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Post by pieter on May 21, 2019 11:23:54 GMT -7
Czech RepublicCzech Republic, also called Czechia, country located in central Europe. It comprises the historical provinces of Bohemia and Moravia along with the southern tip of Silesia, collectively often called the Czech Lands. In 2016 the country adopted the name “Czechia” as a shortened, informal name for the Czech Republic.Despite its landlocked location, there were brief periods in the Middle Ages during which Bohemia had access to the Baltic and Adriatic seacoasts—which no doubt was on William Shakespeare’s mind when he set much of his play The Winter’s Tale there. A region of rolling hills and mountains, Bohemia is dominated by the national capital, Prague. Set on the Vltava River, this picturesque city of bridges and spires is the unique work of generations of artists brought in by the rulers of Bohemia. Perhaps only the French are as focused on their capital, Paris, as the Czechs are on theirs; of the two, Prague has a more magical quality for many. Called “the handsomest city of Europe” since the 18th century, it has intoxicated writers, poets, and musicians alike. While Prague was the birthplace of the writer Franz Kafka and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, Brno, Moravia’s largest city, was the site of Gregor Mendel’s groundbreaking genetic experiments in the 19th century and the birthplace of contemporary novelist Milan Kundera. Moravians are as proud of their vineyards and wine as Bohemians are of their breweries and the Pilsner beer that originated in the town of Plzeň (Pilsen), which is also noted as the site of the Škoda Works—a heavy industrial complex that originated with the Habsburg monarchy. Moravia was equally endowed with skilled labour, which helped make Brno into one of the leading industrial towns in textiles and engineering during the 19th century and Ostrava, in the north, into a major coal-mining region, thanks to the vast fossil fuel deposits stretching over from Silesia.History is always close at hand in the Czech Republic, where stunning castles such as Karlštejn (former keep of the royal crown of St. Wenceslas) and manor houses dot the landscape and medieval town centres abound. During its 1,000-year history, the country has changed shape and reshuffled its population. As the kingdom of Bohemia, it reached its zenith of wealth and power during the 13th and 14th centuries. Through a multitude of cultural, economic, ecclesiastical, and dynastic links, Bohemian kings became directly involved in the affairs of the German rulers of the Holy Roman Empire and opened the country to German colonization, which brought prosperity through silver mining and rapid urbanization. Prague, with the oldest university north of the Alps (Charles University, 1348), functioned as a royal and imperial capital. However, German colonization, which soon accounted for one-third of the total population and disadvantaged the majority Czechs, brought the seeds of discontent, resulting in an ugly, insolvable conflict in the 20th century. In the early 15th century Bohemia witnessed the Hussite revolution, a pre-Reformation movement named for Jan Hus, a follower of the English theologian and reformer John Wycliffe. Religious antagonism prevailed over ethnic tensions when Czechs and Germans jointly led the Protestant uprising that started the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) against the Catholic Habsburgs, the Austro-German dynasty that ruled Bohemia from 1526 to 1918. After the Habsburg victory, the German language replaced Czech for almost two centuries—until the Czechs experienced an extraordinary linguistic and cultural revival that coincided with the revolutions of 1848 and the spread of industrialization. In historian František Palacký and composers such as Bedřich Smetana and Antonín Dvořák, Czech nationalism found its ideal spokesmen.The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I brought the Czechs and Slovaks together for the first time as “Czechoslovaks.” The Czechs became the ruling ethnic group in Czechoslovakia, a new state in which Germans and Hungarians lived as unwilling citizens, bound to become disloyal minorities bent on undermining the democratic constitution engendered by the country’s founders, Tomáš G. Masaryk and Edvard Beneš. Many among this German population turned into Nazi sympathizers with the ascent to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany, whose design on the German-speaking border region of Czechoslovakia was appeased by England and France in the Munich Agreement of September 1938. Emasculated, Czechoslovakia succumbed to direct German invasion six months later. Bohemia and Moravia became a protectorate of the “Greater German Empire,” while Slovakia—whose Hungarian districts were ceded to Hungary—was induced by Hitler to proclaim its independence.Tomáš G. Masaryk and Edvard Beneš in Czechoslovakia in 1935Czech composer Antonín DvořákAfter six years of brutal Nazi occupation (with its legacy of the Holocaust and the postwar mass expulsion of some three million Bohemian and Slovak [Carpathian] Germans), Czechoslovakia was reconstituted, this time without Ruthenia (Transcarpathian Ukraine), which was annexed by the Soviet Union. A communist coup in February 1948 sealed Czechoslovakia’s fate as a member of the Soviet bloc for the entire Cold War—though briefly, in the Prague Spring of 1968, a reform movement took over, only to be crushed by Soviet military invasion in August of that year. Still, that experience of freedom produced an underground dissident movement, later called Charter 77, whose leader, playwright Václav Havel, was propelled from prison to the royal castle, becoming the first president of postcommunist Czechoslovakia with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.Reinhard Heydrich was ambushed by a team of Czech and Slovak agents who had been sent by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile to kill the Reich-Protector; the team was trained by the British Special Operations Executive.Members of the Czechoslovakian dissident movement Charter 77The last modification of the modern Czech nation-state was inaugurated on January 1, 1993, when the union with Slovakia was dissolved. As the Czech Republic, the new country joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1999 and the European Union (EU) in 2004.The President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman
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Post by pieter on May 21, 2019 11:57:21 GMT -7
Dear Kai,
Interesting description of Charles Augustus Stoddart travel in 1892 trough the Carpatian mountains of Poland, Slovakia (back then Hungary) and Hungary. Some descriptions of him back then today would be considered to be anti-semitic. I read similar descriptions of jews and other people by old Dutch and other European writers, who had an habbit to put ethnical, racial, cultural, social-economical (milieu), and specific exterior descriptions of people and places in their novels, travel reports and opinions. In that time it was perfectly to be anti-semitic, racist or talk about deviant cunning exotic easterners, shrewd Arabs, dominant Turks, smart Armenians, fierce Kurds, slav serfs (peasents who were owned by their landlords, the Magnates and schlachta).
In the Netherlands I read old colonial youth literature and adult literature. The descriptions of diverse ethnic groups, races and social classes in the colonial Dutch empire back then would be labeled racist today. I read about cunning, unreliable, sneaky Javanese (Indonesians), who never look you into the eye, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other Eastern asians were called grinning Gook or chink. Black people were portrayed as primitive, obedient, childish, less developed and etc. The same I thought when I read the quite offensive paragraph:
"244 We had lost sight of the Polish Jews, whose cork screw curls, high caps, and filthy gaberdines had haunted us at Warsaw and Cracow. The last link was broken when we crossed the frontier, and an old fellow with a beard like Abraham, and the shrewdness of Jacob at a bargain, perambulated the railway platform with a handful of paper money of the country which he was offering to exchange for English sovereigns with the premium all upon the side of his dirty Austrian bills, while it ought to have been just the other way. Travellers are made to be plundered by money-changers, however, and we furnished our share to the greedy Jew."
Those were different times, and most people who were different than the Germanic, Slavic, Hungarian, Baltic, Latin (Romanesque) and Celtic background were looked on with some suspicion, superiority feelings [from these Europeans and the Americans with a white European heritage], and Colonialist, Imperialist (Imperial), Monarchist, reactionary conservative, ethnocentric, theosophical, white christian (superiority), Nationalist, regionalist, isolationalist, xenophobic, racist and anti-semitic views. And it was general accepted back then. Even by some people with internalized racism, like converted jews, assimilated jews, and ethnic people from the Asian and African European colonies who had a higher position in the colonial rule.
The travel report of Charles Augustus Stoddart is a trypical 19th century travel report in a Poland which was still partitioned between Prussia, the Austrian Habsburg empire and Czarist Russia. And Slovakia which was Hungarian or Austrian back then?
