Follow the bend in the road, then walk for around 100 metres. If I hadn’t seen the satellite photo a few minutes earlier I’d have had no idea where to look. Beyond the roadside ditch wild flowers were swallowed up by the long grass, and only an occasional car broke the calm of an afternoon stroll in the German countryside.

If I’d been here 26 years ago I’d have had no trouble finding what I was looking for. I was in the north east of Germany, just outside the tiny village of Schlutup on the outskirts of Lübeck. It was just to the east of the village that the final, deadly layers of the inner German border passed as they wound their way south, dividing the country for 45 years before being joyfully overcome in those unforgettable days in November 1989. If I’d been here then and approached from the west, I might have got to within a few metres of the border. From the east, the no-man’s zone began around 5 km away; from there on there was barbed wire; there were dogs and searchlights; there were even landmines. Death was the guaranteed outcome of all escape attempts, or at least that was the clear message given to all who would think about such a terrible act.

I’d had my own brush with East Germany in my teenage years, when I took a train from Copenhagen to West Berlin in 1987. Our train-on-a-ship had docked at Warnemünde, just an hour or so along the Baltic Coast. My backpack was searched by an intimidating official at the port, despite there being no chance of getting off the train before it got to West Berlin; questions were asked about my music cassettes and my notebook; special interest was shown in my address book, which contained the details of several Polish relatives. Notes were taken, grunts were grunted and glares were delivered with maximum contempt before I was given my passport stamp. I remember speeding along a fortified railway line through the East German countryside before stopping for 2 hours in East Berlin. Dogs were sent under the carriages; plastic panelling was stripped from the ceilings of the compartment. More questions. Then finally we were cleared to make the 5-minute crossing to the freedom (and it really did feel like freedom) of West Berlin.

But that was then. Now there’s a just a rock marking out the old boundary, and the former no-man’s land is now a recognised nature reserve. There’s also a small museum just before the border. The Grenzdokumentations-Stätte Lübeck-Schlutup, or Border Documentation Site as it has been imaginatively named, is home to a collection of old East German memorabilia. There’s plenty of official material (documents, stamps, uniforms) but there are also simple everyday items such as communist-era chocolate wrappers and washing powder boxes; there’s even a Trabant rusting outside. Best of all are the videos which play in a little room downstairs. We saw two on our visit: one showing the different layers of the old border and just how impossible escape was meant to be (it’s incredible to think that a few folks managed it anyway); the other was a far more uplifting film, showing the scene from the road outside on the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when cars streamed westwards, with crowds cheering and waving and people from both sides of the border shedding tears of joy. The museum makes no provision for non-German speakers, but most of the exhibits require little translation.

Back in the sunshine I stared again beyond that bend in the road. How could a country be so forcefully divided? Who would have dared think back in 1989 that a drive or a walk along this stretch of road would now be so inconsequential? And what about other divided cities and countries? If this brutal border could be so dramatically cast aside by the people it was built to separate, then perhaps it can happen elsewhere too.

Across the divide – a visit to the former inner German border is a post from: 501 Places

Our journey from Tampere in Finland to Vilnius in Lithuania followed the journey of the Soviet Union, from the early plans for revolution to its grim consequences

Lenin first met Stalin in 1905 in the Tampere Workers’ Hall in Finland, the same building which now holds one of the world’s few remaining museums dedicated to the life of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov.

You see, the Finns have a reason to be grateful to Lenin as it was he who championed their cause for independence. At the time Finland was a province within the Russian empire and Lenin was a firebrand revolutionary plotting his next steps while staying in the relative safety of Finland. In the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 Finland did indeed gain independence and throughout the 74 years of the USSR’s existence the two countries managed to maintain cordial, if occasionally tense, relations.

The Lenin Museum paints an image of Lenin as a family man, an idealist driven by a sense of destiny to create a fairer world. It’s easy to leave the museum feeling sad for a man whose dreams of a utopian society became bogged down in violence, paranoia and corruption. How did this man with a grand vision become the leader who signed the execution orders for the Russian Royal Family along with a large number of his political opponents?

