Where do old statues go to die? It’s an interesting question, especially when you see historic footage of people hurling statues of Lenin and Stalin down from their podiums, or more recently, dismantling statues of Saddam Hussein. It’s a symbolic gesture, but what can be done with these testaments of a by-gone time?

While a lot of statues have been destroyed, discarded or re-used, others have been collected and displayed. In Lithuania, there is the controversial “Stalin World” (Grūtas Park) – which “unfortunately” I haven’t visited, but I’ve read that at its launch, creator Viliumas Malinauskas described it as combining the ‘charms of a Disneyland with the worst of the Soviet gulag prison camp.’  The launch date was an April 1st… ouch!

But I have been to the only Communist-era statue museum in Central Europe, Hungary’s Szoborpark. The collection of the Statue Park, located just of the outskirts of Budapest, is amazing to behold. Exhibited statues include Lenin, Marx and Engels, Dimitrov and Ostapenko as well as memorials to the Republic of Councils, the Communist Martyrs and the Soviet Soldier. All in all, there are 42 works on display – with half being large-scale works, and the rest, busts and memorials. There aren’t any images of Stalin, except for his boots, all that remained when Budapest’s sole Stalin statue was torn down and chopped up during the uprising of 1956.

I went there on a cold, grey day – many years ago now – but the memory remains fresh in my mind as the first winter snowflakes began to fall as I stood amongst the monolithic monuments.

It raises interesting questions of whether to destroy or preserve these works. Szoborpark was conceived of as early as 1991, and as such the statues were able to be collected off the streets and squares of Budapest. The park was opened on June 29, 1993, to mark the second anniversary of the Russian troop withdrawal from Hungarian territory. Grūtas Park, on the other hand, opened in 2001, so a lot of the collection had to be recovered from junkyards and extensively restored.

But as Lithuanian sculptor, Dr. Konstantinas Bogdanas, puts it: “You can’t reject those past 50 years because intelligent people made art and it’s still art, whatever its flaws are.” As well as the countless Lenins shaped in his career, the 75-year-old artist is more recently famed for creating the Vilnius city centre (a world first!) bust of whacky rocker Frank Zappa.

So there I was… hopeless and helpless, in a ballet class that was conducted in two languages that were foreign to me: that of Russian and that of dance.

But I loved it – the stretching, toning, and holding excruciating positions (in six months we didn’t do much else, the basics were not something to be skipped over in favour of something resembling movement). Plus there was the old cultural centre hall and the elderly lady who played the piano accompaniment… and I think in a strange way, my teacher came to love me for the big, foreign, pantomime elephant clown that I was. She was a hardcore dance teacher of the old Soviet mold, and as such, was not averse to giving the limbs of the students a little smack back in place. There’s nothing like a little violence to aid the learning curve.

With me, however, when I made a mistake, the students around me got in trouble for not paying attention. I would get place between two of the better students, and when I copied precisely any of their lapses in concentration, I would hear something along the lines of “Alyona, pay attention, you know Bettina is next to you, concentrate on what you are doing”.

A few swiftly delivered lines like this could reduce even the most accomplished (in my eyes at least) dancer to tears. I only had one such occasion, when – for once – I understood perfectly what was being said, but I just couldn’t get the hang of it.

The teacher approached to me, the whole class whipped their heads around to face me and I froze. With the kindness of a viper, the teacher said “Bettina, you have to do blah-blah-blah (I can’t remember now), with your legs. Do you understand…? You understand…?”

This was worse than first expected. Not only had my foibles been revealed, but I was going to have to speak in front of the whole class.

Don’t cry, don’t cry, it’s a pressure situation, but whatever you do, don’t cry…

I looked panicked, considered what I was able to say, and tried to project my feeble whisper of a response.

“Yes. I understand. But my legs… they do not understand…”

Like butter in the sun, my teacher’s countenance transformed from strained patience and exasperation. I think I hear the class issue a collective sigh. That was quite possibly the cutest answer I could have come up with, but frustratingly for me, it wasn’t a chosen expression, but a necessary conveyance of idea. Lost for words, I couldn’t express it in any other way.

