Stepping Over The Line – Hungary-Romania Border (The Lost Lands #4)

A lightly trafficked road, farm fields interspersed with a few trees, a lone building set beside the road. This is the scene on an otherwise anonymous stretch of highway on the frontiers of eastern Hungary. The scenery gives no hint of what’s to come. Then the first signs appear for border control. Up ahead is a line all but invisible to the naked eye. That line has been the deciding and dividing geopolitical factor between Hungary and Romania for over a century. My anticipation rises as the car closes in on the border. The signs direct drivers to slow down and point to the proper lane. No border officer appears until the car comes to a halt. This is the experience that quickens my pulse more than any other while traveling. The expectation is that first there will be bureaucracy and then freedom. Everything depends upon a couple of officials I have never seen and will likely never see again. They are the gatekeepers to my future travels.

Remote control – Border crossing between Letavertes, Hungary and Sacueni, Romania

Initial Impressions – Locals, Lorries, & Limbo  
I love remote border crossings in Eastern Europe. They give me the sense that after wandering in a linguistic and cultural wilderness that I have finally arrived.  I define remote as any border crossing that is not along a major highway. Such border crossings are not hard to distinguish because they are in places few have ever heard of and fewer will ever go. They are mainly trafficked by locals and lorries. The highway will be two lanes until right before border control. This is the opposite of a heavily trafficked border crossing which has the look and feel of a travel plaza along a four-lane highway. There is a small army of serious looking border officers going about their business while masses of travelers wait in limbo. Delays can be lengthy and at busier times feel interminable. At remote border crossings officers take their work seriously, but they are less hurried in their processes and more relaxed.

Passing through the Hungary-Romania border always feels like an event to me. I get the sense that something important is about to happen. A remote border post causes my imagination to run wild. I would love to know how the officers feel about their jobs. What are their most dangerous and difficult duties? How are their interactions with locals from the opposite side of the border? In my more expansive moments, I can see myself working in solitude at such a post. Waiting for locals and wayward travelers to make the crossing. It is a thrill for me when the border officer comes out from a bland building. I try to put myself in their place. Meeting strangers who they only know by their documents and initial impressions. They are also standing on a historical fault line where the past is never far away. Their job is to make sure no one steps beyond the border line until they say so. 

On the line – Border crossing between Artand, Hungary and Bors, Romania

Going Remote – A Sense of Destiny
While working on my itinerary to visit the lost lands of Historic Hungary, it did not take me long to realize that Romania would be my number one destination. Transylvania loomed large in that decision, but in its shadow lies Crisana. A region that includes large parts of eastern Hungary and western Romania. The latter still has plenty of ethnic Hungarians, especially near the border. Crisana is where I will enter Romania. The question is exactly where to cross the border. The choice will be based upon prior experience and personal preference. One thing I loathe is navigating a major border crossing. The busiest crossing between Hungary and Romania is Artand-Bors. The city of Oradea (Nagyvarad) is only a 15-minute drive beyond the border. I have crossed by both bus and car here before. The crossing is heavily trafficked by automobiles and lorries on both sides. The hectic pace can make for an irritating experience. The frenzied activity at Artand-Bors is not how I want to start my journey to the lost lands. I would much rather find a quieter and more remote crossing.

The solitude of a lonely outpost appeals to me. That sent me searching for an obscure crossing. One where the border officers do their work in relative anonymity. Fortunately, I have prior experience with one of these crossings, Letavertes-Sacueni. It received my full attention as I considered whether to add the crossing to my itinerary. Letavertes and Sacueni are backwaters, out of the way places that do not lend themselves to tourism. The big advantage the towns have is their proximity to the Hungary-Romania border. That is why I am choosing this as my first crossing. Traffic is bound to be light, border control is efficient, and wait times minimal. One of the more interesting aspects of crossing the border here is that the towns which give the crossing its name play a minor role for the traveler. 

Running the border – A train and car on the Romanian side of the border in Sacueni
(Credit: Kabellerger)

A Fine Line – Setup For Failure
I visited neither Letavertes (population 6,795) nor Sacueni (population 10,720) when I crossed the Hungary-Romania border there five years ago. From an ethnic standpoint, there is not much that separates the towns. Both are overwhelmingly populated by Hungarians. That is not surprising for Letavertes which is in Hungary. It is for Sacueni, where three out of every four inhabitants are ethnic Hungarians. There are twice as many Roma in the town as there are Romanians. I do not recall much about either town. Both places happened to be in the way of history in 1920 when the Treaty of Trianon took effect.

One thing I do wonder is why the border was drawn through this area. I have read extensively about the politics surrounding Trianon, much less so about exactly where and why the frontiers were drawn in a specific area. I assume that the lines on maps were informed by the opinion of “experts” at the Paris Peace Conference. Their on-the-ground experience with specific places must have been lacking. It makes little sense to put areas dominated by ethnic Hungarians on the edge of western Romania when Hungary was just over the border. Such points of contention were a recipe for strife. Both Hungary and Romania were being setup for failure. In retrospect, conflict was inevitable. 

Click here for: All The Right Places – The Other Side of the Border In Crisana (The Lost Lands #5)

Chaotic Conclusions – The Right Side of the Border in Historic Hungary (The Lost Cities #14a)

Sometimes the only place left to go is home. As my armchair travels around the lost cities beyond Hungary’s borders nears the end, I began to look for the way home. There was one problem, I had trouble finding my way home. Was home back inside Hungary’s borders in Budapest where my itinerary started? Or was home outside those borders in the lost cities that I found a source of endless fascination. In my imagination, I felt more at home in the lost cities because they were the places still fraught with tension. Places where history was palpable, and ghosts could be discovered in broad daylight. 

Standing tall – City Hall in Szeged

Going Home – Subotica To Szeged
When I started developing the lost cities’ itinerary, I planned on ending the journey where it first began at Keleti Station in Budapest. Something about that slowly came to seem not quite right. I had drifted to so many places beyond Hungary’s borders, that heading back into its heart did nothing to excite me. I wanted to stay on the fringes and walk along the edges. There were old frontiers still worth exploring both inside and outside Hungary’s current border. That is why I am choosing one of the cities that ended up on the right side of Hungary’s border as the final stop. Szeged is not far from my final stop in Subotica and manages to surpass it in architectural wonders. Subotica and Szeged are not far apart. Both cities suddenly found themselves on the frontier. They have much in common and are distinctly different. For Hungarians, Szeged is the dream, Subotica the reality. That sense of bipolarity was something that millions of ethnic Hungarians came to know all too well when the Treaty of Trianon went into effect.

