Author: Kenn Nesbitt

August 17, 1994. Russian Mafia are easy to spot. They drive mostly Mercedes or occasionally a new Opel, usually with dark tinted windows. Their cars are always immaculate. They wear suits — sometimes flashy outfits with purple sportcoats, modern-day zoot-suits — with cellular phones dangling conspicuously from their belts. They are young, clean-cut and tough-looking. And they are everywhere.

They seem to hang out in the city center. They relax in expensive cafes and chat with one another, or perhaps with a sexy girlfriend. When the phone rings, they always get up and walk outside. I don’t know if this is because of bad reception or so that they can be seen using their cellular phone, their symbol of wealth.

Can’t Buy Me Love

This week, while trying to find a hotel near Pirita, a seaside area 6 km east of Tallinn, my friend Eerik (pronounced like “Eric”, but with a trilled “r”) and I accidentally wound up at a Mafia-run whorehouse. (Eerik, I should mention, I met at the Irish pub in Puhejarv where I left off in the last installment. I’ll tell you more about him and his girlfriend Kristiin in a moment.) In the office of this small, grimy orange motel — the Rumma Velodroomil — eight or ten large Russian men in suits sat around a coffee table. The desk clerk wore a very tight, short black dress and white fishnet stockings. Eerik spoke with her in Russian and she showed us a couple of rooms. He then thanked her and told her we would keep looking. As we left, he explained “It’s a brothel.” While I was oblivious to their conversation, she was telling him that they have women for 350 EEK per hour (about US$29). She assured him that if I didn’t need the room all night, I didn’t need to stay. Very creepy.

While we are in the neighborhood, I should tell you that the jammin’est disco in Tallinn is a place called Piraat (that’s Estonian for “pirate”) right next door to the Hotell Pirita. Piraat is large, loud and crowded. If it’s nightlife you crave, reserve a room at the Hotell Pirita and walk over to Piraat after 10:00pm. Another good discotheque is Lucky Luke’s Saloon at the Tallinn port. It is half the size of Piraat, but still quite fun.

Thank You For Being a Friend

Necessity is the mother of all battles, to coin a mixed metaphor. Traveling solo — being alone most of the time — creates a need to meet people, and the necessity itself seems to make it happen.

I never thought of myself as being good at meeting new people. I am finding, though, that I am meeting lots of people. There seem to be two reasons: first, I am more inclined to make an effort to connect with strangers and, second, others seem to be interested in me when they hear about my journey. In the last two weeks I have met a number of wonderful people, both Estonians and foreign expatriates.

The day after arriving in Puhejarv, I saw the pub’s owner, Liam, speaking with several people outside on the deck. Knowing that Liam spoke only English, I decided to join them. Liam introduced me to Eerik and Kristiin (pronounced like “Christine”, but with a trilled “r” and the accent on the first syllable) and two of their friends from Tartu. The six of us had dinner together, plus several beers and whiskeys, and then went for a jump into any icy-cold lake in our underwear. I think this is what’s known as a rollicking good time.

Eerik mentioned that he was taking his vacation the following weekend and going to Parnu and Saaremaa. Parnu is a beach resort in southwestern Estonia and Saaremaa is the largest of Estonia’s islands; several people have told me these are the most beautiful places in Estonia. Since I was planning to go to Parnu, I suggested we go together. We agreed to meet on Friday.

During the week, I met with the man who established Estonia’s satellite Internet connections to the West. He told me numerous stories about the politics of setting up digital links to Sweden and Finland during the fall of the Soviet Union. He chose a “Gordian knot” approach to the problem. Just do what needs to be done — to hell with the bureaucracy — and sort out the problems afterward. I will tell you about our conversation — and about the introduction of the Internet in the Baltics — in a future article.

On The Road Again

Friday, Eerik, Kristiin and I drove first to Haapsalu and then to Parnu. We arrived in Haapsalu during the “Days of the White Lady”. The White Lady was the lover of a man in the piiskopilinnus, the bishop’s castle. She was bricked into the castle walls for the crime of entering the male-only castle. During the August full-moon, her ghost is said to appear in the cathedral window. The Days of the White Lady is a big festival in Haapsalu, with plays and concerts staged on the castle grounds. Despite the festival, Haapsalu is still a small and sleepy village; after a picnic lunch and a play at the castle, we decided to push on to Parnu.

