Crosscarpatia tour 2003 [4.]

Slovakia, Bardejov, September 2003; Ilford Pan 100 negative scan, frame size 6x9 cm; camera: Ercona II.

Crosscarpatia tour 2003r. [ trasa: Presov - Bardejov - Humenne - Michalovce - Użhorod - Mukaczewo - Czerniowce - Chocim - Kamieniec Podolski]

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An excerpt from my travel journal: Saturday, September 6, 2003

I left Michalovice at 8.50 by SAD bus (ticket 68 SK, luggage 30 SK). The journey was quick and smooth. After all, it was only 40 km to the border. We were in Uzhhorod even before noon, after a short stop at the border, there were only a couple of Slovaks on the bus, me and the rest of the Ukrainians (about 25 people). The bus passed through the city and stopped at the concrete maneuvering square of the bus station, next to the train station. The first impression after getting off the bus is a sense of alienation that you are an intruder in this place. Everyone seems to be looking at me and seeing that I am a stranger. In a way, this is true, because I was carrying a large backpack on my back, and the locals use the system of large canvas bags during their travels, just like friends from Polish markets. Fortunately, I could see Hotel Uzgorod from the bus windows and knew where to go to find some accommodation.

There were some problems to change cash, finally Saturday, in one hotel they even started looking for a local money changer, but I think he took a lunch break. In front of the department store "Ukraine", on the main street from the train station, a few guys were also doing this job. Well, exchange offices still have the usual door-to-door competition. Finally, I exchanged money at the exchange office in the hotel where I stayed. On the way to the hotel, I meet three guys, also with large backpacks, we exchange smiles as we pass each other. Yes, tourists too, it will turn out that our roads will cross.

The first impressions from Ukraine were perhaps a bit filled with the feeling of alienation in a strange city, with wide avenues and blocks of flats smelling of socialist realism, but the station and hotel are located on the left bank of the Uzh river, developed and built in a typical Soviet style. Wide brochures filled with swirling cars (also the newest BMW and Mercedes with tinted windows and good Lads, also with such glass - first thought: strangers not to see these blondes inside), planted with trees, trade in large pavilions covered with makeshift stalls. And those long distances - at least for me, who is on foot. On the sides of the avenue, there are only commercial blocks and pavilions. It is true that the ground floors of the blocks are also already adapted for commercial and service purposes and modernity is also entering there, but with a color palette, new materials, garish inscriptions and signs, inspired by patterns from Western Europe.

When you go through the city alone, additionally with a heavy backpack, the great spaces and distances that you have to travel, planned with the Soviet panache, begin to be depressing. The individual in such a space is a small, fragile "pollen" meaningless. It is not without reason that there are so many buses, private marshals and taxis driving around the city. A person feels completely different on the other side of the river, there is a normal city in the dimension of European civilization. A normal, charming town with cobbled streets, tenement houses, churches and Orthodox churches. You can feel this Austro-Hungarian atmosphere here, even in space, with later modernist inclusions from the Czechoslovak interwar period. Such a small multicultural melting pot. This fragment of the urban space reflects the history of this region, but in the layout of the city I sense some chaos, something disturbing.

I visited the open-air museum of Transcarpathian Folk Architecture, located on the castle hill, in the late afternoon. Several complete homesteads from the Transcarpathian region are gathered, a wooden church, a mill, etc. There is a strange custom here that all young couples getting married in Uzhgorod come here to photograph and film, together with their families and wedding guests. They play out various romantic scenes, some groups bring vodka, a drink and a snack with them, and they start the wedding party here. On this example, an ethnographer or a researcher of culture can write a dissertation on the new functions of folk architecture gathered in an open-air museum and the open-air museum as such. What people's needs does it begin to satisfy? Museum only? Is it not, however, a phenomenon that such a ritual in the open-air museum becomes an expression of attachment to its rural origin and nostalgia for familiarity? After all, young couples in Poland often choose nicely situated palaces or mansions as the backdrop for their wedding photos. And there, maybe the parents or grandparents of these young couples were still getting married in such a wooden village church, and they had their wedding in an ordinary village yard or inn? Has the open-air museum become a place that preserves the roots of the inhabitants of this large city? After all, during the Soviet era, thousands of rural families moved here as part of socialist social "advancement", but nostalgia remained.

In the afternoon I met two Austrians and an American, volunteers working in a small village school, lost somewhere in the Carpathian mountains (in the area of ​​Rachiv). They teach English there. What could be done, we agreed to dinner in a fairly good and probably fashionable restaurant Kaktus, and then we went out to party. We got to the most fashionable club in the city - speaking to a taxi driver - called Armageddon, with disco, bowling (only two lanes) and a large room with pool tables. There, for the first time in my life, I played bowling, the guys explained the rules to me and somehow it worked. I wasn't even the last! An interesting fact after midnight was an unexpected visit to the disco hall - suddenly there was a wedding procession with a couple of newlyweds. Apparently, the young people took a moment to go to the disco. It was the first time I saw a "disco-bridesmaid". After all, it was the wedding day in Uzhgorod. It was fun until three in the morning.

In the afternoon I met two Austrians and an American, volunteers working in a small village school, lost somewhere in the Carpathian mountains (in the area of Rachiv). They teach English there. What could be done, we agreed to dinner in a fairly good and probably fashionable restaurant Kaktus, and then we went out to party. We got to the most fashionable club in the city - speaking to a taxi driver - called Armageddon, with disco, bowling (only two lanes) and a large room with pool tables. There, for the first time in my life, I played bowling, the guys explained the rules to me and somehow it worked. I wasn't even the last! An interesting fact after midnight was an unexpected visit to the disco hall - suddenly there was a wedding procession with a couple of newlyweds. Apparently, the young people took a moment to go to the disco. It was the first time I saw a "disco-bridesmaid". After all, it was the wedding day in Uzhgorod. It was fun until three in the morning..

Uzhgorod, street in the old city; September 2003; scan from a color diapositive; camera: Pentax MG.

Uzhgorod, synagogue under renovation, old part of the city; September 2003; scan from a color diapositive; camera: Pentax MG.

Uzhgorod - Horiany, 12th century Romanesque rotunda st. Anna; September 2003; scan from a color diapositive; camera: Pentax MG.

Uzhgorod - Horiany, 12th century Romanesque rotunda st. Anna, frescoes in the interior, scene: Adoration of the Magi; September 2003; scan from a color diapositive; camera: Pentax MG.

Continuation of the travel journal notes:

I got to the facility by marshrutka in the afternoon (traveling with this type of transport to the east is a topic for a separate story). It was a very hot and sunny day. When I managed to go inside, I saw frescoes in a uniform color scheme, with lots of shades of brown, yellow and purple. However, thanks to the unusual light, which in the afternoon intensely penetrated the chapel (now it is the presbytery of the church), they appeared in all their golden luminosity, close to the early Byzantine splendor, which was mystically stimulated by vibrating rays of light.

Uzhgorod - Horiany, 12th century Romanesque rotunda st. Anna, scenes: The Last Supper and the Crucifixion; September 2003; scan from a color diapositive; camera: Pentax MG.