Finding home on this journey was not only pertinent to me. It also recalled the lost cities’ history. I was following in the footsteps of ethnic Hungarians. Millions had suddenly found themselves outside the borders of Hungary after the Treaty of Trianon took effect. Their lives and livelihoods were in limbo. They were left with two choices between bad and worse. They could either leave the only life they had ever known behind, or they could stay and try to make the best of what would be a very difficult situation. Some of them went back to Hungary because they had little choice as ethnic Hungarians were threatened, attacked, or faced discriminatory policies. Others stuck it out and managed to keep their lives afloat in the turbulent years ahead. 

Trianon was not the start of problems for ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania, Banat, Vojvodina, and southern Slovakia. Their problems began as the worst conflict up to that point in world history was entering its most chaotic phase. World War I did not end in Eastern Europe the way it did in Western Europe. By the time the armistice was signed in France on November 11, 1918, Austria-Hungary had already disintegrated twelve days earlier. This led to an extension of the war, albeit on a smaller, but more chaotic scale. The front lines were blurred with civilians caught in the crossfire. Hungary battled Czechoslovak, Romanian and Serbian forces on different fronts. The Romanian Army fought its way to Budapest before the victorious powers forced them to leave. Adding to the chaos was a revolution in Hungary that brought a communist government to power for six months in 1919. This did nothing to endear the Hungarians to the victorious powers. Territory was up for grabs. The strongest military force often proved decisive. 

Flag waving = The Union of Transylvania with Romania is declared on December 1, 1918 (Credit: Samoila Marza)

Internal Exiles – Climate of Chaos
The Hungarian Army was in no condition during this time to take control of all the territory that historically had been part of the Kingdom of Hungary and administered as such during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. For all its faults, the Treaty of Trianon brought order to this chaos, but that was not until it went into effect on June 4, 1920. By then hundreds of thousands of Hungarians had fled back to the core territory of Hungary (the nation as it exists today). These refugees were especially conspicuous in Budapest. Housing was in short supply. Many of them were forced to live in railroad boxcars. Fear, anger, and resentment were pervasive. When a counter-revolution was conducted by right-wing Hungarian forces, paramilitary justice against real and perceived communists was brutal.

It is hard to imagine just how chaotic the situation was in Europe during this time. It is just as hard to imagine the violent upheaval that took place across Eastern Europe. The political, military, and economic situation in Hungary was one of the epicenters of volatility. Ethnic Hungarian refugees who fled to the core of Hungary found that peace was precarious and prosperity non-existent. Only after the counterrevolution led by Admiral Miklos Horthy took power was a sense of order restored. Those who opposed the regime were lucky to escape with their lives. Many of them did not.

Horthy’s regime was not strong enough to do anything other than take control of core Hungary. The cities in what had been the Kingdom of Hungary were all but lost. Trianon would finalize facts on the ground. The refugees would not be going home anytime soon, if ever. Their resentment over what they had lost would be one of the defining factors in Hungarian politics during the interwar period. Regaining the lost lands would become a top priority for the Horthy regime. In that effort, they had the support of a populace seething with discontent towards socialists and Jews at home, and the successor states which took hold of Hungarian territory.

Cut off – Trianon memorial in Bekescsaba (Credit: Tobi85)

Traumatic Times – No Direction Home
Anyone who has ever suffered through a crisis in which they were forced to leave their home knows the psychological trauma and physical hardship it can cause. When there is no going back to the way things were and no clear path forward, people often turn inward on themselves. The same is true for nations. This happened to Hungary, as it did to the ethnic Hungarian refugees who fled there because they had no other place to go. Home had become a nebulous concept. In the lost cities and lands ethnic Hungarians were suffering much the same thing. The difference was that they had stayed put.

Click here for: Anecdotal Evidence – The Wrong Side of the Border in Historic Hungary (The Lost Cities #14b)

Teutonic Twilight Zone – The Façade of Frankfurt (Istanbul & Everything After #67)

Our time in Frankfurt was limited and growing more so by the hour. We would spend just sixteen hours in the city. Over two-thirds of that time was taken up with transiting to and from the airport, checking in and out of the hotel, sleeping, repacking, and then returning to the airport for departure. The six hours we spent trying to discover Frankfurt turned into a blur. A Saturday evening and early Sunday morning were not optimum times for tourism. My friend Steve and I made the best of our limited amount of time. We wandered and window shopped the city. That brought us to the wall outside the Old Jewish Cemetery, not once, but twice. We found darkness and gloom on either side of midnight.

All the king’s men – With Charlamagne in Frankfurt

The Romerberg – Missing Persons Report
Frankfurt is one of the largest and most prosperous cities in Germany. On our final morning it did not feel that way. The lack of noise was unsettling. After Istanbul, which never went to sleep, Frankfurt felt somnolescent. I had never been in a city so quiet. Having the city to ourselves was creepy. Where was everyone at? Over 700,000 people call Frankfurt home. Several million more can be found in the surrounding area. They had all gone into hiding. The sight of a single person in the Altstadt (Old Town) was a notable occurrence. There is very little I remember of our whirlwind walk around the area, but we did take photos. These have helped me recover bits of memory about that silent Sunday morning when the Main River was as gray as the sky. We wandered through the thin mist that filled the air and hoped to see something of interest.

Soon we were standing in the Romerberg, Frankfurt’s town hall square, which has been the setting for numerous historic events, including the coronations of ten Holy Roman Emperors and the annual Frankfurt trade fairs. It was also the scene for one of the Nazi’s book burnings in a city with the world’s most famous book fair. All that was history this morning because the Romerberg was deserted. I found it difficult to imagine anything famous happening. Without people and sunshine, the Romerberg looked forlorn. There was scarcely any activity. I found it impossible to feel inspired or enthusiastic. My first morning in Germany and the only thing to greet me was a statue of Charlemagne. At least, Charlemagne was a stand in for all the missing people. That was except for the one who took a photo of Steve and I standing in front of Charlemagne’s statue.

New age – Romer (City Hall) in Frankfurt

New Age – Not So Old Europe
When I visited Frankfurt, I was living in Wall, South Dakota. A small town of 800 people on the High Plains of America. Wall was founded in 1907 and had recently celebrated its one hundredth anniversary. Europeans sometimes say that the United States does not have much history. This is a reference to its relative youth when compared to Europe. The length of American history pales in comparison to a place like Frankfurt. The city was first mentioned in 794 when Charlemagne held the Council of Frankfurt to decide religious issues of the day. The depth and breadth of history in Frankfurt dwarfed the town where I lived. Twelve hundred years of history versus one hundred years of history does not make for much of a comparison. The same can be said for the rest of America. Frankfurt is eight hundred years older than any other town in the United States. And yet, Frankfurt is also much younger.