This week, Parnu hosts the Finn Cup Sailing Championship. The final race is Saturday. Since we planned to see the race, we looked a place to stay. We chose our hotel by its price: 60 EEK for a single, 120 for a double. That’s US$5 and US$10. My room was not much larger than a Chinese shoebox. No phones, no TV, no towels, no soap. Shared toilet and shower. Noisy at night and not terribly clean. Hot water only in the morning. This hotel is not in my guidebooks and, as far as I can tell, it has no name. If you would like to try this place, it’s at Roosi 4a, behind the kauplus (shop).

I should mention that, compared to most of Estonia, Parnu is very beautiful. Houses are well cared for, yards are tended, streets are clean. Parnu has lots of parks and a gorgeous beach. The beautifully remodeled Rannahotell is right on the beach, with rooms starting at a whopping US$80 a night. Despite the high room rates, their elegant restaurant is surprisingly inexpensive.

After a rest, we went in search of nightlife. Parnu has two discos: Hamilton and Miraz. Hamilton is small and uninteresting. Miraz (pronounced “Mirage”) is a mecca by comparison, but still pretty lame next to Piraat or Lucky Luke’s in Tallinn.

Sailing Away

For us, the sailing championship was a fiasco. The boat from which we watched the race broke down after the first leg. We did not see the remainder of the race, but just drifted for several hours until another boat came and towed us in. Our boat was good-sized, with perhaps two dozen other passengers. We had paid 50 EEK apiece for tickets but, naturally, our money was not refunded.

Island Life

During the Soviet occupation, Estonian citizens needed a visa to see to the island of Saaremaa. Saaremaa was the westernmost point in the Soviet Union, and the home of Russia’s early-warning radar installations. Today the radar bases are gone and Estonians can visit Saaremaa as easily as any other part of Estonia. For 40 EEK per car, a ferry takes you to the smaller island of Muhu which, in turn, is connected by bridge to Saaremaa.

Kuressaare is the largest city on Saaremaa and it is becoming an attractive spot for tourists, now that the island is open. There is an outdoor market in the center of town where local women sell handmade woolen sweaters and socks, amber necklaces, and knickknacks carved from dolomite.

Kuressaare grew up around an impressive and well-preserved castle, built in the mid 14th century. Today the castle houses a history museum and a nature museum. The history museum is filled with old weaponry, furniture, photographs, etc. Unfortunately, the descriptions are only in Estonian and Russian. The nature museum is a taxidermists heaven, with stuffed deer and moose, flamingos and seagulls, boars and porcupines; dozens, if not hundreds of animals, representing all of the local wildlife. This nature museum is apparently newer, because the descriptions here are also in English.

We ate dinner on the third floor of a restaurant built inside a large stone windmill. The local beers, Saaremaa Olu and Kuressaare Olu, are potent and tasty. Saaremaa also has its own local blackbread, Saaremaa leib, and cheese, Saaremaa juust. The bread is one of many subtle variations of the dense, hard ryebread that is found on nearly every restaurant table in Estonia. The cheese is remarkably like Monterey Jack. Once again, though, dinner was a plate of fries, a few vegetables, and a chunk of meat. Originality does not seem to be a virtue among Estonian chefs.

As in Parnu, we chose our hotel in Kuressaare by its price; 100 EEK per person (that’s US$8 to you and me). This place was spartan, but still a big step up from our hotel in Parnu. Clean rooms, comfortable beds, private bathrooms with plenty of hot water, and concrete walls for a quiet sleep. According to an instruction card on the desk, “If there are any disorders in your room announce it to the administrator, please.” We returned to Tallinn on Monday, and on Wednesday I left for Latvia.

Copyright © 1994, Kenn Nesbitt

August 8, 1994. We have email. We have email! I’ll tell you about more about that in a minute.

Foreign countries, especially non-Western foreign countries, can be confusing. I am in Tallinn, Estonia, which is perhaps the most Westernized city in all of the former Soviet Union. A great many people here speak English or German. Nonetheless, the first few days can be like a trip to the moon. After that, things slowly begin to make sense.

