On the road again
Goin’ places that I’ve never been
Seein’ things that I may never see again,
And I can’t wait to get on the road again.

- Wilie Nelson

Unlike Willie Nelson, I’m greatly looking forward to the road being at an end.  The tiredness of the travel has caught up with me this morning, perhaps because I know it’s the last travel day and I’m anxious to be home.   But there’s thousands of miles to travel today before I can be home.  But I must admit, this hotel is extremely nice, and I got an excellent price  (a fraction of the one on the website) through Orbitz.com.  It is really beautiful and even the breakfast was extremely nice.  They had a nice choice of teas (I didn’t have to use the PG tips I brought along in Europe at all!),  a very nice selection of cheeses and Prosciutto and some other nice meats, fresh fruit, croissants (of course) and french bread, really very comforting and satisfying.

No time for photos this morning.  I have to repack and take the metro in to the airport.   Next report will probably be from Cincinnati where I change planes, leaving Cincinnati at 4:50 PM EDT.

Ok, one photo.  I took this last night, standing in front of the Parthenon, close to my hotel, shortly before sunset.

Paris

Paris is, I must say, a very beautiful place.  It is everything that people say it is.

To me, it’s noisy in a very quiet way.  That is, it’s not noisy like Los Angeles, where it’s cars, trucks, sirens, whatever.  It’s so quiet that you hear people.  As you walk down these old streets, you can hear people talking in about a thousand different languages, playing piano, violin, arguing, making up, singing, laughing.   Paris is a city that excites all your senses:  sights, sounds, smells, tastes.  Touch — well, I didn’t do any touching, but your experience in Paris may vary.   [ this is meant to be funny, by the way. :-)]   Though there are tactile pleasures to be had; the feel of the cobblestone under your feet as you walk down the Champs Elysées (and imagine those poor cyclists in the Tour De France riding on them!), the wonderful feeling of good French bread that crinkles when you squeeze it, and a nice bath after you walked for 13+ miles today like I did!

The day started off with Marina, Misha, Nastya and Max picking me up at 5AM, but they had a surprise for me.  Julia had woken up at a little after 3AM, couldn’t get back to sleep, called up Marina, who had also woken up a little after 3AM and couldn’t get back to sleep, and decided that Julia would come with them to say goodbye to me again before the drive to Riga.  I had also woken up a little after 3AM!  But I was able to get back for a little more sleep until about 4AM.  Julia said that Leonid was at home, happily snoring. :-)

Misha did a great job driving, the road isn’t a fun one to drive, with lots of construction going on.  We got there with plenty of time and then it was time to say goodbye to them too.  I felt very sorry to be leaving them, but also very happy to be on the road towards home.  But of course there was this day in Paris…

The plane arrived a little after 1pm, but by the time the luggage came out and I found my way around CDG airport (I still don’t like it very much) and the train, it was 4pm before I got here.  I checked-in to the hotel, and went walking.  I stopped for a dinner break about 6:30.  Actually, it was a breakfast, lunch and dinner break, because I hadn’t felt like eating earlier.  We left so early and then I didn’t really want anything at the Riga airport.  I had a really nice dinner, it was lamp chops with a fois gras sauce and potatos.  The waiter was…well, very French.  I asked him if he could tell me any more about the dish, because everything was in French, and I didn’t know it was lamb chops.  He made a face and said, “I speak Spanish, but not this horrible language.”  Fortunately the fellow at the next table to me (which, sitting outside, was a distance of about a foot) was born in France and described the dish to me.  The waiter only warmed up to me a little when I correctly asked for the bill in French.

It’s funny about the Eiffel Tower.  It’s really big, but it does not, in any way, dominate Paris.  In fact, from the place I was having dinner, which was one block from the Tower, I couldn’t see it and I was looking directly at where it would appear without the buildings and trees.

After dinner I walked again, till after 9PM, when my legs decided that enough is enough.  I took the Metro back to the hotel and had a very nice bath.  The hotel is actually quite nice and a very good price (for Paris).  It’s an expensive city.

And I found that, while very beautiful, cultured and charming, Paris just a city.  There is nothing special for me here.  Daugavpils is special for me because of the people who live there.

I think today I will describe the events in reverse time, because I am still so full of emotion surrounding the end of the day.  Just a short time ago, Julia, Leonid, Tanya, Sasha, Ilya (Lyuda was not able to come), Marina, Misha, Nastya, Max мой друг  (it’s an “in joke”), Misha’s parents, Lena and Sergey were saying goodbye in front of the hotel.  I feel like…how to describe it?  It is as if we have found something in each other that we didn’t know we were looking for.

