I don't know how many people like me saw the title "To Baghdad" at first glance as "To Baghdad". It took me a while to react, wrong, it's Babadag.
As the first time I heard of the place name, I didn't know where Babadag was, so I looked up the information.
Although there is little information on the Internet, it is probably known that Babadag was originally a small Romanian town in Central and Eastern Europe, with beautiful scenery, an area of only 35.7 square kilometers, and a population of about 10,000 in 2007.
A small, lesser-known place, why did the author go here and write a book?
Andrzej Staszyk, author of To Babadag, is a well-known Polish author, journalist and literary critic whose works have won numerous literary awards.
This book is his travels from Poland to Babadag, Romania in the 80s of the 20th century, and over a period of more than seven years, he records what he sees and thinks on the way, telling what he saw and heard through Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Albania, Ukraine, Moldova and other Eastern European countries.
Before 1989, some of these countries were virtually unknown and had another identity – socialism in the name of the Soviet Union, and how many cities and towns remained obscure and unobtrusive, like Babadag.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Eastern European countries have been in a delicate situation after experiencing great historical and political changes. As countries on the fringes of Eastern Europe, Poland, Hungary and other countries have oscillated between positioning themselves as Eastern or Central European countries, and seem to want to try to get rid of the label of Eastern European countries and change their former identities in order to catch the express train of the European economy.
In the wave of globalized economy, this marginalized land gradually fell silent and lost, low-key dormant on the European continent, and gradually widened the gap with the booming Western Europe, and the chaotic regime change and economic backwardness were the main impressions they left on the world. It's not a tourist hotspot.
In this context, the route taken by the author on this journey has a little special meaning and feeling.
Perhaps it should be said that this is not an easy and pleasant journey, walking in this lonely land is more of a heavy, embarrassing and melancholy. This book is not a simple travel book that introduces the scenery and travel strategies of various places, but a mixture of the author's many thoughts and streams of consciousness, covering the review of history, politics, philosophy, literature and other aspects.
The author's journey began in the early 80s of the 20th century and continued until the arrival of the 90s. Eastern Europe at that time was in a turbulent period before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Under the Soviet regime, countries had independent currency and entry and exit policies, and border checks were required between entering and leaving countries, which was not as convenient and simple as the current European Union.
It is a land on the fringes of Europe, a strange land, a land that has been neglected or forgotten. But it also fits the author's preference for walking "marginal areas".
There are remote mountains and villages, dilapidated industrial areas, many backward and isolated corners, and even people who meet foreigners like the author for the first time. There is also a lively city, with squares, churches, cafes, and a lively and lively side.
The author began his journey from his native Poland. This is a country that was a great European power, experienced destruction and restoration, and lived for a long time between the Soviet Union and Germany, with a bad fate, but still struggling to stagger forward in turbulent situations.
The author once stood by a river in Poland and could look at the buildings and factories in Frankfurt, Germany, on the other side, and was equally lifeless. This gives people a sense of oppression and decadence up close.
The scars that war and turmoil leave on a country tend to last for quite a long time until people can settle down and start a normal life, and they are not necessarily fundamentally healed.
Walking through the land of Poland, what is left here is a feeling of loneliness, nothingness, chaos, and strangeness. The glory and prosperity of the past have been annihilated in the flames of war and turmoil. For the people who have experienced the collapse of the motherland many times and faced great changes, how much sense of belonging, security and loyalty will they have to the country? And how many historical civilizations can remain in their hearts?
"Warsaw is like a strange city far away, but my heart is not a wave, my teeth are full of dust on the ground, I feel like I am traveling through my country through a strange land."
There are a lot of unfamiliar place names of places where the author has walked in the book, and although there are notes below to indicate what country and region they are, for me, who is not familiar with Eastern Europe, they are still full of illusion and strangeness, and they do not seem to be real places, and they seem to be annihilated in the torrent of history in the blink of an eye.
I could barely remember the unfamiliar names, so I had to read books and look for maps online to deepen my impression of the location and impression of those areas. This gave me a chance to brush up on the geography and history of Eastern Europe.
For example, Moldova, a country with "the longest place is 300 kilometers and the widest is 130 kilometers", sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania, may be fortunate that its location can be easily found on the map.
"The entry points in Le Senj are all made of grey concrete and empty. A uniformed woman took her passport and disappeared for fifteen minutes. This is the author's first impression after entering the country.
When entering and exiting between countries, customs stamps the passport with a transit stamp. The author has stamped a total of 167 seals in the seven years he walked, but not all customs offices will seal and check them faithfully.
The management and inspection of entry and exit seems to be just a routine, and the borders between countries may not be so obviously tough, as if they are a group of brothers and brothers forgotten by heaven.
The vast majority of these places the author has traveled and stamped are located in the "mixed population zone" - "in these areas, cause and effect have no logic and the result is not cared about in the slightest."
These are spaces of chaos, so much so that people often "lose their identity" and lose their sense of existence. This is the legacy of national turmoil, frequent integration and separation.
At the end of the book, the author finally goes to Babadag. In fact, he went twice in two years, but each time it was only ten minutes, because the bus only stopped there for ten minutes.
"Babadag is tired and lonely." This is the author's assessment and his impression of the town, where nothing has changed for two years and time seems to stand still.
From Poland, the author travels through a dozen or so Eastern European countries and regions, and finally arrives here, and then hurriedly leaves ten minutes later, which seems to have no more meaning than as a stopover for the bus.
I couldn't search for Babadag's exact location on the map of Ronania, and I could only imagine this inconspicuous place through the author's text. I guess it may be located in Romania, near the edge of the Black Sea, near the Balkans, a region that has not been calm and stable since ancient times.
This seems to be the end of the countries of Eastern Europe, but perhaps a new beginning. This land has accumulated thousands of years of glory, but it has been lost in turmoil, starting from scratch again and again. Like the author's journey, "constantly starting from scratch and trying to discover it for yourself".
At the end of the book, the author stands on a border crossing in Slovakia waiting for customs to check his passport, and this journey to lost Eastern Europe continues. Everything is both the end and the beginning.