Lenin Museum in Tampere – Lenin slept several times on this couch

After a brief stop in Helsinki, in which several prominent monuments remain to the 19th-century Russian Tsars, we headed over to the Baltic States. It was here that the ultimate consequences of Lenin’s revolution were clear to see.

Estonia’s Lameema National Park is a place of beauty: wild forests and a secluded coastline which attracts many visitors. That was certainly not the case during Estonia’s years as an unwilling member of the USSR, when a high barbed wire fence ran along the entire shore of the national park, preventing anyone from getting close to the sea in case they had the crazy idea of trying to escape to the other side of the Baltic Sea. Is that the revolutionary dream that Lenin had planned back in his days in Tampere?

Estonian coast at Lahemaa – out of bounds for Estonians during Soviet times

In Latvia we made a stop on the west coast and paid a visit to Karosta, an important naval base in the latter years of the Russian Empire and, during the years of post-war Soviet occupation, home to the Soviet Baltic Fleet. Now Karosta is a run-down town, a set of dreary flats overlooking the ruins of former military buildings. We visited the Karosta Military Prison, where the Soviet Union’s misbehaving troops would be sent for a sharp dose of re-education. It’s a truly grim place where prisoners suffered terribly, especially so when you think that it was their own who were dishing it out to them. The field behind the prison where executions would take place is unspeakably sad. During a tour of the prison we visited the Commandant’s room – there’s a bust of Lenin beside a bookshelf bearing every one of his numerous works in both Russian and Latvian. Was this the world he’d spoken so passionately about during his years in Finland?

Karosta Military Prison

The worst was yet to come. In a solid building in the centre of Vilnius,  the former KGB headquarters are now open to the public as a museum. The upper part of the building is the Museum of Genocide Victims, which tells the story of Lithuania’s partisans and their wartime struggles against both Nazi and Soviet rule. But it is the basement however where the worst horrors are found. Here people were brought, tortured and in many cases executed by Soviet authorities for being considered enemies of the communist regime. The long line of cell doors, some chillingly fitted with padded doors and straitjackets attached to the walls, are hard enough to see; the room where the executions took place is unbearable. It’s particularly hard to reconcile that these are not horrors from the distant past, but events which took place in the lifetime of many of the city’s elderly residents.

Straitjacket in padded cell in basement of former KGB HQ, Vilnius

Standing in the bright sunlight again in modern-day Vilnius, I can’t help but wonder: What Lenin would have thought back then in the Tampere Workers’ Hall in 1905, if he could have travelled into the future and along the same route as we’d followed? Would he have acted differently if he’d been given a glimpse of the way his revolution would turn out?

What would Lenin say now? is a post from: 501 Places

When I mentioned that I was going to the Faroe Islands last week, several people immediately asked me: “Isn’t that the place where they kill whales?”. Others directly asked whether I would be reporting on the whale hunts. These tiny islands in the North Atlantic, blessed with stunning scenery and an incredible number of sea birds, suffer from an international image problem due to their centuries-old taste for whale meat and the manner in which they go about catching their favourite dish.

The subject of whaling in the Faroe Islands has attracted much international controversy and although I was on the islands for a general travel feature for a UK magazine (and as a result had most of my trip funded by Visit Faroe Islands), I was also curious to speak to people on the islands to learn more about the grindadrap, the whale hunts which are part of Faroese tradition and which have provoked such global outrage.

What goes on?

Undisputed facts are at something of a premium given the extremely polarised views on this subject and whatever anyone writes on the topic almost always attracts vitriol from one side or the other. While I can’t claim any in-depth knowledge on the topic from a single short visit, I did at least have the chance to learn something about the hunts, even if I didn’t witness one myself.

