The Cellist Playing Hope

'An insight into a devastating reality of the war' or 'The hopeless, frightened and emotionally ruined in Sarajevo' could be just a few of the many phrases used for describing the plot of Steven Galloway's 'The Cellist of Sarajevo' (2008). The story evolves around the daily lives and thoughts of three characters during the recent Balkan war (the siege of Sarajevo particularly that took place from 5th April 1992 till 29th February 1996): a lady-sniper named Arrow, a young defender of the city, and two civilians, Kenan and Dragan, a former financial director and a bakery employee. Although there is around 20 years age difference between the two men, the reader can easily realize that it does not play any difference in experiencing the fear of being shot, being exposed as a target for a bullet every time crossing an intersection just to get to the other side of the river for whichever purposes, being tired, aging in no-time and asking existential questions to themselves such as how painful is to die and how does it feel when you're shot, and why some people die and some don't. It somewhat creates flashbacks to E.M. Remarque's 'All Quiet on the Western Front' (1929) and makes you angry about how somebody in power has decided for the whole nation to suffer, obviously against their will. And there is the Cellist, also an ordinary man whose dreams and Sarajevo like it was before the war were also broken down like everyone else's. The Cellist plays. He plays hope. A hope for a change after witnessing one of the many daily realities of wartime Sarajevo, an event that took lives of 22 people on an ordinary wartime morning standing in a cue to get some bread... 'It screamed downward, splitting air and sky without effort. A target expanded in size, brought into focus by time and velocity. There was a moment before impact that was the last instant of things as they were. Then the visible world exploded...'

Thinking piece on Understanding of Modern Political Challenges

 © Marta Podniece

The Earth is round? Right? That is the universal truth we all tend to believe, because there has never been any discussion about it in the past few centuries or possibly no political campaign has found it an attractive reason to make people believe it will change something for them. Let’s face it - we are egoists. Many things have been happening on this round ball called Earth, especially in political matters. It’s easy to see the point of one individual by just hearing him commenting on the news, while reading an analytic piece on the second page of the daily newspaper every morning. This is a habit. And politics is a habit as well. Politics of a particular newspaper, which include choices on exactly which activities will be commented on on the second page of the paper. Sensations? Surprises? Money laundry? Politicians involved in the international scandals? Yes, please! We want it! We want a theme to talk about during the lunch break! We want a theme that we can be smart about! And here we go...

The World On a Day Before Yesterday: A Global Image of 14th March 2012

Guardian, India; Parivartan Sharma/REUTERS

Once I prepared a workshop for young people on the theme of stereotypes and I used visual data of online media [to be precise - I used photo galleries posted on different news sites under the name "Photos of the Day" as a data set], as a source that represents different countries and influences different reading audiences on their opinions about the world here and now. It's undoubtedly a free space for stereotyping and identifying global players in the global politics, but from other perspectives such a gallery of the day reveals a lot more information about what is important for different nations - individualism versus collective consciousness, traditions, culture, the life quality and life priorities, the importance of time and status, money and wealth, and if you're just a reader of a particular media, such visual interpretations even unconsciously influence your view about the world, as according to S.Sontag or any non-expert in photography - "we tend to trust that the image is showing the truth as  in the reality we don't have enough time to travel and check it "... so therefore I wanted to check: How the world looks like on 14th March 2012?

Let the Party Begin... Carnival Days in the Netherlands.

It's great to realize that the carnival tradition in the Netherlands is treated as something very usual and a way to create yourself a little celebration in the middle of February by participating in such a massive activity. Yes, in the Netherlands it was really a celebration weekend. In total four days of parading and partying. One of the most famous carnivals in the Netherlands is held in Limburg area, particularly in Maastricht, but other towns and cities are as impressive with their carnival shows. Though it is said that in the North of the country the carnival is not so popular [well, they don't know what they are missing though]. However, I'm in the sort of South and I had a chance to experience two local parades - one in a medium-size village Horssen, and other in a small town Druten, which is nearby.

