P.S. Please note the note.
December 18, 2008
At Sea with Nothing Else to do...
It is in times of intense boredom that humanity has crafted its greatest achievements. This of course also applied to Floris's last drawing up till present: the journey across the Black sea from Poti (Georgia) to Ilychevsk (Ukraine).
P.S. Please note the note.
P.S. Please note the note.
Georgia in pencilstrokes
Continuing a good (depending on your inclinations) habit, Floris's drawing of his impressions from Georgia are unveiled!
You will see the high mountains, churches, castles and pig-inhabited villages. Also depicted is Gori, with Stalin as its most (in)famous son, the ferry leaving the port of Poti and -of course- Floris and Hanna, enjoying a wonderful Georgian dinner (khatchapuri and wine!).
You will see the high mountains, churches, castles and pig-inhabited villages. Also depicted is Gori, with Stalin as its most (in)famous son, the ferry leaving the port of Poti and -of course- Floris and Hanna, enjoying a wonderful Georgian dinner (khatchapuri and wine!).
Armenia: Artistic Impression
Neither can Armenia escape Floris's unstoppable artistic extravagance!
The mountain country is recognisable by it's numerous churches, it's rather bland capital, it's small villages with cows and chicken, it's old-fashioned Soviet-era busses clinging onto mountain flanks and it's fashionable, high-heeled-leather-boots-wearing youths.
The mountain country is recognisable by it's numerous churches, it's rather bland capital, it's small villages with cows and chicken, it's old-fashioned Soviet-era busses clinging onto mountain flanks and it's fashionable, high-heeled-leather-boots-wearing youths.
December 17, 2008
Tehran Times!
Tehran isn't the world's most beautiful city, but it makes a good setting for another drawing. Note the smoke-stacked sky, the zillions of grey buildings, the billions of cars and the chadored women...
Iran Tours
Another of Floris' creations for your "admiration".
This time, Iran is depicted, with Masshad, Yazd, Kerman, the Persian Gulf, Persepolis and Esfahan.
This time, Iran is depicted, with Masshad, Yazd, Kerman, the Persian Gulf, Persepolis and Esfahan.
December 16, 2008
Remember Ashgabat?
The artist strikes again! Here is Floris' artistic impession of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan's capital.
You will notice: the white buildings, the golden-domes palaces and ministeries, the parks, the two very weird monuments ("Arch of Neutrality" and "Independence and Peace Monument", which looks like a giant toilet-plunjer) and the numerous golden statues of Turkmenbasi. Also note the complete lack of people in the streets!
You will notice: the white buildings, the golden-domes palaces and ministeries, the parks, the two very weird monuments ("Arch of Neutrality" and "Independence and Peace Monument", which looks like a giant toilet-plunjer) and the numerous golden statues of Turkmenbasi. Also note the complete lack of people in the streets!
December 13, 2008
Pictures? Drawings?
It must have come to your attention already: it has been ages since we uploaded some more pictures to the blog. From somewhere in Iran, it seems...
This doesn't mean there are no more pictures, it merely means that finding a PC where we can upload them easily enough has been a major headache. Just hang on there, there will be more material uploaded as soon as opportunity arises...
Undoubtedly, all of you have been craving for more artistic works of Floris. On this point as well, there is good news: there are quite some new drawings ready for publication. Same here: a bit more patience, please!
This doesn't mean there are no more pictures, it merely means that finding a PC where we can upload them easily enough has been a major headache. Just hang on there, there will be more material uploaded as soon as opportunity arises...
Undoubtedly, all of you have been craving for more artistic works of Floris. On this point as well, there is good news: there are quite some new drawings ready for publication. Same here: a bit more patience, please!
Ukraine in 5 days
What can you say about Europe's biggest country (well, if you exclude Russia, that is) if you only spend less than a week? Not so horribly much, obviously.
