Between Russia and Europe

Kippis !

It has been a (long) while since my last email to you guys, but here’s an update on what happened after I left Russia.

After Saint Petersburg I arrived in Tallinn, Estonia, my first stop back in the European Union. I was expecting to find a country still very similar to Russia, and I was wrong. Tallinn is a very modern city, very ecologic and turned to Europe a lot more than to Russia, mostly looking at the Scandinavian countries. The historical cty center, medieval, is touristy, clean, without cars. Tellinskivi neighbourhood, a bit further from the center, reminded me of a little Berlin with its coffee places, fleamarket and modern art galleries. In Estonia and everywhere in the Baltic countries recycling is helped by the use of a deposit system : a few cents are added when buying a product in a glass or plastic bottle, that are reimbused when returned to be recycled. It’s simple and effective, too bad this system has disappeared a long time ago in France (but I hear they want to set it back). There are cycling tracks everywhere and good public transport such as the electric “trolleybus”. Like in Paris one can find scooters abandoned everywhere, so not all is perfect 🙂

From Tallinn I took the decision to take the ferry (that pollutes terribly) to ross the sea and go to Helsinki, where I could meet my friend Ville, an Erasmus friend I hadn’t seen in 6 years. We met like it was yesterday, I cooked crêpes and we shared a good Weissbier, like we did when we were students in Germany. I visited Helsinki with his wife, Pinja (he got married in those 6 years!) ad spent my weekly bugdet in less than 24 hours (Northern countries are expensive). No regrets though, it was great to see each other again. We talked about Europe, the elections, the way social media is distorting our vision of society (all our friends voted, and they all voted grean party). They explained to me that in Sweden and now more and more in Finland appeared what is called “plane shaming”, which means people that take the plane to go on holidays are very criticised. Pinja works for the airport, and explained to me that she tries to change things however she can. We discussed about some green taxes, train travelling and our priviledge to criticize the plane now that we already took it to see the world, in a time when we didn’t think about our carbon footprint. We always get to the same conclusions : eat local so that our veggies don’t travel by plane either, carpool, travel by train, use public transportation and travel in more sustainable way in general.

After this short stop I continued by bus to reach Riga, the capital of Latvia. I was supposed to get stay with Elena, a ukrainian girl that has been living there with her mother for many years. Her appartment was in a big building slightly outside of Riga. I arrived under a pouring rain and she was not there. My first contact with Latvia was grey and wet, after the sunny and paved Estonia the contrast was sharp. Inher appartment I felt like I was in the movie “Good Bye Lenin”, everything looked like it had stayed the same since the USSR. I stayed, and I was right to do so.

The next morning I finally had the chance to meet Elena, who had come back home in the night. She told me a bit about her life, how she had also lived in India and how she now works for Erasmus + programm. After a tough breakup she went back to her mother’s place and she is now experiencing a hindouist theory, translated to Russian by a Youtuber, to try to be a “less independent” woman. She feels like her freedom was a bit hard on her ex-boyfriend. She had some doubts about the strategy but seemed to be really enjoying “pretending she can’t lift something heavy or open the car door on her own”. I hope she will keep me updated about the outcome of this social experiment.

Apart from that Riga was nice. I went to the occupation museum, where I could learn a lot about the Baltics, which were successively occupied by Russia, Nazi Germany and the USSR, who deported many so-called “dissidents” to Siberia.

After Riga I went to Klaipeda, south of Lithuania. I traveled quite fast, since I was expected in Berlin shortly after. Otherwise I probably would have stayed longer in Klaipeda, which was one of my favourite stops of the entire trip. The city per-se has nothing much, but it is a good starting point to visit the Neringa Ismus, which goes all the way to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. There I waled about 15 kms (I feel like you’re getting better at converting KMs to miles, so I’ll leave that to you) between the villages of Praila and Nida, all the way south. It’s a little paradise with forests, sand dunes, bicycle tracks and the lagoon on one side and the Baltic sea on the other side, with pristine beaches all along. It was 30 degrees celsius (same here for the conversion – it’s hot) and I enjoyed a dive in the sea (not so hot).

Last stop of my Baltic route : Vilnius, capital of Lithuania. I was hosted by Sharif, and Iranian guy who has been living there for 9 years and who appeared to have also lived in India and also just gotten out of a bad break-up (I don’t know why I’m always hosted by people who have just bronken up). He told me about his life in Lithuania, his visa problems and stereotypes. He said he felt like a “Dalit” in the country (dalits beeing the “outcasts” in India). He always has to pay attention to his appearence to not be rejected. As we talked about ecology and degrowth he told me that in his situation, to maintain his social status in a society filled with fears of the unknown, he has to yield to some rules of materialism : fast fashion, always looking super clean and so on. We discussed about the fact that people here always think I’m a student in my gad year, with my big packpack and messy outfit, but if I were darker they would probably change sidewalks. By the way from China to Lithuania everywhere I’ve been locals have always asked me that same disturbing question “Is it true that there are too many black people in Paris” (whaaat ?).

Sharif also invited me to a debate about Africa. Apparently a couple years ago UNICEF Lithuania launched a campaign to raise funds by sending intagrammers to Ethiopia to take pictures of themselves with children, with the following slogan “With 3 euros you cans ave an African”. The campaign got a huge backlash because of the stereotypes it perpetrates and UNICEF was harshly criticized. The central question being : why continue spreading the white saviour image helping the starving African child ? What’s the actual role of development NGOs ?

The conference also mentioned coloniality and colonialism, the reasons behind donating and the new communication methods. I would need pages and pages to explain it all, but it was overall super interesting. Applied to Lithuania, the speakers talked about the pride people get to finally be the donor and not the one receiving the help. They feel more European if they are able to give to “developing countries”. The UNICEF officials reminded their role in favour of children’s fundamental rights and this big question stayed unanswred : does the end justify the means ?

With these considerations, that have been following me since India, I left Lithuania to go to Poland. Express stop in Varsovia before continuing to Berlin.

I went back to a country I know, a language I speak and friends for the first time in 6 months. It felt quite weird. I thought I wanted to come back, but sitting in the bus taking me to Berlin I wondered if I would not prefer going the other way. I got the feeling that there was still so much to see in Russia, Mongolia, China and India.

Without the necessary visas to do that, I continued my way to the West.

Love to you all,

Lucile

PS : Kippis means “cheers” in Finnish, but I didn’t know in which language to say Hello.