Dystopia

Travel grants

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:06:00 +0000

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm really into travel. It'd be fair to say that it's what I love doing most; there's just something about experiencing as much of this beautiful, diverse, amazing and sometimes terrifying planet as possible that has always captured my imagination. Of course the dream would be to one day combine that passion with writing - maybe magazines or newspapers, maybe online, maybe even the travel guides that have been such a valuable resource on my travels to date.

The only problem is that travel costs money. It's expensive, which makes it largely the preserve of the relatively well off, and until very recently my minimum-wage background meant that any desire to travel was largely restricted to flicking through those glossy publications packed full of exotic locations, or scouring an atlas whilst trying to imagine what all those strange sounding places were like.

So a few years ago I started having a look around for travel bursaries, and it turns out that there are an awful lot of them out there. Some have some exceedingly specific entrant requirements, often the result of an individual's bequest or an organisation wanting to target a particular group of people. Still others put age restrictions on their bursaries, with a maximum cap in the mid-20s being all too common.

So those bursaries that are open to the rest of us are few and far between, and those that do exist are understandably competitive. Still, I've had some limited success to date; there was last year's Peter Kirk European Travel Scholarship and the trip to Transnistria courtesy of Wanderlust. And I've managed to get some writing out of both trips too; a two-page spread on the Kaali Meteor Crater appeared in the February 2013 edition of Fortean Times and a piece on the latter won a recent writing competition.

One of the grants I apply for regularly is the Royal Geographical Society's Journey of a Lifetime, and I've been doing so on an annual basis since 2006. It's incredibly competitive and understandably so, and although I've made it through to the first shortlisting stage three times I've never got any further.

Anyway, I'm always keen to find out what each recipient does with their award, and this year is no different. As such I recently came across this Tweet from the RGS:

Keep up-to-date with the latest from our 2013 Journey of a Lifetime award recipient @millardwill, via downstreamchimp.wordpress.com
— RoyalGeographicalSoc (@RGS_IBG) March 7, 2013

Now if the name of the recipient is familiar it's because Will Millard won the RGS Neville Shulman Challenge Award back in 2009, with a fantastic trip to West Papua. His latest venture will see him set off on "a packrafting journey into the heart of Sierra Leone and Liberia's Peace Park", which looks absolutely incredible and I can't wait to find out how it goes and to hear the finished piece on Radio 4 in the Autumn.

However a little part of me can't help thinking it would be nice if these awards didn't go to known quantities; Will's blog suggests his application for the Journey of a Lifetime was his first but I'm sure the NS Challange Award didn't do any harm. He's also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Still, I guess it shows just how desirable these awards are and the sort of competition that exists out there. I know that if I were to get one it'd change my life completely; I'd be able to actually do some of the serious travelling that I've always dreamt of doing and perhaps even ditch the office job for something I really believe in. I've got a few ideas for the next RGS award applications and maybe - just maybe - this'll be my year...

Soviet ghosts - uncovering Estonia's communist past

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 00:07:00 +0000

(This is an abridged draft of an account of my time in Estonia in 2012, the result of a Peter Kirk European Travel Scholarship; you can read the formal report here and see some more photos from the trip here. I've got an idea to produce something of greater length as I think there's potential, so watch this space!)

There was a party atmosphere on board the packed ferry; even though it was barely 9 in the morning small groups of men and women sipped from cans of weak beer as their raucous offspring ran amok between decks. Some of the older passengers quickly retired to the on-board restaurant, whilst others sidled up to some of the ship’s numerous game machines emblazoned with names like ‘Gold Rush’ and ‘Treasure Island’. The dollar signs flashed in staccato yellow.

I decided to give the Bacchanalian delights a miss and instead headed out on deck. The sea air was bracing, rippling the waters of the Gulf of Finland as an unseasonably warm April sun glinted and gleamed on the waves. I took a deep breath and looked back towards a receding Helsinki, the city floating on the horizon like some half-forgotten dream.

Soon the soaring spires of medieval Tallinn slid into view, and the ship glided effortlessly into a swish modern dock. Before long we disembarked into glorious sunshine, and I strolled effortlessly through customs; no border guards, no checks. The majority of the ship's passengers – day-tripping Finns - had no need to hide their beverages.

When I was born back in the winter of 1982 such a scene would have been impossible. Tallinn – today the capital of an independent Estonia – was just another city in the Soviet Union, all but closed to curious foreigners. Leonid Brezhnev was not long in his grave and the short rule of Yuri Andropov had just commenced. The Era of Stagnation was at its zenith.

Things now, of course, are very, very different. Estonia is an enthusiastic member of the EU and NATO, having joined with its Baltic sisters Latvia and Lithuania in 2004 - the first (and thus far only) part of the former USSR to do so. Indeed, Estonia went one further by adopting the Euro seven years later, right at the height of the European Debt Crisis. Estonia has firmly thrown its lot in with the West.

My arrival in Tallinn heralded the start of a two week stint in the country. I was here partly because Estonia was effectively a blank to me; this was, after all, a relatively unknown country tucked away in the north-east corner of Europe and I knew very little about it.

But my curiosity ran deeper than that. I wanted to find out how the country had changed since independence 20 years previously and whether there was any evidence that this had once been Soviet soil – would there be monuments and statues and buildings left over from the previous regime? Or would these all have been destroyed in an unrelenting and systematic act of political rejection, as had happened elsewhere?

The Old Town was lovely, a warren of medieval streets and alleyways that seemed little altered from the days when this was an important Hanseatic port. Then known as Reval, the town earned its fortune from the web of trade routes that crisscrossed the Baltic Sea.

And yet it was never intended to be an Estonian city; founded by Danish King Valdemar II in 1219 its heyday was under the Germanic Livonian Order. Post-reformation weakness led to Swedish domination before incorporation into the Russian Empire in 1710 by the all-conquering Peter the Great. For almost the entirety of this period Estonians constituted a minority of the city’s population but were denied full citizenship rights. German would remain the language of social advancement right up until the First World War.

Things only really changed with industrialisation. The arrival of the railway in 1870 and the modernisation of the economy attracted more and more workers from the countryside, and by the dawn of the 20th century Estonians formed a majority, making the city the focus of Estonian nationalism. It would be here that the movement for independence would be most successfully galvanised by the chaos of the Russian Revolution, and in 1918 Tallinn became capital of an independent Estonia for the first time.

Soon I found the place that I was looking for, on one of Tallinn's most touristy streets - an Indian restaurant, complete with street side tables, chairs and parasols. It wasn’t long after midday but already the place was doing a brisk lunchtime trade; the distinctive smell of hot spices wafted over me as I open the door. Some customers were eating cross-legged in special booths by the windows.

One of the waitresses spotted me. "Ah, you must be Elo's couchsurfing friend!" she beamed. I asked how she guessed, winking as we both acknowledged the rather incongruous bag on my shoulder. "She's in the back. Just grab a seat and I'll go find her".

After a couple of minutes Elo appeared. "Hello! Welcome to Estonia! It's good to see you!" she said, giving me a warm hug as I stood up to greet her. It was the first time we'd met and yet I already felt that we were good friends, and she looked as lovely as her picture. Green-blue eyes, warm smile, dark blonde hair and a horrendously unflattering uniform. Welcome to Estonia indeed, I thought.

The occupation came gradually. At the outset of World War II the USSR demanded that its forced be permitted to establish military bases in the Baltic, to which those states meekly complied. By the summer of 1940 the Soviet Union was in a position to occupy the countries outright; fixed elections produced pro-Soviet governments, who then obediently petitioned Moscow for formal incorporation into the USSR.

This first period of Soviet rule would last roughly a year, and was characterised by mass arrests and deportations. Estimates vary but it’s generally accepted that around 30,000 Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians were sent to camps in Siberia and elsewhere.

All this changed when the launch of Operation Barbarossa saw Germany quickly invade and overrun the Baltics in July 1941. Welcomed initially as liberators by many local inhabitants, the Nazis successfully rolled back Soviet forces and set up the Reichskommissariat Ostland, a sort of military-civilian government.

By 1944 the war had swung back in the Soviets’ favour, and the Red Army once again swept through the Baltics. A curious and bitter three-way fight developed; German SS legions comprised of local volunteers were formed whilst opposing communist sympathisers joined the advancing Soviets. Still other disparate nationalist groups formed a partisan movement known as the Forest Brothers, fighting a guerrilla campaign that would continue well into the 1950s. Occasionally members of the same family would be pitted against each other.

At war’s end the Baltics were devastated. Hundreds of thousands of people had been killed or had fled abroad, national infrastructure was devastated and society deeply traumatised. Moreover Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had been reincorporated back into the USSR – and would remain as such for another 45 years.

I was sipping a hot chocolate in Tallinn’s Coca-Cola Plaza when my mobile rang. “Sorry I’m late!” blurted a heavily-accented female voice down the line. “I’m just finding somewhere to park. Give me five minutes”.

And exactly five minutes later Valeria Jakobson burst in. She spotted me straight away and came over, joining me at the small table without ordering. Valeria was a social communication researcher at the University of Tartu, and her blonde hair and Slavic looks betrayed the fact that she was a member of Estonia’s minority Russian population. She was keen to talk about the status of the Russian language in Estonia and launched straight into conversation.

“There is a big division between Russians and Estonians in Estonia”, she said. “We are like two communities, living separate lives”.

“In what way?”

“Well, things are easier now than they were in the 1990s. Then there was a lot of uncertainty but some of that still remains. We celebrate completely different events, for example.”

It was an interesting point. I asked her about the city’s Museum of Occupations – created in 2003 to document the Soviet period – and she pulled a face.