When you arrive at 21:30 in the middle of Ilychevsk seaport, 20 km away from Odesa, when it's dark and cold and the only available onward transportation is one taxi, then you know that you're all exposed to some serious rip-off on the taxi fare. With no negotiation power, we had to settle at the asking price of 130 UAH (about 14EUR), which was however not such a complete rip-off.
Arriving in Odesa, we found a nice hostel with the helf of a Japanese fellow-traveller. The address is Velika Dranautska 10, apt. 3 (door code 358), for anyone happening to be nearby.
Odesa was quite a nice city, with a good deal of churches and boulevards to explore. It seemed to us, however, that it is mainly a summer city, with nearby beaches and bars. Wintertime walking through the streets proved nice enough, though not particularly enchanting.
The famous "Potemkin-steps", as seen in Eisenstein's well-known classic "Battleship Potemkin", were actually a bit of a disappointment to us. It's just a staircase, really. With an optical illusion and all (from above you only see the landings, whereas from below you see only steps), but altogether not that impressive.
From Odesa, a night train took us to Lviv. Not Kiev, as we had first planned, because Kiev is quite out of the way and Lviv had been recommended to us by both travel guides and fellow travellers.
And indeed. Lviv is most definitely going to be one of the new "hot" Eastern European cities. There's a great deal of historic building to discover (a myriad of churches, castles, houses,...), the cobblestone streets guarantee charming walks, there are a few flea markets worth exploring, there is a range of modern boutiques and shopping opportunities and there is a good range of restaurants and cafés.... All being very cheap to Western-European standards (but several times more expensive than e.g. Central Asia).
For serious shoppers, the shopping experience is probably still a good one as there's more than just the big Western chains: there are a lot of Russian boutiques with goods that don't often reach Western Europe (at least as far as we're informed).
So: Lviv is the place to go to! With no visa needed to enter Ukraine, and with Polish cities such as Krakow and Lublin not at all very far away, Lviv for sure is a tourist destination the rise. Go there before the crowds do!
Our two days in Lviv where well-spent and well-enjoyed, but with Pieksämäki still not anywhere in sight, we had to continue. A day's drive in a bus brought us back into the European Union, in Poland, to Warsaw.
Five days in Ukraine gave us just enough time to decide that we like it, and that we can very well imagine going back there one day...
When you arrive at 21:30 in the middle of Ilychevsk seaport, 20 km away from Odesa, when it's dark and cold and the only available onward transportation is one taxi, then you know that you're all exposed to some serious rip-off on the taxi fare. With no negotiation power, we had to settle at the asking price of 130 UAH (about 14EUR), which was however not such a complete rip-off.
Arriving in Odesa, we found a nice hostel with the helf of a Japanese fellow-traveller. The address is Velika Dranautska 10, apt. 3 (door code 358), for anyone happening to be nearby.
Odesa was quite a nice city, with a good deal of churches and boulevards to explore. It seemed to us, however, that it is mainly a summer city, with nearby beaches and bars. Wintertime walking through the streets proved nice enough, though not particularly enchanting.
The famous "Potemkin-steps", as seen in Eisenstein's well-known classic "Battleship Potemkin", were actually a bit of a disappointment to us. It's just a staircase, really. With an optical illusion and all (from above you only see the landings, whereas from below you see only steps), but altogether not that impressive.
From Odesa, a night train took us to Lviv. Not Kiev, as we had first planned, because Kiev is quite out of the way and Lviv had been recommended to us by both travel guides and fellow travellers.
And indeed. Lviv is most definitely going to be one of the new "hot" Eastern European cities. There's a great deal of historic building to discover (a myriad of churches, castles, houses,...), the cobblestone streets guarantee charming walks, there are a few flea markets worth exploring, there is a range of modern boutiques and shopping opportunities and there is a good range of restaurants and cafés.... All being very cheap to Western-European standards (but several times more expensive than e.g. Central Asia).
