Here you can browse through my blog posts prior to February 2022. Currently I'm sharing my travel experiences, candid opinions, and what's on my mind solely on my Facebook page. — Rick

Berlin’s Jackbooted Punk Bands

Art helps us ponder the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Here, hammers and sickles are buried in a slice of Berlin Wall concrete.
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Thinking “Hitler” back in the 1930s, this little girl sings, “You really gotta hold on me.” Sadly, the hateful power of Nazism is not entirely dead.
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The Berlin Wall fell twenty years ago. Tourists seem to care more than locals. I asked how the East Berliners have integrated into the Western ways of united Germany. Local friends told me the East Berliners were a people educated not to ask questions, not to control their destiny, and to pride themselves in manual labor.

While Westerners lived with non-Germans, Eastern Berlin didn’t live with foreigners. With freedom, the least trained among them found themselves competing at the low end of the workforce with Turks and other immigrants. Their fear of foreigners and their own lack of economic hope and opportunity make the less-educated, working-class Germans from the former East more skinheady–more prone to cling to racism and support far-right-wing political parties.

While neo-Nazis are a tiny fringe in Germany, there is a smoldering fascist element in German society. I was told it’s led (Lyndon LaRouche-style) by older men who spearhead young movements via websites and music. Neo-Nazis listen to hateful music with forbidden themes by forbidden bands. These jackbooted punk-style bands have nostalgic, patriotic names like “Rheingold” and sing patriotic themed tunes that evoke the 1930s.

In Germany, there is freedom of speech…except against Jews. Children can tell Norwegian jokes all they want. But if they say racist things against Jews, they can actually get their parents in legal trouble. Germans are dealing aggressively with their fascist ghosts. While there are rowdy skinhead gatherings on Hitler’s April 20 birthday, there are almost always much larger counter-demonstrations at the same time, effectively drowning out the neo-hate.

A friend told me that because they grew up not allowed to travel, former East Germans are the ones who “travel like hell.” While West Berliners holiday elsewhere in Germany or in the Netherlands, people from the DDR (East Germany) travel to places farther away, like Egypt.

The importance of being free to travel is a recurring theme in my travels this year. The citizens of the former Yugoslavia fondly remember how they were always free to travel. They were free to travel because they always came back, and they always came back because they were free to travel. Citizens of the DDR risked their lives to escape the country that wouldn’t let them leave. Now they “travel like hell.”

Hohenzollerns Suck as City Planners

Berlin’s Spree River boat tours are suddenly a major attraction as the riverfront is lined with glorious, modern, governmental architecture. You’ll glide by buildings like the Chancellery — Germany’s grandiose answer to our White House.
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I just spent three days in Berlin. Of any place in Europe, this city is a work in progress…a place you need to be in every couple of years to see how it’s developing.

The city center is blossoming. In fact, the big change in my guidebook: I now recommend the Spree River Boat Tours simply to glide by all the stunning new governmental architecture lining the river. And, while the Hohenzollerns built their buildings right up to the river (a Prussian snub against its people), today’s government seems determined to make the riverbank through Berlin a delightful park. New buildings are set back, beachy cafes come with summery lounge chairs, and the river that once had metal nets and barbed wire to keep people from crossing it to freedom now makes you want to walk a dog and hug someone.

On the down side, locals are complaining that the Berlin government is deeply in debt — $25,000 per person. Many parks are unkempt. Scaffolding is stuck in place as many building projects are on hold. The rest of Germany says that’s the price Berlin should pay for its grandiose building schemes of the last decade.

Locals are concerned that the city is coping by selling itself to foreign investors. Russian mafia types invest here because they need a solid place to put their black money. They expect crazy-high interest rates (as they’d get in corrupt Russia) and are frustrated when they don’t get them.

While Berlin is cheap by big city standards in Europe, and really happening if you are creative and edgy, it’s not the greatest if you’re filthy rich. You just can’t find the super-elite social clubs you find in Munich or Hamburg. And local elites complain that their fanciest club (China Club, $40,000 per year membership fee) is becoming overrun with Russian members.