“These museums are politically motivated, everyone knows that they are not a fair reflection of events. Look” – she stared at me intently – “Russian speakers do not share the same standards of living as Estonian speakers, they have lower incomes and cannot hold positions of authority. I know a lorry driver, he’s perfectly bilingual. He applied for a job and was successful until they saw his name, a Russian name. Then the offer was taken away. Estonians always have priority”.

“Why is that?” I asked.

“It’s to do with narratives. In Estonia anything that reminded people of the Soviet times were rejected. Russians speakers were marginalised.”

‘Alien citizenship’ immediately sprung mind. When Estonia first became independent it refused to offer full citizenship to people who had emigrated from elsewhere in the Soviet Union after 1945 or their descendants unless they could demonstrate a degree of proficiency in Estonian. Those that cannot pass the test are unable to vote and have to use ‘Alien’ passports, which prevents visa-free travel within the EU.

It made me wonder whether Russian speakers felt any sense of nostalgia for the Soviet period.

“Oh yes, absolutely. I have one student who thinks of the Soviet Union as a happy time, when everyone was smiling. When I asked him why he said he’d seen it watching old films. It’s a bit like how Estonians hark back to the first period of independence as some beautiful time when everything was perfect.”

“And what about the Bronze Soldier and Bronze Night?”

Valeria looked a little sad, as if she’s been asked this question before.

“Any affinity with the Bronze Soldier is not a wish for the Soviet Union to be recreated, even thought a lot of people think this is the case. For us it’s about Russian dissatisfaction with our role in present day Estonia. We know the USSR will not return but we want to be full citizens.”

Bronze Night was an event that shocked Estonia and brought the issue of Russian speakers to the attention of the world’s press. In April 2007 the Estonian government declared that it would remove a controversial statue from the centre of Tallinn. This statue – the ‘Bronze Soldier’ – is a Soviet World War II memorial and for many Estonians it symbolised the occupation and repression of the Soviet years. For Estonia’s Russian speakers, however, it represented not only the defeat of fascism in the apocalyptic Great Patriotic War but also symbolised their right to participation in Estonian society.

When rumours started that the statue was facing imminent removal it sparked off two nights of violent rioting resulting in one death, dozens of shops looted and hundreds of arrests. A panicky government ordered the statue be taken down immediately, placing it in temporary storage before transporting it to the Military Cemetery several kilometres from the centre of town where it now stands.

It was only a short distance to the cemetery and Valeriadrove like the wind, covering the distance in only a few minutes. It was early evening, and there was no-one else around in the fading light. From the entrance a wide path led past rows of well-maintained graves straight to the statue. It dominated the area; a weary soldier, head bowed, stood solemnly between plaques inscribed in Russian and Estonian. Flowers and candles lay at the soldier’s feet, and although the monument was in the typically heroic style of the Soviet period it conveyed a certain sombreness.

I mentioned this lack of triumphalism to Valeria and she agreed enthusiastically.

“This monument is a monument to everyone, not just Russians” she said. “See, even the soldier looks Estonian.”

It was less than a fortnight to Victory Day, and I asked Valeria if she would be attending.

“Yes, of course. I come every year. It’s important to me - as a Russian - to go.”

“So will many Estonians be attending?”

“No, none. We celebrate separate events”.

We continued to stare silently at the bowed statue for a few more minutes before heading back to the car. It was a poignant introduction to this divided land.

The next morning I trudged from the apartment into town, the roads clogged with rush-hour traffic. The northern air was cool, crisp and refreshing – Tallinn is on a similar latitude to Scotland’s Orkney islands – and I almost felt like whistling. The dull ache at the back of my head couldn’t dampen my spirits.

Ah, last night. Elo and I had gone into town and visited a few of Tallinn’s bars. Some were new, some were old, some catered almost exclusively to the burgeoning trade in stag parties – apparently this constituted the stereotypical view of British tourists, so I was told – and some of those reserved for locals. We ended up in one of the latter, a small venue that felt like it had been built in what had once been someone’s house. The speciality was a strange mixture of vodka and coffee, served as a warm shot. It turned out they went down rather too well.

I was heading towards the Museum of Occupations, on the corner of Toompea and Kaarli puiestee. Located just outside the walls of the old town, I found it down a leafy street not far from the hill that once formed the political heart of medieval Tallinn.

It was a modern building. A concrete-and-glass structure had been slightly raised at ground level, providing an opening into a small courtyard filled with birch trees. A solid-looking metal door – inscribed OKUPATSIOONIDE MUUSEUM in capital letters - marked the entrance to the museum proper.

There were only a couple of other visitors. I bought my ticket at a little desk, where the smiling attendant told me about the museum. “Please, do ask questions if you need answer”, she said sweetly.

Inside were exhibits relating to both the Nazi and Soviet periods. A pair of stylised trains dominated the main room, adorned with a swastika and hammer and sickle respectively, and all around the edge of the museum were suitcases. Each represented the numerous Estonians deported before, during and after World War II.

There were also plenty of paraphernalia from those times – propaganda posters, military uniforms, surveillance equipment and so on. There was the tiny cell with barely enough room to stand that individuals would sometimes be kept in for hours or days at a time; now a section of wall with an almost invisible spy-hole used for monitoring suspects. In the basement was an assortment of Soviet statuary, including a huge marble Lenin head slowly gathering dust.

I wondered from the museum, past the leafy Hirvepark – scene of an anti-Soviet demonstration in 1987 to mark the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact – and up to the fine medieval Kiek-in-de-Kök tower. Nearby was Vabaduse Väljak, a square once used for parades on Soviet holidays but now dominated by the Freedom Monument, an Estonian cross mounted on a pillar of frosted glass. It was made to resemble ice, representing freedom’s fragility.

I made my way up to Toompea, the limestone outcrop that stands tall over the rest of the city. It was a little quieter than the town below, and from the top it offered splendid views across the Old Town and beyond. The strategic value of the hill and of Tallinn was readily apparent; wedged between the sea to the north and Lake Ülemiste to the south, it was in prime position to dominate this part of the Baltic.

The town too, it seems, was a hotbed of le Carré-style Cold War espionage. I could see across to the Viru Hotel, where a secret ‘23rd’ floor had been recreated to depict its former life as a KGB surveillance centre. Complete with telephones and other bits of machinery, officers would spend their days intercepting radio signals from Helsinki and passing messages onto Moscow. Predictably almost the entire hotel was once bugged.

Slightly closer I could see the might spire of St. Olaf’s Church, once the world’s tallest building and still the highest structure in Tallinn. This too had once been appropriated by the Soviets, used as a radio and television jamming station. It’s now a Baptist church and a popular viewing point.

The queue in the train station was moving along at an agonisingly slow pace. I nervously glanced at my watch; 4 minutes until the train would depart. Why was it, I thought, that some people take forever to buy tickets and why do they always insist on doing so when I’m in a hurry? Why?

Finally I got to the booth.

“A ticket to Tartu, please” I blurted.

“Oh, you don’t buy that ticket here. You must get it on the train”.

I dashed outside to where Elo was guarding her bicycle and she almost slapped her forehead when I told her about the ticket. “I completely forgot!”

We hugged and I said that I would be returning to Tallinn soon. Elo smiled. “I know. Let me know when you’re back. Have a nice time in Tartu.”

And with that she was gone.

I ran to the train with only seconds to spare. It was busy, and instead of taking a seat I decided to stand at the end of the carriage so I could enjoy the views out of the window. It was a lovely sunny day, with azure blue skies all the way to the horizon.

Tartu is Estonia’s second city and is the country’s intellectual heart, a sort of Baltic Oxford or Cambridge. The 370-year old university is the most prestigious seat of learning in the region and something like a fifth of the population of 100,000 are students, at least during term time. It’s also very ‘Estonian’ – migration from other parts of the Soviet Union was relatively low and today a smaller proportion of the inhabitants count Russian as their first language compared to most other urban settlements in Estonia.

The university was also the primary reason for my trip to the city. I’d arranged to meet some academics and students from the Centre for Baltic Studies, who had been particularly interested in the project and were keen to help.

I’d also arranged another couchsurf. I met Margit at the station and as we walked the short distance to her flat we spoke more about the purpose of my visit. “You’ve picked a good time to come”, she said. “Right now it’s the Student Days so there’s a lot of parties going on with the different fraternities. And it’s also Walpurgis Night, do you have this celebration in England? There will be fireworks and music, we can go tonight if you like”.

We turned down Kastani street – the name means ‘conkers’ – and shortly arrived at Margit’s home, a pretty green wooden building divided into a couple of apartments. We entered the bottom flat where we were met by a large and extremely friendly orange tomcat. “He’s called Zeppelin”, explained Margit, giving him a rub on the head.

I dumped my things and we set off for the centre of town. The bright sunshine had continued into the evening, bathing the streets in a warm evening glow and inviting an unhurried pace. As we strolled down Vanemuise Margit told me about her life. The same age as me, she was Tartu born and raised and she seemed proud of her city. I could see why; first impressions were of a leafy and tidy place unscarred by unsightly brutalist construction.

We emerged into Raekoja plats, Tartu’s modest central square. The cobbled surface was thronging with students, some dressed in formal evening wear whilst others took a much more casual approach. “They’re part of the fraternities” Margit explained. Most of them were Estonian but I also heard snatches of German, Lithuanian and Russian.

We grabbed a bite to eat in a café before heading down to the river, the Emajõgi. It was dark by now and as we pushed our way through the crowds to find a good spot we could see a large installation lit up on a small footbridge. A man began to play a steady drumbeat before an unseen woman began chanting in Estonian – a traditional type of singing that Margit said was known as regilaul. It was hauntingly beautiful, and the crowds became silent in a mark of reverential respect.

