Hi, Martyna! Hristos voskrese! I am back from my spanish trip! We basically spent 5 days eating and drinking and visiting medieval castilian villages! We went to a village were the castillian go to eat lamb, to a town where they eat only little piglets (cochinillo), to a city which specialises in the small bites late at night with a glass of sangria (tapas), and so on, and so on! seafoods, fishes, jamones, chorizos, eggs, potatoes and desserts - each very special and exquisite! and wine, wine, wine with sprite, sidra and melted chocolate! it was very enjoyable but for me after some time started to get quite tiring and settled down. Comparing my two holidays and people I met there was interesting though! To me it seems that Western Europe is altogether too material for my taste. In Britain people think only about getting a good job, have not much idea about enjoyment other than buying or consuming in quantity, or releasing their energy in a friday night drunken revelry (again because alcohol has to be acquired in increasing quantity to bring satisfaction!). In the south - Belgium, France, Spain is all very sophisticated about food and wines and enjoying life, about fine regional traditions to amuse you and chat about, but again to me it feels too superficial, no spirituality (not in the religious sense but "duhovnost"), nobody ponders on the human condition or the make of the surround, noone has crazy emotions and difficult passions. they did in the novels from the XIX century but not anymore. I have some feeling that the spiritual energy is all concentrated in Eastern Europe! Most of us dont see it and appreciate it, fixating on the material and political problems (at least in Bulgaria, in Poland you are supposed to be better off?) but I think the cultural future, the evolution of duhovnost, should belong to those young people that graduate our universities. My week in Poland further confirmed that, with all these "kultur-managers" from various slavic countries communicating together in german, with your dreams and endeavours in film-making, the romantic stories about missed loves, the tales about polish marxists, your housemate's fascination with romanian culture, etc, etc. Its exactly because of the pervasive feeling that ours is not enough, that what we have is not satisfactory. So we want to look further, to others or to our history or to philosophy or to... For west-europeans theirs is enough, they are satisfied to find their little place in the system without too many revolutions, and to be not too happy or too unhappy for ever after. ...an email from my previous scotish housemate, a chemist, about a 'job opportunity' at the company he works in now, GlaxoSmithKline: "you would need to shave, its good to apply before your finished, apply anyway and let them persuade you you need a job, you'll be rich Job Title: Mathematical Modeler, Brain Biology Position: Full-Time Regular Location: Harlow, Southeast England GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is a world leading research-based pharmaceutical company with a mission to improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer. GSK has over 100,000 employees worldwide and over 16,000 in R&D. GSK R&D is based at 24 sites in seven countries. The company has a leading position in genomics/genetics and new drug discovery technologies. We are looking for those rare individuals who can successfully integrate sophisticated mathematics with complex biology and drive the resulting models to utility..." He is worried about my good future in a typically british circumstances but I have already decided. Next year I will be getting no job. I will be going back to Eastern Europe. I already have more money than I have ever thought possible - I sold 3 years of my youth. I am going back home in the East, I remember that I too had passions when I was still there. I dont remember what they were anymore, my only dream now is to be with creative people, people that will challenge my senses. I am sure that passions will return then. I didnt know what I want to do with my life, since up to a few months ago my lifelong desire to be part of Science gradually suffocated in the mundane of practical scientific life. Now, after my visit to you, I finally have some new, still vague, desire - I want to be helping this unrecognised east-european cultural spring. I dont know yet how I could intertwine my own living and spirit with it, but I will be thinking on that! I know it is is naive, but isnt it the lack of naive dreams exactly what I complain against here? In Eastern Europe we all share the dream of that Paris, ах, Париж, but it is no more there in the french Paris. Instead, because of our imagination it is preserved in our east-european hearts. It will bring our very own Parisian spring! The Germans are quite smart, they seem to finance so many art projects to the east, they are tapping into the source. Now these kultur-managers too, they are funded to learn how german art institutions work, and to connect artists from their countries for events and support in Germany. That night was so surprising for me, to see sixteen people in that bar Crvena Zvezda (serbian)/Czerwiena Gwiazda (polish) - polish, czech, slovak, ukrainian, russian, bulgarian, serbian, slovenian - all chatting most naturally in deutch, the language of their mortal enemies for the past 1500 years (Drang nach Osten, Teutonic order, untermensch and all that). At first looked a bit like assimilation. But it is good, that night with my polylinguistic help we reached understanding in slavic, for "radostne, zadovol'ne, to est shtastlivje...? Bratiya slavyani...! - Niema bratiya tut - sestre! Sestre slavyanke!" (they were all girls) "Nazdrowie, sestre, Nazdravije, za slovensko razumewanie!" The romanian and albanian guys felt a bit isolated though. One just has to look at the prominent role that the theatres and the bookshops, even those cafe'-bookshop-librarettes, take in the polish or czech city life! (In Bulgaria somewhat less so because of the shorter cultural tradition under the Turks and the worse economic situation today.) We take these things for granted however, and believe they exist like that in all european countries. We cannot believe that we might be better in something. Hey, I loved the music you copied for me! (the cat in a bag!) I already downloaded the other two albums of Kapela ze wsi Warszawa (apparently translated in english as Warsaw Village Band)! It really relates in my mind with some image of the forest slavs of the north, living in green expanses of nature (your village of Bielsko-Biala? derelict jewish cemeteries are very appropriate ), all the devoiki with flower-ventzi on their heads... heh, I am sure it is quite wrong! The fact that the singing is in semi-uncomprehendable polish voices makes for even greater impact! I am attaching one song called "Noon at Ural" that will hopefully portray the effect to you! (the author is actually from Voivodina beyond Danube) uff, you are probably quite tired by now reading all this. the reason i got so spacious is i will also publish it as essay on my donkey letters page. Bye, Kiss, and Hug, Kolio PS: Could you write a comment for me on HC? I got my passport and soon I will be contacting people in US to stay with. PPS: pass warmest feelings to Marta, Kasja and Dagna!
