🇱🇻🇱🇹 A Closed Door

Hello Adventurers, 

The best was saved for last. And not by me hoarding treasure as bait — and not by me projecting cosmic woo-woo-ism onto events — but by things beyond my control; like sheer randomness and/or fate and/or serendipity and/or luck; be it good or bad. And that’s how the final few days of this ‘leg’ of my Marathon Earth Challenge played out abroad. And I don’t know what to make of it — or what it means — so all I can do is recount what happened herein.

Basically, I unintentionally got to Latvia for the sesquicentennial jubilee anniversary of the Latvian Song and Dance Festival (the festival itself only happens every five years), I accidentally got to Lithuania for a NATO summit (in a country that borders Russia…whose ‘special military operation’ sadly hit its 500th day of destruction this week), and then I randomly stumbled into the Republic of Užupis — which I didn’t even know existed — where I had a chance encounter with a truly remarkable human being (in a place that’s either magic or malarkey…and you’ll have to decide for yourself).

So this issue of the newsletter covers some marathons in Riga and Vilnius…but was written in Warsaw…and then published from Toronto. And Pitbull claims to be Mr. Worldwide but this dog ain’t afraid to step to that title…so let’s get into the globetrotting.

- Ben Pobjoy

P.S. The ‘July Batch' of Pobjoy Postcards marathoned portions of The Baltic Way in Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius…and touched its southern terminus. If you want to receive a monthly, one-of-a-kind handwritten postcard from me on my Marathon Earth Challenge, you can subscribe here.

2023 TREK TRACKER

Where in the world...record am I?

• Countries visited: 42

• Flights taken: 46

• Kilometres flown: 70,387

• Marathons completed: 126

• Kilometres trekked by foot: 5,995.3

• Total kilometres trekked since 2015: 69,087

RAPID WEEKLY RECAP

A speedy synopsis for time-crunched readers

• The Wildest Thing: Eastern Europeans in Baltic airports double-fisting pints of beer (as well as chain-smoking filterless cigs) at 6AM before catching flights😳

• The Biggest Obstacle: Staying in an Airbnb that had a wet room…and I understand the design thinking behind it in a small space…but seeing water from the shower head bounce off of the toilet and onto my body…hygiene was a challenge this week😩

• The Lesson Learned: A good attitude can trump a bad situation🫡

FIELD NOTES: RIGA, LATVIA

Leans back

I only had one full day to rip one marathon in Riga…so my experience there was incomplete yet somehow full. How so? Well, I just so happened to show up when the Latvian Song and Dance Festival was going down…and the national festival only happens every five years. And more on that in a sec…

But first…Riga…it’s kinda cool but the culture is stuck in time because it overly relies on yesteryear. Like, I poked around the scenic Old Town, went inside the former Soviet KGB headquarters in Latvia, entered the old market inside the five pavilions reconstructed from old German zeppelin hangars, and strolled around the old Pilsētas Kanāls (where a bad boi was racing his boat through the canal and creating crazy wakes). But yeah, ‘today’ in Riga just feels like the holdover of yesterday…and it leaves you wanting to know what tomorrow has in store.

Now there is some new / cool stuff in Riga that’s decent…but it just wasn’t that widespread; a mall with the nicest / swankiest food court I’ve ever eaten in, a contemporary monument to bygone animal cosmonauts, and this one public park that had mind-boggling facilities…

However, I also passed bars where scantily clad women were go-go dancing, and passed this private art gallery where the door girl was in a bra and skimpy undies…and it all felt like cheeseball 1980’s ‘Hooters resto vibes’ (but with Euro techno music blaring and corny-ass dudes wearing spandex t-shirts and sunglasses at night).

But whateves, I can’t knock it…people were into it…but it just wasn’t my scene. And yo, I’m not dissing those women wearing what they had to wear to earn a buck…I’m just saying the establishments using human meat as click dick bait were gimmicky and passé.

Riga was seeming to be too provincial for my cosmopolitan tastes. Luckily, this train of thought derailed when I nearly pissed my shorts on a marathon in a washroom-less dead zone on the outskirts of town (and thus routed myself to a nearby forest to go piss in the woods). And there, I struck gold…twice; finding a portable toilet, and finding it because it had been placed in the forest because the forest was a staging ground for thousands of choir singers — male and female, young and old — being funnelled into a massive open-air bandstand nearby to perform a ‘grand finale concert’ of Latvian choral music. Before visiting, I didn’t know this was a ‘big thing’ here, and it is…like watch this video.

