Diary Travelogues | Eastern Europe | 1994 | September 22 to 24 | Part 8 – Latvia & Lithuania

Hi Friends,

This is the eighth part of my 1994 travels through Eastern Europe: Poland - Belarus - Russia - Estonia - Latvia - Lithuania - Poland.

If you are just coming on board, here are links to earlier parts in this series on Eastern Europe 1994:
Part 1: Poland | Part 2: Poland | Part 3: Poland | Part 4: Belarus | Part 5: Russia | Part 6: Russia | Part 7: Estonia

If you'd like to switch to a different series of travel writings:
The Levant | 1996 | May 05 to May 08 | Part 1 – Egypt

If you have been following along from the beginning, welcome back 🔆

Thanks for reading
🚣

^{An overview of my travels between 28 August - 27 September, 1994. The red line is my route.}

Thursday, 22 September 1994 | 12.45 | Riga (Latvia)

Tired but cheerful. After a wrong-footed start, I find I'm liking the city of Riga. It's nice and randomly laid out, not planned and organised. Plenty of scope for discovery and things seemed to be left to their own devices.

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I had at best a 3-hour sleep on the train. At Riga station, I noticed 4 backpackers who were speaking English and asked them if they knew of a youth hostel. The one I spoke to had a Scottish accent and I commented on it, but he appeared stand-offish and withdrawn into himself and his group. I followed the signs to the tourist information for 2 km - it was very well indicated I thought. Had to wait until 9am when the sign said they'd open, and I banged the door and rang the bell to no avail. Returned at 10am after some coffees and a couple of chapters of Crime & Punishment (I'm beginning to get pissed off with the character of Raskolnikov's mother) and found a rather brusque woman (the other one just smiled stupidly) who was quite unhelpful. She said it was no longer a tourist info, but a travel agent! I stomped out, pissed off, and felt better after I had taken it out on them. Crazy attitude, but who cares? I started to feel even better after I met a friendly American who sold me a bus ticket to the city center so I didn't have to walk the distance back.

I'll probably get the 22.05 overnight train to Vilnius. I left my luggage at the station for 50 Santīmi¹. The money conversion is absolutely crazy and in tune with my tourist info experience. 1 DM = 35 Santīmi and $1USD = 0.53 LAT. The 1 LAT coin is the same size and appearance as a 1 French Franc coin, but worth just under $2 USD. I think they may have overdone it a bit!

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I walked through a bazaar near the station and ended up in an art cafe with a nice atmosphere and some obviously 'artistic' people (I'm being sarcastic!). A very friendly and pretty girl served me coffee and a cigarette and I'm about to go for another. Going to read a chapter here.

I put my earing back in yesterday. I've also got 2-3 week's growth on my face.

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...later | 21.10 | Riga Train Station (Latvia)

The money here really throws everthing out of perspective! One way or another, I've got rid of all but my souvenir coins. The ticket cost 3.29 LAT (9 DM). In any case, I've just under an hour to go and I could do with some sleep.

On the whole I found Riga to be a pleasant city. I went up one of the church steeples to get a view of the city and met a one-eyed Latvian and his girlfriend. He had worked in Germany and spoke some German which included his own version of words. He wanted me to be in the photos with his girlfriend (I think he was loathe to have his own photo taken because of his eye), and this continued for the 30 odd minutes that the three of us walked around together. He works in a kiosk and promised to send me some photos.

The rest of the time I spent reading, walking and eating. I found a comfy tree branch jutting out over the smaller of the two rivers and read another exciting chapter of Crime and Punishment. Felt tired after that. I saw a train marked Симферополь (Simferopol), which is in the Crimean Peninsula. I had been thinking of going there at one stage!
_{1. One LAT = 100 Santīmi}

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Friday, 23 September 1994 | 07.00 | overnight Train to Lithuania

It's the stench of garlic that drove me mad earlier this morning, and I can still smell it! The sight of all those people tucking into piles of meat – but the garlic was something else! It made me almost hate them. Had a good 6 hour sleep and we are nearly there.

...later | 08.15 | Vilnius (Lithuania)

Sometimes my own haste and inner arrogance prevents me from seeing the obvious when it is slightly concealed. It's what I tend to see as a shortcoming of the world – i.e. the inability to see things that are not spelt out, where people haven't been spoonfed - a narrowness of perspective. I tend to call others stupid when I am the stupid one!

So it was with the youth hostel, clearly indicated by a sign. It is on the fourth floor, and the sign said '407', pointing directly at the building, i.e. apartment number 407! I didn't bother looking inside the building and instead wandered past it. I had assumed that it was around the corner, even though the corner was a bit further along. I got more and more frustrated and short-tempered, especially with the people who couldn't help. One in particular, a travel agent, spent five minutes looking for something he couldn't find, something that might have helped, and I stood cursing him in my mind. Completely unreasonably, as I realised later, my frustration simply my own fault!

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Saturday, 24 September 1994 | 12.45 | Vilnius (Lithuania)

I wandered around Vilnius for a while this morning and then returned to the station and bought a ticket to Suwałki (just across the border into Poland) on the 15.45 train. It's going to be a long and complicated route to Warsaw the way I'm doing it, which is in order to avoid a $30 USD transit visa for Belarus. Goodness knows when I'll be there – 6am in Warsaw, if the info I have is correct, but you never know!

I stumbled upon a market-place. Considered buying cigs but decided against even a single pack for joints later, as I knew that once I had them, I'd smoke! So I bought packs of razor blades in spite of my developing beard, and 6 crystal vodka shot-glasses. I originally wanted just 2, but the Russian woman said she only sold them by the set. I went back to their stall after touring the bazaar and bought them for 21 Lit (8 DM). I allowed myself to be persuaded because I liked the people I was bargaining with very much.