Singing has a special place in Estonian cultural life and played a key part in the independence movement. Special outdoor arenas – known as Song Grounds – would host huge events, where thousands would converge to wave national flags and sing popular anthems. In September of 1988 a gathering of some quarter of a million Estonians in Tallinn did just that , leading the Baltic pushed for independence to be christened the ‘Singing Revolution’.

After the regilaul came drummers with sparks flying from their instruments, colourful fireworks and the lighting of small flames on little barges in the river. It was a peculiar mixture of somberness and celebration, of Nordic tradition, affinity with nature and a palpable sense of national identity.

As we wondered back to Margit’s flat she asked if I had brought anything smart to wear. “Because I am going to one of the fraternities tonight. It will be fun, lots of drinking and partying”. I looked down at my jeans and trainers and shook my head.

Margit got back in at 4 am. I didn’t even stir.

Eneli was already waiting for me when I arrived at Tartu’s Café Pierre, a trendy establishment in Raekoja plats. She was reading a book on Basque culture, and as I was about to introduce myself Maarja arrived. Both were students at the university, and they were interested in talking to me about their impressions of Estonia’s Soviet history. They were Estonian speakers and had a typically Nordic look; Eneli with a slight build, Maarja tall and both blonde. I ordered tea and then we sat and talked in the bright morning sunshine about their hopes and fears for the future.

“I think there are two kinds of people in Estonia” said Maarja. “There are the rich, and then there are the poor. I think the gap is perhaps worse now than it was when our parents were young”.

“So do you think that can lead to some nostalgia for Soviet times?” I asked

“Perhaps. We hear stories from our parents and they’re the most influential source of our opinions I would say. But with nostalgia there is also sadness, because yes some things were better but there was also oppression, and this affected everyone. Estonians, Russians, all of us”.

“True, but there were still divisions between Estonians and Russians in the Soviet occupation” interrupted Eneli. “There has always been this mutual suspicion. Russians to us remind us of Soviet times, especially because Russians do not think of those times as an occupation, and this will always be the case I think”.

“So could this perhaps cause trouble in the future, perhaps another Bronze Night?”

“Absolutely, of course. We are always worried that this can happen again.”

Eneli fixed me with her blue eyes. “We are scared of Russia. We are scared that Russia will come across our border again, just like they did in the war.”

I asked her if Estonia’s membership of the EU and NATO made her feel more secure.

“Perhaps. There is some collective security. But we are small and because of our history the west thinks of us as Eastern Europe when in fact we are part of the north, like Scandinavia.”

When I asked them if they would consider emigrating they shook their heads. “No, our place is here. Maybe we might work for a year or two abroad but we will want to return to Estonia” said Maarja.

The day before Margit had suggested we visit her parents, who lived a mile or two away in another part of town. The short walk had taken us through a pleasant part of the city, with tidy Tsarist and independence era- wooden buildings lining the streets. At one point a panorama opened up, and in the distance the grey monolithic Soviet apartment blocks lined the horizon. “Most Russians in Tartu live there” said Margit, the descendants of the workers who came here in times past from all corners of the USSR.

When we reached their home Margit’s mother and father were both out in the garden, making the most of the morning sunshine. Kersti and Jaan were a middle-aged couple, Estonian speakers who readily seized on the opportunity of having a couple of extra pairs of hands by pressing us into service with promises of homemade fruit juice and snacks as encouragement. So it was that we found ourselves clearing away dead leaves from the strawberry patch.

It was a decent sized allotment; aside from strawberries the Meiesaars also grew cabbages, carrots and an assortment of other vegetables. I could see other gardens nearby were also well-stocked, a testament to the fertile soils in these parts.

By the time we’d filled up a
bag with the product of our endeavors Kersti had brought out the refreshments,
and we gratefully sat and helped ourselves to warm meat-filled pastries and the
tastiest blackberry juice I could ever remember drinking. Between mouthfuls I
asked my hosts about their lives in Tartu.

Kersti was a friendly woman with glasses and a warm smile. Could she ever have imagined an independent Estonia back in Soviet times? No, she said, it wasn’t even entertained as a possibility. She – like so many other Estonians of her generation – had been a member of the communist party but this wasn’t as much for ideological reasons as simply doing what was expected of them and what in many ways was a key to professional advancement.

Jaan nodded throughout but I wasn’t sure how much he understood of what was being said; he spoke no English and when he did speak Margit was on hand to translate. Jaan had also been a member of the communist party and was a refrigeration engineer, working on Soviet ships before independence. His job saw him travel all over Europe and this made me especially curious.

“What was it like working on the ships?” I asked.

“It was hard work but I enjoyed it. For those times it was well-paid and I preferred working on the boat to being stuck in a factory somewhere”.

He smiled, his bushy white moustache tracing the outline of his mouth.

“And there was a mixture of people on board the ships, from all over the Soviet Union. I worked with Russians, with Tartars and Kalmyks too.”

I asked him if there were any restrictions on their movements when they were docked in a foreign port.

“Yes, we were allowed on shore but we could only go in groups, never on our own. This was to stop us defecting.”

Had he ever been to the UK?

“Aberdeen!” he beamed. There was no need to translate.

I topped up my glass of juice. Kersti picked up the black-and-white cat that had been brushing by her feet and gave it a warm hug. Were things better now, I wondered out loud.

They nodded. “I think overall things are better”, said Kersti. “Before we couldn’t travel and we were told that the West was a bad place and now I can go there and see that it isn’t. But” – she paused – “there is probably more uncertainty. Back then you could always get a job, and there was more security for people. It’s not like that anymore.”

After we said our goodbyes Margit and I headed into town, both feeling good about our morning’s work. Down by the river further festivities were taking place, with students in fancy dress coming lining up to compete in a wacky boat race. We took our places among the crowd by the river’s edge, cheering on the home-made boats as they made their way around a circular course. I particularly liked the Teletubbies and the zombie nuns.

I mentioned her parents’ views on the stability of Soviet life to Margit, and she nodded. “Yes” she said, “a lot of older people have these opinions.”

“So can there be conflicts between older and younger people when it comes to the past?”

“Yes, definitely. Very often the older people can be annoyed when they see youngsters treating the past in a trivial way. Sometimes the students will have pretend-communist parties where they dress up in uniforms and get really drunk. They see it as disrespectful I think.”

A cheer went up from the crowd as one of the nuns fell into the water.

I spent the rest of my time in Estonia criss-crossing the country. In Narva I stared over to Russia across the river that bears the town’s name, with twin fortresses facing each other down only a stone’s throw apart. On the beautiful island of Saaremaa I cycled past meadows of flowers and forests of pine. In Valga I crossed the border into Latvia that had once divided this town clean in half.

And everywhere I saw traces of the USSR. Apartments, government buildings, bridges, roads – some crumbling and all with the severity that so often characterises Soviet construction.

Eventually I returned to Tallinn, and Elo. She had been right; I did come back to see her, and as we laughed and drank that evening I told her about my adventures in the rest of the country. “I knew you would like Saaremaa” she smiled. “It’s beautiful!”

And as I waved goodbye from the bus one last time the next day I thought long and hard about what I had learned during my time in Estonia. I’d found a country that, on the face of it, seemed self-assured and confident about the future. And yet by scratching under the surface I could see that the USSR’s demise had not brought an end to cultural tensions, that the Soviet’s greatest legacy was not wrought in brick and steel but in the people themselves.

Yes, I thought, I will return again one day. And I smiled.

The Kaali Meteor Crater

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 17:11:00 +0000

The Estonian island of Saaremaa is without doubt one of the most beautiful parts of this northern Baltic country. Cloaked with sweet-smelling pine forests and studded with grassy meadows and rich farmland, its more than 1,000 square miles is home to less than 40,000 people. For many Estonians and foreigners alike this truly is an enchanted place.

It’s probably not surprising then that the island is also the source of a rich variety of myths and legends stretching back into antiquity. Many places are associated with tales of heroic deeds and epic adventures with hills, lakes and other landforms playing a prominent role. None, however, are perhaps more mysterious than the Kaali Meteor Crater.

It’s a 4-hour coach journey from Tallinn to the island’s capital Kuressaare, a quick ferry crossing the short distance from the mainland. It’s a pretty place – the town boasts the impressive medieval Bishop’s Castle, a fortress that wouldn’t look out of place in a fairy tale – but I’m not here to sightsee. Instead I dump my bag at a local youth hostel and pick up a rented bicycle; this will be my transport for the day.

Kaali is little more than a hamlet, and it takes me just over an hour to pedal the dozen miles or so through a mixture of farmland and meadows. There’s a village store, a small post office and a scattering of houses and farm buildings. And there, incongruously tucked next to a school building, is the Crater.

A perfectly round hole in the ground, it measures over 300 feet (100 meters) in diameter and is over 60 feet (20 metres) deep. In the centre lies a still green lake with barely a ripple disturbing the surface. Surrounded by a steep embankment covered with shrubs and trees, it’s unusual in that it’s fed and maintained almost entirely by rainwater. On a crisp summer morning like today it’s a serenely impressive sight but during times of drought it’s often little more than a puddle.

The force that created such a hole was impressive. It’s believed that the meteor responsible hit the Earth at some 5-10 miles (10-20km) per second, punching its way into the ground with a force equivalent to an atomic bomb.Eight other smaller craters pepper the area – formed as the original meteor broke up into pieces in the Earth’s atmosphere - but it’s the main crater that takes centre stage.

