On the Road: Berlin and Paris

Graffiti here and there appear on the walls of rectangular buildings. An eye-sore if too many, here, amidst the monotonous German landscape, they liven up the atmosphere with cartoon colors.

We arrived at the giant Pergamon Museum. It is imperial grandeur with columns reaching for the sky, but none other than large barracks stretched on a scale akin to our Palace of Sports in Kyiv, after all is said and done, guarded by an Egyptian pharaoh on one side. The somber-looking gray-haired attendants looked considerably less alive than the Greek statues they were paid to protect.

German thoroughness combined with military talent resulted in whole architectural ensembles being brought from occupied territories, as evidenced by the museum.

Of course, Soviet officers and men also stole and confiscated things, but they did this in their habitual sloppy manner, stuffing suitcases with pieces of jewelry and canvases and lugging them all the way home.

Among other things, the museum accommodates a whole Greek temple with stairs and porticoes. One can just imagine it being dismantled, stone after stone, packed, transported, then reassembled, the way a child does with an erector set.

From what I remember, Hitler ordered the construction of rail tracks twice their German width in the occupied Soviet territory. Perhaps he planned to take away the whole of Siberia, the Kremlin, and St. Sophia’s Cathedral by trainloads. In any case, looking at the items on display at the Pergamon, I could easily picture the whole affair.

The architecture is strikingly meticulous. The ear of the horse and the rider’s chest constitute a kind of bas relief conveniently described as “Horseman Holding the Horse by the Bridle.” The rest is left to the viewer’s imagination.

Two corpulent bespectacled ladies formed a nice contrast with the slim figures of Greek heroes. Apparently the food problem had been effectively solved, but the negative effect on weight control was just as obvious.

Judging by the exposition, Babylonian craftsmen mostly specialized in portraying cattle, although here and there one came across totally mysterious creatures, like a hippo-lion cross. Quite an attraction for geneticists!

TO VICTORY!

After all, it was Soviet Victory Day (for some reason the war in Europe lasted one day longer for the USSR —Ed.) and, driven by national pride, we headed for the Reichstag. There were several options of celebrating the occasion. I was for having a drink on the historic stairs, quoting from Leonid Bykov’s hero in the still very popular Soviet movie Only the Old on this Mission: “I’m satisfied with the ruins of the Reichstag.” Our tourist group, however, was against it: the Reichstag was the German parliament and sessions were underway; we must not disturb the German lawmaking process. Also, there were no ruins left, although scaffolding could be seen here and there.

In the end we decided to kill the festive bottle of vodka in a nearby park.

We toasted our brave fallen ancestors and went to the Brandenburg Gate, but there was little we could see for the place was under major repair, with a damp narrow underpass left for the tourists. Walking through the tunnel, we passed a couple and heard behind: “They smell of vodka, must be Russians,” with a heavy Baltic accent. We turned and gave them a scornful Ukrainian look, but refrained from debating the thesis.

A PAINFULLY FAMILIAR ATMOSPHERE

Back to our tourist itinerary, we could use our medical-children’s tickets to board a yellow tourist bus and travel all day long.

We did and eventually found ourselves at the castle of Charlottenburg. Frederick the Great had built it for his wife Sophia Charlotte.

It was nothing special but looked cute, frilly, and sentimental, without any sharp angles, in a way like our Mariyinsky Palace in Kyiv, except that the one in German had a small gold female figure on the central dome. It must be Charlotte.

There was a beer hall in the Charlottenburg Park and once inside we found ourselves in an atmosphere very much like any such place at the Hydropark in Kyiv. There were mugs of foaming beer, clanking and sloshing, with children dashing to and fro through the crowd. We found several tables and discovered that they belonged to a different outlet where no drinks were served. Long and elaborate negotiations ensued and in the end we were allowed to stay. We felt truly at home.

Except the waiter was conspicuously different. A gray-haired dignified gentleman, he looked like a conservatory professor. It took him ten minutes to write down our orders and then another thirty minutes to serve us. The man was in no hurry, God bless him.

The kids vastly contributed to the overpowering radio decibels. There were German songs, then suddenly we heard Chris Ree and now were actually all the way back in Kyiv!

Something happened toward evening and by the end of our visit to Berlin, serving as a good illustration of the German (and Ukrainian) character.

DUMMIES THE GERMAN WAY

As I have mentioned, part of the sidewalks in Berlin is allocated for cyclists and there are bicycle signs for the dumb. Our girls fell under the category, I regret to say; they didn’t even understand the signs. Two were walking on the pink bicycle path when there was a sonorous call, HELLO! It came from a Berliner astride his super-modern bicycle, sporting a black crash helmet. He was racing toward the girls. All the passersby turned, but not our girls, although he was actually yelling at them. At great risk, he flashed past, inches from them. Of course, the girls jumped aside in fright.