Anyhoo, the scene in the woods was totally surreal; I looked like a total weirdo creeping around with a camera while all the choir participants…they were astoundingly beautiful in their regional wardrobe, makeup, and variety of head covers (that ranged from wraps to hats to crowns made of fresh flowers). Honestly, it was on the of the prettiest, most visual things I’ve ever seen…and catching it at golden hour in a forest was just incredible.

My brain is fried from a lifetime of too much TV and movies…and my initial thought was like, “This looks like Midsommar and Handmaid’s Tale and Imma get murdered” But yo, everyone was so joyful and peaceful and getting stoked to go sing…and the wardrobe? Man, I just can’t stress it enough; so stunning in detail and variety and patterns and materials and textures…and it totally elevated my time in Latvia at like the 11th hour — and upended my ‘hot take’ on Riga — and tempered my cold critique; because the lack of ‘new’ here may not necessarily be a bad thing ‘cause the ‘old’ here clearly has so much depth and richness.

FIELD NOTES: VILNIUS, LITHUANIA

Leans forward

I was in Vilnius for all but six seconds before my tired, soda addicted-ass needed a Pepsi Max…so I hit a gas station, and the cashier there hit me with some terrible news; this was allegedly the worst time ever to visit Lithuania’s capital. Why? Because a NATO summit was firing up and she said — in broken English — that the city was getting shutdown. Yikes!

So I cracked open the Pepsi in the gas station as I cracked open my phone to do some digging and learnt two things; first, the summit causing restrictions map was confusing (but I could deduce from it that all the dope shit was now off limits) and second, it wouldn’t be advisable to do ‘forest pees’ here because — according to Wikipedia — this was NOT the time or place to be fucking around in:

“According to a representative of the Dignitary Protection Service of Lithuania, 40 heads of state and up to 150 other high-ranking officials will attend the summit and will require personal protection. To ensure the safety and security, Lithuania committed around 1,500 police officers, including the anti-terrorist unit ARAS and the Criminal Police Bureau, as well as over 3,000 troops of the Lithuanian Armed Forces. Additionally, police officers from Latvia and Poland aided in security and around 1,000 troops from NATO states additionally joined as well, including the Polish Special Forces to aid the Lithuanian Special Operations Force. Overall, up to 12,000 officers and soldiers were. In addition to security personnel, Spain is reported to have temporarily moved its NASAMS air defense system from its long-term position in Latvia to Vilnius, in addition to Lithuania's own NASAMS systems. Similarly, German Armed Forces have deployed their MIM-104 Patriot long-range air defense system, placing it in Vilnius International Airport. NATO sent additional warships to the Baltic Sea. CBRN task force was also deployed.”

So I exited the gas station — a tad defeated — to start my marathon…and the vibe was immediately weird because commando-looking motherfuckers clutching menacing assault riffles in zodiac boats were patrolling the Neri River (which cuts through the city centre), and every piece of critical infrastructure or building of importance was guarded by scary dudes (with necks as thick as heads) who looked like they’d shoot first, and ask questions later. But then I made an incredible discovery…Vilnius was largely shut down to cars for the NATO summit — not people — and the city was temporarily an ideal playground for pedestrians…and I really couldn’t have asked for better conditions!

And fuck me…’cause Vilnius just turned out to be a truly amazing place. Like the other Baltic States, it too has an Old Town with a killer market and a medieval city gate with architectural flexes like the Gates of Dawn…but what really differentiated it was that so much newness was thriving here, and much of it was sophisticated, well-curated, and design forward; like this café that sold stationary, this sauna bar, and this crazy-ass café ran by runners who issue percentage discounts based on how many kilometres one has cranked out that day. All of it was so commercially innovative…and indicative of cultural fertility that was further evidenced by things like great restaurants, the contemporary art museum, and even a museum dedicated to illusions! Truthfully, I just liked wandering all over the city centre because the balance of new and old was spot-on perfection. Oh, and HBO’s Chernobyl miniseries was shot in Vilnius…and it was fun for me to marathon through Fabijoniskes (which was used to portray Pripyat).