Let me tell you a little of what I have seen here. Although Tallinn is the crumbling and decrepit victim of 50 years of Soviet occupation, it has some truly outstanding features. First is a medieval old town unrivaled in all of Europe. Despite a bombing raid by the Soviet army in 1944 that destroyed 40% of the housing in Tallinn, the old city is very much intact. Today the old city is alive with the sound of hammers and workmen, restoring many of the buildings that have fallen into disrepair. When the state owned all the buildings, nothing ever got fixed. Now that they are in private hands, repairs are going on everywhere.

Another outstanding feature of Tallinn today is the opportunity. Everywhere entrepreneurs are grabbing their new-found freedom and turning a buck with it. This is not to say that the people here are wealthy; most, in fact, are very poor and have a real problem stretching their income to meet their expenses. A free market economy has created very distinct upper and lower classes. You can see it on the street: Estonian Yuppies make deals on cell-phones from their Mercedes, retired pensioners try to get by on US$20 a month.

Baby, You Can Drive My Car

I am fortunate that I have had quite a bit of help from an Estonian native. With his assistance, I have managed to buy a car — a 1982 BMW — and get it registered and insured. I do not recommend you try this unless you absolutely have to. If you think the California DMV is bad, the Estonian Autoregistri is like some bizarre mating of a Russian breadline and a Turkish Bazaar. You have absolutely no idea what is going on, but there are a dozen different forms to complete and several different lines to wait in. On top of this, you must have Estonian residency papers to register a car here. Lacking these, I had to get special permission from the head of the Estonian automobile registry and the head of the local registry office before I could even begin the process. Registering involved paying three different taxes — for what, I have no idea — and waiting for several hours sandwiched among a bunch of fat, sweaty Russians. But it’s done, and I’m mobile. All that is left is to install a hefty alarm; car theft is a big problem here.

Ricki, Don’t Lose That Number

Back to the email. The phones in Estonia — how can I put it? — suck bad. There are three kinds of common phones in Estonia. First are the telephones you find in homes and hotels. These are suitable for voice communications, but more or less useless for data.

The second are common payphones. These are ubiquitous gray metal booths on which is stenciled the word “Telefon”. They were made to accept rubles but, since the phone company does not have the money to convert them, they can now be used for free. Like regular telephones, they are suitable for local voice calls, but useless for anything else.

The third kind of phones are the new, orange payphones labeled Eesti Telefon. These phones use a special phone card that you can usually purchase somewhere nearby. A 16 krooni card (about US$1.30) will give you about 2 hours of local calling time. However, trying to connect your notebook PC to an email service at a payphone is not the easiest thing in the world. Here’s the trick. First, you must have an acoustic coupler for your modem. Mine came from Unlimited Systems in San Diego, California; they make good equipment and I recommend them highly. Next, find a phone with nearby seating. My favorite so far is in the lobby of the Hotell Mihkli on Endla street. It is installed right next to a sofa. You can sit down with your notebook while you transmit. Of course, this got me some amazed looks from the hotel staff who told me, in their halting English, that this is the first time they have seen a computer used on a phone. Lastly, although these phones seem to dial using the same tones as American phones, they do not recognize the tones when they are played into the receiver by a computer. You will have to tell your communications program to connect as it normally would, but then dial the number manually. This seems to work.

CompuServe has a local access number in Tallinn. If all you need is email, CompuServe is a good choice here. Access is provided through SprintNet, a computer network owned by U.S. Sprint. Connecting via SprintNet is an adventure in itself, so let me give you this rule of thumb: if you plan to travel and use CompuServe for email, make sure you get a copy of the access telephone numbers and all instructions for connecting before you leave your home country. Oddly, my contact here was surprised and happy to hear that CompuServe has a local access number in Tallinn. His company had been calling Germany to connect.

One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer

Every day in Estonia is a new opportunity to drink alcohol. Drinking seems to be the national sport. A bottle of Finlandia Vodka that costs US$29.00 in Finland, costs US$6.00 here. Local vodka can be had for about US$3.00 a bottle. The “most popular drink in Estonia,” according to my unofficial sources, is called Gin Long Drink. It is gin and tonic in a can, available for 8 or 9 krooni (about US$0.75) at every restaurant, bar, grocery store, street kiosk, fast food joint and bus stop in Tallinn. Anywhere you can buy a candy bar or a Coke, you can buy a Gin Long Drink. It’s not bad, by the way.

