Chapter 22
Practice Abroad
I have mentioned that the summer of the year 1963 was a dense period for us in our year. As soon as we completed our practice in the yard we had to pack up our suitcases for our practice abroad. As we have been collected at the university to get our instructions, one of the other mariners has expressed my thoughts: "The last thing I desire now is having a trip to the GDR.” All of us have been mistaken. The three weeks of the GDR practice have been the most useful of all we had that year.
The group of the German students have been also collected to have a meeting with us before they left. This "white table” meeting took place in a small open-air pub up in the castle. Being in the same building as the students’ dormitory of our university, it has been the place our students visited regularly. The Germans knew it, too, as during their stay they have been accommodated in the hostel.
At the table laden with beer many long-lasting relationships have been created. It was also there that I have met my would-be German friend, with whom later my wife and me will have met many times in our country and in theirs. His name was Hans, he said he had a family. We were to meet again in the GDR.
The trip started with an 18-hour railway journey on the Balt-Orient train. A more detailed account I gave about it in Canned Roaddust.
Dresden has been our last stop. This last of the places visited has had nothing for us technically, it has only be installed into the program for tourist purposes. Now the town has its new centre created of awful concrete buildings. That time it was the same heap of ruins as Berlin or Magdeburg. Even worse. We could see how precisely, in the last month of the war, it was destroyed to a line, and over that line everything stayed intact. As if cut by a giant knife, even half of the palace Zwinger (cage) stood in its original state and in two steps from the line damage has been complete.
The town had been beautifully situated on the river Elbe. There is a hilly landscape on both banks, and on the embankment there are fine works of architecture. Farther, the mountains of the frontier between German and Czech lands can bee seen in a blue line. The German side of that mountains is called the Saxon Switzerland and it is a famous and really wonderful resort country.
My memory is storing four themes about Dresden. The first thing in the town has been our visit to the Zwinger. It has been turned into a large gallery of art and I think, there is no way to see all the precious works other, than having a job in the museum and a permission to visit all the halls and store-rooms. It is not behind in any sense of the Louvre or the Hermitage.
The Germans at that time did not have the finesse to guard these artworks in a modern sense: I could make as many pictures as wanted in the halls illuminated well by natural light. Even flashlights have not been prohibited.
The other three are in close connection. First our farewell dinner. The German professor, our guide during these three weeks, has been very thrifty and, finding more money left than necessary for the remaining time, he wanted to increase his spending, to align it to schedule. He did not want to get less funds for a similar project next time by economizing anything. At the dinner we had all we wished and, unfortunately more drinks than necessary. When at last we left the restaurant, all of us have been drunken. Except me, as I have had a liver problem, and instead of being drunken I felt unwell, rather to say ill. This is my other memory.
The next day I would have a date. For this reason I was not leaving the hostel for the excursion to the Saxon Switzerland. I was waiting for the person whom I was to meet. During night I have not slept a minute, I visited the toilet a dozen times. In the morning I could go to sleep at last, my organism could overtake the trouble, and I have slept about two hours.
When we had arrived to Dresden I wrote to Renate, my correspondence partner from my secondary school years, to visit me at that day. I had not known then, it would be the day for the excursion. When I woke up after the short sleep I went to the gate-keeper and asked him to call me in case somebody wanted me. I did not know if she would come or would not. I did not take anything for breakfast, but I wished nothing, either.
At about 10 a.m. I was addressed by a girl coming into my room. I had to confess photographs could cheat. She had sent me some photos of herself at the beginning of our correspondence. She looked a girl with a pretty face and a tall, fine figure. Actually her face has been ordinary, almost ugly, and her figure as a plank.
I have shown a great enthusiasm to see her and wanted to greet her by a kiss on the cheek. She avoided it and gave me her handshake, as masculine as it could be. Later I will have seen, it was only a GDR custom. Her manner has been non-committal, and I could sense she expected me to understand her indication. Well, I did not feel very much like courting a girl, it did not cause me any problem to follow her.
She did not want to speak too much about herself, I think she had her boy-friend all right. We have been the same age of 22. She might have considered that day an unpleasant obligation, and she fulfilled it in a proper way. Her accent was very Saxon. First I could hardly understand a word, but later I became accustomed to her pronunciation.
We went to a modern gallery where she played the guide. After that she took me up to the top of one of the hills by a cable-car. There was a restaurant there named "The White Stag”. She invited me to lunch, and, when I wanted to pay, she objected it. To tell the truth it did not cost her too much, as I took only a cup of tea with a piece of cake.
As I watched her eat, I observed the habit, by which Germans take their salad: they do not take it simultaneously with the main meal of meat and vegetables, they eat it after. That time it seemed me funny, but when I will have seen other peoples’ customs, it will have become only one of the details, how different people do the same thing different ways. For example, living in Russia and Ukraine, I have taken the habit of eating some salad before my meal to improve appetite.
Till afternoon, when she said she had to leave, my nausea has gone. I accompanied her to her coach – she has been living in Karl-Marx-Stadt, formerly and from 1990 once more, Chemnitz – and was making a long walk before returning to the hostel. Well, this was the last of my memories about the town I mentioned.
Before the return of the group from the excursion my suitcase have been packed for departure the next morning.
To look back now, I consider those days of my life a sharp border-line between past and future.
After my return I remained in contact with Hans and his family. Our letters came and went regularly about once a month. During the couple of days between my return from the GDR and the beginning of my fifth year at the university I wanted to take a little rest.