I should have been surrounded by medieval buildings while standing in the Romerberg. Instead, the “historic buildings” had been constructed during the last half of the 20^th century. Old Europe hardly existed in the Altstadt, at least not in its original form. Several of the Romerburg’s most historic looking buildings were constructed – or should I say reconstructed – in my own lifetime. That is because the Romerberg had been given the equivalent of a facelift. Between 1942 – 1944, the Allies attacked the city from the air. The Altstadt could not escape the damage. The losses were incalculable. Prior to the war, Frankfurt had the best-preserved medieval core of any German city. Its collection of half-timbered buildings was a famous draw for tourists. Medieval Frankfurt was incinerated after eight Allied bombing raids on the city. Following the war, various reconstructions of the most important buildings took place. Some these were the buildings Steve and I stood gazing at.

While it is important to keep historic buildings in good condition, from an aesthetic point of view that can be problematical. Many of the buildings on the Romerburg were stylistic throwbacks that maintained historical verisimilitude. Their aesthetic qualities were a different matter to me. The buildings made the Middle Ages look like they happened last Monday. The German rage for cleanliness, neatness, and order was on full display. Surely the original building showed some wear and tear. History was never neat or clean, but no one would know that by looking at these buildings. There was a Disney aspect to these new old buildings. An ideal that looked less like reality and more like fantasy. I am always suspicious of anything old in excellent condition. Time weathers buildings. Fresh coats of paint can cover blemishes, but beneath the makeup lies the true character of a building. There was something soulless to the point of surreal in the Romerburg.

Teutonic Twilight Zone – Romer (City Hall) on a sunny day (Credit: Thomas Wolf)

A Greater Truth – Between The Real & Unreal
Despite my misgivings about the Romerburg, I must admit that the buildings were tastefully reconstructed. I am sure they adhered as closely as possible to the originals. The Romerburg is an admirable attempt to overcome the destructive legacy of war. Frankfurt rose from the rubble, not better than ever, but newer. Reconstructions and reproductions cannot bring back the past. All they can really do is represent a semblance of it. The Romerburg was a Teutonic Twilight Zone, a place where the real and unreal were difficult to distinguish from one another. It also revealed a greater truth. The past can be recreated, but it can never be resurrected.

Click here for: Eternal Trip – The Never-ending Journey (Istanbul & Everything After #68)

Civilizing Mission – Journey To Ankara (Istanbul & Everything After #52)

Our final day of the tour would be like many of the others, long and exhausting. The difference was that this would be our last day together with the group. I doubted that Steve and I were the only ones ready to have our lives back. Knowing that we would no longer have to suffer from each other made everyone in the group more cheerful. That cheerfulness was needed since we were starting down the road on what would turn into a twelve-hour journey.

Turkish metropolis – Ankara

Fatigue & Conquest – A Merciless Land
The longest day began beneath a cloudless sky just after sunrise. An early start was critical. We would be traveling to Turkey’s two largest cities, Ankara and Istanbul. It was a Friday, so traffic would almost certainly be a problem. The plan was to squeeze in and out of Ankara between the morning and afternoon rush hours. As our bus pulled away from the hotel there was silence, a byproduct of everyone being half-asleep. No one was complaining about the early start though. Twelve days of travel had proved exhausting. Fatigue had set in not long after we left Fethiye five days earlier. The sites and scenery were just as fascinating as earlier in the tour, but everyone’s energy level ran much lower. The end could not come soon enough.

The trip between Cappadocia and Ankara took us deeper into Anatolia and a landscape that makes time tick slower. Vast and expansive, the land felt like it might go on forever. Turkey looks like a mid-sized nation on a map. The interior of Anatolia makes it seem massive. Ever since we had left Antalya several days earlier and traveled inland, I got a better feel for the country’s size and character. It was in this vastness where the Turks scored their first major successes against the Byzantine forces. I could see how the armies of a waning empire could get swallowed up as much by the landscape as their opponent. While the fall of Constantinople in 1453 was the seminal event of the Turkish conquest of Byzantium, first the Selcuk and then the Ottoman Turks rampaged across the heartland of Anatolia. For eight hundred years this land had been under Turkish control. After the First World War, Greek forces surged from the Aegean coast inland. They were cut to pieces by the Turks. In the process, the Greeks ended up losing any foothold in Asiatic Turkey.

Into the heartland – Central Anatolia (Credit: Alen Istokovic)

Growth Industry – The Capitalization of Ankara
By mid-morning we were on the outskirts of Ankara. Our itinerary only allowed for one stop in the Turkish capital, the world-famous Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. In a country that has no shortage of museums, this is considered one of the best. It was the premier tourist destination in Ankara. I was disappointed that we would not be able to visit Ataturk’s Mausoleum, but at least I would be able to say I had been to Ankara. Unlike Istanbul, Ankara was never a very sizable city until the Republic of Turkey was founded. In 1920, there were only 25,000 people living in Ankara. That was when the city became headquarters for the Turkish National Movement which successfully secured Turkish independence in military campaigns that expelled all European occupation forces. In 1923, Ankara was declared the capital. This brought an influx of people and growth to the city. That growth has never stopped.

There are now five million people living in the Ankara area. The city’s remarkable rate of growth was spurred by its status as capital. Istanbul, which had been the Ottoman Turks’ capital, was not selected because of its imperial past. The founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk wanted a clean break with that era. Ankara’s central location in Turkey helped bring cohesion to the newborn state, bridging the divide between the eastern and western parts of Turkey. Like many capital cities that exploded in growth during the 20^th century, Ankara is a product of the administrative state. The governmental aspect makes it more sterile than other Turkish cities. In our short time in Ankara, I did not see much that was memorable. To be fair, Ankara cannot be seen in a few hours. With a limited amount of time, we only saw a single highlight.

