children were born here.

neweurasia.net and registan.net are both good sources to follow the latest for those interested.

Lycian Way #5 - Around Kaş

     Next up, the beautiful port town of Kaş.  Remember this is all from my April trip.

     Arriving in the late afternoon, we relaxed on a terrace making friends with our waiter - a bit bored as the season was just starting up - took way too many versions of this shot:

Sitting at the very same restaurant, you would not believe, was none other than the Big Lebowski and his white Russian.  Kid you not.  Bet you didn't know that the Big Lebowski is actually a German Turk who frequently holidays in Turkey. 

Next day, up early for a walk from the city to Liman Ağazı, managing not to get lost this time.

I liked these colors -but you can tell from the empty beach chairs it was a little too chilly to swim.

Liman Ağazı is a bit out of the way - there is a 15-minute boat from Kaş, but as we descended from our hike we weren't thinking about that.  We were thinking about our very own quite, private, remote and peaceful beach we had just come across.  But who sunbathing on the rocky shore other than the BIG LEBOWSKI and his travel companion.  Hmm...

Then a boat back to Kаş.

Interesting?

Next on the itinerary was a boat trip to "the Sunken City."  I had read an article about this in the Turkish Airlines in-flight magazine a few years ago and was looking forward to it the whole trip.  In the end, this was the only "sunken" part of the city you could see:

Not surprisingly, this is also the exact photo from the article (minus some attractive snorkelers).  I asked our guide (yes, broke my heart but we did have to have a guide to go there) if this was it and he laughed and shrugged.  Oh well.  As their town has sunk I suppose the locals deserve hoards of tourists to sell their Chinese fezes to.

A cute girl David snapped a photo of:

Back in Kaş we ended the day at a cafe by the port and a game of football.  And who should walk by?  None other than the BIG LEBOWSKI.  That man was everywhere.  Perhaps he came to Turkey to purchase a new rug.  Unfortunately, we took off early the next morning to head back to Istanbul, so we may never know.

If you're interested in faking the Lycian Way as we did, only staying in pensions and not doing any camping, check out this site.

Lycian Way #4 - Patara to Kalkan

If I had to nominate just one contestant for Turkey Top Chef, it would have to be the amazing woman at the Aspendos Restaurant in Patara.  Yes, we probably spent a little bit more there than we should have over our time in Patara. but how she deserved it!  nothing can describe the relief of coming back from a long day of hiking and knowing you have the Aspendos woman already working hard on your dinner.    Below, David drinking her homemade ayran (5 stars) out of an Efes glass.

Patara (or Gelemiş, as it is known today) was a cute little village, a bit more touristy than our outdated guidebook suggested and probably swarming by now with Australians and Brits (we heard many shopkeepers in the village speak English with colloquial British accents they'd no doubt picked up in the busy summers). As a base for hiking, however, you really couldn't ask for more, and in late April it was still peaceful and even genuine.  One day I went to post a letter from the Post Office but didn't have the right change.  The postman slapped a stamp on it, tossed it in the box and told me to come back tomorrow to pay.  Walking down the main street I dropped my hat without noticing and lamented its loss all day.  Sitting at Aspendos that evening, a man we had chatted with earlier came up and set the hat on the table.  "Bu şapka sizin değil miydi?" he asked me with a smile and a touch of reprimand.

Oh! Forgot to mention that Patara is also an ancient Lycian city with some pretty sweet ruins, but what city around here isn't?

Even the stray dogs were friendly, and like the residents, had learned how to make the most out of the neverending cycle of tourists.  Our first day this little dog followed us around everywhere, even napping next to us on the beach, a 30 minute walk from town.  He followed us to Aspendos, but when we didn't get him any food, we immediately started following the Turkish man and Russian woman who had just arrived in town.

It was a long day.  A very long day.  The hike was only 13k, but we had a little bit of trouble...finding the trail head.  We did find this Turkish evil eye pinned on the front of a truck grill:

After walking around 3 hours in the sun,

we finally found the trail ("no thanks to you, Kate Clow!" we sandwiched in between empty threats and curses).  We probably would have just turned around and called it a day, but we had told the Aspendos woman we were going to walk to Kalkan, and goddammit we were going to earn that dinner!  She would have been disappointed in us.  Of course after we found our way, we felt bad about all the horrible things we sad about Kate Clow, as there wouldn't even be such a trail for us to get lost on if it weren't for her.  The nice views cheered us up as well.

We weren't able to make it all the way to Kalkan, but instead called it quits a few kilometers before the end when we saw a main road with CARS.  Great invention, the car.

Do you see this mushroom soup?  It was the most delicious, mushroomy soup I have ever eaten.  The Aspendos woman kept telling us she made it from scratch.  "Fabrıkadan değil, ben yaptım!"  God have mercy on the poor soul that blames this amazing cook of making this soup out of a powder.  Tastes even better after walking around half the day lost.

This was the beach at sunset.  It is very religious-inspired greeting card, don't you think?