Poor Nastya had a tick, and was very upset so I had to say a quick goodbye to them as they were on the way to someone to take care of it, but I’ll see them in the morning (VERY early!).  I recall, many years ago (много лет назад) trying all of the common wisdom, which doesn’t work by the way, to extricate a tick from Nicole.   It wasn’t fun.  I hope you don’t have a long night!

Misha and Marina provided the meat for shashlik (shish-ka-bob) which they marinated last night with onions, and everyone (except me) brought wonderful things to eat.  Julia made rice and brought pickled tomatoes and cucumbers.   Lena and Sergey brought wine, vodka, challah from last night, and other neat stuff.  :-)

Everything was wonderful.  Have I described the view yet?  Wow.  I won’t have enough time tonight to process the photos, because I have to get up so early tomorrow.  So this will be all for now.  If I get a minute tomorrow morning, I’ll post a progress report.

Thanks for listening.   This is radio Latvia wishing you all a good night!

Picnic on Saturday

Yesterday started out with another walk over to Julia’s where I met up with Marina, Max, Julia and Leonid.  Julia told me that she has been working hard to prepare something different for me every day.  Leonid made a joke in response that she has a cookbook with a 1,000 recipes in in and she’s only made 5 of them. :-)   My Mom would  really enjoy the lunch I had today!  It started with cold borscht (холодный борщ) .  I’ve never had herring before.  It’s one of those Jewish fish things that always looked very scary to me as a kid, but I know Mom loves it.  There were two types of herring, one chopped with eggs and onions into something called farshmak  (we think!) :-)  You can eat it as is, but it has a pate like texture (very much like chopped liver) and is wonderful on bread and butter, which is how they like to eat it.  Marina told me that Julia always said to her as a child, “Without salt, it is not tasty.  Without bread,  it is not substantial”.  She also had some pieces of marinated salted herring and onions, and Julia suggested that I place this on bread too.  It reminded me of eating sushi, in a way, with the fish sitting on something. Leonid made a dish with grated potatoes that are formed into a ball with chopped meat on the inside, which are first boiled, then browned in a pan and then cooked in a sauce.  Really, really good.  I would gain 50 pounds if I had eaten as much as I would have liked to.

farshmak

herring

Max and Marina at lunch

Everything was really wonderful and tasty (очень вскуный).  Ещё раз, спасибо большое, Юля и Леонид!

After lunch, Leonid took Marina, Max and I over to the school where Marina works, which is adjacent to a house they once lived in.  Marina told me stories about this house.  Leonid used to keep animals, goats, pigs, chickens, rabbits, etc.  This house was in the middle of town in Daugavpils!   And she said that Lenoid was an inattentive farmer, and often the animals would get out of the yard. So often kids would tell Marina, “Hey, I saw your goat in the park”.

Max and Marina in front of the school where she works

We walked over to a park to let Max play a bit.

Max Playing

Then we walked through town, towards the synagogue and a market to get some challah and wine for shabbat.  On the way, we passed by a music store.  Julia was very anxious to hear me play the piano.  Julia is very musical and has sung alone and in ensembles most of her life, and Marina played piano for 7 or 8 years as a kid and also loves to sing, as you saw in her very beautiful rendition of “Adon Olam” in the cemetery in Vishki.  So I recorded a quick improvisation for Julia which is entitled “Daugavpils Concerto for Julia”.  :-)

We walked back to Julia’s and had tea.  Misha came to Julia’s after work and then it was time to head to Lena and Sergey’s for dinner.  Latvia is very serious about a zero tolerance policy for drinking and driving, so on this night Leonid was driving and Misha got to drink. :-)

Lena is a professional cook.  She used to manage a hotel near Vishki and now she teaches cooking.   She has cooked for the former president of Latvia and even Prince Charles!  So of course everything was wonderful.  There was veal (she says she’ll buy veal for Sergey when he’s been really good :-)  and potatoes, mushrooms, salad, all kinds of wonderful things.  It was very accommodating of them to allow Marina and me to do the Shabbat blessings.  Leonid asked if it was acceptable to have a mixture of traditions, with wine and vodka.  Personally, I thought it an excellent idea and observed both. :-)  Sergey warned me about the strength of the wonderful Russian vodka he provided, but I think  I held up ok. :-)

Sergey, Lena and Tanya

Julia and Sveta

It was a truly wonderful evening, Lena and Sergey are wonderful hosts and it was such a pleasure to be surrounded by all these wonderful cousins.

