France

Forced off a péage

2011-11-17

A common system of hitchhiking in France is to find a lift out of a city centre only as far as the first péage, or toll plaza. Every so often on the French motorway, drivers come to these gigantic structures where they have to slow down and take a ticket. If you stand along one of the lanes with a sign, you can very quickly get a lift across half of France or even to neighbouring countries.

Standing at a péage is illegal, but rarely are hitchhikers confronted by toll staff, and often you find a lift before anyone realizes that you are there. Such was not my luck today. As soon as I arrived at a péage, I was confronted by three toll workers who yelled at me to go to the parking area. No one ever actually stops there, so I stood as close to the road as I could in that area and continued to thumb unsuccessfully. Five minutes later, the police appeared and insisted I walk off the motorway.

This is only a minor annoyance, but I thought I should share this experience to warn future hitchhikers coming from Germany into France. This happened at the first péage west of Mulhouse on the A36/E34. Shortly before it was a large service station called Porte d’Alsace and I’d advise hitchhikers to get off there instead of risking it on this particular péage.

Also, if you are forced to leave the motorway, don’t try to walk parallel with it on the other side of the fence until the next decent motorway onramp. I’ve observed that the shoulders of French motorways are typically planted with thorn bushes, and not only will the going be much slower than if you just walked down to another local road, but your skin, clothes and bag will be torn as well.

Oh well, all in a day’s adventure. Tomorrow I continue across France to Spain.

Russia

Chavainnur

2011-09-30

The village of Chavainnur (formerly Shyrkannur) in the Morko region of the Republic of Mari El was the home of Sergei Chavain, the founder of Mari literature. Chavain wrote the first poem in Mari, Oto (The Grove) and the first novel, Elnet, which takes its name from the great river of this region. Chavain was murdered by Stalin along with most of the Mari intelligentsia in 1937, but when he was rehabilitated decades later, his home was turned into a museum and filled with many of his surviving personal effects. Next to Chavain’s home there’s a cultural centre with a small theatre and an exhibition of Mari handicrafts.

Chavainnur is a pleasant village of some 40 houses. Although the place was virtually deserted when I came, the museum guestbook shows frequent visits by Russians, and perhaps two or three visits a year by Finns and Estonians. That must explain why this village is kept in better shape than the surrounding ones, with an asphalted road and well-tended front yards.

Kosovo

Pejë/Peć

2011-06-26

The largest town in the west of Kosovo is inhabited almost entirely by ethnic Albanians, who call it Pejë. For Serbs, however, this is Peć, site of the first patriarchate of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The complex of monastery and churches, dating from the 13th century, is located just outside the city, on the road running in the Rugova mountains.

The patriarchate is guarded by KFOR soldiers and access is allowed only to holders of foreign passports. I arrived too late on the first day and was told by a couple of bored Slovenes to return the next day. When I had come back the following morning, they were replaced by similarly bored Italians. In exchange for my passport, I was given a visitor’s pass and allowed to walk through the outer gate.

A gently winding stone path led past a herd of cows to an inner gate, where a sign still boasts that the site was a monument of the People’s Republic of Serbia. The monastery church is unusual in that it originally consisted of four churches built side by side, with a common entrance built to connect them. The ancient frescos inside are lovely, though many have deteriorated completely.

I didn’t find this monastery particularly welcoming. None of the several nuns standing near the entrance spoke to me, except when one chided me for having a backpack and offered me no place to set it down. Perhaps a suspicion of outsiders has grown due to their isolation among an Albanian majority.

Tajikistan

Dushanbe

2011-05-09

Tajikistan’s status as the poorest country in Central Asia is not visible in the Dushanbe so much by actual human misery as the lack of grand development. The few construction projects downtown are more similar to those in Russian provincial centres than the futuristic designs of other Asian capitals.

There’s not much history to see either, as Dushanbe grew from a tiny market town to Soviet capital and ex-Soviet metropolis only over the last century. Travelers often have to spend a few days here, registering at OVIR and getting visas for onward travel, and initially Dushanbe might seem a dull place.

Still, the people here are nearly as open and friendly as elsewhere in Tajikistan, and wandering through the markets can be a lot of fun. I spent two days just walking through the large Shâhmansur Bazaar and talking with the traders.

Tajikistan

The dull conversations of Tajikistan

2011-05-02

I’m not liking Tajikistan very much so far. It’s not because the people aren’t friendly; for not a single night have I lacked invitations for a place to dine and sleep comfortably. But conversations here tend to all be the same. The first repetitive response happens all over the former Soviet Union: Your name is Christopher, eh? Like Christopher Columbus/Christopher Lambert! I guess I’m used to that one, and I just laugh and pretend I haven’t heard it myriad times before.

But essentially all conversations devolve into this very quickly:

Tajik: Are you married?

Me: No, I am not married yet.

Tajik: How old are you?

Me: I am 29 years old.

Tajik: You need to get married! [The more good-humoured locals will at this point indicate the closest unmarried woman and propose I marry here]

Me: I don’t wish to get married yet.

Tajik: Why?

Me: Because I wish to travel and study and remain a free man.

After this they tend to grumble a fair bit — it does seem that some are appalled by what I said — and the conversation returns to marriage constantly. It would be nice to talk about something else and to perceive some element of culture. What happened to even fairly poor, rural locals knowing something about shashmaqâm or Persian classical poetry as travelers in Transoxania reported less than 20 years ago? It’s especially frustrating since I came hear to learn Tajik, but there’s not enough of a variety of conversational topics to really expand my vocabulary.