The Daugavpils experience
Feature by Yordan Angelov
I still remember the freezing February night when I suddenly realised living abroad is not the bright dream that always blinded my eyes. It wasn’t the light that was shining — it was my eyes that haven’t seen such a flash. I told myself I should go out and meet people. And better do it soon. Between job descriptions in LinkedIn and EVS programs in the numerous Facebook pages one stuck with me. It was called Sporfitti and was going to send five Bulgarians in the cold unfriendly Baltic plain which somehow welcomed three nations with real people living there.
So I applied and I got accepted for the Erasmus+ project. I realised that this was my only chance to visit a small town in Latvia so I got excited. Daugavpils was a place that I haven’t heard before and started frantically reading everything about it. The Instagram accounts of the city were interesting but I could see through them. If the most amazing building is a small church than probably everything there is compact. Well not everywhere can be Dubai. But in every city and town you can find interesting stories if you seek them lovingly enough. We were going to fly through Istanbul and even though it looked like an amazing option to visit this megapolis some scaredy-cats decided to unleash their anger on innocent people and scare them. But I wasn’t scared. No one was scared. We were eager to go and clash with the culture.
Eventful Beginning
Fast forward to the beginning of August. After an okayish flight we arrived at the unfriendly Istanbul. I’ve only heard stories about this amazing vast city with endless opportunities. All our group saw was grumpy airline staff that didn’t want to help five stranded passengers in scared country to spend the night. We tried clicking with them but how can you relate to someone who speaks English so bad you doubt they even understand themselves. And even if we had a 16-year-old girl in our group no one really cared. Can you expect people to understand when over 40% of the population thinks religious marriage with underage girls is okay? Honestly. When we arrived, at first laughed at the migrants sleeping on the floor in the transit area. After several hours at Ataturk Airport we realised that we might probably join them. But against all odds our organisation found a way for us to distinct ourselves from the refugees. It found us a hotel to spend the night. So we headed out. We clashed with the Turkish culture once again. I knew Bulgarians inherited a lot of bad habits from the former Ottoman enslavers but we met the ugly reality once we left the airport building. The air was hot and sweaty — it smelled like fish market. Everyone in front of the airport added for the stenching smell. But hey — it’s their city and their choice to not have proper plumbing.
Okay, Istanbul. Let’s see what you have for us. We couldn’t take a cab because the drivers either didn’t want one of them to take all passengers or they wanted the money in different currency. So, we decided to see what Istanbul has for us in 2.30 AM while we walked the kilometer-distance to the hotel. We turned around the corner and there it is — a protest. People were waving Turkish flags and portraits of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, their beloved democratically elected president. We didn’t know what to think so we just passed shunning any possible eye contact. Later someone told us people were just celebrating. Again — hey, this is their country, they can call democracy whatever they want.
Arriving at the hotel we just wanted to get in our beds. We didn’t even have time to enjoy the 17th floor view and the 5-star breakfast — we just wanted to be on our way to Riga.
Hello Daugavpils!
As the airplane was navigating to the Riga airport we could see nothing but forest. Everywhere. Vast green forest from end to end. On the ground the view wasn’t any different either. Then a devastating four-hour transfer from the capital to our host city was nothing but a two-lane road through an endless forest. I was reading “Travels with Charlie” by John Steinbeck and suddenly I felt like I was part of one of the chapters where the author and his beloved poodle are through the foggy windy cold roads of Colorado. But something is missing. As someone who lives in a city with mountain right next to it I couldn’t see a single hill around us. It was just..flat.
This takes me back in my early student years when I constantly ate junk food as pancakes and such. One time I was watching the girl slowly stirring the pancake mixture and the top of the stove and it was so smooth…like the land in Latvia. Not a ridge in sight. But after some Instagram-worthy sunset views and four terrifying hours in a bus with one damn penguin video we arrived. We were there! We were actually where we had to be!
Everything I knew about Daugavpils until then was that I was going to a very pro-Russian city. But the architecture has nothing to do with the drunken blyads from over the border that was an hour drive from us. And the culture too — we waited at a red light in the middle of the night even if there was nothing in sight since the city went to sleep hours ago. But we waited. And our lovely host Lily explained that it is how it is and we better get used to it.
The hostel we arrived at looked like it was built specially for big gatherings of people like our Erasmus+ project. It had massive common room and small kitchen. Who needs to cook — here, have a place to chat.
Of course this is a international project so we expected to see people from different countries. But we didn’t. It’s too late and we’d introduce each other in the morning.