The grindadrap follows a strictly-regulated process, with Faroese law stating clearly what is and isn’t permissible. When a pod of whales is spotted the sighting is reported to the local sheriff, who makes a decision whether or not a hunt will take place. This is based on several factors, such as the ease of driving the pod to one of the approved beaches and the length of time since the last hunt in that area; in other words, is it time for the community to get a fresh supply of whale meat? If the grindadrap is approved, a flotilla  of small boats sets off to drive the pod of whales towards the shore, using methods such as banging the sides of the boats to push them towards the shallow water. Once beached they are then slaughtered by a group of men (traditionally it’s only the men who take on the task). The whale meat is then divided among the local community, with everyone getting a carefully measured share regardless of whether they took part in the hunt.

In the ten years between 2003 and 2012, 79 such hunts took place, resulting in 6,160 whales being killed and 47,202 skins (divisions of meat) being given out (statistics from Statistics Faroe Islands). The numbers have dropped in recent decades and there are well-documented fears about the health risks of eating whale meat due to its high level of mercury and other toxins, although I didn’t find any evidence that these two facts are linked.

Arguments for and against

The whale hunt is a wholly non-commercial activity, with meat freely divided among the local population and hunts only taking place when a community’s supplies are low. Most observers, even those vehemently opposed to the whale hunts, agree that with estimated pilot whale populations of around 700,000 the activity is sustainable, with around 0.1% of the population killed each year.

Pictures of rows of dead whales and sea water red from the bloodiness of the grindadrap have led to worldwide anger and calls for tourism boycotts of the Faroe Islands by activists. The fact that whales are considered to be one of the most intelligent sentient creatures and the fact that entire pods are killed has only fuelled the outrage.

The Faroese in turn defend the grindadrap in several ways. Whale remains a highly popular form of meat despite the health scares; the tradition of hunting and eating pilot whales goes back for many centuries; and as a communal activity the hunts play an important part in keeping together such a closely-knit society, something which was apparent even from spending just a few days on the islands.

Of course these arguments are dismissed by the opponents. Just because something is a tradition or part of a native culture doesn’t make it right; and while the Faroese had no choice but to harvest whales in order to survive in previous centuries, that’s certainly not the case in the 21st century, especially given the associated health risks with whale meat consumption.

Then there’s the charge of double standards made against the grindadrap‘s mostly foreign detractors. I eat meat and I’m very mindful of the fact that most of the animals I consume will have suffered more and for longer than the pilot whales killed in the grindadrap. I’d feel more entitled to judge the Faroese people for the way they get their meat if I had a clear picture of how my dinner is slaughtered, but as is the case with most of us urban dwellers, I have little idea how my dinners transform from a living animal into a nicely-packed supermarket product. It’s easy to believe that our diced chicken didn’t live a hellish life in a cage and that our lamb chops wasn’t once part of one of the poor creatures packed like sardines in a vehicle for several hours before meeting its grisly end in an abattoir. Contrast that with whales who live freely and are slaughtered in a matter of seconds/minutes* (topic of much disagreement) and where the entire process is based around supplying a community with food, without any financial motives.

Eco-warriors and the future of whale hunts

The people I met in the Faroe Islands were without exception open and willing to talk about the subject of whale hunts. Many shared a deep disdain for the outrage of foreigners against the grindadrap. They believe that their opponents’ arguments are based on ignorance and hypocrisy, and to some extent I do sympathise with them. I have no desire to eat whale meat, but wonder if the people advocating boycotts of the Faroes have the same view of France (foie gras), Japan (all sorts of live snacks), most of the world (veal), China (shark’s fin soup) and pretty much anywhere if you dig deep enough (and you don’t usually have to go very deep).

The grindadrap is by carried out in open water and creates some pretty gruesome images, which do not make good PR for the Faroe Islands. But from what I gathered most of the people don’t seem to care about the international outrage; in fact the more the outside world calls them barbarians and condemns their actions, the harder people are likely to dig in their heals to continue the whale hunts and preserve what is widely seen as an important part of the Faroese identity and an unbroken link to their past.