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by kaima on May 21, 2019 12:18:59 GMT -7
Dear Kai, Interesting description of Charles Augustus Stoddart travel in 1892 trough the Carpatian mountains of Poland, Slovakia (back then Hungary) and Hungary. Some descriptions of him back then today would be considered to be anti-semitic. I read similar descriptions of jews and other people by old Dutch and other European writers, who had an habbit to put ethnical, racial, cultural, social-economical (milieu), and specific exterior descriptions of people and places in their novels, travel reports and opinions. In that time it was perfectly to be anti-semitic, racist or talk about deviant cunning exotic easterners, shrewd Arabs, dominant Turks, smart Armenians, fierce Kurds, slav serfs (peasents who were owned by their landlords, the Magnates and schlachta). Cheers, Pieter Oh yes, Pieter, the slanders and insults were quite common in the old writings. It reflects the times and the standards of today in which we see things and peoples differently. Perhaps. With a resurgence of the Right it seems that insults and racism is once again free to be expressed in public, if not yet put into practice. It is easy to read strong racism in our current US president with his comments about Latinos, specifically Mexicans, the neglect and lack of sympathy for the US citizens who are Puerto Rican, and any number of other insults and comments. There is also the silent neglect and lack of empathy for these groups that is so readily extended to 'white' or 'nordic' groups. This is certainly not based on performance or merit, as shown by life accomplishments of the individuals. The anti-Semitism was rampant in the world back then and raged through WWII. It has been quiet and subtle since then, though it seems the pot is beginning to boil again. In America we face the quandary of how to present the writings of Mark Twain, as perhaps the most famous example, as he uses the "N" word in his writings, well out of acceptability today, though this topic is complicated by Black rappers using it to excess and whites being totally forbidden from its use. It is a word I grew up with but I am happy to leave behind. I have a scan of a 1950's advertising leaflet from a Jewish business I will try to locate and send to you privately. It is Jewish or Yiddish humor, very well done for the time, but again it would be out of place today. It is a play on a check printed for a Jewish business in broken Yiddish-English playing on many Jewish stereotypes, but again it was produced by a Jewish business, and was the humor of the time, not insulting. P.S. QUITE NOTABLE - in reading these travelogues we quite often get to know the individual writer quite well and the value systems they reflect. I have seen this with old time writers who hate this group or that; love this group or that; and the bad guys are always filthy, ignorant and lazy, while the good guys have only sterling virtues, never anything negative. This extends to reflecting religious prejudices as well, between the various Christian sects.
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Post by pieter on May 21, 2019 17:01:58 GMT -7
Dear Kiama,
Slanders and insults were quite common in the old writings in Europe and the USA. But today these old habits return on Social media, in certain vulgar tabloids and populist media and in the uncensored street talks of people. Today I hear people saying things in the Netherlands they didn't dare to say in the seventies, eighties or nineties. For some of the things they say today, they would have ended up in court in those past days, or spend jail time for. Insults, mocking, verbal attacks, smear campaigns, vulgar stereotypes, racial connotations, superiority and inferiority feelings, xenophobic remarks. The times are changing and they seem to change back to the late 19th century or the early 20th century, before racial segregation, colonialism and inequality were abolished or diminished.
About the Jewish or Yiddish humor. The same harsh, blunt or rough humor I hear ethnic minorities make about themselves. A lot of groups have what they call 'internalised racism'. Moroccans I heard telling degratory jokes about Moroccans amongst themselves. At a Moroccan sportsclub where I made a movie Moroccans made a joke about a Moroccan kid who was late for sportsclass; "Mo is late, typically Moroccan." Black people of Surinamese and Dutch Antillian background make jokes about Blacks, jews have their jewish jokes, and people with a Central- or Eastern-Euroepan background make jokes about stereotypes of Central- and Eastern-Europeans.
The French writer, pamphleteer and physician Louis-Ferdinand Céline (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961) was an excellent novellist who developed a new style of writing that modernized French literature. But Céline's vocal support for the Axis powers during the Second World War and his authorship of antisemitic and pro-fascist pamphlets has complicated his legacy as cultural icon. His most famous work is the 1932 novel, Journey to the End of the Night. The American geographer James Morris Blaut referred to the German sociologist Max Weber as "the godfather of cultural racism" because he provided later "social scientists with a theory of modernization, essentially an elegant and scholarly restatement of colonial-era ideas about the uniqueness of European rationality and the uniqueness of European culture history."
