Anyone who tries to plan a pilgrimage is completely missing the point. Unplanned events make for excitement and experience.
While in the coastal city of Constanta, known as Tomas in the days when Virgil and Ovid visited the place, I was tipped off by chance to a young monastery recently built to capitalize on a site known as St Andrew's Cave. A 3-day march inland rising along the rolling hills, it was a diversion from my understanding that Andrew the Fisher of Men stuck to the coast. What's 120 kilometers? (well, it's three days' walking...) With each elevating meter, the snowcover became thicker, but the sun shone for a few days, dazzling across the vast, treeless hills. The icy surface of the blown snow covered the minor roads and the multitude of horses struggled to pull their carts. Few cars venture on these packed earth roads. It's ironic how modern the Romanian villages and towns look compared to the Ukrainian equivalents, yet the utilitarian horsecarts are absent in the Ukraine I passed through. Several times, the drivers of the horsecarts offered me a short lift of a kilometer or two, and I accepted reasoning that the same type of offer could have been made during St Andrew's time. I was especially pleased to accept a short ride in a one-horse open sleigh, complete with sleighbells around the horse's neck, and hummed the song during the swift glide... I don't think the driver got the reference as he babbled on proudly about his five children ('copies' in Romanian). The Romanians, Gypsies, and Turks equally were friendly to me in the villages and in between, offering me short rests and eager to share their lunches or gritty coffee, and each equal in their warnings that it's not safe to be out and about alone because of the notorious reputation of another of the ethnic groups. Villages are clannish within these groups but otherwise similar in structure. The distraction of a visitor to a village seems univerally liked.
Finally at the monastery of St Andrew, I saw quickly the capitalistic opportunity being beneficially exploited. The legend has been written down that the good Saint in his wanderings near the Roman outpost of Civitas Tropaensium, now Adamclisi and pretty cool ruins, came to the homes of nearby weathy landlords - their names chronicaled in the Roman ledgers - but was cautious to preach in a hidden cave three kilometers away for fear of being persecuted by the authorities. The cave was discovered in 1924 by a local lawyer/theologian who tracked the legend. There's an associated spring claimed to be the spot where Andy punched a staff into the ground. During the dark days of communism, these legends were suppressed and the small hermitage built there destroyed. In the 1990s, a larger monastery was built and outbuildings to accommodate pilgrims and other visitors. The cave is nicely decorated, to be sure. The gift shop large, though lacking in English literature. The monks employ laymen to work the land around the monastery, thus having tasty cheese and bread and honey from the land. One monk spoke some Italian with me and shared some of this history; another spoke some English and bubbled with excitement to let the story be known. Pilgrims on bicycle come from Germany and Holland they told me. They would like more pilgrims to know of this holy place so it will become the Santiago de Compostelle of Romania. Are giant yellow arrows the future of southeastern Romania?
Not too far away, I by chance was tipped off to another monastery, also built around a devine source said to have sprung up when Andrew stuck his staff into the ground. They have nice bottles with special labels available for take-away. There is also a rock protruding from the ground that vaguely resembles a stout cross. They've recently built a chapel around it. Some time ago, a shepherd, dumb and deaf, slumbered against this rock and his faculties were restored. People with disabilities can come today and sleep on a mat next to the stone in hopes of a cure. A monk who spoke German explained this to me, adding that married couples who are having difficulties in conceiving can also come for a cure, but the details of this were not clear; it's a very small mat. In addition to the miracle stone and spring, the monastery has a great deal of land and a large lake. Plenty of laymen manage all of this, as made clear in the refectory - fish soup, barbequed fish, whole-grain bread, dense fruit bread, yogurt, cheese, wine, honey, and jars of pickled peppers of more varieties than I've ever seen spread on the table. There are rooms for at least 100 pilgrims and visitors. I shared the supper table with a group of university students studying the theology of Romania. The young monks sing their biblical chants many times during the day in beautiful harmonies that sound more eastern than western. Their singing from the church is piped around the monastery with an impressive sound system. It's clear that the abbots want to put these monasteries on a map for religous tourism in the region.