Julia told me yesterday that she really wants to come to the 2011 Dumes reunion.  Leonid is understandably concerned about her health on such a trip.  She has problems with her legs anyway, and a long plane ride would be uncomfortable for her.  But she really wants to be there.  We’ll see!  I can certainly understand her eagerness to go.  She spent her entire life having no cousins, and now to find she has so many in America…   It’s an amazing thing.

Today (as I write this, it’s Saturday morning in Latvia) we will be having a picnic.  Most likely I’ll have an early evening (I hope!) as we need to leave Daugavpils around 5AM or something.  Misha and Marina are very kindly driving me all the way into Riga to the airport.  The flight is at 11:30 and I arrive in Paris at 1:20 local time.  I’m going to be seeing as much of Paris as I can and I’m not sure what my internet connections will be like.  I know my phone won’t be able to Twitter in Paris without wi-fi, I tried it last time I was there.   So if I can’t update very much (or at all) please don’t worry (D & Mom).  Всё будет хорошо. Everything will be well.

Time it was
and what a time it was
It was
a time of innocence,
a time of confidences.
Long ago it must be,
I have a photograph.
Preserve your memories,
They’re all that’s left you…

– Paul Simon, Bookends from the Simon and Garfunkel album Bookends

Sadie Dumes(h) family in Vishki ~1909. Arthur (Artzik), Anna (Neima), Sadie (Sheina-Freida), William (Wulf - my grandfather), and Fannie (Feige)

I had really nice day, one of my favorites of the trip actually. I walked over to Julia’s house, my first time to do that and it gave me a feeling like “I know this place, these are my neighborhoods”.

I saw the European version of a Honda Fit (my car) on the way there. In Europe it’s called a “Jazz”, which is a much nicer name, or at least I would love to have a car called a “Jazz”.   D (Debra) and I really love our Fit. And it made me feel a touch of home to see it.

Honda Fit (Honda Jazz in Europe)

On the way I saw many interesting buildings, some of which reminded me of old buildings in Vincennes, Indiana, where I grew up.   Vincennes is a  old town (for America) and old red brick buildings are ubiquitous through the town.

A Daugavpils Building

Another Daugavpils Building

Julia's Apartment Building

The first thing that happens when you enter Julia’s house is a hearty greeting from Julia and Leonid; hugs, kisses, handshakes, jokes from Leonid, and then you are told to make yourself at home (a common Russian greeting is “Входи(те), пожалуйста, и будь(те), как дома!” – “Come in, please and make yourself at home!”  The stuff in parenthesis is for formal or plural use.), sit on the couch while a table is brought over and Julia brings food out of the kitchen and says to eat (and she doesn’t like to take “no” for an answer!). I have a feeling that this could be anytime of the day or night, whether or not they were expecting you or not expecting you.

Julia made me a really lovely soup with rice — I couldn’t identify everything in it — it had a tartness, a slight vinegar taste.

Thursday Soup

She also put out some peppers and cucumbers that she had pickled herself.  As always, Очень вкусный! (very tasty).

Thursday pickles

After lunch, Julia wanted to go over the e-card that I helped make for her. For Julia’s 61st birthday, I asked all my Dumes relatives to add a message to a web page in the Dumes.Net website.   I would like those family members who contributed to know that Julia was extremely grateful and anxious to have each and every person identified to her,  who they were and how they were related, which ancestor that came from Vishki they are descended from.   If only her mother had lived to see this, to know that she had so many cousins in America, that she was not alone.   When she saw my mother’s entry and photo, she sighed and said, “Such a beautiful woman.”

Then we started going through Julia’s photo albums.  She had an album of her mother’s.  Her mother Tanya had no photos when she fled from Riga to the Urals in 1941.   It was after she returned to Vishki that a few people who had known her family gave Tanya copies of the very few pre-war photos of her family that Julia now has.  Marina arrived as we started going through the album.   Julia never knew her father, he died before she was born.  But she has a few photos.  He had been a worker in Leningrad (I think she said) who was basically in the wrong place and the wrong time.   He worked down the hall from someone who became a target of Stalin, and Stalin just had everyone in the area exiled, which apparently was standard practice for Stalin.   Her father ended up in the Urals, met and fell in love with Tanya.  They were very happy for only a short time, when he died of a heart attack, shortly after his exile had ended and they had been able to return to his home.