Dutch writers like Willem Frederik Hermans and Gerard Reve were controversial writers in the second half of the 20th century.
In 1975, Gerard Reve appeared at a Dutch poetry festival, wearing (among other things, a crucifix and peace symbol) a swastika as well as a hammer and sickle on his clothes, and read a poem that spoke of immigration in racist terms, though stressing cultural differences and using zwart (black) rather than neger/nikker (negro/black person), in a solemn language that insulted many people, especially Afro-Surinamese, many of whom had arrived recently on the eve of the decolonization of Surinam that was to take place in November 1975.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on May 22, 2019 7:55:11 GMT -7
Jaga/Kaima,
Maybe it would be easier if the Polish Forumn is centered around Central-Europe in the sense of Poland and it's neighbour countries. Starting with the Western-Slavic, nations, but not excluding Eastern-Slav and Southern-Slav peoples, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian and Baltic people. It is hard for outsiders (a lof of us over here are no ethnic Poles from the Polish Diaspora or Poles from Poland) to find good Polish news, good images (photographs) and good subjects about Poland. That is why I am fond of Bonobo's Polish culture Forum, because it has a lot of Polish content.
Over here it is more difficult, because Kai, John, Jeanne, Karl, Pieter and Eric are not Poles.
Cheers, Pieter Your posts are very interesting Pieter. I consider myself an American of Polish Descent. My mothers side of the family originates from a village just outside of Grodno, Belarus. She mentioned that sometimes it was in Poland and sometimes it was in Russia. A floating border line I presume. And she spoke Russian and Polish. On my fathers side his family originates from Ćwiklin and it is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Płońsk, within Płońsk County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It lies approximately 5 kilometres north-west of Płońsk and 67 km north-west of Warsaw. The genealogical records for my father's family are mostly in Cyrilic Russian Script and the church records sometimes are from Prussian churches in the region.
So Russian cyrilic script and Prussian documents are a task to over come. But we are progressing. Up to great great grandparents already. In the DNA research and connections there are many Russian and German names listed.
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Post by pieter on May 22, 2019 8:58:56 GMT -7
John,
I heard that the Mormons have a sort of Genealogical archives of mankind in a underground warehouse in a mountain in Utah somewhere. Maybe they could help you. There are probably also Russian speaking Mormons? Maybe you can find a connection to Russian speaking Poles in Poland or Belarus? It is good to hear that you are progressing, and maybe the world wide web, social media and world wide telephone connections make things easier for you than in the past.
My problem is that my mother is old and I fear that I might lose a lot of 'Polish connection' when she dies. Because my mother is a walking Polish encyclopedia, social netwrok, family archive and thus a Polish connection for me. When she dies, my sister and I will be just Dutch people with some Polish heritage, but no language nor cultural connection. Because everything stands and falls with language. Most of the Polish family has died and I only have one cousin in Poland and 2 Polish American cousins in Illinois and Wisconsin.
Hundreds and thousands of miles separate me from these cousins. Poland for me is on a European linguistic, cultural and ethnic border between the Germanic and Slavic worlds of Europe. I live in a Dutch-German-English reality in a corner of Europe with Dutch, Belgian, German and English people and French and Danish people nearby in a West-European heritage.
There is not only a cultural and linguistic barrier, but also the heritage of West vs Central/East in Europe in the sense that Poland had a long period of less democratic rule and opression (1926-1989) if I may ad the Sanacja regime (1926-1939) to the Nazi and Sovjet occupations between 1939 and 1945 and the Communist era 1945-1989. There are a lot of differences, but also similarities. Christian heritage and culture, European identity, trade (import & export), cultural, educational, diplomatic (bilateral and multilateral) and political relations. I am just being honest over here. I can say I am 50% of Polish blood, but I am not 50% Polish in the linguistic, cultural and political sense, unfortunately.
I feel the distance and the difference between me and people over here in Europe and the USA with 2 Polish parents and a Polish speaking household.