But what makes Kaali particularly special is that at a mere 4,000 years old it’s thought to be one of the few such impact craters in the world to be created in the recent past, and the only one to have taken place in a populated area.

At the time of the impact Saaremaa was entering the Nordic Bronze Age. People were starting to form small settlements and communities, and numerous rock art sites across Scandinavia attest to a period of innovation and expansion. On-going contact between different groups led to an ever-increasing exchange of cultural ideas and new technologies; in particular a rich collection of myths and legends began to develop, with epic tales of heroic battles between the gods featuring both in regional mythology and further afield.

It’s thought that Kaali features prominently in some of these stories. In nearby Finland – there are strong cultural and linguistic links between Finns and Estonians – the Kalevala epic tells the story of Louhi, a mighty witch-queen capable of changing shape and casting powerful spells.

One day Louhi steals the Sun and fire from mankind, plunging the world into total darkness. Ukko, the god of the sky, orders a new Sun to be made from a spark. Ilmatar, the Virgin of the Air, begins to make a new Sun but the spark drops from the sky and hits the ground, creating a new lake in its wake.

“The Sun with a long tail flew with deafening noise over the sky, wood was cut down, trees were set afire and the fortress destroyed. The bright flame of the explosion shook the shores of the Baltic Sea and it was even noticed in faraway countries. ..

“Then it was as quiet as a grave, pitch-dark and only a shimmer from burning forests could be seen. The Sun had fallen down and perished. We couldn't explain it in the other way. But the next day the Sun was in the sky again …”

But all is not lost. Finnish adventurers witness the ball of fire falling somewhere "behind the Neva river" - the direction of Estonia from Finnish Karelia – and after journeying in that direction they are finally able to gather flames from a forest fire.

Another story has it that Saaremaa is the legendary island of Thule. First mentioned by ancient Greek geographer Pytheas, the theory is that Thule is derived from the Finnic word tule ("of fire") and thus ultimately from the folklore of Kalevala. Similarly, the Ancient Greek myth of Phaëton tells of the son of Helios who lost control of his Chariot of the Sun, scorching the Earth before being struck down by a thunderbolt hurled by Zeus. The meteor strike is also thought to inspire parts of the Edda, a prominent collection of medieval Icelandic peoms. Notably, Kaali was considered the place where "The sun went to rest.

Archaeology certainly seems to back up the claim that Kaali enjoyed some sort of sacred status at the time. Thought to have been surrounded by an Iron Age wall almost 500m in length, a large number of domestic animal bones have been found in or around the lake dating from prehistoric times right until the 17^th century. It’s believed that these sacrifices were offerings to ensure good harvests and that these continued to be made in secret long after the church forbade such Paganesque practices. Silver ornaments dating from the first few centuries AD have also been discovered at the site.

Near the Crater is the Kaali Visitors’ Centre, a smart modern building housing a small museum. The receptionist looks genuinely surprised to see a visitor and jumps into action, racing around the few rooms switching on lights. The displays are mostly dedicated to the geology of the Estonian islands but it also features a section on the history of the Crater, including the moment in 1937 when researchers realised it was created by a meteor and not by volcanic activity. It’s a display that firmly has its scientific hat on; little attention is paid to the myths and legends associated with the Crater. It seems a shame.

As I cycle my way back to Kuressaare I try to imagine the “Falling of heavenly fire, explosion, clouds of dust and smoke, and the landscape changed beyond recognition, (which) must have caused fright and horror and awe among the surviving inhabitants.” It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that such a cataclysmic event must have left a lasting impression upon the people of the island and that stories of the sun falling from the sky spread to other cultures as trade and warfare grew. The most tangible legacy of the Kaali meteor is perhaps not found in the Crater that bears its name but in the stories and legends that find their origins in this most idyllic of places.

(This article also appears in Fortean Times 297 - February 2013)

Living in Northern Ireland

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 13:15:00 +0000

At the end of August I moved from Leeds to Belfast. The move was for purely pragmatic reasons; I was offered a job that paid substantially more than my previous employment and that holds much more in terms of career prospects. Unfortunately it's meant that the Cycling South America dream is on hold, but now that I'm no longer scraping by on the minimum wage I'll be able to raise funds for projects and expeditions in the future that bit more easily.

Unfortunately (for me at least!) the nature of the job means that I can no longer muse and pontificate on all matters political. The nature of society in Northern Ireland means that many positions call for absolute neutrality, and whilst it might be fine to express these views in private publishing them online puts them in the public domain and thus could impact on professional relationships. Ah well, it was fun whilst it lasted.

Adjusting to life in North Belfast has also been interesting; whilst I'm still ostensibly living in the same country as before the cultural and political context is in many ways very different. And what a few months it's been; there was trouble outside a Catholic church on the edge of the city centre, riots just down the road in Carlisle Circus, and the ongoing flag protests that followed a vote by Belfast Council to remove the Union flag from the City Hall for all but a few days a year. Perhaps the hardest part for me in all of it is that I've not been able to voice an opinion on any of it.

On the plus side it now means I can concentrate my efforts on travel writing, and I've already got a few interesting trips lined up for 2013. No doubt you'll read all about it on here in due course..!

Other than that, let me wish you a very happy and productive new year.

20 Years Later: the Soviet Legacy in the Baltic States

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 21:13:00 +0000

Earlier this year I spent seven weeks in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as one of this year's recipients of the Peter Kirk European Travel Scholarship. The aim of the trip was to examine the Soviet legacy within those countries, and as I travelled from Tallinn to Vilnius and from Narva to Nida I found that even after 20 years of independence the influence of the USSR could still be felt.

I've just finished the report for the study and you can view a copy of "20 Years Later: the Soviet Legacy in the Baltic States" by clicking here. It should be noted that this is not an in-depth piece of academic research; rather it is a record of the impressions I gained during my time in the Baltics.

On some occasions it felt like I was chasing ghosts of the past, intangible fragments of collective memory slipping away as the countries marched ever Westwards; at other times the presence of the Soviet Union was far more overt. In either case, I hope you find the study an interesting one and if it inspires you do something similar then I'd love to hear about it.

Finally, I'd like to thank both the Peter Kirk Memorial Trust and all those people who took part in the research - without either I would never would have been able to complete it. It really was a great experience.

Cycling South America - the dream on hold...

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 12:36:00 +0000

It's been a little while since I posted on Cycling South America. Since the euphoria of being awarded the Bill Wallace Grant died down I've been busy settling into a routine of firing proposals to various companies, sending out press releases, promoting the circumnavigation on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, talking to other explorers, and in between improving both my fitness and knowledge of long-distance cycling.

Results have been mixed. Most organisations have declined to participate and getting sponsors on board has not been straightforward. I was under no illusion that this wouldn't be the case but I had hoped for a little more success.

But not all is doom and gloom. Many people I've spoken to report that they have secured funding for their expeditions after they've set off. In some ways it makes sense; sponsors know that they've got the real deal and that it's worth their time and money to get involved. Obviously that doesn't help people from low-income backgrounds but that's how it seems to be.

Another opportunity has also come my way. I've been offered a job which doubles my current salary, and I've decided to take it. This will let me raise the money I need initially to set off and then I'll be able to advertise for sponsorship sans South America.

This means the Cycling South America project is temporarily on hold. This doesn't mean that I won't be doing any work on it; on the contrary, I'll still be researching potential sources of funding whether that be via private sponsorship or expedition awards. I've returned the money given to me by the John Muir Trust but I'll look to reapply in future.

Similarly, I'll continue to welcome any ideas, comments and feedback that you might have - you can contact me by clicking the relevant heading above. I'm also going to set up a small travel blog which will hopefully make for interesting reading, although as I'm still busy typing up the report for the recent trip to the Baltic States I undertook earlier this year as part of the PeterKirk European Travel Scholarship it might take a little while to get off the ground. All I can say is watch this space!

And to all those people who've voiced their support over the last few months I'd like to say thank you, it really is appreciated. I'm already looking forward to returning to Cycling South America soon.

The Bill Wallace Grant

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:33:00 +0000

Cycling South America has recently received a massive boost in the form of the prestigious Bill Wallace Grant, an annual award made by the John Muir Trust. The purpose of the award is "to give people the opportunity to seek out life-changing experiences in wild places of the world in ways which will benefit both the person and the wild places themselves" and I'm very happy to report that the trustees have decided that this expedition fits that description. CSA will now be joining the High Arctic, Borneo and Tanzania as a recipient of the Grant.

Bill Wallace played a hugely important role in the development of the John Muir Trust. He was adventurous, inspired others and made a huge personal contribution towards increasing awareness of the need to safeguard wild places; all attributes which I hope to emulate on this journey.

My thanks go to the Trust for both the belief and support in making this expedition a successful one. If you're also thinking of doing something similar or have an interest in the conservation of wild places I'd strongly recommend visiting the John Muir Trust website because it's well worth a look.

Crossing the Border

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:14:00 +0000

The atmosphere on the minibus is tense. Quiet and unsmiling the guard slowly moves from person to person, scrutinising with unflinching eye each and every document, peering from passport to face to passport again. First the babushka with her husband, floral shawl wrapped tight around head; now the young mother, hushing the little bundle cradled in her arms.

It’s stuffy – someone behind me tries to stifle a cough - but we all await our turn patiently. A pungent mixture of stale sweat and alcohol hangs heavy in the air whilst condensation drips down the windows, the heated proximity of so many human bodies crushed together in stark contrast to the frost that covers the ground outside. A tense silence reigns supreme, for we all know that this is the guard’s game and we must play by his rules.