The class continued and I think a few wanton tears escaped to the freedom of my cheek, but that was that, and I consider that I got out of it unscathed!


Not that I’m going to be gracing the stage with Kirov dancer Farukh Ruzimatov in Scheherazade any time soon…

How this for getting out there and trying something new? With an open-mind for cultural experiences, I started to learn ballet in Russia.

Let me give some background to this story though, and then you’ll see why it’s remarkable.

I’ve been pretty sporty all my life, but had never before ventured into the world of dance. This was pretty much ruled out as an option for me with a pretty lackluster attempt at physical culture – aged three – my parents still have the photos. While all the other girls were prancing prettily, I just expanded my girth by puffing out my protruding pot-belly, wedged my hands on my hips in exasperation and stared at the ceiling in disinterest.

Thus, following a more natural inclination, I thought it was perfectly natural to arrive in Russia and start to seek out a women’s football team.

Obviously Bend it like Beckham hadn’t been released to the Russian market, because everyone greeted my request with astonishment “Yes, you can find football teams in Russia, oh no, not YOU personally, women don’t play football.”

Hmm…

A few months later, a Russian friend of mine told me she had found the perfect solution to my non-activity woes. That we could learn ballet together, she’d already found the class, I only needed to buy shoes during the week and we would start on the weekend. Relax, she assured me, I’ve done it in Berlin, it’ll be great, you’ll love it.

Realising this was not open to negotiation, I went off to buy my shoes and reluctantly slouched along to the first session.

In fact, I slouched along to every Monday and Saturday session for the next six months. By this stage I was hooked, but the slouch was inadvertent, there’s something not quite ballet about my posture and every week my shoulders would inevitably get wrenched back into the same “proper” position, which I would invariably forget by the next session.

I trotted back over the Channel to London last weekend for the Russian Winter Festival. Held annually in Trafalgar Square to celebrate the Russian Old New Year (see my previous post for all that bizzo), it’s basically an extravaganza of folksong, regional dance and kitsch pop. So… it’s pretty obvious I was there at the drop of a Cossack fleece hat!

I was one of the committed few (thousand) who decided to brave the grey skies and wind (which wasn’t really very brave as the rain held off) and stand there for the whole seven hours of the show (unlike the 99,000 latecomers). From children’s choirs to the Russian National Dance Show, made-for-TV pop to rock bands several times in the remaking… it was a great spectacle for those content to stand and watch, but hell on earth for anyone who wanted to move around in the crush of people.

The majority-Russian crowd went nuts for one of the winners of the ‘Star Factory’ TV pop idol contest, Mark Tishman. Everyone laughed heartily at his lame jokes, and seemed to buy all his awful schmaltzy stage moves (and not realise that he’s spent far too long at the solarium, perhaps to hide the fact that he only remembered to bring along his darkest, thickest foundation) – all bar me, so I had so swallow my cynicism and cheer along. A few eyebrows were raised when the expected R’n’B starlet failed to show and was replaced instead by the latex-clad electro-erotic outfit Aqaerobika. It was little surprise that they were announced as ‘fresh from nightclub success in Amsterdam, Berlin and Vienna.’

Another shock (for me at least) – bands such as Sankt Peterburg and Zemlyane, formed in 1967 and 1978 respectively, being fronted by lead singers and musicians that weren’t even conceived (or conceived of!) in the 60s or 70s (and maybe not even in the 80s, for that matter). An interesting advertising take on breathing life into a known brand… why not apply it to known bands? (Why encourage new music when you can just have pretty new faces singing the same old stuff?)

Unfortunately, after the “snowflake” bubbles were released into the crowd, my attention span wavered. I didn’t get to see as much of the ‘Russian Justin Timberlake’, Dima Bilan, as I had hoped, because I was being pestered with questions about my life history from a guy standing next to me (soon dubbed ‘Slava the serial pest’). By the time the craggy rockers, Alisa, mounted the stage, my friends and I decided it was time for drink, but that it was better advised to have an off-site hot chocolate rather than freeze our hands to an icy baltika beer.

Gosh, am I getting soft in my old age?

Bit of an average New Year’s Eve? Don’t worry – you don’t have to wait till Chinese New Year to make it up – Russia offers the disillusioned party person the ultimate solution… Old New Year!

