Dying to speak

I've just finished reading a book about the European revolutions of 1989, when Communist regimes crumbled one after one in Eastern and central Europe. I lived through that period, albeit in a Western democracy, and the account revived memories. As a History graduate, it struck me very strongly that nothing like this had happened anywhere since the European revolutions of 1848, which were spread by railways above all else (and those of 1989 by TV and radio, while the "Arab Spring" was hugely influenced by the internet. The 1848 revolutionaries' successes were mostly very short-lived. While many of the new governments ran into trouble and people became disillusioned, none of the countries involved have returned to anything like the old system and in all of them except Romania democracy seems reasonably secure.

People faced hounding from their jobs (OK, not to unemployment, but a professor could end up as a cleaner), were imprisoned, beaten up and killed for their beliefs and their refusal to give up. Families were deliberately and insidiously wrecked.

So those of us who never had to risk death or disgrace to speak our mind or vote in a free election shouldn't take these things lightly or say they are of no value.

North-east Poland

It's a while since I've posted about favourite places. Here's one a bit further afield (for me - not for the Ukrainians reading this blog).

Last year but one I went to Poland for the first time in my life. My main aim was to see new birds, and for that the outstanding area was the north-east corner of the country, but I wanted to spread my wings wider - so I sought to book with a nature tour provider for the first week to visit the Bielowieza Forest and the Biebrza Marshes before heading south to Krakow, with a bit of looking around Warsaw and Krakow, and visiting Auschwitz. Maybe I'll blog on that last thing some other time.

Anyway, my first tour provider let me down at the last minute and I'd already booked flights. Another Polish tour provider (step up Waldemar!) didn't have a tour for those dates but happened to be free and we agreed he'd do a one-to-one tour at still a very reasonable price. He's brilliant and I'll be happy to respond to anyone wanting nature tours in that area and give his contact details.

For the birders, well, I added five birds to my life-list, not easy in Europe nowadays - White-backed Woodpecker, Pygmy Owl, Great Snipe, River Warbler, Aquatic Warbler. I did even better with butterflies and dragonflies. Enough of that.

Warsaw was a busy European city. As we drove east things still looked quite familiar. As far east as the River Bug there are still people wearing Nike gear jogging with I-pods.

The far north-east was something else - another country, almost another continent, and Waldemar said it seemed like that to him too. As we drove into Bielowieza village along a dusty road, little knots of people turned to look at us. There were old women in head-scarves everywhere. The buildings were nearly all wooden, old and full of character. The churches were very, very different from the modern Catholic churches I'd seen on the way: in fact, most of the people in this area are Orthodox. It was clear that the place was poor, but a decent, resilient poverty, not the poverty of glazed eyes. As for my eyes, I think they must often have been wide. The whole place was so strange to me, and I've been in Africa and the Balkans. But it was fascinating strange, not worrying strange.

The forest was magic - a huge expanse of forest that had been forest since the ice-age receded, with a good variety of trees many of them emerging from, or standing by, shallow water, so to an Englishman it was like thick fen. It would be good just to stand in the forest, not in the silence but the birdsong - though the mosquitoes would be a problem!

When we left, it was for the massive expanse of the Biebrza Marshes, wetland far more expansive than anything else until you're in the former Soviet Union. This was less remote and was dotted with farms and villages, but it was still magic because of the extraordinary numbers, vitality and variety of bird and insect life.

It's a marvellous area and I hope to go back.

GOING BACK TO UNIVERSITY

Before I get down to this, I've had feedback people can't see how to comment on the blog. You click on the bit that says "0 comments", or "237 comments" as appropriate.

Well, I went back to my Cambridge  college, King's, for an "informal lunch" today. Great to be back. My memories of Cambridge are positive and I'm glad I was at Kings. There was no-one from my year, though, and very few who arrived in the sixties at all. Maybe the spaced-out flower-boomers, or whatever they're called now, haven't made it through to 2011?

Fascinating conversation with one guy (Hi, Bart!) but no real opportunity to chat informally with a number of people. Coffee afterwards away from the tables would have done the trick. Still, seeking my bus-stop afterwards, after a visit to Whittards for special tea and a pint, I saw the two women who were opposite us. Turned out they'd been interested in our conversation about Poland because one of them was Polish!

My next blog will be on that holy grail of public agencies right now, being customer centred - and how it can undermine democracy and kill people.