The current Grindstop 2014 campaign by Sea Shepherd, which involves several hundred volunteers patrolling the Faroese beaches waiting to disrupt any hunts that take place, might prevent some of this year’s hunts. But in the long run, what is the likely effect of the actions of these largely well-meaning foreigners, typically coming from countries with their own deep social, ethical and environmental issues, telling people that their centuries-old way of obtaining meat is barbaric and has to stop? I suspect it’s unlikely to do anything other than wind up the majority of Faroese people and make them more determined to keep doing as they’ve always done.

To read more on the topic:

Whales and whaling in the Faroe Islands – information provided by Visit Faroe Islands (including a link to a pdf public information pamphlet on the topic)

Whaling in Brief – an official document providing an overview of Faroese Whaling

Whale Killings in the Faroe Islands – an objective view of the whale hunts by a Danish blogger.

The day I saw the sea turn red – a first-hand account by British journalist Simon Heptinstall, who saw a grindadrap take place and reported his experience.

Also listen to the excellent podcasts by Matthew Workman at Faroe Island podcasts:

The Whaling Edition and Faroese Anti-Whaling

Faroe Islands and the thorny issue of whaling is a post from: 501 Places

Puffins, Farne Islands, Northumberland

It wasn’t meant to be like this. Neither of us have ever been particularly excited by bird watching, apart from the thrill of a rare and fleeting blue flash of a kingfisher on a walk in the country. And yet our travels in the first half of 2014 have been almost exclusively dominated by birds.

Our first encounters came in January, when a trio of kingfishers decided to pose for the cameras in St Albans’ Verulamium Park. For a couple of months they were happy to fish in full view of an almost-constant crowd, as word got out that these normally shy birds were quite happy to catch their food within a few metres of the big lenses that snapped them.

We travelled to Japan in February to follow the winter festivals in Hokkaido, but while there we set off in an ice-breaker to find Steller’s Sea Eagles and White-Tailed Eagles on the drift ice in the Sea of Okhotsk. We also headed inland to see Japan’s famous cranes as they performed their elaborate courtship rituals on the snowy plains.

When a commission came up to cover a local festival on England’s north east coast, we headed up to Northumberland and arrived in time to see the puffins in great numbers on the islands just off the coast. By now the chunky 500mm lens in which Sam had invested at the start of the year was already paying for itself, and it travelled with us again to the Faroe Islands as we encountered yet more sea birds. I don’t think I’d ever tire of watching puffins in flight and consider myself extremely fortunate to have seen so many of them in the last few weeks.

Anyhow, in the full expectation that we’ve seen all the unusual birds we’re going to see in 2014, here are a few of our favourite photos from this year’s travels. All photos are by Sameena Jarosz.

White-tailed eagle, Sea of Okhotsk, Japan

Ural Owl, Tsurui, Japan

Oystercatcher, Streymoy, Faroe Islands

Steller’s sea eagles interrogating a raven – Sea of Okhotsk, Japan

Cranes, Tsurui, Japan

Shag, Farne Islands, Northumberland

Kingfisher, St Albans

Kingfisher, St Albans

Puffin, Farne Islands, Northumberland

Puffin, Farne Islands, Northumberland

Puffin, Farne Islands, Northumberland

Kittiwake with chicks, Mykines, Faroe Islands

Puffin, Mykines, Faroe Islands

2014 – A Year of Birds is a post from: 501 Places

I can’t remember spending a more uncomfortable night. I fidgeted constantly in my rigid lower bunk bed, sleeping in short, unsatisfying 20-minute bursts and, worst of all, running at least once an hour, often more frequently, to the loo. By the end of the night I knew every loose floor board in the building; I knew exactly when the door of the dorm would start its low, mournful groan; and I knew without using my torch exactly where on my way down the steep wooden staircase I had to duck my head.

I was in southern Poland to research this feature for National Geographic Traveller magazine. In search of wilderness I’d come to the Bieszczady Mountains and was spending the night in a remote mountain hut, in sight of both Ukraine and Slovakia. Chatka Puchatka (which means Pooh’s Hut) is part of local folklore and my guide Magda had brought me here on the top of a 1200 metre ridge to show me at first hand why so many people put up with the discomfort of a night in the refuge just to witness sunset and sunrise from this isolated spot.