As the Russian Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar for fixed festivities and Easter instead of the extensively-used Gregorian calendar (it strains my brain whenever I get into this cross-calendar quagmire. For my other attempt to make some sense of it, check out my revolting October post), it pretty much translates as double the fun!

It’s all due to the complexities of religion and twentieth century politics, but I’ll try and sort through it all.

Basically – January 1st is when Ded Moroz (Father Frost) visits from Veliky Ustyug (Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov determined this relocation from Lapland in 1998; hopefully he was on-hand to help pack boxes for the move) with his granddaughter Snegorochka (Snow Maiden) and presents for the kiddies gathered around the New Year’s yolka (fir tree). With no other determinable family tree, it’s a little confusing how Ded Moroz has a granddaughter, but it’s obvious that mythological pagan characters move with the times. This year, apparently, not only could you send letters to Ded Moroz at his Veliky Ustyug address, but also text messages!

Russia celebrates Orthodox Christmas on January 7th. Banned for 75 years, and only reinstated in 1992, the Christmas celebrations involve feasting, an all-night mass, clouds of incense and a parade of icons.

Old New Year is then the celebration of the New Year, just as the headache has cleared from the last hurrah. In a further stretch of logic, I’m going West rather than East to celebrate it… yep, a day like today deserves a weekend in London for the Russian Winter Festival in Trafalgar Square! Along with Slavic, Chechen and Buryat folk song and dance, there will be an artificially-enhanced smattering of ‘Star Factory’ wannabes soaking in the fourteenth minute of their fifteen minutes in the limelight, headlining popstar Dima Bilan, and scabby old rockers who deserve some credit for being at the cutting edge of underground Soviet rock many moons ago…

Speaking of many moons ago, undoubtedly this was Miss Russia 1938, risking the soles of her feet on the Gulf of Finland’s banks of razor-sharp debris at the peak of St. Petersburg summertime. At this time of year, the shallow water will be frozen and used simultaneously for ice-fishing, reckless high-speed stunt driving and pulling rope-holding skiers from the back of cars (water-ski-style).

Ok, so we were to sleep in the empty cabin of the boat. We had figured that much out.

The moment we were left alone in our confusion, I got into my sleeping bag and pulled it over my head. If we were going to have to make a run for it during the night, I preferred to have had at least a couple of hours sleep first. My companion kept watch at the window, foiling my slumber plan with regular updates of all the shady goings on at the market-cum-port carpark outside.

At one stage, another car pulled up and a man stumbled drunkenly from the passenger seat. I was alerted to the proceedings from a commentary from my friend:

“getting out, um no, falling out of the car… coming our way… oh shit, just got on the boat…”

(thud at the door)

“…opening the door.”

And low-and-behold, before us was the silhouette of a man, supporting himself on the door frame. Silently he reached out to us (I can’t describe our anxiety levels at this point)

… holding blankets. He left us his gift and disappeared into the night.

We looked at each other, lost for words, all except one:

“Christies.”

After that, we slept soundly until morning. We never met the man again. We thanked the staff at the bar and took our morning coffee there. Soon after, we were berated whilst buying yoghurt by the woman in the general store across the road.

“You should have told me yesterday that you were looking for a place to stay; I have a sister who has a spare apartment, here – this is her address, just tell her that Vera from the shop sent you…”

Word gets around fast on the shores of Lake Baikal, I guess!

Still to this day I don’t know exactly what they were saying. Christy isn’t a Russian name (goes without saying really), and in Russian you don’t indicate possession with an apostrophe and “s” like in English… so no idea really!

Lake Baikal, the jewel of Siberia and the deepest lake in the entire world, holds twenty percent of the world’s surface fresh water. The lake is a spiritual centre of the folklore of the traditionally nomadic Buryat people, and a great place for smoked fish for the hoards of Russians and foreigners who pass through to marvel at this wonder of the natural world.

The first time I visited the icy blue waters of Baikal, I was travelling with a friend who I’d met up with on the Krasnoyarsk-Irkutsk train. At Listvyanka, we met with another friend of his who had the foresight (actually it was just the Russian visa requirement) to pre-book accommodation. To cut a long story short, after a day spent doing nothing in particular and an evening drinking tea with the friend, we set off hoping to hitch a lift for the four to five kilometres back to the town from the hotel.