The part of Romania visited by St Andrew has passed beneath my feet. With the guidance of many border patrol officers, I've legally entered Bulgaria - note to others, there's no open border between these two new members of the EU. I walked a long distance in Ukraine and experienced a lot of history in Romania... what does Bulgaria hold for a wandering pilgrim?
'Drum bun' is an expression I heard many times every day in Romania. Amusing to my ear, it means something like 'happy trails' or 'bonne route'.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Happy Groundhog Day
If there are any groundhogs on the Black Sea coast of Romania, low clouds and snow flurries prevented any type of shadow to be seen this morning, so - great news! - spring is right around the corner. None too soon, all this snow is exhausting to walk through. It's pretty, though. Despite the snowfall, I've managed to get a glimpse of the sunrise over the Romanian Black Sea a few times now.
I had a recent come-uppance: humans are not at the top of the food chain here as I thought. A full moon the other night, staying in a remote monastery being built close to the site of historic Istria, a Greek outpost from the 5th century BC and a place visited by St Andrew. I was welcomed by the handful of Romanian Orthodox monk-priests and one elderly nun, but in saving every lei for the church they're building, they forego unnecessary expenses like meat and electricity and running water and heat. The situation for me was pretty grave - my clothes were quite wet from the snow/rain/slush from the day's walk and the temperature was dropping quickly. Without an opportunity to dry my clothes before a fire, they'd freeze within minutes of taking them off. Moreover, my chattering little body would take a long time to warm up the cold wool blankets in the cold bunkroom. I wimpered a bit to the abbot, who took pity and offered up a half bucket of coal for a brazier. When he couldn't get a fire started right away, he doused the whole thing with a liter of kerosene, filling the entire place with thick black smoke. We took refuge outside in the light snowfall. The full moon winked at us through the passing clouds. The whole scene was the picture of tranquility until the howling began. Chakals, I was told, Romanian coyotes that live on the vast treeless steppes along the sea. Once they got to howling from all directions, the multitude of abandoned dogs started their baying. There was a veritable symphony of scary wild noises. Last year, the monks told me, two men were killed by a pack of these chakals in a nearby village. Note to self, don't wander out alone a night. But the outhouse was so far away...
I visited the historic site of ancient Istria, quite expansive and otherwise similar to Khersoness on Crimea. A long walk out on the treeless swamp to get to the archeological digs and new museum (yeah EU funding!). It's closed in winter of course, but I told the caretaker that I'm a pilgrim and he and his three large dogs let me have the run of the place. Very impressive, even covered in snow. If 2,000 years ago the landscape looks like it does today, wild animals notwithstanding, I can imagine St Andrew thinking it's rather inhospitable. Maybe the Greeks planted some trees to spruce the place up.
On a long lonely stretch of lane surrounded by 3-meter tall marsh reeds to get back to the main road, a horsecart filled with many bundles of neatly cut reeds came by and the two fellows offered me a lift for the remaining kilometers. From my nest on the cut reeds, I could see much further to the distant hills and multitude of lakes. Too wet to plow, too dry to drink... no wonder it's a migratory bird paradise.
I had a recent come-uppance: humans are not at the top of the food chain here as I thought. A full moon the other night, staying in a remote monastery being built close to the site of historic Istria, a Greek outpost from the 5th century BC and a place visited by St Andrew. I was welcomed by the handful of Romanian Orthodox monk-priests and one elderly nun, but in saving every lei for the church they're building, they forego unnecessary expenses like meat and electricity and running water and heat. The situation for me was pretty grave - my clothes were quite wet from the snow/rain/slush from the day's walk and the temperature was dropping quickly. Without an opportunity to dry my clothes before a fire, they'd freeze within minutes of taking them off. Moreover, my chattering little body would take a long time to warm up the cold wool blankets in the cold bunkroom. I wimpered a bit to the abbot, who took pity and offered up a half bucket of coal for a brazier. When he couldn't get a fire started right away, he doused the whole thing with a liter of kerosene, filling the entire place with thick black smoke. We took refuge outside in the light snowfall. The full moon winked at us through the passing clouds. The whole scene was the picture of tranquility until the howling began. Chakals, I was told, Romanian coyotes that live on the vast treeless steppes along the sea. Once they got to howling from all directions, the multitude of abandoned dogs started their baying. There was a veritable symphony of scary wild noises. Last year, the monks told me, two men were killed by a pack of these chakals in a nearby village. Note to self, don't wander out alone a night. But the outhouse was so far away...