On reflection, having a few beers in the very basic bar was not the wisest move, knowing full well the catalogue of misery that my bladder has inflicted on me over the years. I’d got chatting to the barman Mariusz, a young lad who was standing in for the infamous Lutek, who I’d been hoping to meet. Lutek had lived in the refuge on and off for over 50 years and during my week in Poland I heard from several sources some of the colourful stories about this eccentric man: his drinking exploits, his constant clashes with authority and his undying love for his long-dead horse.

On the other hand it was in drinking those beers and chatting to Mariusz that we had secured a privilege that proved priceless. With no running water or electricity, the toilet block for the 25 guests staying in the refuge is a stinky affair and involves a scramble over a rough ridge; not the most appealing of tasks in the pitch dark, even if you only have to do it once. We had been given a key to the manager’s toilet, meaning that I didn’t have to keep venturing out into the cold wind which had whipped up steadily during the night.

But it would be wrong to make this a story of mountain-top toilet troubles. I’d come up to see the view and what a view it was. The refuge dorm had emptied long before the 5.45 sunrise and I joined the two dozen others who sat in silence staring to the east as the sun began to appear over the Ukrainian hills. The chill was forgotten as bands of blue, mauve and pink became steadily brighter. Tripods were carefully and quietly assembled while the advancing daylight revealed the mist-covered contours of the Bieszczady mountains.

I sat in satisfied lethargy, my ability to do nothing but take in nature’s beauty undimmed by the sleepless night. While I’m not one for pampering and luxury, neither do I get excited by the prospect of camping or sleeping in places without basic comforts. There are times though, and this was one such occasion, when a little discomfort is handsomely rewarded.

Many thanks to the Polish National Tourist Office for organising my trip to the Bieszczady Mountains. They paid for pretty much everything, including the beers in the hut if I’m not mistaken. I didn’t think it was my fault.

A sleepless night in the Polish Bieszczady Mountains is a post from: 501 Places

I’ve mentioned this before on this site, but the history you can uncover with even a minimal effort on a walk through London never ceases to surprise me. Take last week for example…

We popped into the church of St Martins Within Ludgate, just down from St Paul’s Cathedral, to admire one of the few surviving churches built by Sir Christopher Wren. Most of Wren’s masterpieces had been destroyed during WW2 and a great many on a single night in December 1940, when the Luftwaffe launched a ferocious attack on the City of London with the objective of destroying St Paul’s Cathedral. St Paul’s came within a whisker of destruction and St Martin’s was spared too, thanks only to a favourable wind that kept the surrounding flames at bay.

While St Martin’s saw its share of London’s high and mighty come to worship over the centuries, two names stand out. William Penn, whose son would later be the founder of the American state of Pennsylvania, was married here in 1643. Sometime before this, probably in 1616, an American Indian lady by the name of Pocahontas paid a visit with her husband John Rolfe. Pocahontas, known then by her Christian name Rebecca, was apparently seen by London society as a curiosity and living proof that savages could indeed be tamed.

The animated film Pocahontas depicts her love affair with Captain John Smith, the then governor of Virginia. Although he met her several times on both sides of the Atlantic, there is no evidence to suggest they had any sort of physical relationship. Even so, their stories overlap perfectly here in the City of London, with Captain Smith buried in the church of St Sepulchre Without Newgate, barely 100 metres away.

Old London was a crowded place and a stone’s throw often separated the sacred from the profane. Next to St Sepulchre’s Without Newgate is the Viaduct Tavern. The pub has its own colourful history as a Victorian gin palace and brothel opposite the notorious Newgate Prison. The gallows on which many prisoners were hanged in public were just outside the window. But it’s what’s in the cellar of the Viaduct that has provoked much debate.