Civilizing mission – Gallery in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations

Upon Reflection – Mirror Images
The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations defied my expectations. I thought the museum would focus on Ancient Greece and Rome. Instead, the galleries started in the Old Stone Age over 10,000 years ago and moved forward in time from there. There were galleries devoted to the Assyrians, Hittites, Phrygians, and Urartians, among others. My head was spinning. The depth of history was confounding. Anatolia was multi-civilizational to an extent that I found difficult to fathom. I found something more relatable in an exhibit on coins. I gravitated toward the ones from the Roman and Byzantine Empire. Those shiny pieces of metal were worth as much to me as they had been to the hands that held them two thousand years ago. I could see the rise, zenith, and decline of Rome in material form by looking at how the coin’s artistic qualities and composition of metals changed over time. When Rome was ascendant, the coins were thicker and more durable. As the centuries progressed, the quality of coinage worsened. Some of the coins from late antiquity looked like they would disintegrate if touched by human hands. Others were surprisingly durable.

The exhibit was both educational and impressive. All the time I spent in college memorizing the names of Roman and Byzantine Emperors, along with the dates of their reigns, suddenly came in handy. My father figure, mentor, and historian of Ancient Greece and Rome, Dr. Brian Walton, loved to show images in class of emperors from different time periods in the Roman Empire. He pointed out the signs of artistic decline and creeping decadence that could be seen in the renderings of later emperors. The coins were mirrors reflecting the decline and fall of Rome. In the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations Brian’s words and teaching methods came flooding back to me. I was not just looking at the ancient past, I was also looking at my own.

Click here for: The Burger King – Conquering Ankara (Istanbul & Everything After #53)

A Driven Man – The Quiet Hero (Istanbul & Everything After #29)

After observing Turkish driving habits I had only one thought, “thank goodness we did not drive.” This was a choice my best friend Steve and I made for obvious reasons prior to the trip. We did not want the burden of driving in a country whose customs and culture only vaguely resembles our own. For two guys whose overseas trips amounted to one, traveling to Turkey was a big step. We did not want to put the wrong foot forward. Driving would have been a misstep.

The last thing I wanted to happen while traveling in Turkey was a near death experience. That was a distinct possibility. While researching this trip online, I read the advice of an experienced expat who had lived and worked in Turkey for over twenty years. He had written guidebooks and traveled extensively throughout every region of the country. His advice was to avoid driving. If someone did choose to drive, then it would have to be in as defensive a manner as possible. This would still lead to problems since Turkish drivers are notoriously aggressive. Being tentative on the road in Turkey invites aggression from others. Driving in Turkey was not for novices.

         Taken for a ride – Bus journey in Turkey

Driving Lessons – Rent A Wreck
The last thing I wanted to happen while traveling in Turkey was a near death experience. That was a distinct possibility. While researching this trip online, I read the advice of an experienced expat who had lived and worked in Turkey for over twenty years. He had written guidebooks and traveled extensively throughout every region of the country. His advice was to avoid driving. If someone did choose to drive, then it would have to be in as defensive a manner as possible. This would still lead to problems since Turkish drivers are notoriously aggressive. Being tentative on the road in Turkey invites aggression from others. Driving in Turkey was not for novices.

There was no good reason to risk driving a rental car. Turkey is one of the most visited countries in the world. As such, the tourism infrastructure exists for travelers of all ages and budgets. There are hundreds of tour companies ready to transport travelers anywhere in the country. Public transport was also a viable option. The bus network is extensive. All driving would do is add an extra layer of stress to a trip that would tax any first-time traveler. There was also the fact that trips to Turkey for Americans almost always begin in Istanbul. The idea of trying to steer an automobile through narrow streets and packed highways in a city with 15 million inhabitants was unthinkable. Driving in the countryside would have been much more agreeable. The only problem was getting there. Renting a car in Istanbul would mean driving it out of the city and then returning it. Any dream of driving on open roads among olive orchards and roadside ruins in rural Turkey always started and ended in Istanbul. 

     On the road again – Taking the bus around in Turkey

Safety Precautions – A Steady Hand At The Wheel
I was also being naïve about rural driving in Turkey. There are several issues that any first-time driver would find daunting. The military sets up security checkpoints. It is one thing to deal with highway police, quite another to be questioned by a serious soldier. And from what all saw, every Turkish soldier is super serious. Road conditions are problematic as well. Turkish roads leave something to be desired. They can be bone jarring at the best of times. Roads that are in first class condition become speedways. Two lane, undivided highways are extremely dangerous. Passing is the preferred option except on curves and blind hills. Anyone who values their life is better off by leaving the driving to someone else. After observing the risk that Turks took on rural roads, I was glad that we had not talked ourselves into a Turkish road trip. This turned out to be the right decision. because the driver of our tour bus was one of the best.

A steady hand at the wheel is a requirement for anyone tasked with transporting 20 plus people across half of a country with a less than stellar road safety record. Fortunately, we were lucky enough to have just the man for this job. Our tour bus driver was a quiet hero. Always there, barely noticed and a calming presence. Each day he would appear dressed in a nice sport coat, freshly starched shirt, and well groomed. He had an air of confidence about him. Silent, steady, and supremely focused on the task at hand. I never once saw him flinch, even during several near misses. If a head on collision looked imminent, he faced it with skill and determination. Honking horns and serving vehicles did not even elicit a shrug.

He was always with us and somehow invisible. The only time he spoke was to communicate with the tour guide. Their conversations were kept at a minimum. Often little more than a few words in Turkish. He was a leader, not a conversationalist. His facial expressions were a picture of stoicism. Nothing he did or said betrayed the slightest hint of strain. In my opinion, he had ice water flowing through his veins.  He was so calm that I sometimes wondered if he had a pulse. For ten consecutive days he steered us through every scenario imaginable. The traffic clogged streets of Fatih, concrete catacombs of Kusadasi, dusty lanes of Konya, the narrow and winding road to the plateau at Pergamon, all done with proficiency and tact. 

          Forward progress – Highway into Istanbul

Paranormal Activity – The Last Stop
His presence had been a strange phenomenon, bordering on the paranormal. He had joined us at restaurants, stayed in the same hotels, watched us get on and off the bus. And still I had hardly noticed him. I do not remember getting a full look at him until the final moment he spent with us. This occurred following an insanely long ordeal of rush hour traffic that greeted us on the edge of Istanbul. The bus came to a stop in a random neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. Our tour guide announced that this was the final stop for the driver. Another one would take us into the city center. Prior to this final goodbye, a pass the hat ritual took place. Everyone in the group chipped in to give him a tip for services rendered. This was a bonus for saving our lives more times than we could ever have imagined. I was heartened by the amount of Turkish currency freely handed over. There was no skimping on this one. The driver accepted this generosity with a modest smile. True to his personality, he had nothing to say. His job was done. We were safe. He exited happily and disappeared into his home. Never to be seen again and soon to be forgotten.