Harley can’t get up. What about Stalin?

These paintings in Tallinn’s KUMU museum are a reminder that Stalin said, “Death solves all problems. No person…no problem.”
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Germans love their powerful motorcycles and black leather road gear. Twice on this trip I’ve helped a big, strong German right his tipped motorcycle. They seem so ominous in their gear on their big bikes, and then so humbled when the bike tumbles in a parking lot and they can’t lift it up without help. It reminds me of a big, strong medieval knight who’s fallen off his horse and can’t get up.

Being in Western Europe, you think a lot about Hitler. Being farther east, you think of Stalin. He was evil beyond words. One of his favorite sayings: “Death solves all problems. No person, no problem.” While it seems Hitler is universally considered the worst person ever, there’s no question Stalin killed millions more than the German dictator.

Traveling through Germany, you’re really aware of the collective guilt the German people feel for the Holocaust. I don’t get that feeling from Russians about the atrocities in their history. But were the Russians collectively any less responsible for bringing us the horrors of Stalin? It seems people don’t blame the Russians for Stalin like they blame the Germans for Hitler, perhaps because Russians were victims of their own dictator more than Germans. But Stalin couldn’t do it alone any more than Hitler.

Scrap Metal and Estonian Brides

I spent a long day touring the Estonian countryside with my guide, Mati. It seems that the life and money are being sucked into the big city, Tallinn. Country people are moving there for work. The Estonian countryside seemed pretty dead — enjoyed by holiday-makers and offering work to those who can telecommute.

Estonia’s Baltic coast was once the wall of its Soviet-maintained prison. Now the ruins of that cage are a place that free Estonians come for peace, rest, and to celebrate their nature.
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The forests are thick, but the country is flat. Its highest “mountain” is under 1,000 feet, nicknamed “Big Egg Hill.” The endless pine forests are carpeted by wild berries and mushrooms. It is a part of the lifestyle to pick the berries. Mati said, “We have many berries. If you are very sick, some can make you well. Others can kill you. We pick them now for the joy, but during communist times, we picked them because we needed the food.”

The coastline is littered with souvenirs of Soviet occupation. Each little lip of land had a track for a gun and a searchlight. The metal used to keep the Estonians down is everywhere. Estonia’s first post-independence millionaires made their fortune selling scrap metal to the West. Today, Estonians enjoy their mellow, peaceful Baltic coastline, playing amid the ruins of their former prison.

History was tough even before the Soviet Union. If it wasn’t Russians, it was Germans…making life miserable around here. Until the mid-19th century, a good hunting dog was worth more than an Estonian peasant worker. And it was even tougher east of Estonia. In fact, Mati said that the vast majority of Soviet movies set in past centuries were shot in Tallinn, Odessa, or Riga. He said that was because these three towns were among the few from the former Soviet Union with an old quarter that survived the tumult of the 20th century.

And there was nothing charming about the architectural heritage of the Soviet Union. Ugly buildings, which dominate most cityscapes, are just assumed to be “from communist times.” Hotel Viru, long the only skyscraper in Tallinn, was an infamous Soviet hotel. Mati said it was built of a new Soviet material: “mico-concrete” (60% concrete, 40% microphones).

Doing my research, I asked Mati about a good Italian restaurant. He said these days, Italian restaurants are common in Estonia…but no good. They’re generally based on couples: Italian guy marries Estonian girl. His mom was a good cook, so they think, “Easy. Let’s open an Italian restaurant.” Mati said, “It’s always Italian boys and Estonian girls — not the other way. Italian boys think Mediterranean women (Portuguese, Spanish, Italian) don’t age well. Let’s face it: For this, God created the Catholic religion…so they can’t divorce.”

Mati explained his theory that Italian boys see Estonian women as the best bride material: They are the ideal Russian/Scandinavia/Estonian mix: deep, poetic, and romantic like Russians; free-spirited like Scandinavians, but without the problematic feminism of a Scandinavian; and the hands-on, can-do practicality of Estonians…the perfect woman.