Kathy Bee - A Collector's Tale

Kathy Bee in her own creation. Hostel in Belgrade, Serbia

What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear a term "Knitting"? I guess your thought flies not far from boring stuff that only our grandmothers tend to do in a big love to their grandchildren, caring how to keep them warm in cold winters by making a cute pair of gloves or socks. But it's not so easy. There's definitely much more to see in this as old-fashioned perceived hobby. There’s actually a huge industry hidden behind it. The world of knitting and textile - we see it everyday on the urban catwalks [especially in Serbia], but we never really dig in deep how actually the production process of creation of new materials and fulfilment of crazy ideas is happening.

I give myself a chance to dive in deep into the curiosities of textile world and speak with a brand new textile engineer Katharina Bredlich. She's just 24, freshly graduated from North-Rhine University of Applied Sciences [Germany], holding a Bachelor’s degree in textile engineering. We meet in Belgrade, and it's a place, where she did her internship in a knitting company “IVKO” [http://www.ivko-knits.com/en/ - by the way, the promo video is quite impressive] and where she got a job offer to continue her life-long learning experience adding to it a few extra years in the management of textile world...

Summer 2011: Exit Festival, Hostelworld of Belgrade and Other Things

Festival's Tent 'City' in Novi Sad

I've been kind of busy these days and this summer in general. The Internet connection was pretty limited, or better say limited for a long-term private use. Currently I live in a hostel among other people and I have no space or feeling of writing more than 140 signs on Twitter occasionally. So how is it going here so far? 

Here are some flashlights from the summer 2011. Firstly, upon my arrival here I did some volunteering at Exit Festival in Novi Sad. The whole festival experience was pretty new to me  as I never was on a music festival before. This experience included meeting masses of drunk and happy people, waking up every morning in a field of tents, swearing on the sun for being so hot (45 C is not something what can be enjoyed for an unlimited period of time), accidentally meeting current EVS volunteers in Novi Sad, lying on the beach and doing nothing (which kind of annoyed me, but there were not many other options available during the day) and enjoying great music at night (Jamiroquai, Editors, Portishead playing live on Exit this year). I also enjoyed being among the volunteers on the Silent Disco stage that made me feel like being a part of the festival organizing team. However, after being seven days in the nature and at full disposal to the sun I decided to move on to Belgrade.

Hitch-hiking Back to Balkans. Day Three. Bits of Czech Republic.

Ostrava, Czech Republic 2011

The morning starts just right after 6 AM. We’re having the last coffee together this summer. I have no doubt there will be more, as Europe appears more and more to be an extremely small village, where everything and everyone is connected. Agnieszka makes me sandwiches for the long way, as with hitch-hiking you never know where and when you’ll exactly end your day, as she says, though my destination is clear for today - Ostrava, where Adam is expecting me, so we can continue our journey to Balkans together tomorrow.

We take a tram from Agnieszka’s place (she actually lives quite close to the Old town - at least you can see Wawel Castle on the other side of the bridge, when you come out on the busy street) and get off at the main bus station. We go to the platforms, looking for my bus, or actually the bus, which I’m not taking to Katowice. We wait for the passengers to come, as it’s almost the departure time. We don’t know yet, if our idea of selling the ticket on the bus will work - as everyone appears to have a previously purchased ticket. But we’re lucky - just 1,5 minutes before the bus should leave appears a guy, who is in a complete rush, trying to manage to get on the bus, so that it’s not leaving without him. Agnieszka asks the guy in Polish, whether he needs a bus ticket to Katowice and luckily he really does! He gives Agnieszka 10 Polish Zlots in cash and he’s gone with the wind and the bus. We’re happy to have some benefit out of this morning’s bargain activity, and moreover Agnieszka admits that it was her first time selling the ticket on the bus. Yeah, there always comes the first time for something.

Hitch-hiking Back to Balkans. Day Two. Krakow.

Familiar places with Familiar Faces in Krakow: Agnieszka and Tomas!

