Vajecny Sen

This is a story of childhood and dreams, also story of friendship and bonding...but let the tale begin.


When I was a little girl my dad used to take us all to Czechoslovakia ( now Czech and Slovakia) for long months of almost constant holidays. He never did care much wether we skip June and September of school cause he considered travelling much more schooling in our upbringing.

Indeed we have seen so many places, met so many people, I even got my first adorer that time- a nice fether of peacock from the Kinsky Castle was delivered straight into my hands by a very handsome dad's colleague :)

During that time I remember we had our tastes. We were testing local cusine and beverages. One of those snacks was Vyprazany Syr - baked cheese, legendary for those who know Czech Republic.

There was also beer which we could have tasted in little portions during that time, other times drinking non alcoholic beer sold in Czech Pubs especially for children. Yes, Czech Pubs are family places, not just spots full of drunken guys.

One of thoise childhood tastes is Vajecny Sen. This legendary liquor being produced in Dolny Kubin in Slovakia already has growing number of fans on Facebook. Also it is something which never lost quality during communism and something which  does still taste good and was not bought by any French or German mass shit production corporate business.

This is how it looks:

This year I think I already had at least 5 bottles of Vajecny and some of them prepared for gifts. But because it is so fast gone I started researching if I can do it myself.

And guess what, yes I can. I will share here just a general receipe:
Składniki:
6 yellow parts of the egg
250 ml spirit or vodka
750 ml condensed milk
1 glass of sugar
1 pack of vanilla sugar
2 dark non sugared chocolates

Yolks mash with sugar to the clear mass, add milk, mix, later alcohol, mix, chocolates melt on the steam and add a bit of water. cool it down a bit, bottle it, close it. Leave for 24hrs. Shake. ready. Bon apetite!

Ah  bonding issue: this is something you share with people. And if you think that you share it with a friend you know for 22 yerars...or 26 years... this is empasising bond.  If you cannot make a beverage with your long term friend, you can't talk to people, can't connect with them...you are so very poor. Your life is empty, even if you had all of the money of this world. This is another person around making you rich.

Glympses of holidays

It's holiday time. Everyone travels, so do I. I had a chance to learn how huge is my own country and - how diverse it is.

 Above: New water sports center in Olsztyn

Firstly I went to Tatras and Cracow and enjoyed the south. Next I went to a friend to Olsztyn and stayed a couple of days with her.

This is Ermland, Warmia in Polish, one of historic provinces of Poland which always crushed with Teutonic Order, later taken by Prussian Kingdom to be finally considered a part of Heimat by Bismarck who unified Germany - which was inherited by the Nazi era and considered part of Germany by them too.

This all was named Ost Preussen by Bismarck. But it is a country of constant struggle between identities, economic ideas and ways of life for many centuries.

Above: Olsztyn Streets

Historically Preussen - Prusy in Polish was inhabited by Prussian tribes which bothered Mazovian Polish Dukes. Duke Conrad in 1226 thought he has enough of constant raides from the North and invited teutonic Order to settle peace at the border with hopes that conquered lands will fall to his prey later on.

But this did not happen... greed and brutality took over. Teutonic Knights travelled dressed in white coats with black single big cross with their eyes covered in steel helmets causing fear among locals... with time financial triubutes were raised so much that local people strived for survival. And Teutonic Order did not have enough. It went south and east...south and east....raised taxes and exploited lands...until in 1380's Polish rulers had enough and thought it is time to settle the matters final.

King Jagiełło - The Jagiellon - married the King of Poland ( yes no mistake) Jadwiga and unified the state into first form of European Union of that era - Polish Lithuanian State. His joint forces made a huge battle with Teutons in 1410. Battle which you still have a chance to watch as it is being recreated every year for quite a while now.

On one warm July day he smashed Teuton Knights and had a chance to take over the whole Teuton State, but he only received a pledge from some dukes, did not decide to completely control Teutons which was a huge mistake...as they again started to exploit their region.