But what made Vilnius even better were the people…they’re just so warm and welcoming, which is sorta hard-wired into the character of the place because few characters here are hardcore ethnic Lithuanians…and more like this complete mutt-y mix of people with one Belorussian parent and one Moldovan grandparent who have a Ukrainian surname that are only like a second-generation Lithuanian (‘cause of the ‘swap-yness’ from Soviet times past). So there aren’t gatekeepers…because the gates are kinda open to anyone who’s passing through; be it temporarily or forever. And this uniqueness gives the place a real distinct flavour.

The cultural explosion here is palpable and it is quite remarkable given this country has only been independent since 1990, and was a totally repressive hellhole before then. So it was fucked up to visit the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights (yes, plural ‘cause of Nazis), and be permitted to do a lessez-faire, non-guided stroll around the basement — which is akin to a dungeon — which was formerly a Soviet KGB prison where people were imprisoned and executed in the thousands for decades. Like, I was going in cells, sitting on cots, looking at bags of shredded KGB documents, touching old spy machines, and even entered the pockmarked execution chamber. And it’s weirdly hands-on and unstaffed…and I’m glad I went…but I didn’t stay long ‘cause the whole thing was just so sickening (i.e. how fucking twisted and torturous our species can be). But it functioned like a repressive ‘was’ that contextualized the bumping ‘is’ of Vilnius today. And when life was so limited for so long, it’s incredible to see Lithuanians being so unlimited today in their collective imagination. A sense of ‘building anew’ is felt in Vilnius, and it is energizing.

The Marathon Earth Challenge is proving to be an unending series of happy accidents ‘cause I’m organizing it myself, and I don’t really know what the hell I’m doing. And the world is either more magical than I anticipated or I just routinely luck out with my ‘best guess’ routing…or it’s some combination of the two.

Like, the other week I marathoned through mainland Scandinavia — being Norway, Sweden, and Finland — and just did a deep dive assessment of the Nordic Model there while banging out hundreds of kilometres by foot. This enabled me to evaluate the progressive societal praxis of the aforementioned social democracies…which are truly citizen-focused like few other countries are.

And I’ve now just ripped through the Baltic States…marathoning Tallinn and Riga and Vilnius…in the exact order which just so happened to mirror the starting, middle, and endpoint of The Baltic Way. And if you don’t know what that is, it’s like the biggest and most bad-ass peaceful protest of all time; in August 1989, two million-ish people held hands to form a human chain that spanned nearly 700 kilometres across the Baltics to protest their on-going annexation and occupation by the USSR…which would dissolve less than two years later.

Anyhoo, in Vilnius I stood on the Stebuklas Miracle Tile which is alleged to be the southern terminus of The Baltic Way. And according to Atlas Obscura, it has magical properties:

“Once you do find the miracle tile, here’s what you do: spin around three times clockwise, jump up and clap once (not totally necessary, but certainly entertaining for those watching you), and make the biggest wish that comes from your heart. If it worked for the people in the Baltic Way of 1989, the stebuklas just might work its wonders for you too.”

So I followed the instructions and wished for world peace — over world war — which felt timely with the hawkish NATO summit happening around me…as I was surrounded by military machos and weapons of mass destruction…and I’m just sooo over our dumb-ass species being war-obsessed and blowing wads of moolah on destruction.

This may read as naive but I don’t care…it’s no more naive than a bunch of people deciding to peacefully hold hands and — in turn — expediting the extinction of a bullshit empire. So I also went to the Road of Freedom Memorial Wall in Vilnius too — which is built of bricks imprinted with the names of people who participated in The Baltic Way, and gave thanks — and felt inspired — and can only hope we humans continue the work of disarming and disassembling other bullshit empires hellbent of ferrying us into aggressions and the Anthropocene. So yeah, big ups to the Baltics with their big lesson on how to achieve an alternate reality.

FIELD NOTES: REPUBLIC OF UŽUPIS

Leans weird

The Republic of Užupis is whatever you deem it to be; real, fake, an elaborate joke or totally legit. And all you need to know is that in 1997 it became a self-declared, one-square-kilometre-sized country on April Fool’s Day…launched by a bunch of artists…that no foreign government recognizes…that’s smack dab in the middle of Vilnius.