For serious shoppers, the shopping experience is probably still a good one as there's more than just the big Western chains: there are a lot of Russian boutiques with goods that don't often reach Western Europe (at least as far as we're informed).
So: Lviv is the place to go to! With no visa needed to enter Ukraine, and with Polish cities such as Krakow and Lublin not at all very far away, Lviv for sure is a tourist destination the rise. Go there before the crowds do!
Our two days in Lviv where well-spent and well-enjoyed, but with Pieksämäki still not anywhere in sight, we had to continue. A day's drive in a bus brought us back into the European Union, in Poland, to Warsaw.
Five days in Ukraine gave us just enough time to decide that we like it, and that we can very well imagine going back there one day...
December 10, 2008
Poti and the Black Sea Experience
After arriving in Poti, the usual endeavour to find a place to sleep started. The guidebook spoke of a very shabby hotel full of Abkhaz refugees and an apartment which we couldn't find: the prospects looked rather dim... Until we were spotted and stopped by a yellow Pepsi van: the men joyfully hijacked us and brought us to a nice small hotel that wasn't in the book ("Gastinitsa, Ulitsa Tsarina Tamara 20", for anyone with a particular interest). They even haggled down the price for us!
Later, they came back to our hotel with some food and some drinks, vodka of course. We learned about the Georgian way of drinking: long, elaborate toasts (in our case mainly to the friendship of the peoples), lots of vodka and a sip of radioactivity-coloured soft drink to wash it all away.
One of our hosts was the former chief of police of the town of Poti, and this encouraged his friend to drink without limit: upon our enquiry whether drunk-driving wouldn't lead to a traffic fine, he laughingly answered "Omari (his friend) chief police, problem no!". Avoid yellow Pepsi vans in Poti...
The ferry from Poti to Ilychevsk was great. After our experiences in Central Asia and the Kaukasus, we anticipated a dilapidated ship ready for the scrapyard, but the MS Greifswald turned out to be a quite modern RoRo-ferry that could easily sail somewhere between EU-countries (even quite up to DNV standard...)
The beds were comfortable, the sea was very calm and the weather was fantastic. We even saw a very clear halo around the moon (e.g. here)! The only real drawback was the late arrival time in Ilychevsk: we passed immigration around 21:30, and arrived late evening in Odesa. Luckily, a nice Japanese fellow traveller knew of a good hostel near Odesa's main station, where we were very welcome even at 23:00...
Later, they came back to our hotel with some food and some drinks, vodka of course. We learned about the Georgian way of drinking: long, elaborate toasts (in our case mainly to the friendship of the peoples), lots of vodka and a sip of radioactivity-coloured soft drink to wash it all away.
One of our hosts was the former chief of police of the town of Poti, and this encouraged his friend to drink without limit: upon our enquiry whether drunk-driving wouldn't lead to a traffic fine, he laughingly answered "Omari (his friend) chief police, problem no!". Avoid yellow Pepsi vans in Poti...
The ferry from Poti to Ilychevsk was great. After our experiences in Central Asia and the Kaukasus, we anticipated a dilapidated ship ready for the scrapyard, but the MS Greifswald turned out to be a quite modern RoRo-ferry that could easily sail somewhere between EU-countries (even quite up to DNV standard...)
The beds were comfortable, the sea was very calm and the weather was fantastic. We even saw a very clear halo around the moon (e.g. here)! The only real drawback was the late arrival time in Ilychevsk: we passed immigration around 21:30, and arrived late evening in Odesa. Luckily, a nice Japanese fellow traveller knew of a good hostel near Odesa's main station, where we were very welcome even at 23:00...
December 6, 2008
Gori: Jugashvili and EU troops
The name Iosif Vissarionovich Jugashvili may not ring a bell, but the man known as Josef Stalin surely isn't just famous in his home town of Gori.