Click here for: Seductive Stay – A Life In Fethiye (Istanbul & Everything After #30)

Optical Illusions – Biertan: From Massive To Miniature In Transylvania

Traveling from Saschiz to Biertan by road only takes 45 minutes if you can survive the trip. Being a driver or a passenger in Romania is not for the faint of heart. The driver spends most of their time in passive aggressive mode trying to avoid accidents that are waiting to happen. It is not much better for passengers. This involves being an innocent observer who has no control over potentially calamitous situations. The passenger is absolved of responsibility, at the same time they might be absolved of life. The best strategy is to distract oneself from what is happening on the road. The problem is that it is hard to look away. Curiosity can almost kill you. The passenger who cannot keep from watching the road is in for a heart wrenching experience.

     Rising above – Biertan Fortified Church and the surrounding village

Running The Risk – Life Goes On
Both drivers and passengers traveling on Romanian roads must always be prepared for the worst. There is a great deal of risk involved in choosing whether to drive or ride. The choice comes down to whether you want to put your life in someone else’s hands or into your own. Either way, Romanian road travel is bound to induce moments of intense stress. Head on collisions are a distinct possibility due to motorists who love nothing more than passing anything that gets in their way for the possibility of getting to their destination a little bit faster. The only saving grace for a foreigner is the immense amount of relief felt upon arrival. Surviving near-death experiences on the roads are not what must people have in mind when they visit Transylvania, but that is what many of them get. I know from experience.

There are vast rewards for taking roads in Romania that outweigh any risks. The greatest of these is to find an open road where the traffic is light. Imagine traveling in Transylvania on a strip of two-lane tarmac running up a valley with mountains in the distance. Fertile farmland and flowery meadows dot the landscape. Forests thick with trees and abundant wildlife are never far away. Cool and clear streams run swift and silent while carving their way to distant outlets. The pleasure of such pastoral landscapes feels eternal. At times, the land and people appear to be in medieval times. Horses provide more than locomotion as cars in many villages. Life goes on the way it has for centuries. The traveler gets the drive by thrill of seeing it at 80 kilometers per hour. Such scenes were to be found between Saschiz and Biertan. The latter promised many more with the added benefit of having a UNESCO World Heritage Site as its centerpiece. Biertan was too good an opportunity for me to pass up, Timisoara would have to wait.

           Proud towers – Biertan Fortified Church

In Bloom – Sprinkled With Magic
This Transylvanian Road trip followed the Tarnava River Valley along Highway 14 to the turnoff for Biertan at Saras pe Tarnave. As soon as the turn was made the Saint Helen Fortified Church appeared on a hillside in Saras. Fortified churches are a hallmark of Transylvanian villages, they provided spiritual and physical protection from the Middle Ages to early modern times. Now they provide aesthetic beauty and an opportunity to see back in time. A traveler could spend months by going from one fortified church to the next. I, like most visitors, had a limited amount of time in Transylvania. This meant seeing one of the highlights. The greatest of which still lay nine kilometers ahead at Biertan. The road was in good condition and blissfully devoid of traffic. A rare combination that sprinkled the final 15 minutes of this side trip with magic. There was not a cloud in the sky on this summer day.

The entire world was in bloom. Flanked by lush vegetation, the road opened before the vehicle offering an invitation to go further towards the iconic and still invisible Biertan. I longed to catch the first glimpse of the village and its famous fortified church. I was chasing an image of Biertan I had seen several times before. I longed to see if that image fit reality. The anticipation built as the road wound its way between the hills and ever deeper into the countryside. The expectation made this journey seem longer than it was in actuality. Then the village and church appeared. The two were similar yet distinct. The village was quaint and homey, the church magisterial and massive, towering above the surroundings. The village and church complemented each other. One would not have been as enchanting without the other.

              Bucolic setting – Biertan

Ever Upward – A Looming Presence
My eyes did not deceive me. There was no way of getting around the fact that everything in Biertan radiated around the fortified church. In the village’s narrow side streets, I oriented myself by its looming walls and spires. Biertan was more than the fortified church, but I found it impossible to look past such a looming presence. The church was an attention getter, one star shown in Biertan; everything else was there to provide depth. My eyes were always drawn back to it and ever upward. I could hardly wait to step within its walls. Doing so, I realized the church’s scale was daunting. It was not just a church, but an entire complex. Towers, covered stairwells, and three concentric rings of walls were among the architectural touches that made it so formidable. Even more impressive was that the church stood as the centerpiece of a village with 2,200 inhabitants.

While I had been in plenty of massive churches and cathedrals across Europe, I had never visited one in a village of this size. By the standards of Transylvanian villages, Biertan was sizable, well-kept, and looked vaguely prosperous. When I looked down from the walls onto the village, the red tiled roofs of the Saxon houses stacked along the streets were tiny by comparison. I knew that this was an optical illusion. Only minutes earlier, I had stood on Biertan’s streets beside those same houses. They were larger than houses I had seen in other Transylvanian villages. The problem was that they lay in the church’s shadow. As did everything else in Biertan. 

Click here for: Greater Truths – Beyond The Façade: Biertan Fortified Church

Sleeping With Strangers – Hostel Interactions (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #66c)

Everyone traveling to Eastern Europe should stay at least one night in a hostel. The experience is unlike anything they are likely to find in standard accommodations. Whereas hotels are low energy with guests outwardly focused on what they intend to see and do, at a hostel there is raw energy fueled by alcohol, hormones, immaturity, and youth. Hotels are places to stay, hostels are places to party. Imagine students at a university spending what amounts to perpetual Friday nights together. That is the essence of hostels. They are not so much a place to sleep, as they are a place to crash. A good hotel is pleasant to the point of dullness, a good hostel is a place where anything could happen and often does in a fun-loving manner.  Hostels have a “we are all on this together” feel. That feeling is often a reality when it comes to sleeping arrangements.

    As good as it will get – Sleeping arrangements at a hostel in Ukraine

Do Not Disturb – People Problems
A room full of strangers on bunk beds is not something anyone should suffer unless it is at a summer camp or in military barracks. In those two cases, people only do it because they have no other choice. Travelers have a choice. Most prefer as much privacy as they can afford while traveling abroad. If travel is injurious to prejudice, it can also be injurious to privacy. I discovered this during a couple of restless nights at hostels. Though I view travel as a mostly solitary pursuit, it has forced me to engage with people and behaviors that I would rather avoid. Looking back on these experiences, I find myself amused. That was not the case at the time when I was confronted with drunken or obnoxious people. I have not been in a fight since elementary school, but there were times when I felt the urge to engage in fisticuffs.