A purely German reaction! In any other country a cyclist would turn and ride past on the other side of the sidewalk, but not in Germany. He had to abide by the rules and it meant following the pink cycling path.

And I was surprised by their mannequins. I saw plastic boys and girls in a store window and what struck me was their posture: all stood with eyes to the front, arms to the sides, boys, sensual girls, and a couple of young fellows, all showing a distinct military bearing. Real German dummies they were.

PARIS SKETCHES

Before I continue with my story, I would like to thank all those many readers for their calls and words of appreciation addressing the previous articles of the European tour series.

Now about some of those that were not happy, particularly from among the organizers, and the inconsequent question, “If you didn’t like it there, why did you go in the first place?” I did like it. Thanks to the organizers’ arrangements and my money, this author’s world outlook has considerably expanded, reaching as far as the North Sea. And I still think that the trip was not a pure vacation.

And yes, there was a seminar on drug trafficking held in Paris. I mention it because the organizers asked me to do so. I am not going to return to the topic, because I was interested in other things. All I can say is that people of various professions swore to fight drug abuse to the victorious end. Hopefully, there are no drugs in circulation, not even at the Pushkin Museum in Kyiv where one of my travel companions works.

To avoid misunderstanding and hurt feelings, I have changed all names. Also, anyone is welcome to doubt anything described here or regard the whole thing as fiction — like Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad, Ivan Goncharov’s The Frigate Pallas or Ilf and Petrov’s One-Storied America. The principle is the same, a most detailed account of what the author saw with his own eyes and how his fellow countrymen behaved in different situations abroad. Our bus was like a miniature Ukrainian colony.

I saw my task in trying to convey my feelings as accurately as I could (others might have felt differently, relying on their own world view) and build a story as best I could.

End of author’s note — oh, yes, one other thing. There are people who have seen Europe from the windows of their luxury hotel suites. They may regard my narrative as a gross exaggeration, for they were in a far better mood than the participants of our bus trip. On the other hand, impressions accumulated by individuals always in a hurry, see as much as they can, then race back to board the bus are more perceptive in a way. A friend called me a couple of days ago. She said she had read my bus travel sketches and now she was eager to repeat the trip, inadequate bus service notwithstanding. I took it as a compliment.

So back to the bus on its way from Berlin to Paris.

LOOMING IN THE MIST

The seats in the Neoplan were placed so close to each other that the atmosphere inside was pregnant with aggressiveness. In the middle of the night someone hissed, then yelled at someone and was answered in kind. To nip the conflict in the bud, I and the woman sitting next to me changed seats with our friends who insisted that the passengers sitting behind were monsters in human form. They would not let them push back their seats and threatened to beat — well, teach them manners at the next stop.

It later transpired that the seats were not fixed properly and threatened to fall back any moment. The monsters in human form said thank God on seeing us take the seats in front, that our predecessors had terrorized them. In particular, the girl sitting behind thanked the woman sitting next to me long and profusely for showing true civic spirit. In a word, our bus proved an excellent model of mankind.

The passengers had hardly calmed down after the commotion, some dozing off, when the drivers turned on a Polish rock tape full blast at 1:30 a.m. It sounded like a heavy metal version of a polka. The top hit was Uhma-a poloomah blanc-a-a!!! Yet no one seemed in a dancing mood. Then the sound faded (either because someone had the presence of mind to lower the volume or the in-built emergency switch was activated).

PHOTO CAMERA MAYONNAISE

We parked in front of the Formula 1 Hotel. Alas, no Schumacher or Hakkinen, but plenty of Blacks and Arabs. Hotels like that one are considered sub-star, meaning a shower booth in the corridor, massive fireproof painted doors, and a six-digit lock.

Our team leader Vasyl immediately announced he would take the bed on top, the way we do in a train compartment. I thought he was being a gentleman, but then realized I would have to share the double bed below with another man from the group called Mykhailo. The first night in Paris promised to be happy: one man on the left and another on top!

Paris architecture is a nice contrast to Berlin, no eye-sore sharp angles. Everything is harmonious and smooth, inspiring a sense of confidence and coziness. You found yourself under the dangerous illusion that even getting lost in that city was not dangerous, and this despite the gloomy wet weather.

The first person we saw before the Paris Opera was Dmytro Korchynsky. He cut an almost as imposing figure and there was no mistaking his identity courtesy of the famous Cossack mustache. Indeed, the French capital was being filled with Ukrainians on a planned basis.