Vilnius is a pleasant old city and I now am very glad I came to the Baltics when I did. I didn't expect much from them – hadn't even expected to be travelling around them, although I've hardly done much of that anyway!

I did my usual aimless wandering around after finding the youth hostel and had a shower. I was tired and a bit grumpy to start with, but climbed the hill to a tower I had seen from the old town. It turned out to be the remnants of the castle, with a great atmosphere of age and lost time. There was a museum too, and I could picture the town and walls and general layout from the models and old sketches. Nice view too!

A nice surprise awaited me on my way up. I chose to walk along the remnants of the stone wall and around the old stone church which was partially built with modern-looking bricks, but apparently abandoned to ruin and debris. As I rounded the summit, there was a folk band playing, with a female choir in local costume and some 20-30 kids dancing, also in bright dresses. It was pleasant and jolly and I didn't feel it necessary to ask what it was all about, feeling anyway somewhat detached from it all. I watched for around 20 minutes and then paid 1 Lit to climb the old stone steps to the tower. The band stopped playing soon after.

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Once back in town by around 2pm, I sat down for a beer and got talking to Vic, a 19-year old Lithuanian who approached me. He works at the kiosk where I bought my beer and we sat drinking until 8pm, when he had to go back to work. It was interesting to hear about his life, and he had once spent a month in London looking for work. He took me to his place, where he lives with his mother and showed me photos of his active adolescence – his band and his friends. There wasn't a lot we had in common. Perhaps it's selfish, but I rarely enjoy other company enough to want to make an effort!

I've noticed an absence of clocks in Vilnius. It is 13.35 (I asked someone) and I'm about to leave to collect my backpack and then head for the land of Poles!

...later | 16.00 | Train to Suwałki, Poland

Right, I'm on the train to Suwałki and almost missed it thanks largely to a really stupid person. I went into the station restaurant with an hour to spare in order to eat something. At once this drunken fool latched on to me - obviously in order to practice his English, and invited me to join his group of 4 men - all drunk. One of them was asleep and there were also 3 women – soberish. He talked nothing but a load of crap right through. Some of them were from the police apparently. Fuck knows why I wasted so much time, even sober he'd be stupid! Unfortunately he was the only one of the lot who spoke any English.

I made the train with 15 seconds to spare. I seem to be surrounded by incessant chatterboxes. We've been going for half an hour and I've been in and out of my compartment, which is occupied by two women. One of them has been going on and on and on in a monotonous monologue on some subject - I suspect Christianity, for I've heard the name 'Jesus Christus' repeated a few times. So much crap and hot air everywhere I go! I doubt if I can stand much more of it, I'll have to read elsewhere and hope to fuck that she gets out at the next stop. I haven't heard her interlocutor utter a single syllable in all this time– crazy!

...later | 17.30

The interlocutor got off at Kaunas, perhaps she had had enough. I had to read in the corridor because the yakking went on until the very last minute. We passed through a very long tunnel and I had a satisfying shouting match with the fat conductress who wanted to tell me off for leaning out of the window. I wasn't afraid though and hurled insults that she couldn't understand. I bear her no malice, she was doing her job. I didn't like her attitude, that's all!

...later | 20.25

Funnily enough a couple came into the compartment, sat down and we all got talking. I even laughed with the ear-ache woman! Then the couple left and I got talking to her. We got to like each other! She is 30ish, single and going to see her mother. She's religious and I tried explaining that I am agnostic. She took it in good faith (ha ha). When we parted, she said “Jesus loves you” in her halting English. I replied that if that were so, he'd find me a train from Suwałki to Warsaw. I'm going to be stuck there for 6-7 hours, bugger! Was told that the first train is at 04.57am. Also we gain an hour going into Poland, so it'll be even longer! This is the second time I'm going to be stuck in that region North-East of Warsaw!

A young Lithuanian has just asked me if I'd take a carton of cigs over the border for him – no problem!

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...later | 20.30 | on Train, Polish side of Border

We've gone back an hour in time and I've now accumulated 2 cartons of cigarettes and a telescope from my fellow passengers. Everyone has something or the other that they don't want to declare and I saw people hiding objects all over the train and stuffing items inside their clothing and trouser legs. The guards seem pretty thorough too and we've been here for a while now. Our turn is next. I have a legal amount though it's perhaps obvious that I'm carrying things for others, but perhaps not. I'm quite looking forward to the confrontation.

Ok, he's now passed me by. The guard glanced at my passport and asked about cigs and I raised two fingers. He passed by the two who had given me the telescope and they were lucky. I saw other guards drag large bags filled with cartons of cigs and telescopes. Why telescopes?

We're off at last, after more than an hour's wait. There is a lot of bussle as people rush around retrieving hidden goods, congratulating themselves or lamenting losses. Lots of goodwill. Customs must be aware of what goes on!

...later | 22.00 | Train Suwałki – Warsaw (Poland)

If my joke were taken seriously it could be argued that Jesus does in fact love me! Thing is I'm on a Warsaw-bound train!! I stepped off the train in Suwałki and almost immediately one of my friends pointed to a train and said it was going to Warsaw. I was almost too late in reacting, worrying about not having a ticket. It started to pull out of the station and, to the sounds of cheers and enouragement, I just managed to clamber on board. The conductor was very understanding and has gone off to make up a ticket for me – 107,000 złoty (8 DM). The train is almost empty. I hope it takes 6-7 hours for the 300 odd km so I don't get in too early and can get some sleep.

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If you would like to carry on reading click here for the final, Part 9