I always have to make an effort to connect to Poland, because Poland or Poles won't connect to me by themselves. Which is logical, because they don't know me.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by Jaga on May 25, 2019 23:07:04 GMT -7
Slovakia was occupied or ruled by Hungarian aristicrats for a long time, so local people there had no chance to develop their own identity. Bratislava is probably the least interesting from neigboring towns: Vienna, Praque, Budapest, Krakow. But there are several beautiful town in Slovakia worth to visit like Nitra or Trnawa. Pieter suggested that I found more info about neighboring countries. I will try
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Post by pieter on May 28, 2019 16:35:27 GMT -7
Jaga,
Slovakia is a Central-European country. The Finno-Ougrien tribes of the Magyars (Hungarians), who, after the break-up of the Slav empire, occupied the plains between the Tisa river and the Danube, progressively imposed their authority on the Slav tribes located nearby. At the same time, they began to adopt the life style of the Slavs. Thus, they built cities, got involved in agriculture and the trades, practiced the Christian religion and organized themselves into a State. After the fall of Great Moravia the Old Hungarian tribes invaded the territory of Slovakia. The territory of Slovakia with its inhabitants became part of the Kingdom of Hungary for about a thousand years. The vibrant Middle Ages in Slovakia (especially from the 14th century) saw the construction and ongoing refurbishment of many outstanding castles and several notable cathedrals.
Hungarian kings provided trading privileges and other incentives to settlers from Germany, attracted by the region’s rich mines of gold, silver and other metals. This explains the very Germanic appearance of many towns, such as Levoča, Kežmarok, Bardejov and others.
From the perspective of the Slovak nation, the crucial period in their history was the 19th century when the Slovaks formulated their own political programme for the first time. The promising development of the national movement though, was mutilated by the Austrian-Hungarian Compromise signed in 1867, when the dual monarchy of Austro-Hungary was established and Slovakia became a part of Hungary, often considered “Northern Hungary.” The following period of Magyarisation lasted 50 years. Only the First World War activated the anti-Austrian-Hungarian resistance, which culminated in 1918 by the declaration on the joining of the Slovak nation with the Czech nation into a whole – the Czecho-Slovak Republic.
Today most people in Europe live in their own country, regions with their own identity have some sort of cultural autonomy and minority rights are respected. Surpirisingly the Slovaks choose the progressive Zuzana Čaputová as their next president. She will take office on 15 June 2019. The Social Democratic prime minister Peter Pellegrini leads the government. His center left Direction – Social Democracy (Slovak: Smer – sociálna demokracia, Smer – SD) party is Social democratic, Social conservative, Left-wing nationalist, Left-wing populist, Anti-immigration and Pro-European. It differs from it's West-European counter parts which are less nationalistic, populist and anti-immigration.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by Jaga on May 28, 2019 22:53:54 GMT -7
Pieter, thanks for doing such a good work on Slovakia. I used to think about all countries as having strong nationalistic feelings, but Poland was big enough to develop it, Slovakia just needed more time. I understand why Slovaks do not like Hungary that much, probably like Czechs have difficult relationship with Germans.
We visited our Slovak friends for a month when I was in the High School, that means in 70s. They were for split with Czechs. They were stating that their economical development is helped by Czechs, but they just don't feel the cultural ties.... I guess, I understand now better, why Slovakia and Czechs are actually quite different culturally due to their different history.