I visited the historic site of ancient Istria, quite expansive and otherwise similar to Khersoness on Crimea. A long walk out on the treeless swamp to get to the archeological digs and new museum (yeah EU funding!). It's closed in winter of course, but I told the caretaker that I'm a pilgrim and he and his three large dogs let me have the run of the place. Very impressive, even covered in snow. If 2,000 years ago the landscape looks like it does today, wild animals notwithstanding, I can imagine St Andrew thinking it's rather inhospitable. Maybe the Greeks planted some trees to spruce the place up.
On a long lonely stretch of lane surrounded by 3-meter tall marsh reeds to get back to the main road, a horsecart filled with many bundles of neatly cut reeds came by and the two fellows offered me a lift for the remaining kilometers. From my nest on the cut reeds, I could see much further to the distant hills and multitude of lakes. Too wet to plow, too dry to drink... no wonder it's a migratory bird paradise.
Friday, January 29, 2010
A different atmosphere
Within some steps, I've gone from having a working vocabulary of dozens on top of a passive vocabulary of maybe 100 words to now being able to comprehend thousands. It's like taking earplugs out and being able to hear again. While I still must indulge on my patient and helpful interlocutors for basic conversational requirements like conjugating my verbs appropriately and declining the nouns and adjectives to the proper gender, number, and contextural position, Romanian, being not only a Romance language but also in Roman letters, is instantly comfortable. Ahhhhh.
Subtleties make houses here look more 'European'. Shops, road signs, barns, too. Such variety in the shops. There are immediate signs of functioning infrastructure. In particular, the absence of outhouses. Ironically, though, I've seen many pony carts being used to haul freshly cut marsh reeds across the frozen streams and fields. A throwback to the last centuries maybe, but one that works. The kilometer markers on the snow-packed secondary roads, with the names and distances to the next villages inscribed from both directions, look like they could be in Italy or France. Reflective of the former Roman presence? I never saw them in Ukraine. I get it now. To the ancient Greeks and subsequently Romans, getting to the Danube was one thing, but crossing the vast delta to the nearly endless marshy steppes was something else. Why bother, I can imagine them questioning. As far as I know, they weren't hurting for real estate. This is one enormous delta. It would need significant engineering works to be drained so a road could be built or the land worked. I can see why they never put forth the significant effort required to build some sort of network of bridges to cross it. All roads may have led to Rome, but none of them started on the far side of the Danube.
For me now, the snow remains, both the charming soft falling kind and the blanket accumulated on the hilly ground. It prevents me from really seeing the landscape well, much less doing any kind of painting to record it. It's gotten a little warmer, though, closer to the freezing point and I enjoy more freedom from peeling off a few layers. In addition to little village shops, there are little cafe/bars, similar to what can be seen in similar size villages in Spain and Italy. I've popped into a few for chai (fruity herbal infusions; no black tea here) and to warm up before a potbelly stove. Conversations start easily. I use an amalgam of Spanish, Italian, and French and am understood pretty readily. Upon learning I'm from America, the old men are all quick to demonstrate their English by saying 'I love you.' It seems to be the only English they know. Endearing in its way, actually.
Visa requirements and interest, I suppose, keep the Romanians from visiting Ukraine and Ukrainians from visiting Romania. I haven't been here very long, but I've seen many cars and trucks with French, Italian, Spanish, Bulgarian, and Polish license plates; in Ukraine, I only saw Ukrainian plates. I sense a different atmosphere because of it.