Soon the uniform, green and immaculate, looms large next to me. I manage a weak smile as I compliantly hand over my passport and migration card but the glare I receive in return ends my insincerity. An unkind eye scrutinises the documents, searching for any infringement. An eternity passes, another cough; then a decision is made. “Off”, he growls in deep Russian, signalling towards the door. There is no room for debate, no opportunity for dissent.

I’m frogmarched in a poky little office a short distance away. There’s paperwork strewn everywhere; a couple of retro computers flicker brightly. In broken English the guard points to my migration card, and it’s now I realise my big mistake. I should have left the country by 11 in the morning; the grubby clock on the wall says 1. My welcome officially expired two hours ago.

The guard sits himself down in front of one of the monitors and begins to stab at the keyboard with podgy fingers. He then turns it to me, grim faced. The numbers read 318. “You pay. Euro.” €318. Just to leave.

I try not to panic. I plead. I beg. I pat down my pockets, feigning helplessness. But he just sits there, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. This is his court, his kingdom.

I dig deep, my fingers touching a small wad of roubles and I place it in front of him, like an offering to some angry god. He picks it up and examines it closely between finger and thumb. A small shake of the head. Niet. Not good enough. I find some more money, this time Moldovan Lei. Again he picks it up, this time smiling broadly. Yes, yes, this will do.

The melodrama suddenly comes to an abrupt end. He springs up, hands me back a 50 Lei note, shakes my hand, and motions me out of the door. I quickly leave before he changes his mind and rush back to the waiting mini bus, relieved that the cost of freedom couldn’t have been more than £10. It is, after all, just another day at the Transnistrian border.

Transnistria is without doubt one of the most obscure corners of Europe. A thin strip of land wedged between Moldova and Ukraine, Transnistria usually makes the news for all the wrong reasons – weapons smuggling, people trafficking, drugs, you name it. It’s also famous for being stuck in a communist time warp, a place where the glory of the Soviet Union continues to shine. Here statues of Lenin still stand proud and hammer and sickles adorn walls and buildings, harking back to an era that elsewhere has long since been consigned to the history books.

It’s ironic then that it was the very collapse of the USSR some two decades ago that led to Transnistria’s creation. As the Union faulted and crumbled along ethnic lines the mainly Romanian-speaking region of Moldova seized its opportunity to declare independence, taking slavic Transnistria with it. With the threat of unification with Romania looming the Transnistrian authorities – with the help of the locally-based Russian 14th army - waged a short and bloody war with their Latin neighbours. The result? De facto independence, albeit unrecognised by any other nation in the world. To this day Transnistria – despite having its own parliament, military, police, postal system, currency, flag, national anthem, and coat of arms – continues to be considered by almost all international observers as Moldovan soil.

And independence has not proved easy for the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, as it’s officially known; politically and economically isolated from the rest of Europe and with its continued existence almost entirely dependent on the continued presence of the Russian armed forces, daily life is precarious for the 500,000 or so inhabitants. Unemployment and inflation is high and the average wage is well behind levels enjoyed in the West. And the population is slowly ageing, with young people looking for opportunities elsewhere. Transnistria enjoys a claustrophobic existence.

The minibus grinds to halt and the driver jumps out to open the door. He shakes my hand warmly – foreigners in these parts are something of a novelty – before getting back in and speeding off. I take in my surroundings: grey streets, some ramshackle houses, some apartment blocks in the distance. A chill dampness fills the January air.

I wander towards what I think must be the centre of town, trying to look like I know where I’m going. Soon I stumble across an open-air market, with everything from hats to typewriters and engine parts to books spread across blankets on the hard concrete floor. Behind each sits an unsmiling seller, wrapped up tight against the cold.

Beyond the market a large statue of a man astride a horse beckons me closer. “Suvarov”, it says in Cyrillic on the side. The founder of Tiraspol. From here I can see all the way down 25 October Street, named after the revolution that propelled the Bolsheviks to power in 1917; nearby Lenin stands proud outside the Presidential Palace, whilst across the road a Soviet-era tank points its turret towards the war memorial. It’s here that I’ll be meeting my contact, local journalist Mila Selezneva.

I do not have to wait long. She appears, young and smiling, and asks in faltering English how I am. “Yes, good”, I say, “It’s good to be here”. “Well, you are very welcome!” comes the reply, and we set off together down October street at steady, slow pace.

Mila had read about my trip online a few weeks before my arrival and got in touch suggesting we meet and talk about the media and journalism back in the UK. For my part I was looking forward to find out about everyday life in Transnistria.

As we walk we take in some of the sights and Mila becomes an impromptu tour guide; “Here is the Kvint shop, very good brandy”, she says, and it’s not an exaggeration – Kvint has a world class reputation and is one of the region’s major exports. “And here is the bank”. This is a necessary stop; I need get some Transnistrian Roubles, the local currency which is impossible to exchange anywhere else, even in Moldova proper. Across the road from the bank is a shiny casino, which seems oddly out of touch with the communist iconography littering the streets.

It’s a point I put to Mila. “Oh, just because we have these monuments doesn’t mean we’re still communists. It’s to remind us of our past and just because things change doesn’t mean that we forget that.” I ask her if she thinks it’s odd that the monuments remain here whilst most of them have been removed in other parts of Eastern Europe. She shrugs. “Perhaps we remember here more”.

And Mila is keen to tell me that things are changing in Transnistria. Igor Smirnov, President for twenty years from the War of Independence, has just been deposed in democratic elections barely a fortnight before. The new leader, Yevgeny Shevchuk, has promised to ditch the country’s pariah status and achieve some sort of international recognition. I decide to leave questions about weapons and people trafficking for later.

Outside the grand House of Soviets – replete with angry Lenin - we meet one of Mila’s friends, twenty-something Aleksei Bychkov. He also happens to be president of the “Student Community of Transnistria” and we jump in his car. “Where are we off to?” I ask Mila. “Bendery”, comes the reply. “This is where my editor is based”.

And in Bendery I do indeed meet Mila’s editor and the rest of the team at Dnestr television. And it turns out that having a foreigner in Transnistria is so unusual that they decide to film and broadcast an interview with me, Mila translating throughout. They ask about journalism in the UK and how it works. I talk about its many strengths and problems, and in turn ask them about their work in a country where media freedoms are considered to be restrictive. “It can be frustrating”, says one in Russian, “because we cannot always speak to who we want as they are not allowed. The government stops us”.

Soon it’s all over. We take pictures and shake hands and then it’s back to Tiraspol. Aleksei suggests we go to a local bar and I readily agree, and so I find myself in the Komlnek eating pirogi and sipping a locally produced vodka. Here I feel I can ask some more probing questions.

“We are Russians, not Moldovans”, says Aleksei when I ask him about Transnistria’s unrecognised status, “and we cannot live together, we are too different”. I ask him how this was managed in the Soviet era. “Because there weren’t the divisions there are now”.

“It’s true”, agrees Mila, “everyone today has nostalgia for Soviet times, because everyone was so much happier then. If you fell in the street people would help you, today that wouldn’t happen”. I point out that she was born in 1992, after the collapse of the USSR. Does she also have this sense of nostalgia? “Yes, we all do”.

Then there are the practicalities of life. I ask how easy it is for them to travel, and it turns out that being ethnic Russians they hold Russian passports. For those less fortunate in the cultural stakes – and despite the sole use of Russian in almost all walks of life – Transnistria has a large Moldovan ethnic minority whose movements are far more restricted.

There’s only so much we can discuss in one meal, and soon it’s time for me to go back to the apartment I’ve rented for the night. We agree to meet again in the morning before I get my bus back to Chişinău.

Outside the bus station we exchange a few gifts and ambush a passer-by into taking some pictures. And as I wave goodbye from the minibus I decide that I will return. There is still so much to learn about life in this unpredictable corner of Europe, and it’s clear from even a short visit that the whilst the near-hysterical coverage of Transnistrian affairs back home has some groundings in fact the reality is far more nuanced. And as I stare out across fields covered with snow as the border post appears on the horizon I can't help think that it may be time for Transnistria – or at least the people who live their everyday lives here – to finally come in from the cold.

(This is the winning entry for the Travellerspoint Travel Blogging Competition)

The Outdoor Academy of Scandinavia

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 11:13:00 +0000

I've recently returned from a trip to the Swedish province of Jämtland as part of the Outdoor Academy of Scandinavia, a five-day course run by the Scandinavian Outdoor Group. Although I attended as a freelance writer the tour is primarily geared towards those working in the outdoors industry and offers training in the products marketed by SOG's various members. It was extremely hard work but also hugely enjoyable; a write-up will be appearing on the Outdoors Magic website in due course and I'll post an update here when it goes online.

Update 11/04/2012
The full article is now up and running on the OM website; you can read it here.

The Peter Kirk European Scholarship

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:06:00 +0000

I'm extremely pleased and excited to have been awarded a Peter Kirk European Travel Scholarship. The scholarships - which were set up to commemorate the work of the late Sir Peter Kirk MP - include a grant of £1,500 to enable young people from the UK and Europe to conduct a research project in a country other than their own. They're typically restricted to individuals between the ages of 18 and 26 but - fortunately for me - will occasionally consider oldies up to the age of 29 if they impress enough. I was even more fortunate in that I initially received a rejection but due to a cancellation from another candidate I got a last-minute interview slot and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.

My successful proposal is titled "20 Years Later: the Soviet Legacy in the Baltic States". I'll be spending around two months later this year in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania exploring both the physical and emotional remains of the Soviet period in these most Western of former Socialist Republics, and examining whether its impact still has ramifications today.

It should be an extremely interesting and enjoyable study, at least from a personal perspective, and one that I would simply not be able to do without the help of the Peter Kirk Scholarship trustees. I'm very grateful for their interest in this project and I look forward to producing an insightful report when I return. Now to arrange some interviews..!