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Post by kaima on May 29, 2019 2:20:53 GMT -7
Central Europe? Poland? Here is an article that describes a hike along the Polish-Slovak border, most of which I hiked about 6 years ago. More of a challenge than the hike was preparation with languages and orientation, Polish, Slovak, specialized vocabulary that didn't always match the signs in the mountains (just like language classes that teach 'weather' vocabulary that does not match the words used in the broadcast on TV or radio ....) and orientation - easy enough to keep heading east, unless you step off the side of the mountain and come back to the ridge disoriented, which I did once despite my Alaska experience. That is where the button compass comes in handy, in city or trees or cloudy days. Water sources were better shown on the Polish maps, but none were fully accurate, and in the hot summer of 2013 with the Sahara wind in August, a dismaying number of springs were dry. Compensating for that was the purity of the water high on the mountain crest! So from www.idnes.cz/cestovani/rady-na-cestu/dukla-kremenc-pochod-dukelsky-prusmyk-slovensko-ukrajina-polsko-trojmezi.A190403_112114_kolem-sveta_higA hundred kilometers on foot by alone in Slovakia will make you contemplateMay 14, 2019 , updated May 15 9:50 AM The transition between the Dukla Pass and the Kremenec Mountain, Slovakia's easternmost point, is almost exactly one hundred kilometers long. At the beginning you will be greeted by an optimistic tourist sign indicating that you will be able to reach the distance in 37.5 hours. And that is a lot of hours in Slovak nature that are worth it. Zdroj: www.idnes.cz/cestovani/rady-na-cestu/dukla-kremenc-pochod-dukelsky-prusmyk-slovensko-ukrajina-polsko-trojmezi.A190403_112114_kolem-sveta_hig www.idnes.cz/cestovani/rady-na-cestu/dukla-kremenc-pochod-dukelsky-prusmyk-slovensko-ukrajina-polsko-trojmezi.A190403_112114_kolem-sveta_hig/fotoThe backbone red tourist trail winds along its entire length along the Slovak-Polish border with typical border stones, which in many places replace the signs. It is often necessary, because marking is very bad or missing. It is a really remote area. The direct bus from Prešov runs only one, while buying a ticket, the driver was sincerely curious about what we intend to do at the Dukla state crossing. We were also the only ones who got off the bus. There is no infrastructure or refreshment available on the Slovak side, the museum has been closed. Although we spent the whole morning at the memorial and in the surrounding area, we never met anyone. Right at the beginning of the road near the Dukla Pass we managed to get lost. It's basically admirable because you only need to "follow" the signage, the beaten path or the bollards and walk along the ridge. Nevertheless, after three hours of wandering, we reached the village of Nizny Komarnik, from where we boarded again. We did not regret, the reality of a remote Slovak mountain village was unique. The store was open, the beer in the bottle cost one euro (27 CZK) and we were an attraction for the local children. For the next two days, they were the only people we saw. Passage through the war The area between the Dukla Pass and the Bukovské Hills offers an unprecedented feeling of loneliness. Even in the highest season, there is a minimum of tourists. This is due to the remoteness of the place, but also to the fundamental problem of this part of the mountains, the absence of available drinking water. The well is not enough, the existing ones have a very weak spring or they are strained and often very difficult to get straight and dry. Due to the length of the transition it is necessary to carry large water supplies with you. The Dukla Pass, where we started our march, is an important point in Czechoslovak history. The warlike operation of World War II cost the lives of thousands of people; The fights also left other evidence than a gloomy atmosphere and a hard-to-describe impression of emptiness. The neighborhood is popular for "treasure hunters" with metal detectors. Some of them leave less interesting findings right on the roads or on the footsteps. You can hit grenades, metal gear, badges or cartridges. The area was heavily mined and engineers removed mines long after the war. But fighting in this region was not only in the Second War, but even earlier. In a surprisingly close proximity there is a series of military cemeteries. During World War I, the area formed the so-called Galician Front, where units of Tsarist Russia and Austro-Hungarian soldiers fought against each other. Cemeteries near the main ridge are beautifully maintained, often with additional information. For himself The first part of the crossing leads through the Protected Landscape Area of the Eastern Carpathians, which is characterized by the impenetrability of forests and a ridge with sharply sloping cliffs on both sides. Though the sun was shining and there was great warmth, in such deep forests you are always in darkness and relative shade. On the contrary, when it started to rain, the forest absorbs most of the moisture. There are also warnings about bears, and meeting them is not uncommon. Although the path winds essentially along the ridge, it rarely happens that it offers views of the Polish or Slovak part of the territory. The dense forest, predominantly deciduous, keeps certain darkness throughout the day. Even the darkness