When you visit the Viaduct, ask to be shown to the cellars – if the bar isn’t too busy the staff will usually oblige. Below there are five caged compartments – said to be cells used as an overflow for Newgate Prison, or in another version of events, by the remand gaol the Giltspur Street Compter. There’s even a hole above the cells which the bar staff will tell you may have been used as a feeding tube. The stories are debunked as impossible myths here and I have to admit that while enjoying the history lesson in the basement of the Viaduct, I did find it hard to imagine that this would indeed be the set-up of a prison.

And just to bring the story back to 21st century relevance, the road linking St Martin’s with the Viaduct Tavern is Old Bailey and it’s here that the UK’s most high-profile criminal cases are heard. Don’t be surprised to find crowds of journalists, protesters and even the occasionally errant celebrity as you wander past the entrance to the court – proof that London’s history is an ever-evolving story.

Why the City of London is an open history book is a post from: 501 Places

Lake Bled is a place where it never stops raining. At least that’s the way it will appear in my mind whenever I hear or read about it. It was pouring with rain when we boarded the bus in Ljubljana last month; it was raining even harder when we arrived in Bled. By the time we had dropped our backpacks off at our guest house, my shoes were soaked so badly they were losing their shape while I was able to wring a Slovenian coffee’s worth of water out of each sock. I changed into a dry pair of shoes – I wish I’d had a pair of fins instead.

But there’s no point moping around just because of the weather. We completed the 6km walking trail around the lake, during which time the rain briefly dropped in intensity, without ever hinting at stopping. The low clouds that surrounded the lake hid a landscape of dramatic cliffs and beautiful distant peaks; I know this from the posters at the bus station. In place of the deep blue and turquoise water we saw an endless pool of impenetrable black; at least we had the path pretty much to ourselves.

We stopped in a bar for lunch and having left a large, suspicious pool of rainwater under our table we moved on quickly, barely noticing that the rain had stepped up a notch again. My waterproof coat was now beyond useless and as we walked up to the castle, my feet were now so wet that each step produced an impressive jet of water from the all-too-porous shoes. We decided not to spend €16 to see a panoramic 360 degree view of more clouds.

It rained as we made our way to dinner and then even harder as we made our way back to the guest house in the dark. It rained without a break all night as far as I could tell. Our clothes were dry the following morning, at least until we walked out in the rain to find some breakfast.

Later in the morning it happened. The rain stopped, almost at the precise moment that we boarded the bus back to Ljubljana. I heard that the sun even came out that afternoon, although by then we were long gone.

If you mention Lake Bled to me, I’ll immediately think of rain. Of course it’s not Lake Bled’s fault – rather it was the result of bad planning on my part to arrive in Slovenia a day before a spell of very bad weather. I was drawn to Lake Bled by those photos of stunning Alpine peaks reflected in the water – I’ll have to return sometime if I want to wash away my very real picture of that same view obscured by stubborn, gloomy clouds.

Lake Bled and a memory of never-ending rain is a post from: 501 Places

Take a walk for the first time through central Skopje and you’re bound to scratch your head in bewilderment. Mammoth statues of warriors adorn the main public spaces, while neo-classical palaces dominate the banks of the Vardar river. Figures of dozens of poets, musicians and artists line the bridges and embankments. And the bulldozers and rubble hint at more to come before this grand vision is finally realised.

Skopje 2014 is the name given to a project that is widely assumed to have cost around €500 million, although official figures appear to be elusive. That Macedonia has a GDP of around €8 billion puts this grand project into alarming context. Throw in an unemployment rate of around 30% and an infrastructure in desperate need of investment and it’s no surprise that some critics are labelling this extravagance as nothing short of insanity.

So who is happy at the new Skopje?

Construction companies are sure to be delighted – at least those involved in creating these enormous palaces, offices and public monuments. Many residents are pleased that a largely drab capital, mostly destroyed by a major earthquake in 1963 and rebuilt under the worst principles of communist-era design, has finally gained some distinctive character, even if it’s not to everyone’s taste. Tourists are no doubt intrigued by the size and scale of the new creations, with online references to a nationalist theme park and Las Vegas easy to find. The transformation is so recent that most existing guidebooks don’t even hint at its existence. There is hope that the new Skopje will attract many more international visitors in the coming years.