Bishops of Ermland unlike surrounding provinces pledged loyalty to Polish state and decided to bound their fate with the Polish Kingdom. Ermland became a refuge for persecuted peasants and city merchants who could not expand trade elsewhere. During that time Copernicus worked as a governor of the province for some years, and it is there where he observed the sky so accurate that he written down his ideas thanks to which Columbus travelled westwards to India...

Above: Lidzbark Castle

Later Teutons decided to put an end to a Teuton State, secularized themselves and became more and more protestant with time. When previous Teuton Lands were protestant Ermland remained catholic. Masuren and Ermland resemble long era of complicated history and unique local mentality...

Russian Soviet army had put an end to what it used to be in 1945. For several more years their Death Squadrons wandered around vast forests and lakes and made sure that no more local inhabitants really survived, no more who they pledged loyalty to. Those who had anything in common with Nazis fled westwards and to the sea, and those who stayed had done no harm to anyone...they stayed cause they either felt Polish ( yeah I know, weird... how do you feel it? But you do if you speak a slang for several centuries and you have glympses only of any identity) or they have done no harm to anyone.

Above: One of first printed versions of Copernicus research about the Earth, planets and the sun - to be admired at Lidzbark Castle

The Soviets installed their military bases and huge state owned agriculture industries. They have cancelled any private properties... maybe red brick Prussian style buildings were not beautiful but they were far more nice than a lot of commie era buildings which haunt till present days suddenly appearing in the middle of forest.

Ermland now is the land of mixed trails...on one hand young people emigrate seeing no hope. On the other hand old Germans buy properties to settle down during their retirement. Michelin produces tires, there is a good university too. But more investment is needed especially in towns and cities, because tourism is not enough- brings cash only to chosen lucky ones who bought lakeside properties... the vision is needed, new ideas and new hope.

Till then, enjoy the tale of Ermland in photos...

Above: Lidzbark Castle...years ago very rich, later plaundered by Swedish and others to be finally carefully taken care of  by the passionate caretakers from the Museum of Mazury and Warmia

A must visit cities and objects in Ermland: Lidzbark Warmiński- castle and walk around the town, Dobre Miasto - medieval era churches, Olsztyn with cute old town and cathedral and Klubokawiarnia Filmowa (movie cafe), Frombork with cathedral and old town and many others... Most of the things to see either for free or for not more than 2- 3 € per ticket. Local transportation very decent, but it's better to take your own car because this area is full of treasures everywhere.

I am grateful for caretakers of the Museum of Warmia and Mazury at the castle of Lidzbark for answering our questions and giving us an insight to the past and present of the castle.

Wine goulash friday :)

Sometimes I do a wine goulash with variety of content. Whatever vegetables are there they end up in the pan and make goulash for me.

This time it was: 2 big carrots sliced into small tiny pieces, zukinie sliced into 0,5 cm pieces - 3 of them, 4 onions and 3 pieces of garlic. Spices included milled pepper, salt, sweet paprika powder and chilli paprika powder.

You can have it either with indian bread baked in tandoori oven ( matches very nice) or like me with small italian (real italian) macaroni balls.

 

First thing you do is glassing tiny chopped onions and garlic on olive oil or sunflower one ( will do as well). Later you put it aside and wait till it coold down. 

 

Subsequently you have your carrots done like this above. 

 

This is what you do with zukinie. 

Now the fun part.. After the onions cool down it comes time for paprika. You add up paprika as much as all the pieces are nicely covered with it- or even more. Paprika powder can not be burnt!!! Add spoon of chilli paprika powder too. Ideally it should be dark red, but somehow in Poland it ends up orange. Put it aside into a bigger pot where you will be doing the actual goulash. Start frying chopped meat ( either beef or pork or even poultry if you like). 

 Use bouplion dice or cook chicken leg long enough before you prepare everything. Ideally 1- 2 soup base dice are enough for 800 ml of water ( circa). Boulion should not be too salty! Once it's boiled add the prefried meet to your onions in the other pot and add up boulion as high as it almost covers meat.

 Once you see meat is soft add up carrots. Keep watching if you still feel strong paprika scent and taste ( don't mean too spicy here, strong is that you can differentiate you actually smell and taste paprika. If not, add some.

