Ex-USSR – bruecken_schlag

In search of more bridges for you, I go through my photo archives again and again (cursing myself for not having started to take decent pictures of bridges much earlier in my travel life), and this week, I found one for you in my Ukraine folder.

This was taken in Яремчe, or Yaremche, in Western Ukraine, five years ago. With everything that’s been going on, I’ve been thinking much about my trip to that beautiful country. As a Slavist (that is, someone who works in a Slavonics department at university), I cannot shake the feeling that most of the people I interact with outside of my work perceive the events in Ukraine to be very far away. They are just two borders away. They are happening in the heart of Europe. I am no expert, and this is not to be a super political post, but media coverage here in Germany is dreadfully one-sided, polemic, and all in all not informative. I am very worried about what is going on.

None of it was to be anticipated (well, certainly not to this degree!) in 2009 – at half time between the Orange Revolution and what is happening now in the realms of Euromajdan. I remember Yaremche, set in the Carpathian mountains and site of a pretty waterfall and cute wooden houses, to be a sleepy, unexcitable little town. Peaceful is the word that comes to mind. When I look at the rusty bannisters, I indulge in the morbid charme that I love so much about so many places in Eastern Europe. All my good thoughts go to Ukraine and its people in their fight for democracy.

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

Granted this picture doesn’t tell you much about where this bridge is or what it is surrounded by. But it illustrates one of my favourite things about bridges: the view you have from them. Last summer, my long trip took me to the three Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Although my friend and I travelled in August, there was no guarantee for sunny weather, and so we visited Latvia’s Gauja National Park, with its enchanted forests and fairytale fortresses made from red brick, in the rain. This is one of the bridges that lead across the river Gauja in the park. It is a simple bridge in not the best of shapes, but standing there looking at the nature around me was magical, as it is to me on almost any bridge.

There were misty views of steaming trees and a very low cloud cover. The river was red – people say it’s not the rust, but healthy minerals, but it looked suspicious to me nonetheless. I wondered if it was always this colour intensive or if the storm that had been through in the night had churned up the clay on the ground. I stood in my travel gear, everything on me that I needed at the time, on a bridge connecting two river banks, looking at all life had to offer me in that moment. I was cold and my jacket was damp because the humidity in the air was so high, it was a bit as though the rain had just stopped and now swayed there midair. And I was happy.

I f you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

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Brückenschläge und Schlagworte

Schlagwort: Ex-USSR

Bridge in Yaremche, Ukraine

Bridge in Gauja National Park, Latvia

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