Julia's Father

There are a number of photos of Julia and her sister Reisa growing up in Vishki.  Some of the photos, interestingly, were taken by a fellow named Leizer Dumesh, though certainly not my friend Leizer Dumesh in Riga.  It’s the first time I’ve heard about another Dumesh in the Daugavpils area after the war.  I don’t think he’s directly related to my family or Leizer’s family — but who knows?  And that was 50 years ago.

After looking through the albums, we went to the cemetery in Daugavpils to see Julia’s mom and sister.   Raisa died very tragically young in 1987 and her mother, never really recovering from the grief, died in 1989, only 70 years old.  Julia and Leonid go there once a week to tidy up the graves, put fresh flowers, etc.  I doubt if there are two more cared for graves in the world.  I was once again impressed by Leonid’s dedication to Julia’s family.

Maxim helping to clean the graves

They told me that Tanya loved the little wild strawberries that Leonid likes to collect, and next to her grave, some wild strawberries started growing, all on their own, what my wife calls a “volunteer plant”.  The ferns that you see were also “volunteers” and in fact were a favorite of Raisa.  It is as if nature came to them with their favorites.

Leonid also has family in the same cemetery, and we went to see and clean up those graves as well.

Leonid's family's graves

Julia and Leonid wanted me to see Stropi, which is a very pretty area just outside of Daugavpils.  It’s a resort area with a pretty lake where you can swim and boat and rent a cabin fairly inexpensively.

Then we went to a holocaust memorial just outside of Daugavpils in the Pogulianka forest. In this place 15,000 Jews from the Daugavpils ghetto were killed.  It is said that when you step on the ground, you can hear the cries of the innocent people who died there.   I cannot help but contrast this sad, beautiful and moving memorial with the Riga ghetto, which is still a ghetto; there is no memorial, no recognition of what occurred there, only a feeling of horror.

Here are some photos from the memorial in Daugavpils.  It is made to look like a cemetery, with the headstones representing a country and the number of Jews from those regions who were executed by the Nazis;  people killed for the crime of being born Jewish.

Memorial

At the memorial

at the memorial

at the memorial

For the 15,000 Jews from Daugavpils who died here

Julia asked me about antisemitism in America today.  I told her that it certainly still exists, probably less so (or less apparent) in larger cities, but certainly it still exists in America.  Marina told me that she found out that the neighbors of her in-laws hate her and her children because they are Jewish by maternal line.   They told someone that if authorities came looking for Jews to take away and be executed, they would gladly hand over Marina and her children.  Don’t ever kid yourself to think “It could never happen again”.  It could, in a heartbeat.   I can only hope that technology, the internet, global communication, would keep the world from taking so long to do the right thing as happened in the 1940′s.

“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then… they came for me… And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”

– Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

Later on I experienced another Daugavpils Dumesh family ritual, a haircut from Lyudmila, Tanya’s daughter.  She did an excellent job, thanks again Lyuda!  You can see my face is still a little red from the sunburn the other day.  It never really bothered me much and it’s peeling now.  So I’ll arrive back in LA with a Latvian tan.

Lyuda about to give me a haircut

After this we went back to Marina’s and scanned some of the photos from Julia’s album.  Here are a few of the new scans that I really like:

Julia and Leonid's wedding

Julia, Leonid, Marina, Tanya and Tanya (Traina)

Marina, in a very sweet photo as a teenager

Yesterday I went to Vilnius, Lithuania with Marina, Misha, Tanya, Lena and Nastya.   Vilnius is quite an ancient city, and I have always heard about it’s magnificent “Old Town”, which was once a huge center of Judaism in Europe.

Marina, Nastya, Tanya and Lena in Vilnius

There were a few option:

a) just to look around aimlessly — which I always enjoy, frankly. :-)

b) take a tour bus, which had a choice of languages, both Russian and English

c) that I could get a guided tour in English

We decided that perhaps “c” was best, because the tour bus didn’t really go much into Old Town.  Once you’ve seen it, you can understand why.  Many of the streets can barely accommodate a couple of bicycles side by side much less a tour bus.   I was concerned that everyone else would be quite bored, but Marina assured me that they could do shopping and look around on their own.  Some things can be purchased much more cheaply in Lithuania than Latvia.  Marina told me that many people come from Latvia to Lithuania to buy cars.