We raced to the celebrated Louvre, a former royal palace. In the center of the courtyard we saw a giant glass pyramid encasing the underground entrance to the museum and towering over a long line of eager visitors. We decided to take a walk in the royal garden of the Tuileries instead.

Not a square inch of asphalt, just the sand and crushed gravel. It was a tradition with all French parks, we discovered.

A friend of mine had asked me to bring a stone of Paris. I picked a small one playing with bright colors like a gem. It would make a nice addition to my mineral collection, so I kept it and found another one for my friend, not as bright but looking more natural.

Having packed my pockets with stones, I headed for a cafe. Practically none of us could speak French. Quite a few could say and understand something in English. A cheese and mayonnaise burger and a cup of coffee cost about ten euros. I was about to sit on a bench with the burger and coffee, but Eleanor, our veteran traveler (it was her third bus trip), said are you crazy, you will have to pay twice if you do.

On hearing this, I grabbed the burger and coffee and took flight. As I ran the mayonnaise started transferring itself from the bread to my photo camera, so in the end I had a diversified menu: a burger and photo camera mayonnaise.

I found the rest of the group with cups and burgers at a small canal by the Seine. Everybody was chewing and then a clochard ambled over. Needless to say, he left empty-handed.

After putting something under our belts, we took a calmer look around. There were plenty of marble sculptures, and we liked the antique exhibitionist the best. With a cloak elegantly thrown across his left hand, he proudly displayed his rock hard manhood, a very realistic approach.

WHOEVER APPROACHES YOU IS AFTER YOUR MONEY

After exploring the ramshackle home of Voltaire on the side of the Seine, with a flashing patrol car parked on the opposite side of the street, we went down the stairs to our first subway station.

Considering the structure, parting company and getting off at stations was like putting together a crossword puzzle. The male part of the group felt ill at ease and had to rely on female intuition, assuring the women that we would keep an eye on them and not worry.

The floor was covered with rubber, as at some of our stadiums. The metro station was shaped like a tube sown in halves. There is a religious (Soviet religious, of course) touch to our subway stations, but the metro in Paris makes one feel inside a can. Obscene graffiti is all over the place, the way we have in our doorways, and an ocean of blazing ads and posters.

To get inside the car, one does not just stand like a fool on the platform, waiting for the train to stop and the doors to hiss open. One must pull at a special handle, otherwise the doors will not open at all. One of the tourists slow on the uptake remained standing and gawking at the doors that stayed shut.

There are no announcements of stops inside the car, as the name of the station is repeated the length of the wall across from the platform.

Well, we did hear a PA announcement. A warning against pickpockets. Imagine: stealing in the heart of civilized Europe! In translation the announcement sounded, Anyone moving close to you is after your money! On hearing this, everyone started casting dirty looks at those standing or sitting nearby.

Stations flashed by: Place de la Concorde, the Bastille... And then we heard Russian spoken by a “new Russian” woman, addressing her friend, “You know, I’ll take you to a store selling straw slippers at only 122 euros.” How inexpensive!.

TWO EIFFEL TOWERS

In the evening we went to the Seine. The pleasure boats, called bateau parisien, cast off under the Eiffel Tower and the latter looked like a gray giant supporting the sky. Nothing particularly impressive about it.

We boarded and cast off, the vessel was a broad catamaran composed of three boats.

As in the Berlin tourist bus, the passengers donned earphones and listened to guide tapes in a variety of languages.

The guide, a young girl with short hair, wearing glasses and a blue suit, supplied the running commentary, lapsing into fluent German and English — of no avail to yours truly bemoaning the language barriers. She must have read the mournful interest in my eyes, for she walked over and I had to nod now and then, pretending understanding.

Meanwhile the passengers heard in the earphones “Please look to the left, this is the Louvre... now look right...” When the passengers sitting on the left side of the boat were instructed to look right all they could see were the passengers on the right side. And vice versa. In the end those seated on the opposite sides had studied the bank of the Seine on their side, the other side of the boat, and the bridges passing overhead — dozens of them spanning the river.

After partaking of the bloody details of the French Revolution no one was surprised to learn that rare duck was the specialty of the expensive restaurants at the Latin Quarter.

Judging from the enthusiasm and emotion in the voice of the guide in blue, her main idea was to let us fully perceive the charms of her city.

She was right. There were plenty of things to marvel. The boat returned to the Eiffel Tower late in the evening and we were overwhelmed by what we saw, a miraculous and breathtaking transformation.

Now the tower was a column of gold fire, a splendid necklace on the dark velvet bosom of the night. Streaming from the sky was a thin white beam with the elevator car moving inside like a bright red shimmering firefly, a captivating sight.

(To be continued)