Subtleties make houses here look more 'European'. Shops, road signs, barns, too. Such variety in the shops. There are immediate signs of functioning infrastructure. In particular, the absence of outhouses. Ironically, though, I've seen many pony carts being used to haul freshly cut marsh reeds across the frozen streams and fields. A throwback to the last centuries maybe, but one that works. The kilometer markers on the snow-packed secondary roads, with the names and distances to the next villages inscribed from both directions, look like they could be in Italy or France. Reflective of the former Roman presence? I never saw them in Ukraine. I get it now. To the ancient Greeks and subsequently Romans, getting to the Danube was one thing, but crossing the vast delta to the nearly endless marshy steppes was something else. Why bother, I can imagine them questioning. As far as I know, they weren't hurting for real estate. This is one enormous delta. It would need significant engineering works to be drained so a road could be built or the land worked. I can see why they never put forth the significant effort required to build some sort of network of bridges to cross it. All roads may have led to Rome, but none of them started on the far side of the Danube.
For me now, the snow remains, both the charming soft falling kind and the blanket accumulated on the hilly ground. It prevents me from really seeing the landscape well, much less doing any kind of painting to record it. It's gotten a little warmer, though, closer to the freezing point and I enjoy more freedom from peeling off a few layers. In addition to little village shops, there are little cafe/bars, similar to what can be seen in similar size villages in Spain and Italy. I've popped into a few for chai (fruity herbal infusions; no black tea here) and to warm up before a potbelly stove. Conversations start easily. I use an amalgam of Spanish, Italian, and French and am understood pretty readily. Upon learning I'm from America, the old men are all quick to demonstrate their English by saying 'I love you.' It seems to be the only English they know. Endearing in its way, actually.
Visa requirements and interest, I suppose, keep the Romanians from visiting Ukraine and Ukrainians from visiting Romania. I haven't been here very long, but I've seen many cars and trucks with French, Italian, Spanish, Bulgarian, and Polish license plates; in Ukraine, I only saw Ukrainian plates. I sense a different atmosphere because of it.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Standing at the Danube
In Izmail, I stood at the Danube River in a light snowfall unable to continue on St Andrew's route because of modern political borders. A Roman Catholic priest was very kind to me and helped look into availabe possibilities. He arranged for a local reporter and a translator to talk to me about my pilgrimage through Ukraine and how safe and wonderful it's been. The very old city of Tulcea, across the Danube in Romania, is the next place to go. I can imagine that St Andrew used a boat to get himself upstream through the few meanders, but it can't be done now. Apparently, in summer, there was a passenger ferry, but it went bankrupt and wouldn't run in winter anyway. I could walk the 20 km in a morning, but it's not quite frozen enough do so and I wouldn't know where to go to get my passport stamped, anyway. Taking a bus to Reni, 55 km north, then crossing into Moldova for a short distance, then crossing into Romania, then assessing the options to get back down to Tulcea, was the final conclusion on how to progress. Maybe St Andrew had visa issues, too. I don't know. But probably not. How could 'Terra Incognita' have a border patrol?
I executed the plan, learning along the way that it's possible to walk through the customs and immigration posts of Ukraine and Moldova, and to walk along the lonely road to Romania, but that it's not permitted to walk from Moldova into Romania. I suppose because there's a bridge involved. The reason wasn't made clear. Men with guns told me in Russian that I couldn't walk past. I respect their rules. One guard tried to shuffle me into a small car with four Moldovan men, each smoking a cigarrette, but seeing this as my fate, I looped around and pointed to a van with German plates. He allowed me to ask the driver if I could jump in to cross the border as his passenger. The jovial half Russian half German driver was happy to assist. He had two other passengers - a Romanian woman making her way home from Moldova and a Moldovan man trying to get to Bulgaria. The Moldovan man didn't have his paperwork in order, so after a long wait in the falling snow, the Russian/German driver gave him his duffle bag and we went on through the customs points and snowy bridge without him.
I've made it as far as Galata for the night and understand that there's a boat I can take toward Tulcea in the morning. A lot has happened quite quickly; it's a bit overwhelming. It was getting toward dusk when I arrived into this small city and I had know idea where to begin to look for lodging realizing that I don't speak the language, have no local currency, and no letter of introduction. No time to waste. I saw onion domes of an Orthodox church to the right when I approached on the main road, but saw a sign for the city center to the left. I had a good feeling that there'd be a Roman Catholic church in the city and would have a better chance of finding someone to explain my pilgrim needs to. A block later, right where I wanted it to be, a large Catholic church and rectory. It didn't take long to get myself welcomed in - good thing, too, the snow was coming down heavily - although to my great disappointment, when I reached for my Italian, I found it missing... one word, then another started coming back into my head as I tried to push out the now-unnecessary Russian and Ukrainian. The priest I spoke with was both amused and patient. Discussions and introductions, then, lo and behold, a nun who speaks English... phew! I have some breathing room to get my language thoughts in order...