24 hours in Transnistria - a summary

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:16:00 +0000

I've recently returned from a brief trip to Transnistria, the result of a competition run by Wanderlust magazine I won back in the Summer.

It's probably fair to say that a lot of people have never heard of Transnistria; indeed, it's difficult to even find a definitive spelling of the place, with Transdniestr or Transdniestria just some of the versions commonly found in print. Without a doubt it must rank as one of the most obscure countries in Europe - and even that description is up for debate...

Transnistria - or the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, as it's known locally - is an internationally unrecognised country forming a narrow strip of land between the Dniester River and Ukraine. Created in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse in the early 1990s, tensions between the mainly Russian-speaking Transnistrians and Moldova - of which the PMR is considered an integral part by most international observers - broke out into a bitter civil war that witnessed around a thousand killed. A de facto state of independence has been maintained ever since, with the presence of the Russian army all but guaranteeing the current status quo.

It's also a place that, to put it mildly, has suffered something of an image problem over the last two decades. Weapons smuggling and human trafficking as well as human rights abuses are all accusations regularly directed at the authorities in the capital Tiraspol. So it was obvious that I was going to have to check the place out.

To get to Transnistria on the cheap I would need to take advantage of cheap flights, and I duly did so by travelling to Bucharest with budget outfit Blue Air. From the Romanian capital it was then a matter of an overnight bus to Chişinău in neighbouring Moldova and then a shared 'maxitaxi' - what we'd call a minibus - to Tiraspol.

Aside from the self-evident attraction of visiting a place that sees few visitors, another of Transnistria's claims to fame is the retention of communist symbols and monuments that have long been consigned to the scrap heap in other areas of the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries, a little like Belarus (a country I visited back in 2008).

During my time in Transnistria I met up with Mila Selezneva, a local student and trainee journalist with Dnestr TV; she had heard about my impending trip to the region and was keen to talk about the media and life in general back in the UK. After a chat over a coffee we travelled to the station's studio housed in an apartment block in the neighbouring city of Bendery, and there we had an impromptu talk (with Mila translating) to the rest of the team in front of the cameras - you can see a brief clip here.

Mila also introduced me to Aleksei Buchkov, current president of the Student Community of Transnistria and all-round political activist. Between the three of us we had some interesting chats about Transnistria's current political status, identity issues and what it means to be Transnistrian - and Russian at the same time. It was with some sadness when it came to saying goodbye the following day.

Mila and Aleksei were both very keen that I should return to Transnistria, and I'd very much like to take them up on their offer; 24 hours isn't nearly long enough to understand this place and why it stubbornly decides to go it alone. I also had the privilege of meeting two very mature and intelligent young people, and the opportunity to explore more of their country - as well as socialise with good friends - is one that's simply too good to pass up.

In the meantime I'll attempt to write this trip up in a more readable fashion, and also upload the bulk of the pictures that don't feature here already; I'll post an update when the time comes...!

Update 11/02/2012
I've finally uploaded some of the pictures from the trip here. In case you're unfamiliar with Panoramio, it's a website which features uploaded photographs on Google Earth, which is a nice way to guarantee that at least a few people should see them.

The Berghaus Adventure Challenge - vote for me!

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:14:00 +0000

Some great news - I've been shortlisted for this month's Berghaus Adventure Challenge! It now goes down to a public vote and it would be fantastic if you would consider lending me your support; the winner will walk away with a cool £1000 in cash and £1000 worth of gear to go towards the expedition so it'll really help me become the first person to cycle the circumference of South America.

In order to vote just click here; it only takes a moment and even if I'm not successful it still offers a great opportunity to promote the Cycling South America project...

Job application feedback from the BBC

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 22:18:00 +0000

I finally have some good news on the job hunt. The BBC have sent me some feedback on not just my most recent applications but on all those that I've made over to the organisation over the last couple of years, a dozen or so in total. On the downside it took an application under the 1998 Data Protection Act to secure it; a little excessive, perhaps, but endless rejections (over 130 since July 2010) have a tendency to bring the more militant out in people. To the BBC's credit they decided to waive the £10 fee, although I'm not entirely sure why.

The feedback itself isn't particularly detailed; it's essentially a list of the scores that were awarded to each of my answers. I was hoping for some annotated comments or some objective marking but it's entirely plausible that for an organisation which receives so many applications these scores are the only notes that are made for each candidate. This of course begs the question as to how we are to know that the same criteria are being applied to each candidate and that each is being assessed fairly and equally, but I guess I - as well as every other person applying to Auntie - will never know.

On a personal level the results still make for interesting reading. On a scale from 1 to 5 (with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best) I rank a decidely lacklustre average of between 2 and 3 for each answer provided; likewise, I failed to secure a single 4 or 5. It still strikes me as strange that the only formal interview I ever secured with the Beeb was a couple of years before I completed a postgraduate journalism qualification, but I guess the competition is simply getting stronger and £5,000 courses are pretty much two-a-penny these days. Gosh, I'd love to get my hands on some of the successful application forms and see where I've been going wrong.

What I have learned, however, is that the world of recruitment is shrouded in secrecy and that this is true for both the private and public sectors. People who meet all the criteria listed in a job description are routinely and casually turned away without explanation; gurus talk of the need for 'networking' when in any other walk of life such activities would be rightly classed as nepotism; where the number of rejections is matched only by the number of employers that don't bother to acknowledge applications; and where the almost complete lack of feedback or any other form of transparency means that applicants can only guess where they went wrong and then proceed to make the same mistakes all over again.

Indeed, in a society where we're starting to question - nay demand - this very same transparency in government and in our politicians it's amazing that there is so little desire for change when it comes to our jobs. Perhaps we're all scared that by asking too many questions we'll scupper any chances of securing an interview. It's a really sad state of affairs and it's one that I believe needs addressing. Urgently.

As for the BBC, it's hard to understand quite why they were so reluctant to acquiesce with my original request when the data that they were obliged to provide me with by law contains absolutely nothing that could threaten to derail their recruitment process. Their Kafkaesque objections that this might provide an unfair advantage have proven entirely unfounded.

I'll still keep plugging away and who knows, perhaps one day I'll even score myself a 4 or even a 5 and prove that I really do have a reasonable grasp of 'content awareness' or 'knowledge of diverse communities'. I know that the BBC is by far the most desirable media organisation to work for in the UK today - despite the failings of the Delivering Quality First initiative that has done so much to retain the livelihoods of bureaucratic management on 6-figure salaries at the expense of those who actually make programmes - and that it's worthy of my professaional aspirations, as it has been for over a decade. The organisation is a bastion of quality impartial journalism and provides essential services for people not just here in the United Kingdom but acrosss the entire globe. Our lives would simply be all the poorer if it did not exist.

Now let's just hope I haven't annoyed them too much by asking too many questions...

I’m off to Transnistria..!

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:49:00 +0000

Back in August I bemoaned my distinct lack of success in securing any of the numerous travel bursaries I have a habit of applying for; indeed, in the last week alone I've received rejections from both the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and the Peter Kirk European Travel Scholarships fund. Needless to say these awards are extremely competitive and I guess I shouldn't really be downhearted.

Yet things might finally be starting to turn around. I've just found out that I'm one of the lucky winners of Wanderlust's brilliant 25 Trips for Under £250, a competition which invites proposals for a budget adventure starting and ending in the UK. Those deemed the most imaginative will have their trip paid for and - perhaps even better - there'll be the opportunity for the journey to feature in an issue of the magazine next year.

My idea is to visit Transnistria, a small de facto but internationally unrecognised state on Moldova's eastern border with Ukraine. Transnistria is chiefly famous for existing as if the Soviet Union never disappeared, with Hammer and Sickle emblems and public monuments to communist heroes aplenty. It should make for a fascinating visit.

I'm not going until January - I'll be flying to Bucharest the day after attending The Outdoors Show - but I'm already really looking forward to it. No doubt you'll hear all about it when I get back..!

Cycling South America: an update

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:00:00 +0000

Things on here have been fairly quiet of late; most of my energies have been spent constructing the Cycling South America blog, Facebook fanpage and a booklet aimed at potential sponsors that you can see and/or download here. I've also put together a press release that's already been sent off to a few local newspapers and the like; with any luck it might elicit some interest. I'll be sure to post any developments as they happen here as well as on the Cycling website too.

Once things are a little more settled I'll aim to be back blogging here as per usual, but in the meantime if you're interested in the Cycling South America project just click on one of the aforementioned links to find out more...

Cycling South America

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 15:08:00 +0000

A little while ago I bemoaned my lack of success with applications for travel-related bursaries and scholarships; by their very nature they are extremely competitive and demand will always far outstrip supply. I've applied for quite a number over the last six years or so and never really got anywhere, figuratively and literally.

So I decided that - rather than just sit on my behind and whinge - I would instead do something about it and have my own adventure, a journey to distant lands where I could immerse myself in landscapes and cultures far removed from mine own.

Thus was borne Cycling South America. My aim is to circumnavigate the continent by bike, taking in almost a dozen countries and travelling somewhere in the region of 25,000 km. It'll be a mammoth task, and whether I'll actually go will depend on securing donations and sponsorship from interested parties.

To that end I've put together a blog full of news and updates and where people can have a look at the reasons behind trip, see lots of inspirational links and offer feedback. There's also the obligatory Facebook fanpage and I'll be using Twitter to promote the journey as well.

So if you'd like to take part in my South American odyssey please have a wander over to the Cycling South America website. It could just be the start of quite a voyage...

Should unsuccessful job applicants be given feedback?

