In What is Now Belarus

Several years ago there was an exhibition of Russian art at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. It spanned the entire length of Russian history and took up the entire main hall of the museum. I remember they had this one exhibit called "The Man Who Flew Into Space". It told the story of a man who'd built a device and propelled himself into space. The artist, Ilya Kabakov, 'recreated' the man's tiny Russian apartment, its walls covered with Soviet propaganda posters and sketches of space device, an impossibly simple spring-loaded slingshot which you see suspended from the ceiling. Shards of drywall are strewn about the room and there's a hole in the ceiling through which where the man presumably exited on his way to space. I took the whole piece to represent the lengths that this man would go to escape the Soviet Union, outer space being the ultimate free space (ironic that the Soviets pioneered it).

The only reason I mention this is because I noticed that Minskovites have a fascination with spaceflight, 1960s style, and also happen to live in what is often called 'the last dictatorship in Europe'. Coincidence? I won't overplay my hand; I'm basing this entirely off the preponderance of space-themed nightclubs (escape via euro-trash?) and my hotel, the 'Orbita', an escape for any Belorussian woman who managed to pick up a foreigner there (I spent an hour talking to an Australian and his not-quite-mailorder bride). But my point is not that Minskovites love spacetravel more than potatoes (impossible, I think), but that because they have the bare necessities of life, and do not face anything like the Great Terror of the 1930s, Belorussians' perceive their lack of freedom as irksome and boring more than oppressive. The four Belorussians I talked with in any depth freely criticized Lukashenko's regime and the command economy and speculated on the future. My cab driver to the train station complained that his wife would be lucky to make $300/month as a secretary, but between the two of them they would get by. A local museum director couldn't find the words (in Russian or English) to describe how frustrating it was to get through the red tape so that she could add an addition onto her museum. Everybody else seemed to be buckling down, waiting out the Lukashenko regime in the hope of better days. Irked and bored people don't overthrow governments. It will have to get a lot worse before things change.

What Remains of Jewish Vilnius

Photo 1: The only remaining synagogue (still functions).
Photo 2: The heart of the small Jewish ghetto (there was a larger one).

A Tense Encounter in Vilnius

I was sitting outside a cafe on Pilies gatve, crawling through a Russian novel, when a middle aged couple––sharp-faced blond woman, muffin-headed man––approached me. Assuming they were beggars, I shook my head and went back to my book. When they kept at it I told them I didn't understand. I wish I'd said it in English, because when she realized I understood Russian she happily reformatted her Lithuanian tirade to our common language.

She claimed I'd taken a picture of them and demanded to know why. She wouldn't say when or where, and I didn't recognize her, so I assumed it was some sort of scam. But she was adamant and the muffin-headed man kept egging her on. Not wanting to take my eyes off them, and feeling sufficiently intruded upon, I refused to show them my camera. Instead I unleashed every weapon in my Russian-language arsenal, a verbal fusillade of expressions from the chapter on confrontations (thank you Middlebury Russian School!) which, at this point in my Russian career, is probably as scary as an amphibious assault by the girlscouts. I'm sure they trembled when I took a moment to look up the word for 'misunderstanding' (I'll never forget that one).

The longer we argued, the more I felt their scam tightening around me (they threatened to call the police!). When the woman walked around the table to search for my camera I went inside to complain. I quickly scanned through my recent photos to make certain I was right.

I wasn't. Shit. The great irony was that I'd taken her photo by accident to cover myself after surreptitiously photographing a table across the street where two rich-looking thirtyish men with slicked-back hair cockily smoking cigars with four pretty girls, a scene right out of Wall Street. I tried my best to take a candid shot; I should have known better: the same psychological principle by which you hear your name uttered in a crowded place, or somehow know if you're being looked applies to cameras. That's why the golden rule in public photography is ask before you shoot. When I snapped the shot the the beefier of the two men looked right at me. I panicked and tried to make it look like I was shooting a panorama. I turned to my right and snapped a scene of the neighboring cafe. That's the one the woman appeared in.

I went outside to apologize to the couple and delete the photo in their presence but they were gone. I sat down, tried to get back into my book, but my mind wandered. Who were those guys? Why were they so nuts about this photo? Were they going to pursue me?

I decided I'd tried to smooth things over with the couple if I ran into them on my way back to the hostel, but when we spotted each other going in opposite directions, I decided they were crazy and it was better to flee. Something about my constitutional rights against search and seizure also ran through my head (completely irrelevant, I know), as did something about not rewarding the belligerent way in which they had confronted me. So rather than bury the hatchet, we stared each other down. Twice I looked over my shoulder to make sure they weren't following me. Both times she was looking back at me.

I deleted the damned photo. If I see them again, I'll just apologize. Suppose they're real creeps? Best not to take any chances.