The national beer, Saku, comes in several different varieties — all of them mediocre. And, so far, all of the food here is equally mediocre. A Brit whom I met at lunch yesterday told me “You don’t come here for the food.” Basically, there seems to be one meal in Estonia, with slight variations. It consists of a plate of french fries with sliced tomatoes and cucumbers on one side and a slab of meat — pork beef or chicken — on top of the fries. In many places they will add some form of cabbage salad or fried vegetables to this. I have had this meal in different places almost every day so far. I am surprised, though, because I always I am ordering something different. I think the name for this meal literally translates to “gut bomb.”

Hit the Road, Jack

August 12, 1994. Tartu, Estonia is 200 km southeast of Tallinn and home to the most well known university in Estonia, founded in 1632. Now that I have registered, insured and put an alarm on my car, I am beginning to see this country. I am staying for a couple of days in the home of a talkative Estonian woman 2 km north of Tartu. Her home is remarkably clean and well maintained, and her English is unusually difficult to understand. She is friendly and hospitable, but talks like a machine-gun. Next month she goes back to the university for her second semester of much-needed English lessons.

Back in the USSR

This morning I met with the networking manager of the University to discuss Estonia’s connections to the Internet. You see, three years ago there was no Internet in Estonia. Three years ago you would have to get official permission well in advance just to use a photocopier which, naturally, were kept locked and well guarded. This was to prevent the spread of subversive ideas. Today, you can walk into any of a dozen buildings around the town square in Tartu and download the U.S. constitution or explicit nude photographs or instructions for building an atomic bomb. All the world’s “subversive” ideas are now so ripe they are falling from the trees.

Three years ago, Western visitors were not allowed to stay overnight in Tartu, presumably to keep them from spying on the nearby airfield, which was the largest in the Soviet Union. Today, there are many new hotels and restaurants in Tartu, and the airfield is abandoned.

I have already met several Americans who are here to consult with the Estonian local governments about the nature of democracy. One couple gave me a tour of the Supreme Court building and the Tartu History Museum. At night we went to a local restaurant/bar/casino/disco and talked about Estonia, while the college students danced and smoked cigarettes.

Enjoy the Silence

August 14, 1994. At a lake called Puhajarv, just outside of the small town of Otepaa, about 60 km southeast of Tartu, there is a small pub and inn called Kolga-Oru. The inn is small, but the rooms are modern and comfortable. This is the nicest hotel I have found so far. The pub plays Irish music and serves Guinness on tap. Kolga-Oru was built by an Irishman who came for a visit and was so taken with the place, he never went back; I don’t blame him. Yesterday I rented a rowboat for 15 krooni (about US$1.20), paddled out into the lake and relaxed in the sun for an hour. This place is quiet, wooded and peaceful. I’m beginning to really enjoy this trip.

Copyright © 1994, Kenn Nesbitt

July 25, 1994. Boxing up a two-bedroom apartment is no small task. I have been working away at it for a week, one room — or a portion of a room — at a time. Yesterday I finished the kitchen. Today I am working on my office. I can spend days neatly packing things into boxes, and then whisk it all down to the self-store in half an hour.

My apartment is a complete mess. Every flat surface — tables, counters, bed — is strewn with orphaned knickknacks, books, papers, old clothes I should have thrown out long ago, things that weren’t valuable enough to make it into the boxes. In seven days, this apartment will be empty. The walls will be bare, the carpets cleaned, the furniture gone; just like the day I moved in, as if I had never lived here at all. Two weeks from now, someone else will live here and call it home. Someone else will own the Honda I have been driving for nine years, and they will call it theirs. Someone else will step in to fill whatever vacuum I am leaving in Portland.

Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing

I awoke last night at four AM, startled by the thought that I will be leaving in one week. In one week I will be on a plane from Seattle to Copenhagen and then another plane from Copenhagen to Tallinn, Estonia. The thought would be exhilarating if I were looking forward to a simple vacation. Knowing that I am leaving the United States for up to a year is downright scary. A thought like that can give you a jolt of adrenaline strong enough to wake you from a sound sleep.

