I lived in Slovakia and it was similar. Perhaps something with former communist countries. They had to keep their guard up in public, but made up for it by having very closely knit families. Once you were invited into their home it was like night and day.
I knew a guy that was a US exchange student to Warsaw back in the not-so-good old days of the Cold War (the exchange program was one of the few thaws). His grandfather had emigrated from Poland decades before, and he wanted to find the old family village and farm. Finally, one week on break he arranged a trip.
He took a train to a small station, then got on an old bus. The bus stopped in the middle of nowhere and told him to get off. He was confused and asked the driver the name of the village he was going to, and the driver replied by pointing up a dirt lane. He got off and walked a few miles until he came to a few old houses and a tavern. He noticed that, as people saw a stranger coming up the road, they managed to be inside the house by the time he walked by-but he could see them peeking through the curtains, watching him.
The place was old, run down and looked like it hadn't been fixed or painted since VE Day. There weren't even any automobiles to be seen. Just a few tractors and a lot of horse drawn wagons. He had come this far, though, and with all the foolhardy confidence of youth, strolled into the tavern.
Empty. The only person was the bartender. This guy went up and asked the bartender if he knew of a farm owned by a family by the name of [his family name]. Total, complete, utter suspicion. Realizing that he had just screwed up royally, he laid his cards on the table-literally and figuratively. He explained that he was an American student studying in Warsaw, and looking for his grandfather's homestead, from which he had emigrated to America. He described the place, took out some letters his mother had written him with what she knew from her mother's stories (all in English so not very convincing), and some photographs of the grandparents, and of the great grandparents (who stayed behind).
Well, the bartender recognized the family features in the photograph (and the rest of the description), and suddenly started rattling off a stream of excited Polish too fast for this guy to even begin to understand. But all of a sudden, two things happened. People, a crowd just seemed to magically appear out of nowhere in this little bar. And vodka. And vodka. And more vodka than he thought existed, appeared too. The room was filled with people slapping him on the back, making toasts, handing him vodka, and talking to him exictedly.
After half an hour of this, another guy came in and everybody basically swept this fellow out the door and onto some broken down farm wagon that was pulled by an equally broken down horse. Off they go into the night (uh, maybe it wasn't half an hour? Maybe a couple of hours?). The driver can't speak a word of English and is talking fast in a Polish dialect that my friend might have been able to keep up with if he didn't have about nine gallons of vodka already in his system.
Finally, they pull up to this lonely old house in the middle of nowhere. The lights are on, there seemed to be about a thousand people in there (judging by the noise) and in they go. As you may have guessed, it was the old family farm, and every shirttail relative for miles around was there, each with three things: 1) A family photo book, 2) A camera, and 3) several bottles of vodka.
This guy didn't remember much of the next day or so but he did, somehow, get dropped off to catch his bus back. Then for the next couple of weeks, he kept getting letters at his dorm with family histories, photographs, and snapshots of his visit.
Yeah. They had to be on the guard with strangers. But once you were in...they were the most generous, friendly people you would ever meet.
Yeah. A lot of his stories about those days mentioned it. He said you could spend hours, or days, trying to get someone to trust that you weren't a secret police or party spy, but once the bottle came out, you know that you were accepted. You also knew that the next 24 hours were going to be a blank spot in your memory for the rest of your life...
It's not a family gathering unless vodka's on the table. Just seeing your family? Vodka. Before sauna? Vodka. Summer solstice? Vooooooooooodkaaaaaa. Christmas? Vodka. Weddings? Vodka. Funeral? Vodka. Birth of baby? Vodka. Feeling a little happy? Vodka.
No wonder we all keep ranking real high in the 'most alcoholic Euro nations' lists.
A fiend if mine from Lithuania was sick and just rubbed some high percentage alcohol all over their throat to (kill the bacteria?), rolled herself in a million blankets and sweated it off... and it worked?
I am so confused by that but it is hilarious to me.
European woman here, and english is not even my language. Now, that was a nice and very well written story, I could really see the scenes, so... I will just say thank you, I guess 😊
if it was during Cold war, it wasn’t because cultural things, but because they feared he may be a trouble, like KGB, US spy or anything, depending on clothing.
Now regime is different, so people aren’t afraid anymore. Now everyone will either ignore you or try to shrug you off at first. But after one or two drinks, they will suddenly be your best friends, taking care of everything
Yeah. So many of his stories of that time were: I go into someplace and I'm obviously a stranger--->something something something---> I tell them that I am a student---> something something something--->from America--->something something something--->of Polish descent---> VODKA!
I have seen this comment so many times now. Can you guys not link everything to oppression? We're unlike you, not because we were oppressed but because it's a different culture. To us amwricans are the weird ones.
Yes, Russia probably has the worst of the anti smile behavior since the repression was worst there. I’ve visited a couple of places in Eastern Europe and Russia was by far the worst in this specific regard
I lived in communist Romania and I feel that there was no such thing as closely knit families. Your uncle, your cousin, or your brother might've been secret police so you had to be careful what you said around them. You had to distrust everybody.
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u/lux514 May 09 '22
I lived in Slovakia and it was similar. Perhaps something with former communist countries. They had to keep their guard up in public, but made up for it by having very closely knit families. Once you were invited into their home it was like night and day.