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:50:00 +0000

In the past year or so I've applied for precisely 111 jobs. Thus far I've managed to secure interviews with three of these - the Navy, RAF and, er, Asda - and been offered a position with the former, albeit with an expected start in around three year's time. It's only slightly ironic that I secured my current soul-destroying 9 to 5 via a recruitment agency and not by direct application.

By far and away the biggest object of my professional affections is the BBC, with the organisation accounting for around 10% of those 111 attempts and many more before that. All - bar one back in around 2006 I think - have been completely unsuccessful, not even getting past the initial stage in the recruitment process.

Like so many employers the BBC is incredibly reluctant to offer any semblance of a reason as to why a particular applicant has been rejected. Below is a fairly typical response:

The key get-out clause being: "...we are unable to provide more detailed feedback on individual applications at this stage in the process".

Now I've never been one to challenge what is a fairly typical shirking of care by an organisation towards those with a desire to work for it; because recruitment at the BBC - like so many other places - is utterly opaque I've always been worried of any repercussions should I choose to challenge these blanket rulings. Being seen as a troublemaker is not a good way to convince a prospective employer to take you on at a future date.

But, 111 applications on, I'm starting to get fed up spending several painstaking hours filling out forms only to be rejected without being told why. General frustration aside, it strikes me as simply being bad manners not to include any sort of explanation. Even a single sentence along the lines of "You don't have the required amount of experience" or "You have an inability to form coherent phrases" would suffice.

So after receiving the latest round of rejections from the Beeb - this time for the excellent Aim High Scheme which I would have dearly loved to have been considered for - and despite being told that feedback would not be offered I decided to ask for some anyway. I figured that since I clearly wasn't offering anything that might interest the Corporation in any meaningful way I didn't really stand much to lose by asking.

To the BBC's credit I received a response fairly soon afterwards. No, they wouldn't be able to provide any feedback. Too many applicants, you see. OK, I said, given that this Scheme is run in conjunction with external stakeholders would they be able to make an exception in this case? No, came the reply. My suggestion of initiating a system of feedback on demand also fell on deaf ears. They categorically refused to say why I had not progressed to the next stage.

So I decided on a change of tack. I asked to see the criteria used in making their selections; it occurred to me that I could at least try and work out by a process of elimination where I had been found wanting. Again came the prompt reply, this time with the original job application attached. I was informed that this was the only criteria used in selecting candidates.

It didn't take much to realise that this was complete nonsense; if it were true all applicants that met those criteria would at the very least make it through to the next round of the process. And there was nothing on the attached form to say how individuals would be scored or compared to each other. In short I felt like I was being fobbed off.

So yesterday I emailed back with these concerns. The following is the reply that came back this morning:

Essentially it's stating that any and all criteria used to discriminate between candidates that does not feature on the job description is confidential - a surprising admission for an organisation that prides itself on transparency and accountability. It's not that I'm not aware that recruitment is a select and secretive world hidden from the eyes of those that seek employment and based on the discriminatory whims of HR, it's just that I expected more from what is by a long shot the foremost and most desirable employer in British media today. I genuinely can't understand why this information is being hidden unless there's something untoward to hide. Needless to say I'll be emailing back with some feedback of my own.

Of course the great irony in all this is that it would have been far quicker to simply tell me why my application was rejected rather than engage in a monotonous dialogue for nigh on a fortnight. As I pointed out in one of these emails even the smallest amount of feedback would mean that any future applications would be a lot stronger and that the BBC would receive a consistently higher grade of applicant - a genuine win-win situation. It would also make for a much more positive experience for those on the receiving end of rejections.

I also have to admit that I've never really bought the 'excessive number of applicants' excuse so beloved of the BBC et al and trotted out whenever they can't be bothered to tell an applicant that - in their opinion - they aren't good enough. By way of example I received a rejection letter from the British Transport Police only yesterday, in which they state that they had over 4,000 applications. They've also included a four page document detailing exactly what criteria were used to select successful candidates and how they were applied.

Now it seems fairly obvious to me that if an organisation wants fewer applications to sift through they should openly apply more restrictions at the point of advertising the role in question. In fact I would go further; there needs to be complete and utter transparency in all aspects of recruitment so that everyone knows that their applications are being considered equally and fairly. Anything else is just darn rude.

I'll still keep applying for jobs at the BBC; I've no idea how much this recent exchange will have damaged my future prospects but given that I've nothing to go on in terms of feedback I guess I'll never really know. I desperately want to work for the BBC and as such I want to be able to submit the best applications that I can. It's just difficult to know that I'm doing so without being told where I've failed previously by the very people I'm trying so hard to impress.

New blog poll: should we be more involved in Libya?

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:42:00 +0000

It's easy to draw parallels between Libya and the Iraq of a decade ago; both oil-rich Arab nations under the totalitarian rule of a despotic military dictator. And whilst Libya's current upheaval is largely driven by a populist domestic opposition that was largely absent under Saddam Hussein's regime the tentative nature of NATO's involvement in the crisis is owed in large part to the harrowing experience of insurgency in the Middle East post-2003.

So the current DEM poll is a simple one; should we - whether in the guise of NATO or the UN or as a national military force - be getting more involved in Libya and having more input into the conflict's outcome, which appears to be nearing endgame? Or are we right to keep our distance and allow events to take their course, whatever they may be?

Are there too many cars on the road?

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:17:00 +0000

At the moment I'm lucky enough to be able to walk to work; it takes just over half an hour and the majority of the route takes me along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. At the moment it's teeming with fish and the journey makes for a surprisingly pleasant commute.

Walking along roads, however, it'd be tempting to guess that the same can't be said for others making a beeline to the office. Leeds, like any other urban conurbation, suffers from terrible traffic problems particularly at those peak times when everyone is rushing to or from work. Cars crawling along barely make it out of second gear, horns are honked, expletives are shouted and profanities are gestured. Generally speaking it's not an overly fun experience.

And yet I can't fail to notice that the vast majority of cars only have one occupant. It was a phenomenon I first became aware as I sped past stationary lines of traffic on my bicycle; vehicle after vehicle with only a solitary driver to keep it company. Anecdotal, perhaps, but I suspect the situation is readily replicated all over the country.

I've never really understood this addiction to the car. Granted, some people will be genuinely unable to get to the workplace using any other method, particularly in rural areas where distances are large and public transport provision patchy or unreliable. People can and do insist on living a long way from work, or - in today's world of restricted job opportunities - be unable to find employment closer to home. But does every car on the road at 8:30am or 5:30pm really need to be there? I mean, really?

Cars cause a lot of problems. Other than the aforementioned congestion they also cause thousands of deaths and serious injuries in the UK every year; they reduce air quality and can increase the rate of respiratory illnesses, particularly amongst the young; result in the destruction of countryside to make way for roads and motorways; decrease the propensity for exercise; and ensure that our oil-thirsty governments remain dependent on despotic and undemocratic regimes that constitute much of OPEC's membership. Given that the price of petrol is also a staple concern of our overwhelmingly right-wing press you'd think that those would be plenty of reasons to leave the car at home.

Yet those same people who bemoan the cost of driving seem to be the ones most reluctant to give it up. It's as if motorists have a god-given right to indulge their addiction, even as it impacts so negatively on everyone else's quality of life in a way that no other form of transport does.

It's true that our roads are in many ways essential, not just so people can get from A to B but also to boost our economy and maintain our general wellbeing. It can't be denied that the car is in many ways the most convenient and liberating to travel. What we need is a way to prise people out of their cars and encourage them to take alternatives whenever possible, particularly for journeys that are repeated on a regular basis. The commute is the most obvious of these.

Truth be told, cycling and walking aren't for everyone. At the moment the bicycle is collecting dust; my workplace is surrounded by an entrance to a motorway and simply isn't safe to get to on two wheels, another example of the prioritising of the car over all else. It's also fair to say that walking and cycling in bad weather can put most but the hardiest off even when there is adequate provision of pavement and cycleway.

Which all means that it is public transport that will have to do the most if we are ever to conquer the car - and that means making it affordable, accessible and comfortable. It'll be no easy task in this world of privatised public transport companies with their high fares, cherry picking of profitable routes, lack of cohesion between rival companies, addiction to subsidy and all the rest of it. Quantifying everything in monetary terms is not an accurate method of cost-benefit analysis.

Yet sorting out our public transport really must be a priority for any government. Our addiction to petrol simply cannot go on forever - it's a finite resource, after all - and the sooner we search for alternatives the better. If we could all just try to use our cars a little less we would all stand to benefit in so many ways...

A trip to Malta...

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 21:32:00 +0000

I've not long got back from a short trip to Malta, a small group of islands in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea that constitutes one of the world's smallest independent nations. It was my first trip to the archipelago and one that I thoroughly enjoyed, even if daytime temperatures hovering around the 35°C-mark made for occasional discomfort for this Englishman more accustomed to cooler climes.

Yet for a lot people this heat is the very raison d'être behind any trip to Malta; the islands have developed something of a reputation as a destination for beach lovers and needless to say the place was packed. The summer holidays are by far and away the peak time for the tourist hordes to descend; for those seeking solitude or harbouring desert island fantasies it's probably best to look elsewhere.

But Malta has a fascinating and varied history and was this that made the trip worthwhile. Because of its strategic location it has played host to occupying Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Spanish, French, and British, in addition to being the home of the Knights Hospitallers for several hundred turbulent years. Each has had a significant and often profound influence on the development of today's idiosyncratic Maltese culture.