No such luck, and somehow time flew and we found ourselves arriving back to the middle of Listvyanka’s central drag at about midnight. The carpark marketplace where vendors had spent the day smoking and selling their splayed Omul (a whitefish only found in Baikal), had transformed into a quite unsavoury carpark port, where the few bars had taken on an ominous wild-west quality and we weren’t really sure where we stood.

I asked in one bar if they knew anyone who was renting rooms, because we didn’t have a place to sleep. I didn’t really understand the reply, as it sounded something like “Christies.”

“Christies?” I asked.

“Christies.” The same reply, I must had heard right the first time (or – more likely – consistent in my misunderstanding).

This one word ricocheted back between all parties at the counter, the owner and us, the confused backpackers. The way they said it made it seem such an obvious place to stay. I looked around hesitantly for the “Christies” flickering neon light, but nothing.

It was best to start again. “I’m sorry, but I’m not from around here (duh!) and I don’t really understand… Who or what is Christies?”

Someone guided us from the bar to a boat docked approximately ten metres away.

“Christies.”

To be continued…

[…] It doesn’t normally follow that one would undertake an activity where legs can be broken, heads split and fingers sliced off underfoot willingly […]

For a more realistic portrayal of the perils of skating - check out this funny post from Funabroad. Plus, if my video of Evgeni Plushenko was a little tame or lame for you thrillseekers out there, have a look at this one. When I first watched it, I thought ‘Oh yeah, haha, what a blunder’ and then realised that ice-skating could provide the backdrop for the next Hollywood slash and stab film… ouch ouch ouch!

Actually… I think French black comedy Serial Lover has already delved into that point!

Not enough ice for you? Here’s some stock pics from the Europe trotted archives! The first is an impromptu ice sculpture from some flea markets in Berlin, and the second is the view from my apartment window in St. Petersburg…

Synopsis: A tale of two New Year’s Eves.
Characters: Two of the usual suspects – Prague and St. Petersburg.

Two evenings, both alike in indignity,
In the life of Bettina (where we lay our scene),
From juniper gin breaks out the new revelry,
Where Borovička and beer made usually civil hands unclean.
Hourly from forth the morning hour of ten,
This star-cross’d pair took her life;
Come evening, piteous misadventure began,
With Coke bottle-mounted firework strife.
Children launched their arsenal from the snow,
Ran away as it toppled, shooting across the frost
In a Žižkov park – far above the city below.
Something, something about spectacular fireworks over Karlùv most…

Darn! I’ve lost any sort of rhythm. You’d think that anyone could be a poet with a master like Shakespeare providing the template, but I’ve disproved that in a grand fashion!

Like a dud firework, that was a fizzer…

An eye-opening New Year’s Eve was had in Prague – perhaps more so than St. Petersburg – because in Prague it was freezing cold, but not too cold, so it was possible to be outside to witness the anarchic chaos of the firework hazard in the hilltop park, whilst watching the official show over the Karlùv most (the famed Vltava-crossing Charles Bridge) below. On second thoughts, maybe it was too cold to be outside, but many of us were in/on high spirits from the “Slovak Jägermeister”, Borovička, so external factors like temperature had little bearing on the festivities.

The Russian New Year’s Eve was a little more spontaneous in that no-one knew if it would be too cold to go out until just before midnight. Like tentatively testing the water with a toe, people emerged from their houses, realised it was quite “temperate” for the end of December and remained on the streets drinking Sovietskoye Champanskoye and dancing to various pumping beats from the disco kiosks (they were like stationary carnival floats, I’m not sure how to describe them – other than that they were a lifesaver! Whenever you felt too cold walking home along the street, you just stopped, had a brisk dance, and then resumed the journey!)

As for this NYE… stay tuned…

My favourite postcard from Russia - even though the post office and I weren’t on speaking terms, I couldn’t resist their glitter postcards. I kept this one for eternal new year good luck because of the not-at-all-tacky Sovietskoye design…

From the streets of St. Petes…

St. Encil… geddit!?!