Not so happy are those who are at the sharp end of the modest Macedonian public purse. €500 million could go a long way in building schools, hospitals and better roads. A statue of a man on a horse, however tall it is and however many fountains spout from its base, has limited public value, especially for those living outside of the capital.

Also voicing dissent are some sections of Macedonia’s patchwork of citizens. Around a third of the proportion is Muslim, many people are of Albanian origin and there is a significant Roma minority; you wouldn’t guess at this ethnic mixture by looking at the many national figures that make up the Skopje 2014 depiction of Macedonian history.

The Greeks are also unhappy – already fuming at what they see as Macedonia’s attempts to steal their history, it’s a barely concealed mystery that the two most prominent figures portrayed in giant-size bronze are Alexander the Great and Philip of Macedon. The ongoing dispute between Greece and Macedonia (or as the Greeks insist on them being named, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) is preventing EU membership and the glorification of these figures as Macedonian heroes is hardly likely to mend relations.

Meanwhile, a stone’s throw from the 25m high giant warrior fountain statue, said alone to cost €7.5 million, lies a modest museum and chapel dedicated to the life of Skopje’s most famous citizen, Mother Teresa. It’s all too tempting to wonder what she would have made of the recent transformation of the city of her birth.

I’ll leave you with a few more photos of Skopje as it looks in October 2013.

Skopje – dazzling capital or monumental folly? is a post from: 501 Places

As border crossing go, it was one of the quickest I’ve ever encountered. A burly policeman boarded the bus, shook hands with the driver, exchanged a few jokes with the passengers at the front and left, waving us through. We had crossed from Serbia to Kosovo or, according to the border police and every one of our fellow passengers on the bus, from the Serbian district of Raška to the equally Serbian district of Kosovska Mitrovica.

Serbia does not recognise Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008 and considers Kosovo to be an integral part of its own nation. Treated by one side as an international border and by the other as a boundary between two administrative regions, the border at Leposavic has been a flashpoint for trouble in recent years as Serb anger at attempts to establish an international border has spilled into violence.

Our bus was bound for Pristina and as many passengers dozed the television above the driver played non-stop Serbian pop, sung by a variety of scantily-clad but always well-endowed girls. The conductor passed through the bus collecting the fares from passengers who, with the exception of the two of us, were heading from Novi Pazar and Raška to the Serb enclaves within Kosovo. As we approached the modern blue border post the scene looked exactly the same as at the other borders we’d already encountered on our way through the former Yugoslavia.

It was only after we’d been waved through that I could see that this was no ordinary border. A road sign, presumably saying something to the effect of ‘Welcome to Kosovo’, was covered in graffiti and now impossible to read. A short distance along the road we passed the charred remains of the former border post, fire-bombed in an attack in 2011. Above it a solitary watchtower stood amid rubble and barbed wire. A woodman’s hut proudly bore a Serbian flag. Another flag flew on a nearby outcrop, and then a larger one on the summit of a hill. There was no question of allegiances here.

As we approached Mitrovica, banners and posters hung from every available spot, urging voters to boycott the upcoming elections in Kosovo. Graffiti included various combinations of EU/US/NATO/Germany accompanied by a swastika. Around half of the passengers left the bus in Mitrovica, a city split by the river Ibar with the Serbian population living to the north and the Albanian population to the south. Mitrovica was frequently in the news during the conflict as the main bridge across the river became the site of prolonged conflict. We saw the bridge from the Serb side and beside the large mound of rubble that blocked access for any vehicles, pedestrians walked freely between the two sides – a remarkably mundane scene, at least on this day.

Around 1km to the west we crossed the Ibar on a second bridge and left northern Kosovo. The contrast was immediately obvious – all signs were in Albanian, licence plates bore the Kosovan ‘RKS’ rather than the Serbian ‘SRB’ and orthodox churches made way for mosques (and yet in all likelihood most of our fellow passengers, along with the majority of Serbs from Novi Pazar, were Muslims). I was concious that we had suddenly become the only vehicle on the road with Serbian plates, although the people we passed on the street didn’t seem to notice or care.