Some minutes after carrots when they are semi soft it's time for your zukinie. It is done quickly so watch it that it is just done but is not tearing into pieces. Check the taste, add some spices if you feel like it. 

Final touch is wine. If it happens that after some students party of a friend cheap red wine is a leftover, keep the bottle. Such wine is perfect for cooking. I usually add up half of the tea glass inside a pot with goulash and minute after turn off the heat. If your macaroni, potatoes, rice or indian bread is already there, start eating :) Enjoy :) 

This is my ready dish. With it a half glass of the red wine from small family winery in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse and my day is done. I have not done a single important or productive things today. I have a headache since very morning and decided to take a rest and enjoy cooking. Bon apetite! Let me know how was it. 

A wound of betrayal

One of the Warsaw modern cinemas. After 15 minutes the sound of pop-corn stopped annoying me. No, they did not finish it, they just stopped eating. For the first 15 minutes of the movie quiet conversations go on. Nothing seems to happen on the screen.

Indeed for people brought on with pompous and effective image of MI6 draw in their heads by James Bond, his fellow, George Smiley (excellent Gary Oldman) seems to be absolutely boring.

He is not sexy either. He wears grey coat and thick glasses, his hair could have seen a hairdresser weeks earlier. He seems to be grey guy doing grey job.

But the real picture of an intelligence officer is exactly that average looking chap. Watching his actions, we may feel like in a theatre. Despite moving around the streets on occasion, most of the plot happens between just a few people in not more than 4 or 5 rooms. Engaging dialogues in harmonious calm set where even a bee has it's place.

"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" has one genuine strength. The very very realistic scenery. Every detail in the movie is worked perfectly. There are no GSM towers on the horizon, or too modern cars, or any cellphone ringing anywhere. It is real London of the 70's, a little bit brownish, grey, rainy with low buildings, always dirty from forever smog.

The extreme accuracy with which the movie is done is I suppose a result of a close cooperation between the director Thomas Alfredson and the author of the book upon which the movie was done, John le Carre.

While every single of John le Carre's books is an ideal real life plot full of surprising events among very boring normal people, the book "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is a special one. David John Moore Cornwell, as is le Carre's real name has got 20 years of active service in British intelligence. His role and identity in the Circus as MI6 is called among the workers, got burnt down due to betrayal of Kim Philby, one of the Great Five, group of smart Oxford students recruited into intelligence work. By writting the "Karla Trilogy" le Carre deals with memories of his own past in the service. Only long after those events he can finally write about it and be not afraid for his life.

In history there had been probably a number of moles situated at the top of British intelligence. One of them was allegedly Richard Hollis, the very head of MI5. Peter Wright who first wrote a book about him, could not have printed it anywhere outside Australia. He was forced into retirement and lived as a farmer until his death as a millionaire due to sells of his book "Spycatcher".

Several days ago the identity of another Russian spy who tried to infiltrate British high class was revealed by Daily Telegraph. Mikhail Repin, young, synpathetic, witty gentleman who spoke flawless english had done his best to try to recruit members of the Parliament and officials working at Downing Street 10.

He was cought. Maybe there is hope for Britain, that the country may improve it's image which got really compromised. If indeed there was a mole at the top, a lot of events in the history of 20th century makes sense, including the story of Polish army in the West which got buried officially and banned from publically being spoken about until the very fall of communism. There is indeed something in it....

For those boys who dream in their mucho heads about James Bond life. Beware.

Cash, maybe. Women, sometimes.

Peace of mind, never. Friends, never. Watching behind your shoulder, always.

***********
"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", Thomas Aldredson, 2011.

The Way Back

...in other words, I would expect more of Peter Weir.

But let's start from the very beginning. Some time ago I had finally seen that movie just because of family reasons. After all Siberian experience of forced labor, escapes from the camps, death shots in Katyń woodlands or elsewhere, that's all a family history, so watching a movie done by a great director in 21st century may make this thing kind of closer.