Gori must be one of the few places in the world where there still are Stalin statues standing. It also boasts a quite interesting museum dedicated to the life and works of its famous son. Apart from a temple-like construction surrounding his house of birth, the train carriage he travelled in to the Yalta conference and a mass of busts and paintings, there are a lot of pictures, documents and personal items on display.
It's all good fun, rather interesting but it fails completely at giving a balanced picture of the man: he is displayed as a master politician, a well-doer and a war hero. No mention of the Gulags, the forced labour, the millions who died or his "devils pact" treaty with Hitler...
On more recent events, Gori was in the world news as one of the places where Georgian-Russian fighting in the 2008 conflict was most intense. None of that really shows anymore, though: we didn't see any buildings with bullet holes, no rubble from collapsed buildings or anything like that. What we did see, however, was the EU-mission "military observers", who stayed in the same hotel as we did (in fact, we slept in a room previously used as their field office). Not that there was so much to observe, really: most of the soldiers seemed primarily concerned with the coffee breaks and with chatting in the lobby...
Gori must be one of the few places in the world where there still are Stalin statues standing. It also boasts a quite interesting museum dedicated to the life and works of its famous son. Apart from a temple-like construction surrounding his house of birth, the train carriage he travelled in to the Yalta conference and a mass of busts and paintings, there are a lot of pictures, documents and personal items on display.
It's all good fun, rather interesting but it fails completely at giving a balanced picture of the man: he is displayed as a master politician, a well-doer and a war hero. No mention of the Gulags, the forced labour, the millions who died or his "devils pact" treaty with Hitler...
On more recent events, Gori was in the world news as one of the places where Georgian-Russian fighting in the 2008 conflict was most intense. None of that really shows anymore, though: we didn't see any buildings with bullet holes, no rubble from collapsed buildings or anything like that. What we did see, however, was the EU-mission "military observers", who stayed in the same hotel as we did (in fact, we slept in a room previously used as their field office). Not that there was so much to observe, really: most of the soldiers seemed primarily concerned with the coffee breaks and with chatting in the lobby...
December 4, 2008
From here to eternity
Granted: eternity is a bit of a stretch, but from Kutaisi (Western-Georgia), where we are now, to Helsinki is still quite a long way... Next Saturday, if all goes well, we'll be taking a ferry across the Black Sea from Poti to Ilychevsk near Odessa. The weather is great down here (20 degrees, sunshine, cloudless sky), so we hope the ferry keeps its schedule and arrives next Monday in Ukraine - but shipping schedules are there to be adjusted.
We'll spend the last two weeks of our "heroic trip" (sure, whatever) in Eastern Europe, mainly hopping capitals: Kiev, Warsaw (or Minsk, provided getting a transit visa in Kiev goes super-smooth), Vilnius, Riga and Talinn. From there, another ferry will take us to Helsinki.
So it seems that out "overland" aim of crossing the Eurasian continent will be achieved, if "by sea" is also admitted as overland travel (which we of course believe). With borders between Georgia and Russia sealed and the Azeri-Russian border open only to locals, going by sea is anyway the only sensible option: going round through Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania is quite a detour, and flying just isn't cool enough for us!
We'll spend the last two weeks of our "heroic trip" (sure, whatever) in Eastern Europe, mainly hopping capitals: Kiev, Warsaw (or Minsk, provided getting a transit visa in Kiev goes super-smooth), Vilnius, Riga and Talinn. From there, another ferry will take us to Helsinki.
So it seems that out "overland" aim of crossing the Eurasian continent will be achieved, if "by sea" is also admitted as overland travel (which we of course believe). With borders between Georgia and Russia sealed and the Azeri-Russian border open only to locals, going by sea is anyway the only sensible option: going round through Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania is quite a detour, and flying just isn't cool enough for us!
December 3, 2008
Kazbegi: mountains, a church and adrenaline
After some ten days around, it is clear to us that Georgia is a great travel destination: fantastic landscapes and scenery, age-old history with loads of castles, churches and fortresses as a lasting testimony, great food and drink, and very welcoming and friendly people.