The island's relationship with the last of these - the British - has generally been strong, and evidence of the links between Malta and the UK are evident almost everywhere you look, from traffic that drives on the left side of the road to red post and telephone boxes to the official status afforded to the English language. A statue of Queen Victoria even stands proud in the middle of Republic Square.

This lack of general antipathy towards the former colonial power might have something to do with the events which led to Malta becoming part of the Empire on which the sun would never set. Fearful of French excesses during the Napoleonic wars the islanders actually petitioned the UK government for protection as a British Dominion. Thus began a 150 year link that only ended with independence in 1964 and the declaration of a Republic 10 years later.

For a Brit abroad this steady blend of Mediterranean and North European makes for a stimulating history lesson. What I found most interesting was the acceptance of the island's colonial past without any palpable sense of modern grievance; clearly the experience of a foreign administration is far from a globally uniform one.

The English riots 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 20:48:00 +0000

Watching the riots breaking out across England over the last few days has made for a curious, almost voyeuristic experience; this feels like a once-in-a-generation event, and that's exactly what it is. I can't recall anything quite like it happening on such a widespread scale anywhere in the UK - Northern Ireland aside, perhaps - and once the disturbances have died down there will be a lot of questions asked about how and why this has happened and why this has been allowed to happen.

Now I want to be clear about one thing. The actions of the rioters and the looters is utterly disgraceful. This is not some English Spring modelled on the efforts of our Arab brethren earlier this year; there is no political agenda at work, nor battle for social and democratic rights. This is not a valid form of protest; it is simply a collective act of mass criminality that has long since overshadowed the tragic circumstances surrounding its genesis.

And yet, and yet...

Many have been quick to condemn the rioters - and rightly so - but have dismissed the entire saga as a completely spontaneous event, as if its unprecedented magnitude has been created from nothing. Others have focused purely on the punishment aspect, making that age old rightist mistake of prioritising cure over prevention and ignoring the root causes. Clearly something more than throwing people in jail or enacting repressive legislation is going to be needed to stop this from ever happening again.

But similarly it cannot do to simply blame adverse social conditions, budget cuts and unemployment, even if it is tempting to suggest that the most serious urban disturbances almost always seem to take place under a Conservative administration. True, these have a very real part to play - would these riots have occurred before the current recession? - but lack of social mobility cannot excuse opportunistic looting and arson even if it is a prime causal factor.

Something obviously isn't right here. Some have identified a lack of respect for the authorities as the primary motivational factor, but I see that as a symptom of our current malaise, rather than a cause. No, there is more to the story then that. It is capitalism.

Bear with me for a moment with this. Capitalism is the economic system that priorities competition and the profit motive, where the concept of private business trumps that of net social benefit. It is a system based on greed, that dictates that the means of production are to controlled by the few and that the greatest priority in existence is the unrelenting pursuit of wealth. It prioritises excessive consumption over all else and forces us into a state of eternal competition and mutual suspicion.

Such a system is inherently corrupt, morally or otherwise. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, the greatest crime of capitalism is that it knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. It's the paradigm that brought us the current financial crisis and the excessive actions of irresponsible banks that has caused far more economic damage - in monetary and social terms - than teenage thugs ever will.

But it is the emphasis on the primacy of the individual that is the most insidious aspect of capitalism. Ever since Thatcher destroyed the unions the utter dominance of the market has become institutionalised, dominating British politics and policy no matter who has been holding the keys to Number 10. It has created a society where this conspicuous consumption is to be coveted and where selfishness undermines any real social cohesion. It's the sort that worships celebrity, causes eating disorders, creates massive personal debt, and - yes - nurtures a disrespect for authority and anything else that stands in the way of that consumption or ideal image. It puts us all in competition with each other, rather than encourage us to work together. We have created a 'me first' culture that holds notions of shared values in contempt and renders David Cameron's idea of a Big Society a futile waste of time. We're stuck in a deep social rot that will never be cured whilst profit remains king.

The ultimate cause of the riots? It's the economy, stupid. But it'll need more than simply creating jobs to stop it happening again...

Tom Ruffles' blog

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:51:00 +0000

I like to think that I inherit some of my passion for writing from my father, who has penned quite a few articles for various publications over the years. These musings cover lots of different topics but in the main focus on paranormal matters and the cinema, two of his great loves that were ably combined in the book Ghost Images.

He's been gradually uploading his bibliography on his blog, which you can visit here; it's well worth a look if you fancy an interesting and thought-provoking read.

Comments on blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 09:57:00 +0000

It's always nice to get comments on blogs. It shows that people people are not only reading your scribblings but that they deem your point of view engaging and worthy of discussion, even if it's to disagree vehemently with what you've written. It's this engagement with an audience that essentially constitutes the blatantly exhibitionist raison d'être of blogging; just how many people, after all, would continue to update their online writings if they knew no-one was watching?

But a lot of bloggers like to monitor the comments they receive, often requiring pre-approval before they are published. This is entirely understandable; not only can feedback be occasionally abusive but the proliferation of spurious spam comments - replete with links to dubious websites - often makes this prescreening a necessity. Hosts such as Blogger do employ a spam filter but they can still sometimes slip through.

And yet some authors continue to enthusiastically police and delete comments that are neither abusive nor spam. Léargas, the online persona of Sinn Féin President and Louth TD Gerry Adams, is a prime example. A quick trawl through Léargas' ramblings will reveal not one dissenting or disapproving comment on any of the posts contained therein. Some are nauseatingly sycophantic, others merely fawning; all, however, in agreement with the point or points being made.

Now it could be that only those people who agree with Adams' worldview read and comment on his blog, but I know for a fact that this is not the case. I've made around half-a-dozen dissenting submissions over the past few months and none of these have been published. I've posted nothing abusive, mind; just merely challenging some of the points of whatever is being discussed at the time. That other praiseworthy comments are published on these same posts suggests some discretion is being exercised, a peculiar stance for a politician who must deal with dissenting views on a daily basis out in the real world.

Comments, of course, can often tell you as much about the general readership of a blog as it can about the author. The Daily Mail website is a prime example; articles often attract hundreds of comments and each can be rated positively or negatively by other contributors. The frequent direct correlation between the ultra-reactionary nature of these comments and a high approval rating can make for surprisingly depressing reading. Interestingly I've also made critical comments on some of the Mail's articles which have subsequently not been published but this could possibly be down to the sheer number that they receive. Possibly.

But if certain blogs are attempting to stifle genuine debate by deleting comments that fail to tally with their respective author's narrow world view they are merely masquerading as a forum for the exchange of ideas. Blogs as mere propaganda tools are completely contrary to the spirit in which they should be held.

Travel bursaries

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 10:05:00 +0000

One of the things I like to do in my spare time is searching and applying for travel bursaries. There are a surprising number out there but needless to say they're almost always ultra-competitive and extremely difficult to secure.

So far it's been a reasonably busy few months, with a successful trip to Knoydart courtesy of Gore-Tex providing some respite from disappointment elsewhere. I've just fired off a proposal for the Royal Geographical Society's Journey of a Lifetime for the sixth time in as many years, with the suggestion of a trip to the Indo-Bangladesh enclaves. The deadline is not until the end of September so there's still a little while to wait.

I've also applied for a bursary from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust proposing a journey along Mali's Bandiagara Escarpment, spiritual home of West Africa's Dogon people. It was an idea rejected by National Geographic's Expeditions Council, the Gordon Foundation and the Timmissartok Foundation but I'm hopeful that the people in London might look upon it more favourably. Again the deadline is in a few month's time so fingers crossed.

The most disappointing rejections, however, are almost always in direct proportion to the amount of work that goes into an application. Most of the grants I've already mentioned often require little more than an outline of an expedition and how it will be achieved, presumably to ease processing of the sheer numbers that each organisation must receive. Some require a bit more than that.

Take the Finnish government's Foreign Correspondents' Programme. This scheme offers a month's living and working in Finland and although aimed at under 25s - I had to enquire beforehand whether I'd be potentially considered at the grand old age of 28 - I still spent many ultimately fruitless hours working through the application and writing the accompanying essay. It's perhaps one scheme that sadly I won't be able to apply for again next year.

But the biggest disappointment so far has to be the rejection I've just received from the Wyndham Deedes Memorial Travel Scholarship, run by the Anglo-Israel Association. Proposals have to not only include details of the study - in this case recording a radio documentary examining contemporary Christianity in the context of an Arab-Jewish state - but also references and the contact details of organisations within Israel and the West Bank willing to support the study. Gaining these took many months of emails, telephone calls and follow up emails; I contacted colleges, schools and religious institutions and even securing references from the academic institutions I'd attended in the UK took an almost Herculean amount of patience but eventually I managed to get several extremely interested parties on board eager and willing to help. To then not even secure an interview is rather dispiriting but as the Association said it gets "many requests and with limited funds it is not always possible to help." With contacts all in place I would dearly love to proceed with the project on my own but I simply don't have the money to do it.

But it is possible to take comfort in the fact that, just like me, there are many more dejected and unsuccessful applicants out there then there are successful ones and that organisations like the AIA have extremely limited access to funds. I'll keep plodding along in the hope that something might come up but in the meantime I'm going to start looking at the possibility of attracting funding for projects outside of the bursary model. Watch this space...

New blog poll - is too much attention being paid to phone hacking?

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Ruffles) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

A new month, a new blog poll - this time asking whether too much attention is being paid to the ongoing phone-hacking scandal and (alleged) dealings between employees of the News of the World and other News International publications, the British political establishment, the Metropolitan Police, and various other figures now caught up in the public eye. Are we being subject to hyped-up overkill by vested interests? Or is it only vested interest that is telling us to turn our attention elsewhere?

The poll is in the usual place, at the top right of the page.