Travels in Eastern Europe- Moscow to Budapest

5 April 2010 En route to St. Petersburg
We have loved Moscow. It is far more beautiful and accessible than I imagined. I thought it would be full of tall grey intimidating buildings but instead the architecture is elegant and colorful. People are very relaxed although that could be due to it being Easter weekend.
We navigated our own way to our hotel via express from the airport and metro – no mean feat considering there are no English signs but Justin has been studying the Cyrillic alphabet which was lucky. After our first Russian lunch of pelmeni we headed for Red Square. It is unbelievable. It is now officially my favorite square, even more than the great Italian piazzas. Amazing colour of the buildings. And no photos of St. Basils do justice to it. It was crisp but not icy and very sunny so we enjoyed just wandering around.
On Saturday we headed for the Kremlin and spent the morning there. The walls and towers surrounding it are magnificent and it contains the well guarded government buildings as well as The Tsar’s Cannon and Bell and 5 stunning churches.
In the afternoon we went to the Tretyakov gallery of Russian art which was interesting for the historical perspective. Also full of Russian icons which some others of us were particularly interested in.
Gave us only time for the second bowl of soup for the day before heading off to the opera at the Bolshoi.
Yesterday we began with Easter treats of kulich and pashka provided by the hotel then headed off to the Novodevichy Convent which is in the suburbs. 17th century convent in spacious grounds containing the most striking bell tower in Moscow as well as other remarkable churches and buildings. Then back on the metro to the Kultury Park stop which bore no signs of the recent bombing. A long walk up to Tolstoy’s local church was followed by a visit to his Winter House. When we arrived there we discovered that it was closed for a special German Rotary fundraising occasion so we were sent away disappointed. But as we were standing outside gazing forlornly through the fence the guy in charge raced out and invited us back in to view the house which was officially closed because we had obviously come from a long way and should not be sent away.
I’m so glad he did because it was such a full and dedicated re-creation of how he lived. We saw where Rachmaninov played the piano, Chekhov played chess, and most importantly where Tolstoy wrote.
By this time was it was after 2 so were hungry but just stopped for yet another quick bowl of soup before racing off to the over the top and grandiose Church of Christ the Saviour (the largest in Moscow, Stalin had it destroyed in the 30s but it was recently rebuilt with no expense spared.) Being Easter Sunday it was very crowded with high security and TV cameras with dignitaries shortly due to arrive but we paid our respects and left before then to go down the road to the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum. We had to queue for an hour because there was a special Picasso exhibition on and no separate entrance. Gave us a chance to observe the street life. Russian women certainly have their own over the top fashion style. If you can wear all the colours of the rainbow eg bright blue boots, sparkly stockings, pink top, short skirt and shiny blue plastic coat as well as something trimmed with fur you do.
There were some masterpieces in the gallery – a room of Rembrandts was a standout as were many Greek and Roman items (including a full size statue of Augustus which Justin illegally photographed for Amelia). However the European wing across the road had a staggering collection of Impressionist art including the a wonderful Van Gogh I have never heard of before -The red vineyard at Arles..
By this time of course we were footsore and hungry and found a Russian (as opposed to the many other cuisines available) restaurant near our hotel cooking some classics which we thoroughly enjoyed.
Today was raining but we took a quick walk back to say goodbye to Red Square before intrepidly making our way to the Leningradsky Station (again no English anywhere) to find our train to St. Petersburg.

12 April 2010 Hello from train to Warsaw.
This is the second leg of our 9 hour trek from Vilnius. Lucky we made it on to the train at all considering that as when I was for paying our hotel this morning I realized that I must have left my atm card in the machine at the foreign exchange bureau at the station on Sat morning. Luckily it had been retrieved at the time and was handed over to me on presentation of my passport.
We had a relatively low key time in Vilnius after the rigours of intense tourism in Russia. We stayed in a monastery/guest house attached to a church. Our room had views of the graceful old gates of the city. Vilnius is very pretty – all cobbled streets, eighteenth century architecture, Baroque churches. We could walk everywhere. All the food was delicious (and cheap). We mostly ate traditional Lithuanian food – dumplings, fish etc. Justin of course had the game stew. On Sat we ran into no less than 5 weddings – the custom here seems to be for the bride and groom to greet the guests outside the church before the wedding. And the guests all bring flowers.
We saw as much of St. Petersburg as we could. At first sight in the late evening it seemed shabby after Moscow. Beautiful buildings but in need of sprucing up.