So is it real? Well, it has its own constitution, its own currency, and its own flag…which features a hand with a stigmata-like hole on the palm…making it unable to accept bribes. And Užupis has its own government, a navy, and quirky customs (like official signs everywhere warning you to be silly and creative…and free beer from the water spout in the main square on Independence Day). The Dalai Lama is an honorary citizen that’s visited twice, and Pope Francis even blessed the joint on a visit. And I hit it on a marathon so I can relay that I did step foot in — and all over — this tangible place.

And I believe it has the best constitution ever written, and therefore personally recognize it as a real country. Why? Well, because it’s fundamentally silly and imaginative and that’s my jammy jam. Like, if we don’t dream new realities…then how do we change the reality at hand?

BEST LOCAL THING-Y

I have a buddy named Binni who’s a total stud. I love him…but he’s fucking annoying ‘cause he’s Bradley Cooper handsome — and a totally buff beefcake — and a naturally gifted athlete (who makes every sporty pursuit he does look easy…which makes training with him soul crushing). The worst? It’s that he’s the nicest, loveliest dude who’s super humble…and a great human being that has been so kind and helpful to me over the years (like, as I was trying to get healthier I blasted him with a million questions, and he always answered them at length).

Anyhoo, the best advice Binni ever gave me — and I’m paraphrasing here — was something like, “Just try and exercise a few times a week, and try and eat an 80/20 diet overall.” The latter is just eating nutritious food 80% of the time, and junky stuff 20% of the time (with matching ratios in terms of portions). It was solid advice then, and something I’ve been able to sustain in the proceeding years (because it’s sensible and joyful, and doesn’t deny one treats…which are fun for the mouth and soul).

Ha ha, but fuck…I was so marathon-blasted and braindead from some brutally delayed middle-of-the-night flights this week that I lazily flipped the ratio; seeking out more comfort food than healthy food (to unwisely ameliorate my discomforts). And — no surprise — it left me feeling worse…until I snapped back to the proper 80% ratio at Rosehip in Vilnius.

There, I ate a delicious plant-based caesar salad and my body was like, “Health! HALLELUJAH!” And yeah, it was just a really solid salad with a bunch of crunchy greens, toasty croutons, grilled-til-caramelized tofu, bright-tasting capers, and squish-in-yer-mouth cherry tomatoes…which — when all done right — in terms of fresh ingredients and prettiness and chef-y execution…it’s the cat’s ass. Plus, it made me feel physically better (which was surely placebo), and I’ll take it; a winning feeling after days of food-y foibles!

POBJOY'S GLOBAL PRICE INDEX

This is an on-going documentation of how much things cost in different places around the world. Here are some of the things I bought in Riga, Vilnius, and Užupis (all prices converted to USD):

• Two bananas from a fruit vendor at the central market in Riga: 32¢

• One large falafel sandwich, one order of fries, and one 500 millilitre bottle of Pepsi Max from a restaurant in Vilnius: $11.50

• An almond milk latte — on the 11th kilometre of a marathon— from an innovative runner-operated café in Užupis that earned me an 11% discount: $3.02

MARATHON MUSINGS

On @dv-ersity and rolling with the punches

Dmytro was born a free man in Ukraine in 1991 just two weeks after the dissolution of the USSR, and left Kiev one week before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022...'cause he had a gnawing sense that something bad was about to happen. So when it comes to the cosmic over/under in terms of wagers in life...dude's got a preordained predilection for prediction…and a supernatural way of navigating the numbers (of space and time) with good fortune amidst misfortune.

So it’s hardly a surprise that us non-natives accidentally met in Lithuania, and serendipitous that this fluke occurred in magical Užupis.

Basically, I wandered into a place that advertised itself as a café on its exterior…but I think I crossed some odd intergalactic dimension…and stepped into much confusion because the café walls were covered in marathon bibs and marathon medals and it didn’t look like a conventional coffee shop…as I was bizarrely on a freestyle marathon myself. And I just wanted to buy a coffee…but left with so much more.

So here’s the real story behind something that’s gonna read like fiction:

I enter.

“What kilometre are you on?” Dmytro intuitively asks.

“Eleven” I reply.