There are several guys in the camp of several different ethnicities. Some of them Russian, some of them French and a Polish guy (Jim Sturgees) who was betrayed by his own wife. Not of her own will, obviously. Soviet bastards forced her to do this. After all if you rape or beat the lady, not many of them are tough enough not to talk what the "authorities" want to hear.

In the camp we see rules of life. Urkas are the rule and among them the leader - called exactly Urka (Colin Farrell), not Walka like some idiots writting movie reviews want us to believe.

Soviets divided prisoners into political ones: enemies of the state, and Urkas - mere criminals, rapists, murderers, etc. After all every system has this kind of people. They had been rewarded by the camp rulers for spying on those political ones and exactly that is shown in the movie. Scenes in the camp belong to the best ones, because the rest is unfortunately not as good.

The rest of the movie shows the escape and obstacles on the way. But something was wrong with music. This movie had been too silent. Semi-desert had also been too silent. Several times there have been scenes repeated picturing the group walking down the bank of the Baikal Lake (deepest one in the world). These scenes might have been of bigger variety of angles, light etc.

Strong sides of the movie? Yes, there are two of them, well three. At first people responsible for light should be awarded with Oscar. It's been quite a while since I had seen a movie where light was worked out to the tiny detail. Currently noone seems to care and very often we see that a person is additionally lit up with a 300W light bulb even if the scene is shot outdoors. This is against a lot of rules, but rich producers of nowadays explain it by budget reasons. Oh really? They receive 10x that much as their predecessors some 20 years ago and yet 20 years ago light was light. It had to be obeyed with no exceptions.

So if you want to see a movie where a sunlight is a sunlight and if it shines it shines properly with right intensity from the proper side of a person, you should watch The Way Back to learn how to do it. If compared hardly any movie of recent matches up to this standard, and here including Avatar, Sherlock Holmes and many others.

Another plus is the scene when Urka decides to stay. In some conversations with Russian dissidents or from Vladimir Bukovsky book I have learned that the lowest category wolf still never ever leaves his pack. And that the most Soviet people did not want to pay the price of freedom. Known hell is still better than unknown heaven.

The third good thing in the movie is a feeling of reunion... a march to freedom, when finally in 1989 a husband can hug a wife whom he had not seen since 1940's. I won't say more. I would expect much much more of Peter Weir, but nevertheless it is a movie worth watching.

Booming Aid Hoax

It's not a movie, but who knows, maybe one day someone uses it as a good script.

Up to 30% of aid funds in conflict areas are wrongly spent. Jean Mazurelle, former director of the World Bank branch in Kabul, estimated that 35%–40% of all international aid being sent to Afghanistan is “wrongly spent”. “In Afghanistan, the wastage of aid is sky-high: there is real looting going on. In the 30 years of my career, I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.

Similar looting took place in Somali, which cause direct American intervention back in 1992. Black market traded aid goods for real dollars there where people were dying of hunger.

As an author of War Games: The Story of Aid and War in Modern Times Linda Pulman says, foreign aid became a reason of some unrest and rebellions in many corners of the world. The logic behind it is simple: without violence and devastation, there is no aid. So, the more devastation, conflict, violence and terror, the more place seems to be in need of humanitarian approach, and together with it, real money comes.

In post-conflict Mozambique, mafia organizations founded NGO's which made a lot of attempts to swingle money from overseas aid funds.Foreign diplomats and UNDP workers were forced to carry guns if they really wanted to supervise how money is being spent. Some of them got themselves seriously injured.  

Not only insurgents consider foreign aid as a good way to get richer. There is a growing number of websites which represent problems with some area by heartcatching words and no real concrete details of implemented projects, dare to ask good-willing people for donation. How many of them trust such websites? It is difficult to say. It is not easy to prove a hoax being done this way. What if these money are really helping someone?

How to recognize which initiative is trustworthy and which isn't? My long term practice in watching NGO actions tells me that each organization which wants to build social credibility, gathers some big names in their scientific or advisory boards, or the members themselves have long enough scientific or diplomatic careers that their call for money gives some hope, that it goes for real needs. Next thing is project evaluation report, which credible organization should do and publish at least once a year. What has been done? What did we accomplish? It is easier to monitor such things if it is a hard-aid NGO, much less easy if it is just a watchdog. But even a watchdog gains credibility by making it's actions really known.