Tourists in Siberia and a Singing Revolution

The Festival Song Grounds in Tallinn mean freedom to a million Estonians. This is where choral music helped bring down the USSR.
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It’s amazing what a stretch of water can do. The Baltic Sea separates Sweden and Finland from Estonia. And the struggles of the last couple of generations couldn’t be more different on opposite sides of the Baltic. Traveling to Estonia spices up any Scandinavian visit — especially if you connect with the people and let them tell their story.

My guide, Mati, spent his time in the USSR military driving Soviet officers around the Crimea. Estonian boys got this plum assignment because they were considered smarter (and therefore safer) than village boys from the interior of Russia.

With Finland within rabbit-ear distance, Estonians were the only people in the USSR who got Western TV during the Cold War. Mati remembers when the soft porn flick Emmanuelleaired on Finnish TV. No one here had seen anything remotely like it. There was a historic migration of Estonians from the south of the country to Tallinn, where they received Finnish TV. Nine months later, the country experienced a spike in births.

Estonia gets jerked around a lot. It hopes to get the euro in 2011. While I can’t imagine a change in currency, for Estonians it’s no big deal. Mati’s grandmother lived through seven different currencies.

When Mati asked his grandmother where his grandpa had gone, she said, “He’s a tourist in Siberia.” That was the standard answer to shield little kids from the hell they were living in. After freedom, Mati learned that his grandma had a bag packed under her bed for the surprise visit from the local police that she dreaded but half expected. We all live with stress and anxiety…but imagine living fifty years with that fear, as she did.

In Mati’s youth, one-sixth of the world was technically open to travel (the entire USSR), but there was no way to get a plane ticket or a hotel room. In an age when all Estonian recreational boats were destroyed (1950s and 1960s) because they were considered potential “escape vehicles,” one-sixth of the world was a prison.

After independence, in the early 1990s, Mati and five friends built a business importing classic American cars and selling them to rich Russian guys. One day, four of Mati’s friends went to Russia to collect payment on a car and were killed — riddled with machine-gun bullets.

Mati said, “The Russian mob makes Sicily’s mob look like a kindergarten. Putin directed the KGB. If someone thinks Putin doesn’t understand, forgive me, but you are a fool or you are blind.” Mati decided to drop his car business and become a tour guide.

Tallinn’s huge Song Festival Grounds looks like an oversize Hollywood Bowl. Standing overlooking the grassy expanse, with the huge stage tiny in the distance, my guide explained that when Estonia was breaking away from the USSR, a third of the entire country — over 300,000 people — gathered here to sing.

Imagine little Estonia, with less than a million people, free for 20 years from 1920 until 1939, but lodged between Hitler and Stalin. Mati said, “We are so few in number we must emphasize that we exist. We had no weapons. All we could do was be together and sing. This was our power.”

And that spirit of song led to Estonia’s stirring Singing Revolution. I’m embarrassed that my guidebook coverage completely missed this aspect of a visit here. I’ve visited Tallinn several times, and the thrill of this phenomenon (and the historic importance of the Song Festival Grounds) never hit me. With this visit, I was so inspired, I purchased the documentary movie The Singing Revolution online. This marked the start of a new age in tourism for me: be inspired, go back to the hotel, buy the movie on iTunes, and enhance my experience by watching it right there. In the future, this will be commonplace among engaged travelers. (Curious? Visit www.singingrevolution.comto watch the movie’s trailer.)

The Soviet Union was good at wiping out cultures. The USSR intentionally moved people all around to destroy ethnicities and make their citizens simply Soviets. The Livonian culture died out in the 20th century. They tried to wipe out the little Estonian culture, too. They moved in Russians. They drafted Estonian boys, sent them to far corners, and gave them incentives to marry into other regions. Mati recalled how Russian girls swooned at boys in uniform — especially Estonians — and there was plenty of opportunity to marry.

But there’s something resilient about Estonian culture. Mati said, “I’ve been in most of Europe and what I miss when I return is this black bread. I cannot live one week without it. I spent one week in Thailand, and we forgot our black bread. We were very unhappy.”

Having traveled with Mati, Estonia will forever be a more vivid place on my globe.