Another recurring thought I am having is about the safety of traveling in these countries. I am told that Poland is very dangerous right now. The people are extremely poor and crime is escalating. Car theft and robbery, even highway banditry, are apparently a problem. Friends from Poland have told me that now is a bad time to go there. In Russia, newspapers report that “gangsters” are riding the overnight trains and breaking into sleeper cars to rob the passengers. Today I read that the Matyas Templom (Matthias Church), one of Budapest’s most popular tourist attractions, was bombed earlier this week. No one was hurt, but several stained glass windows and parts of the building were damaged. I am reminded, though, of the scare in Florida last year when several German tourists were killed. Florida tourism dropped sharply as most European travelers made other plans. Despite the bad publicity that Florida got in Germany, I expect that, overall, Florida is still a safe place to visit. Maybe this is a good analogy, maybe it isn’t. It is at least comforting. I will know more when I get there.

Thanks for the Memories

For the last few days I have been reading a travelogue by Evelyn and Mark Leeper, an American Jewish couple from New Jersey who document their travels so thoroughly, I find myself wondering how they still have time to see anything. This year they began their travels in the Baltic states. Their description of a few weeks in these three small countries fills nearly a hundred pages. They were kind enough to email me the Baltic portion of their travelogue. I will surely be indebted to them for their insights and their verbosity. I must also acknowledge David Loftus and his wife Carol who shared with me their pictures from a recent three-week trip to Estonia, and told me about their experiences. Their beautiful photographs have made me eager to start.

Whoops, Here It Is!

August 1, 1994. I am very tired. I can’t tell if the tiredness is from a full day of moving furniture yesterday, or if it is the emotional toll of leaving home. I am surprised at the number of people who are crying as they board the plane. They kiss their friends and relatives tearfully at the gate, clearly unhappy to be leaving. I guess I am not the only one who finds this draining. Perhaps I am naive, but I didn’t expect to feel sad about leaving. Another surprise is the number of Internauts — presumably readers of soc.culture.baltics — who sent email to wish me well or offer helpful suggestions the last day or two before my trip. I believe there is something exaggeratory about cyberspace. In cyberspace, people have fewer inhibitions and fears about talking with complete strangers. As a result, angry, spiteful people become more outspoken and confrontational, while kind and generous people will often go out of their way to be helpful.

It’s my turn to get on the plane. The flight is now boarding and the announcer has called out my row. Now the trip begins.

Copyright © 1994, Kenn Nesbitt

Portland, Oregon, July 1994. Life is too rich to watch it slip by from inside your cubicle. Your life is too important to sell it to that company you work for. You know it’s true. Do it now before it’s too late. Quit your job. Sell your car. Put your things in storage. Get a one-year plane ticket. See the world.

That was the idea.

Today is July 18, 1994. In the last two weeks I quit my job, gave up my apartment, and said goodbye to my friends. Two weeks from now I will do something truly crazy. On August 1, will board a plane bound for a country I’ve never been to. I will travel for a year and I will write about it. I will get lonely and homesick; I will smell bad and have trouble finding healthy foods; I will have difficulties that I could never predict. I will also meet wonderful people and make new friends; I will discover the best beer I have ever tasted; and, with any luck, I will find out what rewards life offers the intrepid.

Maybe I can’t convince you to quit your job. Maybe I can’t convince you to sell your car and head into the unknown. Maybe I don’t need to. After all, I’m not doing this for you. In fact, I don’t know exactly why I am doing it, except that I believe the trip will explain itself along the way.

This column is many things: it is a chronicle of my trip, it is a periodic letter to family and friends, it is souvenir to look back on when I am old, it is a catharsis. Nonetheless, it is good to have you along. Please feel welcome to join me from your living room or your cubicle, or wherever you happen to be, and live vicariously for a time.

Make a New Plan, Stan

Here’s the plan. Starting in the Baltic nation of Estonia, I will travel for a year through Eastern Europe. Though I have no itinerary, I expect to spend time in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic,Hungary and Romania. I may also see Slovakia, Bulgaria, the Ukraine and Germany. During this year, I will earn a living writing computer-related articles for a handful of trade magazines, something I have been doing in my spare time for several years now. In order to write, I am taking with me a small notebook computer — a Compaq Contura Aero — and I expect to spend a fair bit of time hunting for Internet access.

I will buy a car in Tallinn, Estonia — perhaps an old Ford or Opel or Fiat — drive it for a year, and sell it when I am done.