Trying to sleep in a room while someone snores for hours on end or attempts to have drunken sex in the earliest hours of the morning have led me to the verge of an explosion. I have been barely able to restrain myself. These experiences were memorable in the worst ways possible. They led me to question why I was paying for the privilege of being kept awake until the sun came up. I was getting too old for this. By my late thirties I was well past my partying prime. After finishing university, I could no longer tolerate sleeping in the same room with someone. It was bad enough when I did not have any choice over the matter, but I discovered it is even worse when I do. After experiencing the crowded quarters of Oki Doki Hostel in Warsaw while bunking with a mother, daughter, and a morose twenty something from an anonymous European country, I vowed not to suffer through that kind of situation again.

        Sleeping it off – Less than ideal conditions at a hostel

Nightmare Scenario – Sex, Drunks & Alcohol
I found myself in a similar predicament only ten days after my hostel experience in Warsaw. This one would turn out to be much worse. My first three nights at a hostel in Lviv, Ukraine was wonderful. I had my own private room which was spacious and quiet. The cost was extremely affordable. The hostel was quiet and well-kept. I could not have been happier.  So far, so good, until the final night when I was booted from my room because I had failed to book the final night. This forced me to bunk in an eight-person room full of strangers. This was not what I had in mind, especially when a couple came to copulate in a bunk beside me. It was obvious that they had fueled their lust with copious amounts of alcohol. I am not quite sure whether they had sex or not, but they made a worthy effort.

All this left seething in a nearby bunk bed unable to sleep. I chose not to say anything due to the awkwardness that would cause. After getting just a couple hours of sleep, I gathered my belongings and made a quick escape to the train station. Before leaving I was met by a sofa full of sullen-faced, red eyed, drunk youths who were in a catatonic state after joining their friend who just happened to be the front desk clear. He saw me off with an obligatory expletive after I demanded he call a taxi for me. I remember my mother telling me at an early age not to talk with strangers. The same advice goes for sleeping with them at hostels in Lviv.

After that memorable night in Lviv I swore off sleeping in a bunk room with strangers ever again. I had learned my lesson the hard way twice. There would not be a third time. I held true to this hard-earned principle, but my experiences did not keep me from booking rooms at two more hostels on that same trip. The results could not have been any more different. In Latvia and Lithuania, I managed to find places that catered to my needs of privacy.

          Nightmare scenario – Hostel behavior in Warsaw

Leisure Travel – The Quiet Life
The Warsaw and Lviv experiences were the end of my days staying at hostels. I had nothing in common with those alcohol fueled nightmares. My sleeping arrangements would now be at hotels and flats. It has been mostly the latter. These experiences have been unmemorable. The places are quiet, the neighbors are usually families or pensioners. Very few of the inhabitants in these buildings bother to exchange pleasantries with strangers, let alone try to sleep in the same room with them. Few speak English or hardly at all. Echoes of Croatian, Hungarian, Polish, and Ukrainian can be heard in corridor and stairwells.

The most irritating things that happen inside the rooms are the Wi-Fi not working, too few towels, or gaining entry by solving a series of logistical problems best left to burglars. The nights are peaceful, the mornings even more so. Check-in and check-out are anonymous. The process is efficient and effective. This is the opposite of what I found at hostels. Sometimes I miss those nights filled with anger and irritation, but then I recall what it was like to sleep with strangers.    

Click here for: That’s The Ticket – Eastern European Travel: Personal Journeys (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #67)

The Clay Ran Red – A Cast of Unforgettable Czechs (For Love of the Game #1)

“The hatchet faced Czech”, “stalking around the court like a vulture”, “the champion that nobody cares about.” I can remember each of those phrases being used to describe Ivan Lendl, the best tennis player in the world during the last half of the 80’s and into the early 90’s.. There was no love lost between Lendl and the tennis media. This was particularly true in America where Lendl was viewed with disdain by a majority of tennis fans. Compared to the angry charisma of Jimmy Connors and the volcanic eruptions of John McEnroe, Lendl was a picture of gloomy stoicism with an on-court persona that was all business. Americans love business, they did not feel the same about Lendl. He was the kind of glowering figure one might assume manned a watchtower along the Iron Curtain. Lendl was portrayed as the representation of a dour, humorless, robotic system. A crypto communist who came to conquer all on a tennis court.  

Serious business – Ivan Lendl playing in 1984 at a tournament in Rotterdam
(Credit: Rob Croes)

Hitting Hard – An Opening In The Iron Curtain
The popular image of Lendl was neither fair nor accurate. That did not matter to the media which wanted villains. While Jimbo and Johnny Mac pitched tantrums, whined constantly, cursed out umpires, threatened fans, smashed rackets, accrued astronomical amounts of fines and prolonged suspensions, Lendl was made out to be the bad guy. A gaunt figure with loads of substance and very little style. A master in administering blunt force trauma on the tennis court. Lendl was portrayed as imperious and intimidating, a man who took tennis way too seriously. He played to win, not to perform. The only leading role he sought was on the victory podium, a cold shoulder above his fellow competitors. This stereotyping of Lendl as a humorless, taciturn, automaton made an impression on my young mind. It would take me a long time before I warmed up to Lendl.

Thirty years after he left pro tennis, I look back at Lendl as a person who was not so much misunderstood, as wrongly portrayed. His dry sense of humor was one of the many fascinating idiosyncrasies of his personality. He was the ultimate professional, a man who worked ultra-hard for his money and managed to enjoy it. His influence upon the game was vast. He brought an emphasis on fitness, diet, precision, and power to tennis. The game as it is now played owes a great deal to Lendl. The phrase, “you don’t know what you got until its gone” applies to Lendl.  I long for his return and all those other Eastern Europe tennis players who I watched with fascination and fear in the 1980’s. This will always be the Golden Age of tennis in my mind. A great deal of this had to do with the players who stepped out from behind the Iron Curtain. They were intense and mysterious, inexplicable and eccentric. Lendl was one of many unforgettable characters.