Our itinerary is quite straightforward: from Tbilisi, we went to Kazbegi (in the Kaukasus mountains, in Georgia's North), back to Tbilisi, then onwards to Gori and Kutaisi, with Poti as a last halting point.
Kazbegi is a rather secluded mountain town where cows and dogs roam the streets. The town is not particularly charming in itself, but the surrounding mountains present a wonderful scenery, with mount Kazbek towering over it all at 5047 m. We based ourselves in Kazbegi, from where we did two day walks: one to the church of Tsminda Sameba (Holy trinity) up a mountain, and another northwards through the Dariali gorge. On our first walk, we found ourselves accompanied by one (and later two) dogs, who kept on running in front of us and then waiting for us to catch up, thus effectively showing us the way.
The road to and from Kazbegi was again a bit of an adventure. On the way to Kazbegi, our minibus ploughed through wet snow and slippery sludge across the Jvari pass, scarily close to the edge of the road and to the steep cliffs beneath. Without winter tires, of course. On the way back, more heart-stopping moments were our share: now, the pass was effectively snowed over and visibility was minimal. Our fellow passengers were very, very quiet (as were we), with only an occasional "Oh my God" (in whatever language) being uttered. But we made it back safely to Tbilisi... those candles we lit in those Orthodox churches really did work!
Our itinerary is quite straightforward: from Tbilisi, we went to Kazbegi (in the Kaukasus mountains, in Georgia's North), back to Tbilisi, then onwards to Gori and Kutaisi, with Poti as a last halting point.
Kazbegi is a rather secluded mountain town where cows and dogs roam the streets. The town is not particularly charming in itself, but the surrounding mountains present a wonderful scenery, with mount Kazbek towering over it all at 5047 m. We based ourselves in Kazbegi, from where we did two day walks: one to the church of Tsminda Sameba (Holy trinity) up a mountain, and another northwards through the Dariali gorge. On our first walk, we found ourselves accompanied by one (and later two) dogs, who kept on running in front of us and then waiting for us to catch up, thus effectively showing us the way.
The road to and from Kazbegi was again a bit of an adventure. On the way to Kazbegi, our minibus ploughed through wet snow and slippery sludge across the Jvari pass, scarily close to the edge of the road and to the steep cliffs beneath. Without winter tires, of course. On the way back, more heart-stopping moments were our share: now, the pass was effectively snowed over and visibility was minimal. Our fellow passengers were very, very quiet (as were we), with only an occasional "Oh my God" (in whatever language) being uttered. But we made it back safely to Tbilisi... those candles we lit in those Orthodox churches really did work!
Dangers in Georgia
Is Georgia dangerous to travel in after the conflict with Russia last summer? Well, no. There's no bombs falling, no land mines to avoid, no gunfire in the suburbs - all quiet on the Kaukasus front, it seems.
The greatest dangers we have encountered are the traffic (fast, reckless, seatbeltless), lidless sewer openings (especially dangerous at night in badly lit streets) and locals who drag you with them to taste some of their home-made wine (great wine, but sometimes quite strong).
Most locals we have met assured us that "nothing would happen with Russia, because it's winter now". Interestingly, quite a few people we've met don't just blame the Russians for what happened: many Georgians don't seem to have too high esteem of Saakashvili, their president, whom they don't really trust either. Most people choose to stay far away from politics and just get on with their lives.
The greatest dangers we have encountered are the traffic (fast, reckless, seatbeltless), lidless sewer openings (especially dangerous at night in badly lit streets) and locals who drag you with them to taste some of their home-made wine (great wine, but sometimes quite strong).
Most locals we have met assured us that "nothing would happen with Russia, because it's winter now". Interestingly, quite a few people we've met don't just blame the Russians for what happened: many Georgians don't seem to have too high esteem of Saakashvili, their president, whom they don't really trust either. Most people choose to stay far away from politics and just get on with their lives.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)