We looked around for someplace not too expensive to have lunch, but Vilnius center is quite a fashionable place, so affordable options are very limited.  We decided to try MacDonald’s.  I thought it might be interesting, as all fans of the movie Pulp Fiction will understand, to find out what they call a quarter pounder with cheese in Lithuania.  It turns out to be a “Big Tasty”.   I also figured that it’s got to be better than an American MacDonald’s.  I was wrong there. :-)

MacDonalds menu

Lena, Misha, Nastya, Marina and Tanya at MacDonalds

The tour guide was very knowledgeable – at times perhaps a little too verbose.  She spent the first 30 minutes (I’m not exaggerating) of a walking tour at the starting place, just talking about the history of Vilnius and Lithuania.  Lithuanians are justifiably very proud of their rich history.  The tour guide claimed that the Lithuanian language was the oldest Indo-European language, and I wondered about the accuracy of that statement.  According to Wikipedia, it’s probably the closest language to what Indo-European sounded like. Lithuanian and Latvian are the only two surviving languages of the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family.  Lithuanian has many cognate words with Sanskrit and Latin;  these words are descended from Proto-Indo-European.  Wikipedia has a quote from Antoine Meillet,  “Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke should come and listen to a Lithuanian peasant.”

Vilnius Old City

I had asked the tour guide if she could talk about the Jewish history in the old city, which she was able to do.  Unfortunately, there is nothing left to see of the Jewish section.  The Jewish buildings were destroyed and the synagogue bombed in the war.  There are new buildings there now, but they did not attempt to recreate the style of buildings that would have existed.

After the tour, Marina asked me if I preferred the Old City in Riga or the Old City in Vilnius.  Almost without thinking, I could honestly answer Riga, but it took me a while to figure out why.  The old city in Vilnius while quite real still has an almost Disneyland aspect to it.  It’s very, very clean and beautiful and very touristy.  The old city in Riga still has boarded up buildings needing repair, streets almost impassible due to bricks and debris, but it’s very real.

Latvia is the poorest country in the EU and it’s economy suffers greatly.  Yesterday a new mayor was elected in Daugavpils, and my cousins have hopes that he might be able to help their local situation a little.  Latvia decided not to lower the minimum wage, as they had planned to do, because of threats from the EU to withhold money if they approached their economy in this fashion, telling the Latvian authorities that they should not start by penalizing the poorest people in the economy first.  What a refreshing notion, after having 8 years of an American administration who felt that the economy would be best served by lowering the taxes for the richest people.  And look how well that plan turned out!   And still, some in congress (you know who I mean)  feel that the only way out of our economic crisis in America is to maintain those idiotic policies that got us here in the first place.

They also said on the news last night that it is expected that 40% of the hotels in Latvia will need to close due to lack of tourism.  I worry greatly for Latvia and it’s people.  Vishki, a once thriving town even after the war, became something close to a ghost town 20 years ago because of a lack of a local economy.  Young people left to find work.   This could be the fate of Latgale, or even Latvia entirely if their economy doesn’t recover soon.  This is a beautiful place with wonderful people.  But что же делать?  What is there to do?

It was a very long drive back, but Спасибо большое, Миша и Марина!  Thank you very much Misha and Marina for the day in Vilnius.  And Julia had some great food waiting for us on our return.  This is a cold borscht (борщ Borsh in Russian) that Julia made.  It was very tasty (очень вкусный) and theraputic after a long day.

Cold borscht made by Julia

For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.

- Ted Kennedy 1980

One of the goals of this trip was to return to the Jewish cemetery in Vishki,  photograph graves that have not been photographed and translated and see that, as Blind Lemon Jefferson sang, “see that my grave is kept clean”.  I was very disappointed to find that Janis Kudins, mayor of Spogi & Vishki, had not kept his promise to maintain the cemetery, even after the efforts last year by a group of international youths to “restore” the cemetery.  Klaus Peter Rex, a German priest has been involved in this effort for several years.  Klaus made a map of the cemetery, which I turned into an online version.  But about 100 graves from the 300 or so were seemingly left unphotographed by Klaus.  So I was determined to return to Vishki to finish the job to get every single grave identified where possible.  Klaus gave me some tips.  These stones have been greatly worn by the elements and are extremely difficult to read now.  But Klaus advised using chalk on the convex letters to highlight them and some sort of foam (we used shaving cream, which actually worked quite well) on concave ones.  Sometimes other materials worked better.  Water, in some cases and dirt in others.  The unfortunate thing was that Klaus’ map has problems.  Some graves indicated on the map don’t seem to exist.  The proportions are, in some cases, completely misleading.  And in some cases, Klaus omitted graves that were there.  Still, I’m extremely grateful for the work he did, but it’s not done.  And one has only so much time, energy, money and bug repellent (the mosquitoes were quite plentiful today).  In fact, I had the opportunity to taste some Vishki mosquitoes that flew in my mouth.  It’s not like sushi, but I guess you take what you can get. :-)