Magical & mercurial – Hana Mandlikova at a tournament in Amsterdam in 1980
(Credit: Rob Croes)

Breaking Through – Leading The Charge
The 1980’s were a time when tennis felt bigger than what happened on the court. While the matches involved individuals, it was clear that the players were viewed by many as proxies for nations, ideologies, state sponsored systems and patterns of behavior. One could learn a great deal by watching the drama unfold both on the court and off it. Growing up as a fan of international tennis during the latter part of the Cold War, Eastern European players loomed largest in this weekly drama that played at venues around the world. This was not something new. The influence of players from the region had been gaining steam through the 1970’s. Leading this charge was the Romanian Ilie Nastase, tennis’ all-time class clown. Nastase was blessed with incredible talent and suffered from character flaws that often proved self-defeating. He drove both himself and his opponents crazy. At one point, Nastase was the number one men’s player in the world. It was a testament to his sublime tennis skills. Unfortunately, Nastase had become more known for his behavior which reached new lows. This made him strangely popular. Nastase putting Romania on the tennis map.   

By the 1980’s, Eastern Europeans were synonymous with world class tennis. They were scattered throughout the rankings. This was as true for women as it was for men. The Hungarian Andrea Temesvari surged into the top twenty. Her game was good, but her looks were considered even better. Bulgaria which had never made any impression on the professional tennis scene was blessed with the Maleeva sisters. This trio of siblings (Manuela, Katarina, and Magdalena) camped out on the baseline, doing their best to provide the human equivalent of backboards. They climbed up the rankings and stayed there for many years, Czechoslovakia provided some of the best players, producing several female champions, one of whom still considered among the greatest female players of all time. Martina Navratilova was one of the greatest athletes to ever play the game. Her prowess at the net brought an attacking style to the women’s game that had never been seen before. She would 18 Grand Slam Singles titles, all but two of them during the 80’s. Navratilova still holds the all-time record for most tournament titles won with 177.

One of the best ever – Martina Navratilova at a tournament in the Hague in 1980
(Credit: Hans van Dijk)

Mercurial Magic – Mandlikova and Mecir
A couple of other players from Czechoslovakia redefined the word mercurial. Hana Mandlikova was extremely gifted. There would be sublime stretches in matches where she would look unbeatable. It was impossible to know just when Mandlikova’s magic would start or end. She seemed to have little control over it. When playing at her best, Mandlikova could blow even the best players off the court. At other times, her play was listless.  A beautiful and baffling player, Mandlikova was a threat to win anywhere. Finally, there was Miloslav Mecir, a smooth striding Slovak known as the Big Cat. His game wrong footed many a Swedish player to the point that Mecir became known as the Swede killer. The Swedes were not the only ones who were at a loss when playing Mecir. I can still recall Boris Becker saying that during warm-ups he wondered how Mecir had made it onto the tour. Becker soon found out when he lost to Mecir in the 1987 U.S. Open. Mecir would make it to the final that year before losing to Lendl. The latter was the dominant force in tennis at that time. His play and persona are worth a closer look.

Click here for: A Blistering Pace: Ivan The Memorable (For Love of the Game #2)

Products of Their Environment – From Dalmatians To Chileans (Eastern Europeans in South America #3)

Dalmatia and the Chilean city of Punta Arenas are thousands of kilometers and an ocean apart.  It is interesting to note the similarities and dissimilarities between the two places considering that Croatians have left their indelible mark upon each of them. The dissimilarities between the two are obvious. Their climates could not be more different. Dalmatia enjoys a Mediterranean climate that can be blisteringly hot in the summer. Blinding sunlight causes fierce heat which radiates off the jagged limestone rock. For the unsuspecting, summertime in Dalmatia is a heat stroke waiting to happen.

Lasting legacy – Monument to Croatian Immigration in Punta Arenas

Final Frontiers – Infertile & Inhospitable
The climate is literally the polar opposite in Punta Arenas with damp cold much of the year, tending towards the forbidding and hypothermic. At the height of summer, the average temperature only rises to 30 C (57 F) and in the dead of winter it is just below freezing – 1 C (30 F). While Punta Arenas is close to some of the most beautiful areas on earth, these are also among the most inhospitable. Anyone who lives there needs to be tough enough to endure the climate. The weather is not for the faint of heart. Colonization of the area came very late when compared to the rest of South America. It took a people just as tough as the climate to survive in it. Croatians from Dalmatia might not have found the climate of southern Patagonia to their liking, but they responded to the challenge of making a life for themselves there.

The similarities between Punta Arenas and Dalmatia are less obvious. Perhaps that is what makes them so astonishing. Punta Arenas is the remotest city in Chile and with a population of 140,000, it is small in comparison to other cities in the country. Great masses of people will never settle there. Surprisingly, the same is true for Dalmatia despite its Mediterranean climate. The entire population of the region is less than a million. While beautiful, the land is fragile. Dalmatia is prone to earthquakes and suffers mightily during drought. While both places are bordered by large bodies of water, this does not make the land more fertile. The life sustaining skills Croatians learned over centuries in Dalmatia came in handy when thousands of them found their way to Punta Arenas and the surrounding area.

On the edge – Dalmatian town in 1905

On The Margins – Searching For Stability
Dalmatia can be as inhospitable as Patagonia. The region is agriculturally marginal. Until the rise of mass tourism, beauty was not something you could take to the bank. Dalmatia in the late 19^th and early 20^th century was an especially difficult environment for its inhabitants to earn a living. On multiple occasions, the region was an exporter of people. Many of whom found their way to southern Patagonia. Those who immigrated to the area were one of two things, either desperate or ambitious. In the case of Croatians, it was both. The desperation came from a lack of opportunity in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Those who did not own land had to work it for someone else’s profit. Political freedoms were limited as well. The stultifying class system meant that those who were lower on the social and economic ladder had very limited opportunities for advancement. This forced many of them to look across the ocean to the far reaches of South America to start a new life.

This started with the Tierra Del Fuego Gold Rush during the 1880’s and 1890’s. That was just the beginning of Croatian immigration to Patagonia. Beginning in the late 19th century, Dalmatia was struck by phylloxera, otherwise known as vine rot. The disease wreaked havoc on vineyards. This left many Dalmatians without any form of livelihood. The destruction of viticulture was a massive blow to the populace. South America was a much-needed escape hatch. A far-off land full of opportunities when compared to the pestilence that plagued Dalmatia. The yearning to escape from poverty and find economic stability brought a large wave of immigrants. Punta Arenas had a surplus of land and needed workers. The upshot was another wave of Dalmatian immigration to the area. Many of the immigrants worked on sheep farms. As they became more established, these immigrants successfully assimilated. Croatians were extremely influential in the development of Punta Arenas and Chile as a whole.