However our first morning was sunny , we left our very comfortable hotel and wandered down the road to the Winter Palace and could not fail to be stunned. It was a perfect day to see St.P and we took ourselves on 2 of the walks described in Lonely Planet. Too many places to describe fully here. Suffice to say the highlights were wandering along the river, and visiting the Yusopov Palace. We spent Wednesday at the Hermitage which was all that we expected although not as overwhelming as I thought. Hard to say what the standouts were – maybe the Greek pots, the Impressionists, 27 Rembrandts, and just the general décor of how the Romanovs lived. In the evening we went to a brilliant performance of Giselle at the gorgeous Mariinsky Theatre followed by a good dinner at The Idiot which Dostoevsky used to own.
On Thursday we went to the nearby town of Push kin (used to be called Tsarkoe Selo) where the royals had their summer palace. We were lucky enough to go with another couple we met at our hotel. He had actually been born in St. P but emigrated to Italy when he was 16 and then to Israel ending up in LA. He had spent summer holidays at Pushkin as a child so was able to show us around the town including Pushkin’s old school. And his Russian came in very handy when we were trying to catch the local buses there. The palace, known as Catherine’s Palace because it was her favourite was fascinating, not only for the interior decoration but for the historical detail. The rooms that had been the private apartments of Alexander (who died of typhoid) and the deposed Emperor Nicholas were particularly poignant. But the gardens were even more beautiful than the palace, despite the snow and ice.
On our last day we made some pilgrimages – saw Nabokov’s childhood home, where Dostoevsky lived, and visited the Rimsky-Korsakov museum. The latter was in the apartment the family lived for the last 20 of his life and had been kept exactly as it was then. We saw the living room where he entertained the great musicians of the day, the piano that Stravinsky had played etc.
We went to another very interesting museum known variously as the Musuem of Fine and Decorative Arts and the Stieglitz Museum. Not without difficulty. Russia does not advertise its museums. We had read about it in the guidebook and walked up and down the small side street a few times, finding only the Museum of the Siege Of Leningrad, also mentioned. We eventually saw a small sign outside an Art Gallery, walked into it and were told to walk through to the back. It looked promising but the door was locked. We had to use our initiative, put our hand through the wire and turn the key on the inside to enter. But it was worth it. It was Baron Stieglitz’s home (he was an avid collector of beautiful objects) which he left to the Art School so they could have a beautiful environment to study.
Anyway we are off to Poland now. A strange time to be coming in the light of the plane tragedy. They are in the middle of a week of mourning so the concerts we had booked have been cancelled.
14 April 2010 En route to Krakow
We arrived in Warsaw late on Monday evening. Walking out of the train station was a bit confronting after the quiet of Vilnius .It was frenetic and noisy and we were surrounded by what seemed like hundreds of skyscrapers. I quailed at attempting to negotiate the bus so we got a taxi to our hotel in the old Town opposite the Castle.
Next morning however we discovered how beautiful Warsaw was as we walked around the immaculately restored old town. But there were constant reminders of the sad history of the town. So much was destroyed in the war. Building after building had plaques bearing witness to the tragedies that had occurred there. And all this was overladen by the signs of mourning everywhere for the plane victims. There were also multiple memorial church services for the Katyn victims. Across the road from the Polish Army Church where the main service was being held is the very moving memorial to the Warsaw Uprising.
On a lighter note we found a café serving Polish cheesecake of unparalled quality . As we walked back toward our hotel down the main street we had to pass the Presidential Palace where the remains of the First Lady had arrived. The queue to walk past the coffins lying in state had just started to gain momentum. There were TV screens showing what was happening inside. People thronging the streets, everyone taking photos, posters of all the victims everywhere. The queue grew steadily – we could see it outside our window and it continued through the night,
On Wednesday morning we walked through the old Jewish quarter. Little remains other than one wall of the ghetto adorned with pictures of the previous inhabitants.
Greg and family arrived at lunchtime which gave us sometime to show them around the Old Town as well as vist the Castle..
We arrived in Radom at 8.30 pm after spending an unscheduled 2 hours at Wars aw railway station so we didn’t form any initial impressions except that our hotel was quite upmarket.
The morning was warm and sunny and Radom was far more attractive than I had thought.
We wandered down the main street – Zeromskiego which is pedestrianised, full of shops and cafes. Much of the architecture is original 19th century although Radom dates from the 14th. I can see where the Acland Street cake shops had their origins. The percentage of bakeries (known as cukiernias – sugar shops) is high. One of them had at least 20 types of cheesecake. We had to buy Wisnie chocolates (a sort of cherry liquer) of course.
We were in a sort of trance really, imagining our father walking along here. The intensity deepened the closer we came to the old Jewish quarter. We arrived at the Rynek (town square) and it was obviously virtually unchanged from prewar years. We knew from our Melbourne sources that all the streets around it had been Jewish streets but there is nothing in Radom, or on its website to reflect its considerable Jewish past. We knew that somewhere was a Monument to the Jews on the site of the old synagogue but did not know where or how to find it. Even a Google search didn’t help.