But before we went to the cemetery, Misha, Marina, Nastya, Maxim and Sasha’s mom picked me up at the hotel.  Misha’s mom is really sweet.  Marina says that she and Julia are like twins, born the same year, both Gemini, and get along so well.

We stopped at a farmer’s market (рынок, remember?) to get a few things. I was mentioning to Marina as we were driving to her house that it reminded me of Farmer’s Market and she told Misha that we had a place like their market that we go to in Los Angeles and he said, as he was avoiding a pothole, “I’ll bet they don’t have holes in the road like we do”, and I told him that we do recently, since we don’t have any money to fix them.  He said, “Ah, the difference is that we have always had them”. :-)

Farmer's Market

Marina made me a wonderful sorrel soup with sorrel that she picked in Vishki!  This wasn’t just any sorrel, but the sorrel of my ancestors! :-)  Really, it was fantastic. Молодец, Марина!

Sorrel Soup

We went to the Daugavpils Museum, which was really very interesting.  They had an old map of Daugavpils that I was very interested to see because it was supposed to be from the 1860′s.  Unfortunately, it didn’t include the street names — which was one of my principle reasons for wanting to see it, but I suppose you don’t always get your answers on a silver platter.  I can’t complain, I’ve been very lucky.  Я повезло!

Then we went to Julia’s house.   I have to stop here to give deep thanks to Leonid and Misha.  They put a lot into this effort, and I am very grateful, очень благодарен.    Спасибо большое!!  With the team assembled, Leonid, Misha, Marina, myself and Max, who refused to stay at Julia’s :-), we ventured off to Vishki.

The Team

We initially worked on the grave of Genoch Dumesh, grandfather of my friend Leizer, great-grandfather of my friend Genrich and great-great-grandfather of my friend Vadim.  The overgrown grasses made it difficult to find.  Leonid brought tools to cut the grass around the grave.  Marina said that  now that they know where the graves of the Dumesh’s are, they will come back periodically to make sure the graves are kept clean.  Ещё раз, спасибо большое!!

I should mention that the view from the Jewish cemetery in Vishki is one of the most inspiring and beautiful landscapes I’ve ever seen.  A photograph really can’t capture it.

VIew from Vishki

The cleaned up grave of Genoch further identifies the grave.  We can now see a capitol “Г” and a “Дум” (VERY interesting to see that they used the Russian letters.  We had not seen this in previous photos).  It is unfortunate that the stone was damaged, but there is no doubt in my mind that this is indeed the grave of Genoch.  I am very happy and satisfied to have found it, as it has been one of Leizer’s regrets over the years to not know the location of his grandfather’s grave, and I feel very honored to be able to present him with this information.

Grave of Genoch Dumesh

My great-grandpa Chaim’s grave has been well identified, but Misha took the time to apply chalk to the letters, making them very legible, and Leonid worked very hard cleaning the areas and supplying ideas.  Marina helped to make the graves more legible and Max did what he could. :-)  Спасибо вам,  спасибо вам.

Chaim Dumesh

We took photos of most, if not all, of the missing graves.  The team worked very hard to try to get the very best photo of each grave.  Only time and corrections on the map will tell.  The work goes on, as Ted Kennedy said, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream never dies.  It makes me teary every time I read that.  At the end of our efforts, Marina wanted to offer a prayer at the grave of Chaim that she learned when she was volunteering in Israel.  It is very beautiful and sweet and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Walking around the neighborhood of my hotel, there are so many contrasts, even in this little area.  There are a lot of Soviet era apartment buildings and a few modern ones, and then suddenly one or more of these old Latvian wooden houses, which I think are very charming in style, though suffer from age and a lack of upkeep.   They are quite old, certainly older than 100 years, and perhaps as old as 150 years.  I got to see the inside of one of these old wooden houses today.  Misha’s (Marina’s husband) mother and father live in such a home.  It’s very small, two rooms, a small kitchen and a small room which is basically everything else.   Marina told me that in Soviet times, six people lived in this home.  Here is an example from the neighborhood of the hotel.

