I've been meaning to share this story since December, but lacked the time, will and inspiration to do so. Time is ticking, and it’s not in my favour, yet it certainly seems to have an energizing effect, so here I go. J
Taking a long walk around town with my father reminded me of my childhood. We used to do that a lot, covering several miles in an afternoon, so that day in early December was quite a flashback in more ways than one, actually. We set out to look for a shop I had found on-line that sells binoculars. It was a little strange for such a place to be located in the vicinity of what was once the tractor factory, but stranger things have happened, and I was happy to help my father find it. The distance was meagre, but the weather was awful: sleet seemed to linger under a leaden sky, rather then fall from it. I hadn’t seen that neighbourhood for quite some time, and I expected to be surprised by the transformation. Well, I was surprised by the lack of it: blocks of flats from the late 70s, as grey as they were when they first came into existence as the result of some five-year plan, but a bit more dilapidated than they would have been at the height of socialist expansion.
Eventually we came to a small square, with a two-floor concrete building in the center: the commie version of a department store. It used to be one, at least. The windows were broken, the doors were nailed shut, the walls had bullet-holes in them, and pieces of the socialist realist mosaic that once adorned the façade covered the surrounding pavement. It literally looked like the 1989 coup revolution had happened the day before. I don’t remember that, but I do remember the 90s, when lots of buildings still shared this war-torn image. The primitive graffiti clearly defined the time period this capsule had come from: socialism was over, Coke was still a Christmas treat, Nirvana screamed from Russian-made cassette-players and I was finally out of kindergarten. The only thing missing was the thousands of factory workers on strike.
It was strange enough, slightly disturbing even, but more was to come. Having given up on finding the shop, we roamed around a bit. I was surprised to hear that my father had lived here during his school years, before he started work in the hand tools factory. We weren’t on 90s street any more and the air of the 70s was also blocked by a line of trees and a row of older buildings, much friendlier to the eye (but commie nonetheless.) The blocks of flats had roofs, there was some vegetation and a crooked little street lined with small houses. There were no communist posters or banners, and there were a few fancy suvs in the car park, but other than that the place was as it would have have been in the 50s & 60s. The weather certainly added to the effect, and the painted shop signs were totally authentic (and not because the owner was aiming for a vintage look), as was the old man in the overalls riding a rickety old bike. Both he and his bike were from the glory days of this place.
[‘found a picture from the 50s on wikimedia – the basic features are identifiable]
Finally, we decided to walk across town to check out the flea market, like we used to, and ran into some interesting people. More on that later….
