visiting the cssr (ireland bashing again)

I'm becoming increasingly aware of my latent democratic socialist leanings. My trip to the former CSSR certainly added substance to how I think certain countries could improve. As I witness the bursting of Ireland's property bubble (the thin bubble on which the Celtic Tiger economy depends), the run on the Norther Rock Bank and hysteria connected banks and lenders in general, the falling value of the dollar and Sterling pound against the Euro (which could only deter foreign investiture on which we depend), the insurmountable traffic/failing public transport problems and an inability to see our way through our climate changing behaviours, the everlasting issue of ineffective health care programmes, and the furore over the German Ambassador stating in a talk to German investors that the Irish are coarse and this country is not a terribly nice place in general, I can only walk through former Soviet suburbs of Prague and Bratislava and wonder at how much capitalism in my assorted home countries is so wrong.

We arrived into some very autumnal weather in Bratislava, Slovakia, cool and raining, and made our way to our hotel on the banks of the Danube (brown, not blue... and running fast and high!). Unassuming Bratislava was a grid of Soviet style blocks, many of them new (why change it if it works?) and painted neat, bright colours. A large old castle overlooks the old town and the distant new buildings. The old town was beautiful. The restaurants were nice. Everyone smiled. Every Slovak I interacted with was the epitome of friendliness. (Perhaps we could persuade more of them to come here!)

We were only 40 miles down river from Vienna and decided to take a day there. We took the cab through town in the pouring rain, passing old factories still on the go. I pointed out that none of them were lit because they were as they had been constructed back in the communist days, the walls composed of glass panes to make the most of the daylight and to cut down on having to light the place. Nowhere were there any of those aluminium sided warehouses with no windows. The place spoke loudly of not only communism and industry, but also that these were people less disassociated from the making an using of energy. Even now, in this era of trying to save our climate, these old factories are probably cold in winter but you can be sure they don't have to keep the lights on all day.

Having missed breakfast we thought we might find a cup of coffee and a pastry before our hour-long journey to Vienna. No such luck. We found a caffeteria with plenty of stodgy food on offer, a kind of Slovakian greasy spoon with a jovial blond girl behind the counter who seemed to enjoy the pantomime and charade we relied on to communicate with her. She had a broad smile. I liked her immediately.

The train to Vienna crosses the Austrian border almost immediately, and suddenly you're outside of the former Iron Curtain. It brought us through acres of windfarms and farmland, and into the German speaking world. Only a few miles we were out of the incredibly foreign Slovak territory and on familiar and more comfortable ground. Even though I don't speak German, I've spent so much time around it in the past few years that it felt like home.

Pope Benedict didn't check with us about our itinerary before he decided to visit Vienna, and so we spent the day sharing the city with him. Everywhere we went he had either just been there or was about to pass through. One army of Polizei was setting up barriers ahead of him, another was removing barriers and heading to the lead with them.

I was enchanted with Vienna. It was gorgeous. Upon arrival we took an obligatory stop in the Sacher Hotel for a slice of Sacher torte and a coffee. And then made our way around the centre, talking in the cathedral of St. Stephan, shops, pallacial buildings and avenues, and ended up back at the Sacher Hotel where we had a fine meal.

The gorgeous art nouveau Municipal Hall, Prague

I'm sorry to say, however, that the stop I had most looked forward to was my least favourite. Prague seems to be a centre on the make. And make, they do. There is a tourist trade there like none I've ever seen in Europe. Whatever they can sell to visitors, they do. When we went online looking for tickets to a night of music and were spoiled for choice between performances of, among many, Rigoletto, The Marriage of Figaro and a symphony performance of Smetana's Vltava (or Moldau) from Ma Vlast and Dvořák's New World Symphony. I thought it was such a wonderful thing that there was so much music to attend every night, and indeed it is. We sat happily in the Smetana Hall inside the gorgeous art nouveau Municipal Hall and I was carried away on the sweet waves of Smetana's homage to the river Prague is built around. But we did have to shush the Chinese people behind us when they decided to have a conversation. And we got a good laugh when an American woman ascending the staircase ahead of us looked into one of the huge mirrors on the wall and mentioned to her friends that there were an awful lot of people on the other side who seemed to be moving faster into the place. And then she stopped and looked again. "Hey," she said excitedly, "there's someone who looks just like me!"