In the distance – Punta Arenas (Credit: HaSt)

Agent of Change – The Rise of Boric
That influence was never more apparent than when a native son of Punta Arenas, Gabriel Boric, became president of Chile in 2022. Only thirty-seven years old when he took office, Boric’s rise was meteoric. He was born in 1986, one hundred and one years after his paternal great-grandfather and great-uncle became two of the first settlers in the Magallanes region. They came to Patagonia as part of the Tierra Del Fuego Gold Rush. That seminal event in the region’s history brought immigrants who might not have struck it rich but still ended up settling in the region. Boric’s paternal ancestors hailed from an island off the Dalmatian coast which is part of the Zadar archipelago. They were the first wave of Dalmation immigrants to the area, part of a vanguard that would continue growing well into the 20^th century. Today, descendants of Dalmatian immigrants have become so fully assimilated in Chile that they are found throughout all strata of society. It is not surprising that someone whose descendants came from Dalmatia rose to the highest office in the land.

As the leader of a left-wing political movement, Boric was elected by a Chilean populace yearning for change. Like many who have promised change, Boric has found that turning political promises into transformative legislation is more difficult than he could have imagined. His approval rating soon plummeted after he assumed office. Boric’s advocacy of a new constitution failed dramatically when 62% of the Chilean electorate voted against it. This was a major blow to his presidency. Boric has since recalibrated his policies. It remains to be seen whether he can reinvigorate his government and bring about the change those who voted him into office expected. Whatever happens politically will not take away from Boric’s status as a hero to the Croatian diaspora in Chile and across the world.

From Moscow To Sarajevo – An Olympic Sized Fascination (Rendezvous With Obscure Destiny #64b)

The Olympics. Those two words did as much as anything to stimulate my interest in Eastern Europe. It is hard for any sports fan who did not live through the Cold War to understand just how important the Olympics were in the competition for global supremacy between the United States and Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc and the rest of Europe. And this struggle also had shades of gray with non-aligned countries such as Yugoslavia playing an outsized role as well. The Cold War was known for proxy wars and the Olympics were the ultimate proxy war. Superiority in sport was a proxy for superiority in ideological systems. The superpowers battled on fields in Moscow and Munich and ice in Squaw Valley and Sarajevo among many other places. There were amazing athletic achievements and the dirtiest of deeds. The Olympics were for more than national pride, they were for world dominance.

All together now – 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony

Manic Intensity – The Winner Takes It All
One way of establishing dominance in the Olympics was by hosting them. The host city gained an incredible amount of prestige. The Olympics were a showcase not just for the city, but also the host nation. The superpowers competed in this arena just as hard as they did in sporting ones. The Soviet Union struck first. By the late 1970’s the spirit of détente was already waning. The Soviets then delivered a fatal blow to it with their invasion of Afghanistan. The Americans were not going to respond in direct fashion with their military. Instead, the Carter Administration announced a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics which were going to be held in Moscow. This decision did nothing to stop the Soviets and kept hundreds of American athletes from pursuing their lifetime goal of competing in the Olympics. The boycott led to decreased interest in the games. The Moscow Olympics were one of the least popular in Olympic history and viewed largely as a disappointment. I can still recall seeing the boycott announced on television.

Earlier in 1980, the United States and Soviet Union had given me the first taste of the manic intensity caused by superpower rivalry when the American ice hockey team upset the heavily favored Soviet squad in the semifinals at the 1980 Winter Olympics held in Lake Placid, New York what was termed, “The Miracle on Ice”. The memory of watching that game will stay with me forever. The 1980 Moscow Olympics may have been held in the summer, but the only image I can recall from them is Leonid Brezhnev with his usual gray and grim personality. Brezhnev looked like the kind of man who involved himself in fixing games rather than playing them. Other than that, those Olympics, at least from an American perspective, were utterly forgettable.

The Soviets exacted their revenge when they boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Like the Americans four years earlier, the Soviet boycott was the equivalent of an own goal. A self-defeating, reactionary decision that changed nothing other than keeping their athletes from competing. Watching those Olympics, I began to realize that the Soviets did not have an iron grip on those nations said to be within their sphere of influence. Romanian athletes kept appearing on medal podiums. Athletes from Yugoslavia also made their presence felt. In a world that was bifurcated between east and west, these outliers left me confused. By this time, I was beginning to realize that Yugoslavia was not in the Eastern Bloc. Earlier that same year, it had played host to the Winter Olympics, a landmark event which I still remember fondly.

Field of competition – 1980 Moscow Olympics Opening Ceremony

Winter Wonderland – Snow in Sarajevo
Winter is a magical time, especially when it is sprinkled with snow. Cover any scene with a thick frosting of snow and it tends towards the fantastical. Now imagine the impression that a city in an exotic land beset by a massive winter storm would make upon an impressionable teenager. This was how I first came to know Sarajevo. My fascination with Eastern Europe began in earnest on winter nights in February 1984. I, along with millions of Americans, sat starry eyed in front of the television and watched the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. The name entranced me, it was exotic and easy to pronounce. Sarajevo slid off the tongue, sounding refined and gentle. This was the beginning of a love affair that I still have with the city. That love would be further consummated during a visit I made there in 2009, exactly twenty-five years after it held a memorable Winter Olympics

Those nights in February made Sarajevo a household name. Like many other Americans I knew nothing about the city when those Olympics first started. I knew only a little more about Yugoslavia. My main point of reference for Yugoslavia would come later that same year during the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. That was when I discovered Yugoslavia did not follow in lockstep with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. They refused to boycott. Yugoslavia seemed to me a softer, kinder nation. It was communism with common sense. My positive opinion of Yugoslavia was first formulated by the Winter Games in Sarajevo. The city looked mysterious and enchanting due to the heavy snow which fell upon it. My most vivid memory is Jim McKay of ABC sports standing outside during heavy snowfall. The flakes swirled around him. The snow made Sarajevo seem magical. Here was a faraway city in an obscure part of Europe. This was, is, and always will be Sarajevo for me.

Taking a Leap – Promotion for the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo

The Opening Ceremony – Wild Weather
Snow and Sarajevo are synonymous in my mind. There cannot be one without the other. Ironically, right before the games were to begin there was a great deal of worry due to a lack of snow. The organizers knew they were at the mercy of the weather. In the days leading up to the opening ceremonies their worries increased. A snowless Sarajevo would have been a disaster for a city that had put an incredible amount of effort preparing for the Olympics. This was to be Sarajevo’s shining moment on the world stage. No one would be disappointed as a blizzard blanketed the city in snow.

Click here for: Once In A Lifetime – Yugoslavia’s Moment of Glory in Sarajevo (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #64c)