The Train, the Balkan Wars and the Soviet Union
Many years ago when I was a young 19 year old, I was traveling by train from Düsseldorf to Hamburg. This was in August 1991. I was travelling via Interrail around Germany with my sister and our two friends. The four of us sat in an old-fashioned train compartment, the kind with six seats, three seats facing three, like in Agatha Christie novels or the Harry Potter movies. It had hand carved decorations on the dark wood and the compartments smelled old. They don’t make them like this anymore, unless you are going for the Orient Express.
We’d come from Heidelberg, where we’d explored the city and stayed at a youth hostel. There we met lots of other travelers, some from Hong Kong, others from the United States and Canada. I also met a group of boys who mostly kept to themselves in the dormitory. When I finally talked with them, I learned why they kept to themselves. They were from the former Yugoslavian countries, i.e. Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia. The Balkan Wars had just broken out. They didn’t want to go home because they feared they’d be drafted and sent to fight. Their visas were valid for another two weeks, they said. I liked them, we were the same age, 19 years old. Thinking back now, knowing what happened afterward, I hope some of them survived. I’m not sure they did. What a waste.
Anyway, we were relaxing in our compartment when a young couple knocked on the glass and asked to join us. They had spotted two empty seats. We said yes, of course. They told us they’d been married a few years and had sold their apartment and car to fund a trip around the world. “Wow,” we said. “That’s brave.”. They smiled and then asked what we thought about the situation in Moscow, the collapse of the Soviet government two days earlier. “What situation, what are you talking about?” we said. They filled us in on what had happened, the tanks, the shooting, Boris Yeltsin, the works. We’d been on the road, not watching the news in German. We had no idea what was happening in the world. Two nights before, while history was unfolding in Moscow, we were in a Heidelberg café drinking beer. Apparently a lot can happen when you’re drinking beer in Germany.