“Okay, you get 11% discount off of drink.” he informs me…in workable English that’s better than my non-existent Lithuanian.

And then I snap to — from sleepyheadedness to incredulity — thinking to myself, “Wait…how does this guy know what I’m doing when I haven’t said shit?”

And I kinda announced my confusion aloud to Dmytro and his colleague — which confused them both — because they didn’t understand why I — a customer decked out in running gear from head to toe — didn’t understand the drill of this runner-oriented café they thought I knowingly sought out.

But then I clarified that I randomly walked in off the street and had never heard of the place…and didn’t know anything about the kilometre-to-coffee discount. And all three of us exchanged glances like, “Whoa…sooo weird.” Like, of all the places I could’ve gone into in all of Lithuania…here were my people who shared my very interests, and it was completely random…and an incredible icebreaker.

And when I understood what was previously un-understandable to me…I was automatically amused, and fired off a zillion questions about the café...which is such an innovative way to operate a business with a social purpose to encourage people to move. And Dmytro answered as much as he could…until he informed me that he didn’t work there. And for a second — like in my once-again-confused-head — I was like, “Is this guy just a weirdo customer hanging out?” But then Dmytro explained that he ran @dv, the shoe store in the café’s basement (which he had just opened five weeks earlier).

So we toured his humble startup downstairs…and this led to more conversation…which I approached delicately ‘cause this dude was going to bat with a new business after he’d been hit with a violent war.

But Dmytro just kicked it real and honestly…and with no moaning whatsoever, and just with like a lot of resolve and stoicism. And I probably asked some really-fucking-dumb-to-Dmytro questions — ‘cause war here is near and known — whereas for me, it’s far away and completely unknown (and Dmytro is/was the only human being I’ve met that has been personally affected by the war in Ukraine).

So more about Dmytro…he’s a young and ambitious thirtysomething with an interest in fashion…and a professional background as a marketing strategist and content producer that had an agency in Kiev that did work for brands like BMW and Lego back in Ukraine. And his partner is Russian who lived in Ukraine with him on long-term papers. And they’re parents to a two year-old girl who was born in Ukraine. And they fled to Vilnius ‘cause Dmytro had visited it once before and found it, “warm.” And they’ve settled on it for now, because it is workable.

But the downside is that EU marketing and advertising agency gatekeepers in Lithuania don’t consider Dmytro’s past work in the industry to be real because it was done outside of EU markets, and his partner can’t go back to Russia, and Belarus functions as this place where they go — when they can — to see family who meet them there. Oh, and he’s originally from Kharkiv — where much of his family remains — and it’s only a marathon length distance from the Russian border in Eastern Ukraine (and he’s now the point person abroad to receive family from there if they’re looking to escape). And he told me all this factually — sans complaining — as I received it with deep breaths for his unimaginable hardships.

But hey, he said it was kind of a blessing — if I can even use that word on his behalf — because he always wanted to open a shoe store but couldn’t do it in Ukraine where the average monthly salary is $400 USD and where, “Nike to us is luxury…like how Gucci is for you.” So he took a gamble and opened his store here, because the Lithuanian market has more loot to support it.

And we chatted about how his life has changed so quickly and drastically — and how everyone in Ukraine used to speak Russian as their first language but converted to speaking Ukrainian almost overnight due to the war — and how his daughter is learning / speaking Lithuanian…and he has to remind her that she’s Ukrainian…and he just kept dropping insights and explanations and colour commentary about the monochromatic madness that is war and displacement.

And I’m just telling you this ‘cause this young guy is existentially on the run — running a business — connected to running, and running up bills so I hope you can give his store a follow and maybe buy an @dv hat (like I did)…because this guy went ‘all in’ on a dream in Lithuania birthed from a nightmare situation in Ukraine…and he needs our support.

“Your life has been sooo crazy, man.” I said at the end of it all.

And Dmytro countered with like this kind-but-undeserving-bridge-to-shared commonality;

“Your project…your life…it’s crazy too…” 

And I didn’t know what to say ‘cause our crazy outcomes…they’re just totally different. Like, his was forced by seriousness and mine was chosen by silliness exploited from a position of privilege.

But Dmytro wasn’t done his thought;

“…Life…life is just crazy.”

And he shrugged. And he carried on, living life.

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