Trips to Middle East and Eastern Europe before the Fall of the Berlin Wall (東欧・中近東)
I took one-year "break" in 1987 ~ 1988 before restarting my work in the Japanese branch of a small American company headquartered in Massachusetts.
During the break, I had the opportunities to visit various countries, and I believe it is worth mentioning that I visited the following countries:
Middle East / Africa
Egypt
Jordan
Syria
Eastern Europe
Bulgaria
Czechoslovakia (before split into the two sovereign states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia)
East Germany = DDR
Hungary
Poland
Romania
Yugoslavia (before the break-up which led to the Yugoslav Wars)
I have to admit that I don't have any photographs to "prove" my visit to those countries, in the language of the younger generations I'm unable to present "evidence" except for my dirty passport which obviously tells that I was wandering about.
Here are some comments on my trips to Eastern Europe in 1988.
I took flight RO230 by TAROM (Transporturile Aeriene Române) from Amsterdam to Bucharest (București) in March 1988. It was literally a Tired And Rusty Old Machine at the final period of Nicolae Ceaușescu who would be executed 21 months later. The flight was almost empty but I felt that the flight might have been a cattle carrier. An inflight magazine showed that TAROM had flights between Beijing and București, and I confirmed such "relationship" when I found lots of cardboard boxes with Chinese characters while travelling country side.
Electricity supply in Romania appeared to be tightly controlled (if not out of control) since it was rather dark inside Intercontinental Bucharest.
It might sound like a joke, but the best memory of my trip to Romania was that there was an exceptionally beautiful Spanish girl in a Spanish group.
In Bulgaria I visited Rila Monastery in late March, and I remember it was still cold. I won't cover the detail of my trip to "the 16th Soviet Republic", which did not give me too negative feeling.
After Bulgaria, I visited Yugoslavia, in modern-day Serbia and Croatia = Hrvatska. I have to admit that I have zero memory on Belgrade whatsoever except for a flight record of my trip from Belgrade to Dubrovnik by JA722 (JAT = Jugoslovenski Aerotransport = Yugoslav Air Transport). Dubrovnik in Croatia was just wonderful. My memory of Dubrovnik is linked especially to that I learned from a local guide that my first name meant a falcon in Croat. I wish to visit both Dubrovnik and Zagreb, which I'm certain won't happen.
It's incredible that I took PA67 (Pan Am) from Dubrovnik to Frankfurt to go out of Eastern Europe. A few years later I used Pan Am shuttles between Boston and New York (LaGuardia).
According to my own reading records, I read "The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century" by John V. A. Fine and "BALKAN GHOSTS: A Journey Through History" by Robert D. Kaplan in 1998 and 1999 respectively. Soon my interest shifted from Balkans to Caucasus mainly in Armenia and Georgia. While I also read several books relative to Khazars, I never felt interested in the oil-rich country facing the Caspian Sea…
In April 1988, the immigration at Warsaw (Warszawa) airport was absurdly clumsy and took exorbitantly long time to complete the process, but I don't have any negative feeling about Poland. I was literally stupid that I did not visit Oświęcim (Auschwitz)...
From Warsaw, I took flight IF285 of Interflug, to East Berlin. The CAs of Interflug were so chilly, a stark contrast with CAs of TAROM.
East Germany (DDR = Deutsche Demokratische Republik) appeared to be highly organized and punctual. I did not learn German, but Polish sounded a bit familiar because I learned Russian for my study of mathematics at an institute of technology, and when I pronounced the Elbe as Łaba in Polish, the reaction by (East-) Germans was very obvious... not only they frowned, but also said "Don't use Polish". I didn't intend to inflame any racial conflict. 24 years later, I started reading novels by Ken Follett and found East Germany described in abominably ugly manner in "Edge of Eternity" owing to State Security Service often called Stasi, I felt obliged to imagine the reality of the extinct country underneath the nice superficies which prevented foreigners from looking through. I stayed in both East Berlin and Dresden, and I found nothing intolerable (again at superficial level).
I took an international train from Dresden to Prague (Praha) of then Czechoslovakia. Strangely enough, I have little memory of the country where Franz Kafka was born, other than that Prague was fascinating thanks to many superb sightseeing places.
Among the Eastern European countries, I would say Hungary was the most impressive, and I felt less control compared to other countries at that time.
In order to leave Hungary, I took MA640 by MALÉV Hungarian Airlines (Magyar Légiközlekedési Vállalat), which no longer exists.
Well, here is a book I bought in Budapest:
While I don't have accurate information, Albania, after decades of isolation during the communism, started accepting foreign travelers in 1988 only for groups. I remember that VISA was issued only in Wien (Vienna) and then a flight to Tirana was available only from Zürich. I did not think about going to Albania at that time…
VISAs (from my passport)
Header image credit : Francis Tapon
https://francistapon.com/Books/The-Hidden-Europe/where-is-eastern-europe-and-what-countries-are-in-it
P.S.
① I happened to stay in a transit hotel in Moscow in October 1987 on the way to Wien (Vienna). It did not require immigration process, which was an experience…
② During 1989 ~ 2017, I frequently travelled owing to my business. I visited Turkey twice, piggybacking on my business trip to Europe for the first time and then purely for sightseeing via Bahrain using Gulf Air for the second time when I lived in Hong Kong.
③ In 1999, my wife and I were invited by a Massachusetts based company to a cruising by Royal Caribbean Cruise for a recognition of my work. Before going down to Miami, FL., we stayed in New York, which was so gloomy in January...
④ Then I worked in an Israeli company from 2000 to 2002, during which I visited Israel 7 times.
⑤ After I got older, I took my wife to several places
Barcelona and Madrid (Spain) in 2007
Angkor Wat (Cambodia) in 2010
Ho Chi Minh (Viet Nam) in 2010
Lisbon (Portugal) in 2013
Hanoi (Viet Nam) in 2015
London (United Kingdom) in 2016
Easter Island (Chile) in 2016~2017
Uluru = Ayers Rock (Australia) in 2018
Jaipur and Agra (India) in 2019
Obviously our travels were intended to cover UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Since I feel awkward when travelling in a group, I myself played the role of tour guide to my wife just using local tours on the spot when available.
I even studied Armenian Հայերեն when I was in my 40s, dreaming of going to Armenia Հայաստան.
And now, I don't have any intention to go abroad, facing the final curtain… □