Inside Smetana Hall

No matter where we went in Prague, we were tourists among tourists. There wasn't a local in sight. There wasn't a functional shop or amenity in sight. Only streets lined with souvenir shops all selling the same thing, museums of everything imaginable and some things you can't imagine, restaurants boasting touristic menus and "Authentic Czech Cuisine!" everywhere, and McDonalds in almost every street. Even the Communism Museum was up above a McDonalds and behind a casino. And casinos... well, they were everywhere as well.

I just couldn't get over my disappointment about what Prague has become in the past 10, 5, even 3 years. There were men on the street who dogged groups of men on the street at night, for what reason I don't know but they were either selling sex or gambling. As we strolled through Wenceslas Square on our first night there, I couldn't help but sense undercurrent of seediness, and it disturbed me. Capitalists have moved in, and everything is for sale.

Our hotel happened to be out about 4 metro stops form the centre, far enough away to take us out of the tourist orbit. There, we were surrounded by real working class suburbs consisting of old Soviet housing blocks. One evening we walked around a campus of blocks, which I equated to my former Californian school campusus, building blocks with bits of green in between and covered walkways connecting them, and I have to say our stroll through the dusk was lovely. People were strolling slowly with their dogs around their apartment homes amongst the tall trees. And what impressed me most was twofold: there were no cars parked around the buildings as you would expect to see in Ireland (Ireland would be solid cars with nowhere to walk) and there was no outdoor lighting. We wandered past a local bar which was like a soft beacon in the dark. We encountered groups of women strolling with their dogs slowly, chatting cordially together. No one was wary, there was no need to light the place up like a Christmas tree because there were no CCTV cameras recording people doing horrible things to person and property like there is in Ireland.

People in those neighborhoods take the metro to work and, apparently just as they did in the old days, farmers set up stalls at the metro stop and sell vegetables to people on their way home in the evening. "Everyone uses the markets at the metro," someone said, "because everyone uses the metro!" And indeed it was efficient service on both fronts. A train you can count on and a market stall sure to provide you with dinner ingredients! The system there, like any civilized country would have, is an integrated transport system. One 3 day ticket will get you unlimited rides on the metro, the trams and buses, and some of the train services. And it was cheap. And on time.

Overlooking Prague

I love seeing other countries from the air. I love to see how they differ in the way they use their land, in how the houses and villages are arranged, the colour of the rooftops, the shape of the fields. Every place is different. Slovakia's neighbourhoods were scattered across the countryside like strings of bacteria; long, linear strings of houses with long, skinny gardens out the back of each house. Nothing like the concentric arrangements of Italian and German villages. But their roofs were red. The Czech Republic's villages were similar. But it was Prague that impressed me most from the air. It seemed composed of loosely knit apartment blocks with breathing space around them, which were either groups of towers or big house-shaped apartment buildings, and some detached houses. All were surrounded by mature greenery, most had allotments nearby. Trams ran everywhere. The actual living space of Prague (never mind the centre they've given up to tourism) looked like an ideal spot, well integrated into the bohemian countryside. It was beautiful.

We flew home after dark. Upon our approach to Dublin, I couldn't help but observe that it was so brightly lit in the wee hours of the morning compared to Prague that I could see that there is no mature greenery, no trees in fact, and there are cars and detached houses as far as the eye can see. It's a stark contrast to any place else, our Dublin. And not terribly pretty when compared to what it could be with a little more vision, I'm very sorry to say.