So the Ukraine portion of the show is a thing of the past. It's sad in a way. I'm at the halfway point of my journey, but at the moment it feels like one pilgrimage has ended and another is beginning without time to sit and digest all that I've experienced. That was over 70 days in Ukraine, with the Cyrillic alphabet, and all that borscht! I'm inclined to pop back to the States and debrief all my pals about my adventures, but that would be illogical. The tales will have to wait. More tales are to be had. Stay tuned.
I executed the plan, learning along the way that it's possible to walk through the customs and immigration posts of Ukraine and Moldova, and to walk along the lonely road to Romania, but that it's not permitted to walk from Moldova into Romania. I suppose because there's a bridge involved. The reason wasn't made clear. Men with guns told me in Russian that I couldn't walk past. I respect their rules. One guard tried to shuffle me into a small car with four Moldovan men, each smoking a cigarrette, but seeing this as my fate, I looped around and pointed to a van with German plates. He allowed me to ask the driver if I could jump in to cross the border as his passenger. The jovial half Russian half German driver was happy to assist. He had two other passengers - a Romanian woman making her way home from Moldova and a Moldovan man trying to get to Bulgaria. The Moldovan man didn't have his paperwork in order, so after a long wait in the falling snow, the Russian/German driver gave him his duffle bag and we went on through the customs points and snowy bridge without him.
I've made it as far as Galata for the night and understand that there's a boat I can take toward Tulcea in the morning. A lot has happened quite quickly; it's a bit overwhelming. It was getting toward dusk when I arrived into this small city and I had know idea where to begin to look for lodging realizing that I don't speak the language, have no local currency, and no letter of introduction. No time to waste. I saw onion domes of an Orthodox church to the right when I approached on the main road, but saw a sign for the city center to the left. I had a good feeling that there'd be a Roman Catholic church in the city and would have a better chance of finding someone to explain my pilgrim needs to. A block later, right where I wanted it to be, a large Catholic church and rectory. It didn't take long to get myself welcomed in - good thing, too, the snow was coming down heavily - although to my great disappointment, when I reached for my Italian, I found it missing... one word, then another started coming back into my head as I tried to push out the now-unnecessary Russian and Ukrainian. The priest I spoke with was both amused and patient. Discussions and introductions, then, lo and behold, a nun who speaks English... phew! I have some breathing room to get my language thoughts in order...
So the Ukraine portion of the show is a thing of the past. It's sad in a way. I'm at the halfway point of my journey, but at the moment it feels like one pilgrimage has ended and another is beginning without time to sit and digest all that I've experienced. That was over 70 days in Ukraine, with the Cyrillic alphabet, and all that borscht! I'm inclined to pop back to the States and debrief all my pals about my adventures, but that would be illogical. The tales will have to wait. More tales are to be had. Stay tuned.
Monday, January 25, 2010
The beauty of the cold
The beauty of the cold is that by wearing all the clothes I possess, I have a light load to carry. My load is very light these days - I'm wearing everything except my pajama tee-shirt and my clean pair of socks and undies. The wind sure whistles 'cross these steppes. While I walk, I stay warm and dry, but the minute I stop, the cold begins to get to me. Brrrrr. The villages are too small to have any kind of cafe and the small shops are by and large unheated, and no place to try to get warm. The cold snap must be nearly over, though, because the sun's been shining for a few days now and the snow is only the blowing kind, not the falling kind. (In Russian, there are two different words for this.) Now I'm left with a 'balaclava burn', perhaps the goofiest sunburn I've ever had - a perfect oval enclosing my eyes, nose, and upper lip...the inverse of the ski-goggle markings. >sigh< yes, Mom, I do use sunscreen, but...