Because the area around there retained most of the original buildings, it was not difficult to imagine the Jewish life there but unfortunately also too easy to visualize the violence and death that would have taken place.
Not far from there was my father’s street but it has changed its name, been widened to include a roundabout and it was not clear if the existing number 11 was the original one. We think his house is actually now an empty site but have taken many photographs of the houses surrounding the site to see if a positive id can be made in Melbourne.
Back in the square I noticed the archives, so I went in to see if I could gather further information. The clerk didn’t speak English but after a few minutes found 2 people who could. They were able to tell me where the Jewish monument was which was lucky because it was in a fairly nondescript street that we would not otherwise have come across. In fact the buildings around it were ugly and run-down. At least the empty site where the synagogue once stood has not been built on, but the monument deserved more significance.
We eventually found our way to the library. It is located in quite an imposing 19th century street, obviously the smart end of town. I was looking for a pre-war map so I could go further in identifying the location of the house. The library was quite small and didn’t seem to use the Dewey system but we were able to locate the geography and history sections, as well as the dictionaries which came in useful. The librarian on duty didn’t speak English but she grasped that I wanted an older map but just found me an older street map. She realized that I was looking for more information and indicated that we should wait. A man came (who turned out to be the music librarian) but he spoke English and explained that I wanted a pre-war map (the only one available online dates from 1943 so had all the street names in German). They did have one and photocopied it for me. And we were able to see how my father’s street was before the traffic changes.
I told him that we were also looking for photographs of the pre-war period.
He took us up to their local history room and stayed to interpret for me. The librarian knew her collection backwards and searched for what we wanted. She apologized and explained that there were not many photos taken of what was the workers area. However she unearthed a few books with photographs, the most interesting of which was a book of postcards of old Radom.
It was heartwarming to see how everyone at the library tried so hard to help us. And when we went back to the hotel to retrieve our luggage before catching our train to Krakow they ended up giving us a copy of the current Radom map because I had asked to look at it so many times.
We are now on the train to Krakow. We don’t know quite what to expect . The funeral is now being held there on Sunday with many world leaders including Obama attending so after our experience of George Bush in Jerusalem we wonder if there will be some security restrictions on our movements. We have also heard that there are quite serious demonstrations there against the President being buried in Wawel Cathedral.

18 April 2010 From Zakopane
Our involvement in the Presidential funeral became a little too exciting in Krakow.
We arrived very late on Thursday (yet another Polish train delay - we are becoming intimate with station platforms) tired and hungry but were amazed to discover that we were staying in a former Renaissance palace. It's called Dom Polonii and is right on the main square. It is owned by a Polish Society dedicated to Polish cultural pursuits, run by a real gentleman. Only the top floor is a hotel and we took all 3 rooms. They were huge and furnished in style. Admittedly it was 85 grand steps up.
The downside began on Friday morning when the manager told me that the funeral was not in Wawel Cathedral - a safe km or so away but it in the church in the square prior to a procession to the cathedral for burial. For security purposes the whole square was to be cordoned off and we had to be in our room by 5pm on the Sat and not able to leave till 5 pm the next day. Somewhat problematic as we all had to leave the hotel for our various destinations on Sun morning.
He explained that he couldn't argue with the CIA, KGB and Mossad.
However by the time we returned in the evening it had changed to 8 pm curfew (with passport ID) but we had to leave by 8am on Sun morning. Things were also getting confused at this stage because of the uncertainty over Greg et al's flight home to London on Sunday. They were prospectively on the streets with their baggage with nowhere to go.
By this time the square was filling out with journalists, mourners, police, security, camerals, choir rehearsing etc. All chaos.
We did manage to return in time on Sat night but not long after were invaded by Reuters photograhers checking out the photo possibilites from our rooms. It was agreed that Greg and Tammie's was unsuitable so they were allowed to return their on Sun night because by now it had been confirmed that flight was cancelled.
They are now to return home by bus (24 hours to London) on Wednesday.
This morning (Sunday) the square was barricaded off. We were allowed out only under police escort to a safe distance.
Justin and I went to the bus station and came to Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains which has been a little disappointing so we are heading back to Krakow tomorrow morning to meet up with the others again.
Besides all this Krakow has been beautiful. It deserves all the architectural plaudits - I think it is at least as stunning as Prague.
We enjoyed visiting the Castle and Cathedral. We also spent a lot of time in the Jewish Quarter. Some of our party (Justin and Ellen) visited the Salt Mines and thought they were fantastic.