August 1991 and the mystery of teenage brain.

[avrelia]

This is a companion piece to the latest gobi_rex post, and for historical circumstances you may go there, because I want to write about fun. Well, sort of...


Anyway, in August 1991 there happened a coup in the Soviet Union. I am not sure what its leaders planned to achieve, and what would they achieve where they successful, but the actual result was that the USSR was destroyed even sooner. It was a strange time, scary and hopeful at the same time, not like now, when we grew to be jaded and cynical...

I was fifteen, and I was on my summer vacation with my school.



The main stages of the coup were Moscow and the Baltic countries – I don’t remember whether all three of them, but I am quite sure about Latvia. Because I was there.

In the years 1989-1991 we went on a number of trips – usually four a year, from four days to two weeks, visiting cool cities and places of then-one country. We: our engine, the biology teacher who was at the heart of these trips, five more adults, and around twenty students ages 13-16.

For August 1991 our plan was a week in Lithuania and a week in Latvia, in a resort on the Baltic seaside. So, after a great week in Lithuania, where I got my Ciurlionis love, we were sitting in a bus, crossing an invisible border between two reluctantly-soviet republics. We were looking for the sings for our hotel, thirty kilometers from Riga, and at one point our driver decided to stop and ask the locals. It was August 19, the day when it started, early morning.

Five minutes later a strange guy climbed into our bus and blurted out the news. We were all quite shocked.
Some people (our oldest adult) blamed it all on our buying devils at the Devil Museum store. Most of all were just scared, what with not having any actual information, and being so far from home, and knowing that our parents are worried, and worrying about them, and pretty much not knowing what to do. This attitude was the same in all the group, in students and teachers alike, but the teachers couldn’t allow themselves not to do anything.

But soon they found out that, in fact, we cannot do anything, but continue to our hotel. The information was scarce and unreliable, but it was clear that there was no point to get us to Riga (where there was army and some chaos) or to Moscow (where there were more army and chaos). The telephone / any other connection didn’t work, yet they managed eventually get to someone in Moscow a notice that we are ok.

So, here we were, stranded in August in a seaside hotel, with the pine forest behind us and beaches ahead. All excursion plans were aborted. Pity, really, but we adjusted. Eventually we stopped being scared – it was too boring to waste time on it, and started to have fun. Radio played only Latvian children’s choir, so we didn’t listen to radio. We had tape recorders and decent rock music on the cassettes. We had playing cards, swimsuits, and good weather, and careless teenagers’ brains. The forest still had blueberries and strawberries, much to our surprise, the sea was warm (for Baltic), and the company was agreeable.

We did, however, visited Riga once, but the only thing that we saw was military machines. I never really cared much for Riga, anyway (Riga is fine.)

The sea lured us much stronger. The days were for sleep and the nights were for walking around. Now, when I think of it, it doesn’t seem wise to walk at night in the middle of political turmoil, but then it was fun. (and we were rather nice and intelligent teenagers – or so we thought/) anyway, I remember those nights with amusement. We had great time, waiting to cross the road in the shrubbery, because on the road tanks were passing. We wandered in the forest and saw deer, we drank from the well in the farm nearby (scaring the farm dwellers, I am sure now). We climbed into our windows in the morning, and then pretended to just wake up for breakfast.

We had a great time… What were we thinking about?

P.S. Our parents actually turned ot to be happy that we were away from Moscow and barricades. I don't think we told them all our adventures though. I don't tell everything here, also, but that's because I wasn't everywhere, and I don't remember what other parts of our group had gotten themselves into.

We told most of things, eventually, to our biology teacher. cuz we love her.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/automatedalice_/]

this is interesting. yevgeny had a similar story (he was at summer camp). today he sent me about 10 different pictures of red square from late last night.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

Ten different pictures of Red Square? I am getting curious just how different they are. ;)

no, I mean, there are places there that are less common to see, but as landmarks go, it seems to hold less excitement.

[missmurchison.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this story. It's amazing how people manage to go on with their lives even as the world is changing irrevocably around them. Humans are very adaptable creatures, especially young ones. Thank God.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

Humans are very adaptable creatures, especially young ones.

Well, yes, and it is to the better. I just look back at our seaside vacation with tanks nearby, and it looks so bizarre.

[missmurchison.livejournal.com]

It wasn't until after I wrote my post that I remembered the summer I spent in Spain, living alone, as a teenager, in the months before Franco's death. The feeling at the time was that the moment he passed on there would be coups and revolutions. (It didn't happen, largely because Juan Carlos startled everyone by being committed to democracy, which was a huge shock to the monarchists.) But that summer, Madrid was full of scary cops and soldiers driving around looking for any sign of protest against the regime. There was a riot in the street outside my dorm the week before I got there. Once, someone was spray-painting anti-Franco slogans on buses and buildings downtown, including the bus I was riding in. Everyone ran away from the bus, because no one wanted to be interrogated as a witness. Except stupid me. I lingered across the street, and when someone yelled at me for it later, I just shrugged and said if they'd tried to question me, I could just pretend I didn't understand anything and hadn't seen anything. I don't know if I thought my American passport would protect me from everything, or if I was just really clueless.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

Yeah... Do you ever wonder what your kids may got themselves into, considering it perfectly reasonable?

[gobi-rex.livejournal.com]

If I had been in your situation (I mean, in Lithuania), my grandmother would have had a heart attack.

it was too boring to waste time on it, and started to have fun
and
We had a great time... What were we thinking about?

Crazy teenage brains. ;)

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

Gosh, sometimes I look back at things we did that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time... And mind boggles.