Here's a warm winter's tale:
I came through a village yesterday, Sunday, and sought a place to sit and rest out of the wind. No cafe, no shop, nothing except a bus-stop lacking walls, so to the church I went. It was around 10 in the morning. Cold and silent, but unlocked... the smallest noise I made entering and stomping the snow off my boots aroused the attention of a candle-lady. She emerged from a door off the vestibule. I explained in my polished Russian who I am and that I only wanted to sit by a fire and maybe have a cup of tea. She invited me into a tiny room where I was surprised to find the occupants - a rotund priest (batyushku), his wife (matyusku), and another candle-lady crammed around a small table - crammed in so tightly that no one could move independent of another. Nonetheless, the table was equally crammed with plates and plates of typical Ukrainian food: pickles, of course, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, herring... they'll pickle anything here; salted fish, whole, unscaled, ungutted; gelatenous patties of pig's feet meat in aspic; roasted chicken on the bone; cabbage, beet, and onion salad in mayonaise; a plate of raw onions, garlic, and pigfat, all sliced and ready to eat as fingerfood; fried crepes filled with goat cheese; bread, black and white; and a big plate of assorted cookies and bonbons. There were no personal plates or forks... everything is eaten cold with fingers, passed around person to person, a fair portion hanging on the priest's great grey scraggly beard. Instead of the typical hot black tea, there was a pot full of hot sugared red wine. There was no source of heat in this side room of the stone church, other than the presence of the four people squeezed in. I made five, yet hardly contributed to the body warmth of the room. 'Koosh-it, koosh-it', I was told frequently by each of the women and of the priest. The wine tried to warm me up. I wondered why they would spend their Sunday morning brunch this way, in a small, unheated closet of a room I found way too cold to be comfortable - the bucket of water under the table was frozen solid. Then it occurred to me that the smallest of these farm village women has 15 cm (6 inches) and at least 20 kilos (50 lbs) over me, the priest double and triple those numbers... could it be that they don't even feel the cold? But before I left, each of them gave me a great bear hug to wish me well on my continued journey and that warmed me more than the wine. Winter weather...
Here's a warm winter's tale:
I came through a village yesterday, Sunday, and sought a place to sit and rest out of the wind. No cafe, no shop, nothing except a bus-stop lacking walls, so to the church I went. It was around 10 in the morning. Cold and silent, but unlocked... the smallest noise I made entering and stomping the snow off my boots aroused the attention of a candle-lady. She emerged from a door off the vestibule. I explained in my polished Russian who I am and that I only wanted to sit by a fire and maybe have a cup of tea. She invited me into a tiny room where I was surprised to find the occupants - a rotund priest (batyushku), his wife (matyusku), and another candle-lady crammed around a small table - crammed in so tightly that no one could move independent of another. Nonetheless, the table was equally crammed with plates and plates of typical Ukrainian food: pickles, of course, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, herring... they'll pickle anything here; salted fish, whole, unscaled, ungutted; gelatenous patties of pig's feet meat in aspic; roasted chicken on the bone; cabbage, beet, and onion salad in mayonaise; a plate of raw onions, garlic, and pigfat, all sliced and ready to eat as fingerfood; fried crepes filled with goat cheese; bread, black and white; and a big plate of assorted cookies and bonbons. There were no personal plates or forks... everything is eaten cold with fingers, passed around person to person, a fair portion hanging on the priest's great grey scraggly beard. Instead of the typical hot black tea, there was a pot full of hot sugared red wine. There was no source of heat in this side room of the stone church, other than the presence of the four people squeezed in. I made five, yet hardly contributed to the body warmth of the room. 'Koosh-it, koosh-it', I was told frequently by each of the women and of the priest. The wine tried to warm me up. I wondered why they would spend their Sunday morning brunch this way, in a small, unheated closet of a room I found way too cold to be comfortable - the bucket of water under the table was frozen solid. Then it occurred to me that the smallest of these farm village women has 15 cm (6 inches) and at least 20 kilos (50 lbs) over me, the priest double and triple those numbers... could it be that they don't even feel the cold? But before I left, each of them gave me a great bear hug to wish me well on my continued journey and that warmed me more than the wine. Winter weather...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