Wooden Houses

Wooden House

Marina, Nastya and Max picked me up Monday morning and we went first to a park dedicated to Pavel Dubrovin, Daugavpils’ first mayor.  It’s a very pretty park.  Here is Marina, Nastya and Max with Pavel’s statue.

Marina, Max and Nastya with Pavel

There is a nice war memorial in the park.  I saw photos from Marina and Misha’s wedding where they were laying flowers there as part of the ceremony, which she said is something of a tradition here.   I’ve been looking at a lot of photo albums!   It’s a lot of fun, it’s like I’m being given a crash course into their family. :-)   It was interesting to notice that Marina, as a child, looked remarkably like my cousin Lillian Dumes Zoll.  When I can get a scan of some of those photos (Marina :-),  I’ll post a side-by-side comparison.  I’m sure my Dumes relatives in the USA would be very interested to see it.

War Memorial

Actually Tanya sent me a scan of a very pretty photo of Julia when she was 19 years old, still living in Vishki.  This is from 1967.

Julia as a teenager

We went into Daugavpils University were Marina (if I remember correctly) got her Master’s Degree.  Tanya also has a Master’s Degree in Education (again, if I’m remember the major correctly.  I’ve had a lot to take in the last few days! :-).

Daugavpils University

We met up with Tanya and had a nice lunch at a cafe in the city center.  I didn’t eat too much, because I was looking forward to trying Tanya’s stuffed cabbage rolls that she made for dinner (I can’t believe I forgot to photograph them, but they were delicious! :-)

lunch in the city center

Tanya wanted to stop at the farmer’s market (рынок – I’m hoping you’ll all be experts in Russian after reading my posts :-) to pick up a few things and of course that was fun for me to see.  I think that they have finally gotten used to see me taking pictures of strange things like food. :-)  Ah, this is a good time for a story, which I actually told to my cousins today.  When my daughter Nicole was around 7, I think, she got her first camera.  Film was expensive, as anyone older than the digital age knows, so I advised her not to take photos of just any old thing, but to take them of something you don’t see every day.  She came back in about 30 minutes and said she’d used up all her film.  We dropped it off and picked it up in a couple of days, and on looking through them, every single photo was of a traffic cone.   I asked her why she’d taken photos of traffic cones, and she said, “Well, I don’t see them every day.”   She was right, of course.

Farmer's Market

As I mentioned earlier, the city center is really very pretty and nice.

in the city center

in the city center

in the city center

Latvia, and the region of Latgale in particular, has some of the prettiest countryside that I’ve ever seen.  This is a view of the Dauga river, for which Daugavpils was named.

The Dauga

We went to one of Daugavpils’ most famous historical landmarks, the fortress.  Wikipedia says:

Daugavpils Fortress, also known as Dinaburg Fortress, is a fortress in Daugavpils, Latvia. It is the only early 19th century military fortification of its kind in Northern Europe that has been preserved without significant alterations.[1] Planning of the fortress began in 1772 by decree of Tsar Alexander I of Russia, shortly after the First Partition of Poland when Latvia ceded to Russia and construction began during Napoleon’s attack of the Russian Empire in 1810. Construction of the fortress, despite lengthy delays, serious floodings and slow construction work, was completed in 1878.

The Fortress

The Fortress

The Fortress

Marina’s son Maxim is crazy for cannons.  There are several in the fortress, and every time he’d see one in the distance, he’d start shouting “Пушка, пушка!” (Пушка means cannon, but I’ll bet you guessed that already :-).   Max has decided that I’m his friend.  I think it was the chocolates I brought with me the first day.  I have the great honor of being the only person whose hand he’ll hold crossing the street.  :-)

Maxim on cannon

Marina had a English student in the afternoon, so she dropped me off at Julia’s house, and Julia and I went to Tanya’s for dinner.  Those stuffed cabbages really were great, Tanya!  Молодец!! :)

I mentioned that Julia had the photo that I sent her of the Dumes family reunion in an honored place in her home.  Here it is:

Reunion Picture on Wall

This was the first time I’d seen Tanya’s home, so I got the tour, and one of the highlights of the tour of Tanya’s home is the vista of Ilya’s football (soccer, not American football) medals.  They are a championship team and have won international contests.   It keeps them VERY busy, with practices and tournaments, but as Tanya told me, Ilya has had quite an interesting life for someone so young.  Ilya is one of the smallest guys on the team, but also one of the very best.