I don't want to discourage you, but be careful with that company GalxoSmith Kline, formerly GlaxoWelcome, formerly Glaxo. Big pharmaceutical firm, up to all kinds of very high tech stuff that even Jayroc would know about. Had to leave that firm they were HIGHLY intrusive. Security fanatics with regards to their Research and development. Good pay, good benefits, they even give you a gym so you don't have to travel across town to workout at the fern bar/snazzy workout joint. If you work there, make sure you go in thinking "3 years and I'm out". Then move on to another place. If it gets you out of Russia go for it, lol. 1 month paid vacation a year (unless it's changed) not bad. Btw if you think that firm wants to help people live longer and be happier etc. You must be hooked on their crap already, lol. They want you hooked brother, like a cigarette company does. If they ask you if you have seen the "BoRat" movie, pause and say "No, but I heard it was funny". DO not smile and say "Yes!! I have seen it! it was very funny movie!! You like it NICE!!" or you won't get hired.
nah, don't worry, both languages should have common words from the thracian/dacian languages. words like: cabbage, badger, stork, young horse, cheese. too bad that's about everything
lol Grobar, In Canada all we know is Germany, Poland, Russia. We don't know about Albania, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Romania, Bulgaria, or any other countries. I just wanted to warn you a little about that company that's all. It's nice to see you are going back to eastern Europe.
This and plenty other letters and stories, some of which I have posted here others - not, have been added to my Letters carried by a Donkey page. The arcoiris website is altogether quite in the beginning though.
I really love how one can make an impression on a country based on 5 days holidays there.... I hope you have better elements to judge a whole country, sentences like "nobody ponders on the human condition or the make of the surround, noone has crazy emotions and difficult passions" give me the shivers...
of course my impressions, both the positive and the negative, are entirely subjective (and so are everyone elses). also what i perceive as positive or negative is entirely subjective too! a lot of the stuff i write or live in, is myths i like myths i miss myths i dont care to put disclaimers. THAT would mean to join their camp - where everything is carefully thought out and bereft of any naive emotions or intimacy. am i qualified to qualify Britain, then, after living here for 3 years? ok, Perdomo, is it punishment enough that I have to live among people whose positive and negative feelings are exactly upside down of mine, or you want more? what I write there I could not say to my "friends" (those in UK), for them is completely different universe with different laws of physics.
Grobar, having lived abroad for quite some time too, and having experienced first hand what is it like to be misunderstood just because my cultural background is different than the one of the people I was speaking to, I understand you a lot. However, the thing I disliked then, is that those people were judging me without really knowing me. If I think you have "material" enough to judge Britain? well, I don't know... but i would say that no. Myths? sorry, I don't get your point there (really, no sarcasm or anything, I just don't know what you mean about the myths and what do myths have to do in this). My point is, don't judge, unless you want to be judged, and I think you were being judgamental, with really really few experience on the subject judged. I think that is unfair with all the people from those countries and all the things about those countries of which you don't know anything. Simplifying the question to "us (being it the eastern europe, the russians, the jews, the spanish, the catalans, the communists, the nazis, the white people, the black people... whatever) are better than them (any other group of human beings) and the future is ours" is some phrasing that i tend to look at with an evident lack of trust. Going back to the start of this post, I have lived abroad too, and there are things i disliked of that experience, yet I know it made me better person, and I know that there are many good things in the country where i lived, and even if sometimes I laugh at anecdotes, or get angry over them, I try to avoid the "we are superior" view that your original post clearly stated. P.S.: punishment? if it is such a punishment, you just have to leave, the choice is yours, and if you have stayed for so long there, some good aspects it must have had... or are you a masochist? (and even if you were one, then the good aspect would be getting pleasure of such a bad experience).
The stuff above is a myth. Since you like the word "judgement" you can say it is a mythical judgement. You take it too straight. A 5-days-holiday in fact serves only as a focus of the prose to lay out much more general feelings that do not start (although they could end) with a holiday. By the way, this letter was written to another east-european person. Yes, I do state that "we are superior" but this is in the context of widespread belief, firm down to subconscious level, that we are inferior. If it was not a novelty for me that "we" are better in something, that we could be giving something instead of throwing it away and taking from the existentially better doing-it guys, I wouldnt bother to write that down. Yes, I get judged all the time too, its normal. Usually I score pretty low, I dont comply to any of the criteria that bring you scores here. Feels shit. Sometimes I respond in kind. Fuckers. But I am surprised, I thought that Spain and France are related enough to be "in the same camp"? When I go to Serbia for example, people are the most sincere, curious and open to me.
The very first Communists were early Slavic tribes who owned so little they had to share everything. They were renowned warriors, whose battle tactics consisted of getting as drunk as mortally possible, then drink twice as much more and charge at the enemy wielding a hammer in one hand and a sickle in the other. Even in these early times they were called the Red Army for their red faces (esp. noses). A Communist Warrior was terrible to behold in battle, bashing, slicing, and breathing alcoholic fumes at his enemies. Mortally wounded, he would merely fall asleep at the field of battle, only to wake up the next morning with regenerated limbs, healed wounds and a severe headache.