As we approached Pristina the driver pulled up by the side of the road next to a non-descript roundabout and all the passengers got off, piling into minibuses and taxis that would take them to the surrounding Serbian enclaves. We remained as the only passengers on the bus for the final kilometre ride into Pristina bus station and the end of what had been an uneventful bus journey through an uncertain land.

Note: The Foreign Office advises against all but essential travel to northern Mitrovica and advises travellers to avoid the border crossing at Leposavic.

An unremarkable bus journey through northern Kosovo is a post from: 501 Places

It’s not every day you address the person sitting across the table from you as Mr President. Neither is it every day that you interview a man for whose freedom you marched as a teenager. Whether or not these are sufficient reasons to explain my bumbling questioning of Lech Wałęsa, Poland’s first democratically-elected president after the fall of communism, they are all I can offer in my defence.

I had landed at Lech Wałęsa International Airport in Gdańsk, with little idea that I would be sitting in front of the man himself less than 24 hours later. I was in Gdańsk to research a short feature about the city for an airline magazine and had arranged to meet Margaret, a lady who runs her own tour business in the city. We’d connected online and I had asked her to show me the sites of Gdańsk that relate to the Lech Wałęsa story. A high-profile biopic movie about his role in the peaceful overthrow of communism in Poland was about to be released and my story was timed to coincide with the film’s expected release.

Margaret had hinted by email that she would try and secure an interview with Wałęsa but I had never expected anything to come of it; so much so that I’d already booked an onward train the next morning and had no clothes with me that were remotely suited for meeting a former Head of State. I had woefully underestimated Margaret’s connections and ability to deliver the impossible.

That night I practised my introduction and drew up a list of questions – about the film, about his current work, about his favourite spots in Gdańsk, even about his meeting the previous week with the Dalai Lama. I would conduct the interview in Polish and while it’s the first language I spoke as a child, the vocabulary you pick up in your early years has limited value when you’re interviewing ex-presidents.

My late-night preparation was blown away within seconds of the start of the interview. Here’s the transcript of my woeful opening:

Me: So I’d like to begin by giving a brief introduction…
LW: No, first question

Me: Ok, the first question (I fumble around a bit)
LW: Are you prepared for this?

Me: Yes, yes. (More flustered fumbling). So I’m writing an article about the film…
LW: First question (I listen now and still hear the impatience in his voice)

Me: Ok, first question. (Nervous pause before finally getting started).

For the next 20 minutes I stumbled through my questions with Margaret offering Mr Wałęsa valuable translations of my broken Polish along the way. I finished without any further alarms, but I didn’t want to leave with the impression that this was just another in a daily grind of interviews, so pulled out what I thought was my trump card. I passed him a photo of me marching through the streets of Nottingham with my brothers carrying a Solidarność banner that we had made, in support of the union that Mr Wałęsa had started. This at least produced a wry smile, before it was time for the official photo (above) and a prompt exit.

While my Gdańsk article duly appeared in the Wizz Air magazine, I was unable to place the Lech Wałęsa interview as I had hoped. My efforts were not helped by the fact that the film is still awaiting its release, 16 months after my interview. While his feelings about the upcoming film might still apply, his thoughts on the Euro 2012 tournament are probably not of interest any more.

My encounter with the Polish ex-President and Nobel Prize winner proved a baptism of fire in terms of interviewing famous people. If I’m put in that position again I hope I’m able to perform with a lot more conviction. In the meantime I’ll look out for the film and see if I recognise something of the man I met on that nervous morning in Gdańsk.

Oh, and if you happen to be in Gdańsk and want a good tour guide to show you around, please get in touch with Margaret – she’s helpful, knows that city and surrounding region very well, and can arrange the seemingly impossible.

Erm, erm, erm… Mr President is a post from: 501 Places