falls here logically earlier. The terrain is not demanding in tourism, but there is a lot of elevation. Fascinating is the opportunity to go all day, maybe twenty kilometers, and listen to the sounds of the forest. The silence and remoteness of the place has a beneficial effect on the soul of every tourist. Nothing undisturbed beautiful forest landscape, higher altitude and also unsustainable hiking trail gives a feeling of total absence of civilization. The necessity to carry everything with you, food, water, tent, clothing and the subsequent abandonment in the middle of the dark forests invites you to think about serious topics. Essentially, there was an absolute simplification of our needs, and the need for food and drink prevailed. We planned the transitions where the spring could be found, so we bought a new detailed tourist map. We had four liters of water with us, which we thought was a sufficient supply. However, the labeled "waterworks" in front of the Laboreck pass was inaccessible and subsequently the well marked dry. We searched around for a long time, the stagnant water of the small pools in the valley did not provide much optimism. Therefore, we traveled for the next half of the day in thirst (and also a little stressed) to find water in a completely different place than the map showed. It's not just water. With the only exception of the Labore Pass, the whole section is inaccessible to the car, with virtually no tourist infrastructure, accommodation and refreshment available. As a completely emergency it is possible to take tourist cottages (some sizes of sheds for a large dog), which are located in the area about 15 km. Very often they are destroyed or polluted, or used instead of toilets. Around the railway to the Russian Saddle Deep below the ridge on the Slovak side is Medzilaborce, the birthplace of Andy Warhol, where you can visit the museum of this genius of self-presentation and pop-art. There is only one road from the city going north to Poland and the railway. The present Lupkov tunnel, 416 meters long, is definitely worth seeing (we wrote here: Well there has already been. Bizarre world around the Lupkov tunnel ). At the border of the Balnica border, which is 20 kilometers from the tunnel, the narrow-gauge track (Bieszczadzka kolejka leśna) is located on the Polish side of the building. Balnica was the only place to buy something over a hundred-kilometer route. The road continues along the contour line to the place called the Russian Saddle. In the second war, the only border crossing between Hungary and the General Gouvernet (part of Poland). The Rusyn saddle (Rusky Sedlo) forms a certain transition between the Low Beskids and the Bukovské Hills. The dense forest begins to recede to the outlook and the hills reach the threshold of one thousand meters. The nature of the landscape is different, the sharp short ascents replace the long ascents with free plains. <ed. note, the geology is different as well> Final plan changeThe final section of the transition to Kremenec is relatively demanding due to the large amount of climb and descent to the individual hills (such as Plaša, Ďurkovec or Čierěž). The surroundings begin to resemble typical Ukrainian poloniny. Kremenec lies at 1,221 meters above sea level and forms the easternmost point of Slovakia and a border between Poland, Ukraine and Slovakia. There is a mound and memorial plaque on top. There is almost no view from the top. Kremenec is a natural tourist center of the Poloniny National Park. It includes the Stužica UNESCO World Heritage Site. We were lucky because the only local well was poor, but at least it wasn't dry. The highest peak of the area is Wielka Rawka (1,304 m), a red mark on the Ukrainian part of the territory, which copies the former borders of the Czechoslovak Republic. Our original goal was to continue the journey to Ukraine and we did not take the warning of the few Polish tourists we missed. Subsequently, we met a Polish border guard on an off-road motorbike who did not strongly recommend this fact. We would probably be able to go to the Ukrainian territory, but we should have problems when returning, because the entry stamp would be missing in the passport. Ukraine is not in the Schengen area and the customs officer has described us colorfully what would have expected us in Uzhgorod for "adventure" with the police. After all, we decided to change the plan. Together with groups of tourists we descended to Nova Sedlice, where the headquarters of the National Park, but also basic infrastructure, restaurants, guest houses and a bus stop. After the disused military road from Ulič we reached along the border to the Ubľa - Berezivyj crossing. On the twenty-kilometer road we were once again completely lonely. Just before the border the Slovak border guards stopped us in the off road and we were very thoroughly illustrated. The transition between Dukla and Kremenc has a unique experience for a Czech tourist. It is very easy for you not to meet anyone all day. The transition is a minimum of four days and you have to carry everything with you. The area is characterized by its minimal light smog. There is a problem with the cell phone signal for much of the trip. On the other hand, the whole of the above-described basis is a wonderful combination of harsh nature, utterly secluded corners and encounters with many historically significant places.
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