The 10-Day Friendship Tornado
Erasmus+ projects are something that everyone should experience and there are many reasons why. The main idea is to exchange opinions and ideas between bright young people but most of the time it’s just someone dealing with EU money and doing nothing worthy with them.
Our Latvian hosts who speak Russian with each other were trying their best to share the culture and life in the Baltic country. Since we were in this project along with four other countries’ representatives, we really felt the diversity Erasmus+ and the EU gives us every day. And we should be thankful for it.
Southerners from a small village near Cadiz, Spain were on an international experience for the first time and they were really trying to blend. Sure, their English wasn’t that good and they were too young to be open-minded and have a normal conversation with everyone but at least they tried so hard. And we all enjoyed having them around. You don’t need languages to be friends with someone. I am glad that I saw how two teenagers from Lithuania and Spain, both not knowing English well enough, clicked. Sure, probably it was the teen rush or the fact that they are probably never going to see each other again, or hormones. But they were all over each other’s Instagram and Snapchat feeds all the time.
And since I said Lithuania — lemme tell you about the most diverse group of all. One of the girls was frantically looking over for a skate park and I’m pretty sure this is half the reason she came to Daugavpils. She even came at one of the meetings with her rollerblades. Everyone deserves acknowledgment for sticking to their hobby thousands of miles away from home. I was lucky enough to be with two of the Lithuanian guys in the same room. They brought so much joy with their vision and diversity and a big Ačiū to their leader for being such a nice person.
Since I started introducing all the groups, I should give the stage to the Romanian team. Without their Balkan temper we wouldn’t have so much fun arguing about typical things like Martenitsa and whoever is the proper owner of Dobrudzha and the Danube delta.
I was really proud to be the leader of the Bulgarian group and maybe once or twice got the decision-making in my own hands too literally with leaving a girl back in the hostel on a rare night-out. She missed really nice live band from Israel and star hunting in the dark cold nights on a Baltic summer. At least she got to spend the night at a warm place. Job well done?
And what were all those people doing in Daugavpils? Drawing grafitti. Yep. The project was called “Sporfitti” and even though the Bulgarian team expected more sport and fit exercises, we still had fun drawing grafitti about our most popular sport. Luckily there were no Italians or Polish because we got to draw volleyball.
All the projects, all the drawing and all the walking around the city — it gave us so much joy and so many new ideas and perspectives that when we had to leave on the last day some tears were shed.
“The Terminal” All Over Again
You know that movie with Tom Hanks where he is stuck on an airport because there is a war at his country? Well there wasn’t a war in Bulgaria but we stayed in Latvia for several more days and we should at least qualify for the “Most stupid flight miss” in 2016.
Riga is an amazing city. We were lucky enough to visit it on our last day when the Latvian capital was celebrating its 1400-years anniversary and everyone was out, the weather was perfect and we found this amazing spot with Wi-Fi. Apparently we had one too many selfies so when we arrived at the airport it was too late. The desk lady wanted to go home and didn’t issue us a boarding pass so we were stuck thousands of kilometers away with no real option what to do. Amazing two weeks ending the worst way possible. Or at least I thought that way. I am really lucky and thankful to the people from my team who were supportive and understanding of our collective mistake. We booked a hostel in the outskirts of Riga and got the time to think it over. We were assured by the organisation leader that everything would be fine. Of course it was, but we had to take matter in our own hands since hashtags and emojis are not a proper tool for fixing a problem, just fyi.
On the next day we went at the airport to take our flight but we were surprised with several taxes. The selfies in the old part of Riga got their toll and we paid a small fortune to get back home. But at least we had tickets again. We just had to not miss our flight back home but still had to book another night in the same hostel. The ladies that work there praised my Russian but all I needed was a warm bed and to get home.
Day 3 and we are finally through security and through the gate. Then I realised — Riga International Airport is not “vast green forest from end to end”. It is a fairly big airport with lots of connections and flights and we were acting stupid for underestimating it. We should have followed our instincts and not listen to the organiser who told us “just go there 45 minutes before the flight, the airport is really small”.
Two flights with a sleepover at Radisson Blu Istanbul and we were flying over a coal mine. We suddenly started goind down and one of our girls asked me “why are we landing in the middle of nowhere”. No, Anna, this is called Sofia Airport and apparently we were the ones with a small airport in the middle of god-forsaken-nowhere, not Latvia. We passed through baggage claim and passport control for about 15 minutes and when we saw Vitosha mountain and tasted the awful thick Bulgarian air we fell down to our knees. We were thankful for all the memories and people and emotions but we were really glad that we were on Bulgarian soil.
Give a man some time away from his puddle and he’ll want it more than ever.