Krakow's pride: Medieval Wawel Castle

It’s 7:15 AM and feels a bit weird to be such an early guest, and I am a bit disappointed that I found the house with number 70 so fast and easy. That means I’ll have to wake her up and the whole house too! I sit on a pedestrian sidewalk in front of the house and pay a long observing stare to the house. It's a relatively huge two-storey building that has been build in pre-Soviet era and has survived till this day. It looks pretty unique in this urbanized blockhouse paradise (i.e. neighborhood) built already in Soviet times. Meanwhile I text Agnieszka without a hope that she'll reply immediately, since she's a night-bird like me and this part of the day doesn't really exist for her. To my amazement, she comes out of this beautiful two-storey pre-Soviet building in less that 5 minutes. 

Hitch-hiking Back to Balkans. Day One. Bye Riga!

Hungary, 6 km away from Serbian border

Here I've gathered bit some pieces from my journey to Serbia at the end of June 2011. Although my final destination was Serbia, beside exploring the road stories and people I met on the way in Lithuania, Poland, Hungary and Serbia itself, I also managed to go a bit further to Macedonia, which was my EVS (European Voluntary Service) country in 2009/2010. Each blog post on this journey (with a label Back to Balkans 2011) presents one day on the road and all the details I've managed to grasp on the way in form of people I've met, thoughts I had and sometimes silly experiences that I got myself into. The journey started in my home country Latvia on 23rd June 2011.

Urban Stories: A Fairy in a Bluish Purple Smock

© Marta Podniece 'Autumn in Riga'

She starts her day always the same way: by sweeping yellow leaves into bigger and smaller piles, swearing on guys that throw cigarette butts on the ground instead of throwing them in the bin and she's always there - welcoming random people on their way to work, being a psychotherapist while listening to the petulant stories of grannies of how much the old bones hurt and that the medicine has become way too expensive, greeting the postman who's trying to enter the blockhouse but apparently forgotten the entry code as he stays at the front too long, probably thinking. This everyday ritual hasn't changed at all, at least for the last 20 years. It might be very possible that the prisoners inhabiting the cells of this Blockhouse Paradise have changed, the kids of them have already grown up, but she's still there - sweeping the streets and washing the stairways of the blockhouse with chlorine (so the smell is worse than in a public swimming pool). So invisible and at the same time regular she is. She's like a thing that belongs to this particular Blockhouse Paradise, even more than the actual prisoners of the inhabited cells. She's like a clock of existence. She's like a painting on a wall in a famous museum (which is admired through the centuries, yet nobody cares to bother, as long as it is there and nobody has taken it away). She is an icon of this live Museum of Cells, where behind the closed doors people tend to quarrel, love, cook dinners and oversleep working hours. It seems to be a way of being a part of a randomly formed social group, though unintentionally.

Her bluish purple smock does not change colors either (color of royalty, wealth and wisdom) as the years pass by and it is an integral part of this urban museum icon, of her being. And her face is a face of an angel in a Forgotten World filled with degenerates, drug addicts, young families and old couples, homeless cats and sometimes dogs, living inside or nearby this particular Blockhouse Paradise, living in a space that has no signs of high culture, with not a single building that would evoke high appreciation or amazement, not a single positive vibe around... maybe that's why these districts are called the 'sleeping' residential complexes... and there are many of them, having many of these urban fairies in bluish purple smocks sweeping around the magic dust.

Prague Airport: The Smells and Love Stories

© Marta Podniece 'Prague Airport'

I'm traveling in memories. In memories of the best study times of 2008 that happened to be in Prague. I would love to see more than just the Airport but the time is limited. 

Czech language sounds as usually soft even it's told to be completely opposite of soft. However, this time I can hardly understand what people are talking about.

I love airports. I love those masses of people passing each other, searching either their gates or the right perfumes in duty-free shops, carrying luggage of different sizes and colors. So many contrasts at one spot, in this multi-cultural mass of business men with elegant suitcases, mums worryingly dragging their kids to WCs, beautiful strangers that you fall-in and out of love as fast as the gate-ways are rolling and what a pity - you're heading in a different direction, smoking prohibitions, innovations on advertising boards and all around, bored baristas in small coffee worlds situated tightly next to each other, people communicating in all possible languages of the world or being silent and thinking great thoughts. There's something magical on this tiny spot of a land known as the Airport, the spot which almost never disappoints you and fulfills your hope of flying, flying artificially though.