I have known a lot of NGO activists and workers starting from Amnesty International, ending on local environmental initiatives. Some of them, after 10 years of hard work for bigger and better known NGO, started new initiative, new foundation which fulfilled certain niche, a space in society which still needs some action. The basis of trust however, are former careers of these people, their long years of experience, and the very simple fact that, they are not John Doe's.

If you see that the owner of some website which calls for donations and gives literally no solid information, is a John Doe, a "noname" with no achievements, no history, no background, skip it. If such a person wants to help others, there are thousands of better ways than starting his or her own "organization" in the age of 23 with a "donate" button using Joomla template.

If you really want to help, donate your work, donate your time for something local, something you really know. Give cloths away to Caritas, volunteer to clean space after the flood. If you need to give cash, think twice before you do.

Lupa

...jump! So she avoided sight of scent hounds again. Another time on that winter night. Snow and ice crunching under their feet made it possible tobe heared from the far. But so she could be heard from a distance too. The skillful silent walk made very slight noise which her humters more felt than crealy heard.

She stopped to look around. Spruce, pinewood and oaks so high above closed their crowns up there. Warm steam of breath moved slowly away from her nosdrils. Lungs worked like crazy up and down. Pulse slowly very slowly went back to normal. Light of million stars glistened everywhere. She thought it is visible, the embrace of freeze which forces to struggle, makes trails visible. Hunting was easy for her in these long weeks in the forest. This time however she was being hunted for...

The passion of a goal in the air speeded dogs foreward. Lupa was there in the woods in front of them, strong, fast, but so vulnerable in her solitude. Scent of her fur excited their senses, scent of freedom they had never known.

She stopped resting and thinking and moved own slowly. Blackberry bushes marked the way to the swamps. Scream of tawny owl teared apart heavy silence in the air. Not far from her way of escape brave mother of the mice tribe gave herself up to the ancient pirate. Circle of life went on.

Not me! You will never get me!, thought she running restlessly ahead. Passing junipers and royal ferns Lupa could smell increasing humid essence of swamps ahead of her. It was the kingdom of elks where she headed. Never before needed she to be hidden so deeply in the woods running for dear life, trying to avoid the fate.

Moss gently moved under her paws. Instinct told her to stop going this way but instinct also told her to live. One step after another. In between fallen pines and small birches and willows she could see black mirror of water, black as a coal with none spark of a star in it. Waiting for it's victims... waiting patiently... for her?

Moss moved again as she jumped on a fallen pine. Another one she could see so far away. Too far to reach it! Bark of dogs went closer, her front paws slipped into the black sucking hell. Long seconds of struggle to get them out but why, for approaching nemezis. destiny? Is it her time now, is it what has to happen?

Goddess of nature herself helped her that moment. Told to stretch muscles and jump, her thin body almost reached the pole of pine, clinging to remains of birch she suffocated , breathed with a wistle trying to grasp a bit of air inside, pulling herself up. She laid on the pine getting strengths back. Long minutes seemed to pass endlessly. Her body shivered in convulsions. There, 100 m away ahead was the shelter of deep forest. If only she could get there?

Could she?... Her bright eyes measured difficulties. Only small birches and willows had given any hope for salvation. So she started gently jumping from one poor piece of wood to another. Had she fallen into black deepness she would never come up from it's embrace. Never...

But Goddess of Nature had grace on this night. Exhausted, grey mistress of night, climbed up the moss on the other side. Black hell let her go. On the other side, male cohort of hounds blinded with primeaval passion went on to the swamp to meet their destiny. She stood looking onto the dance macabre, kept watching first two brave ones as their nosdrils desperately tried to gasp and soon their bodies sucked into the black arms of death.

She stood watching the rest as they kept barking in a helpless desperation, could see her, could not get her.

"Darkness is my kingdom, not yours". Her proud pose had spoken unspeakable.

She turned her thin body and vanished in the woods. Long time could she hear desperate barking.

Lupa of the White Forest
to be continued....