After a year of travel, I expect to return to Portland, Oregon, to go back to the business of leading an ordinary life. Until then, open up world, I’m climbing in!

Well, How Did I Get Here?

Before I actually get started, let me fill you in on some background. Like, who am I, why did I come up with this crazy idea, what job did I quit to do this, and what have I been doing to prepare?

My name is Kenn Nesbitt. I am an American and, like most Americans, I have spent my life blissfully ignorant of the rest of the world. I speak no foreign languages, I know very little of other cultures. And, until last year, I had never been off the North American continent.

My girlfriend at that time — an enchanting Hungarian woman — and I spent two weeks in Budapest, Hungary, and parts of Southern Germany. That was all it took. Now I’m hooked and I must see more. She enrolled in a university in Budapest for her next school year and she and I were to spend a year in Hungary. In May of this year, she and I broke up. I am still spending a year abroad. However, instead of just going to Budapest, I will travel and see a little more of the world

I am 32 years old and I make my living as a computer consultant and writer. Until two weeks ago, I worked for Microsoft Consulting Services, a division of Microsoft that helps companies develop client/server business database systems and other software. It was a very good job, as jobs go, but I still felt I was trading my life for a steady paycheck. Call it what you will: gen-X angst, a sense of immurement, or simple wanderlust. In truth, I could no longer justify the eight-to-five grind, having seen something of the richness and wonder the world has to offer. Pandora’s box is open and, since it cannot be closed, I am compelled to explore the contents.

Ready, Steady, Go!

My life is now a series of checklists. Get immunizations. Cancel telephone and electricity. Photocopy passport. Get traveler’s checks. If you’ve traveled abroad, you know what I’m talking about. Fortunately, I have help. Every travel guide has an extensive section on preparing for your trip.

I have two travel guides, both published earlier this year: ‘The Lonely Planet Survival Guide for the Baltic States’ and ‘Eastern Europe On the Loose’. They recommend, among other things, taking your own clothes line and detergent, pictures of family and friends, and plenty of Pepto Bismol. They also offer a rule of thumb: ‘take half as much luggage and twice as much money’.

What they wouldn’t know to recommend is a Radio Shack tone dialer for checking U.S. voice mail, and an acoustic coupler for using a modem on European phones. From the experience of my last trip, I am also taking, as gifts, American cigarettes (not Marlboros, which are plentiful in Eastern Europe) and Hershey bars.

Now all I have left to do is to sell my car and to finish putting everything else into storage. Trust me, this is no small task.

Gotta Get Yourself Connected

I will write this travelogue every two weeks. For those of you who are reading this as email or hardcopy or on Usenet, if you have full Internet access, fire up Mosaic or Lynx and paddle over to https://www.thegroup.net. You will find the web version of this document much fatter, with graphics and hyperlinks to web servers in each of the countries I’ve mentioned. I am posting this first column to a handful of newsgroups as well as the CompuServe travel forum just to let you know about this new www travel column. If you would like me to continue to post to a specific newsgroup or forum, or if you would like me to add you to my mailing list, please drop me a line. In the meantime, I have some packing to do. See you in two weeks!

Copyright © 1994, Kenn Nesbitt

“Life is too rich to watch it slip by from inside your cubicle.“..and with those words, Kenn leads off his narrative of a break from the life of a computer consultant in Portland Oregon to explore eastern Europe. Armed with a notebook computer, a few writing assignments (including these pages) and a curiosity for culture and a new world, Kenn travels and sends back brief glimpses into his experience for us to share.“[-webmaster]

Traveler’s Notebook

Note: In addition to being a series of travel essays, this also turned out to be the story of how I met my wife. I apologize for the fact that I haven’t written the “end” of the story. Someday I intend to go back and finish it, and add photos as well. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy what’s here.

• Countdown to Exit Strategy – July 1994
• Liftoff! – July 25, 1994
• Touchdown – August 8, 1994
• Estonia – August 17, 1994
• The Baltics – August 24, 1994
• Germany and Belgium – September 9, 1994
• Bavaria and Austria – September 30, 1994
• South From Prague – Monday, October 3, 1994
• Italy and Greece – October 18, 1994
• Rest Stop – November 4, 1994

Copyright © 1994, Kenn Nesbitt