Ilya with medals

And finally for this post, another photo. :-) There’s Nastya, Lyuda (Tanya’s daughter), Julia and Sasha (Tanya’s husband).  Lyuda does hair styling professionally and does work on most of the family.  If I can get a place in the queue (очередь) I might get a trim.  I think it’d help with the heat here.

Nastya, Luda, Julia and Sasha

My cousins thought it would be a nice idea to have all the family meet in Vishki.    The day started by meeting another part of the family.  Julia’s sister Raisa had two daughters, Valentina and Elena.  Waiting outside the hotel were Elena (Lena) and her husband Sergey and Valentina’s daughter Svetlana (Sveta) and her husband Sandris and their son Artyom (only 1.5 year old).  We looked at each other, but didn’t say anything because we weren’t positive who each other was until the others arrived a minute later.  Then there was introductions and photographs.

Lena, Sergey and Sveta

We drove towards Vishki and stopped along the way to collect some wildflowers to place at the memorial just outside of Vishki to the Jews that there, and stones  for the cemetery in Vishki.  There is a Jewish tradition to place stones at a grave rather than flowers.

Marina picking flowers

Leonid makes a lot of joke and makes the family laugh, but I was very impressed by his sincerity and emotion as he placed the flowers at the memorial.

Leonid putting flowers at the memorial

It’s hard to describe just how beautiful the countryside is around Vishki, and the video doesn’t really capture it, but one can easily imagine how my ancestors living in Vishki in the 19th century must have felt they were living in a paradise.

Tanya in blue flowers

Tanya, Lena, Marina and Bruce

Julia, Tanya, Lena, Artyom, Nastya and Ilya

Then we parked in Vishki and walked up the street.  Julia spoke about each house, who lived there and her memories of them.  She showed me where her grandfather Nota’s house was, just a field now.  The contents of the house were taken by some people when the family was killed by the Nazis.  When Tanya, (Nota’s daughter,  Julia’s mother) returned to Vishki after the war, finding her home destroyed and her family killed, asked the people if she could have some of the things from the house returned to her.  They gave her a chair and a piece of cloth that she had embroidered.

Julia showed me where, in the center of town, there were shops, a movie theatre, a club, etc.  As we walked through town, various people from Vishki would recognize Julia and come over to greet her.  At the end of this clip, two men came over who were childhood friends of Julia.

We walked to the house that belonged to Tanya Dumesh’s uncle Israel.  After the war, she worked there and Tanya, Julia and her sister Raisa lived there for a time.

Here is an old photo showing the home.  Raisa is on the left, then Julia and then Tanya.

Old Photo of Isreal Dumesh's house

Julia at Isreal Dumesh's house

We were able to go inside and Julia described how they lived there.

After 1962 the government gave Tanya, Raisa and Julia a small apartment.  Tanya lived here the rest of her life.  Marina and Tanya were there often in their childhood.  Marina remembers drawing drinking water from this well.

Well

An old friend of Julia’s who lives in the building saw her and came out to talk.  She lived in the building when Julia was a girl.  Marina told me that she seems exactly the same to her as she did when she was a girl visiting her grandmother.

Julia with an old friend

Tanya is standing in front of the door of where Tanya’s apartment was.

Tanya in front of her grandmother's apartment

This is the view of the garden where they grow their vegetables taken from a window near where Tanya’s apartment was.

View from back window

We walked by Veronica (Vera) Galvena’s house.  Vera was one of the key people responsible for helping me find my cousins.  She was Tanya Dumesh’s childhood friend, and known in  town as “The Yiddishe Goy”.

Vera Galvena's House

Then we went to the cemetery.  I showed them Genoch Dumesh’s grave and the grave of my great-grandfather, Chaim Dumesh.

Me with great-granddad

Marina, Tanya, Lena and Julia with Chaim

Finally, after all that — time for the picnic!  There was amazing amounts of food (of course), and some went swimming and fishing.  With Ilya and Sasha’s help, I was able to get one good cast, but no bites.  But no one else caught any fish of note, so it just wasn’t a good day for banana fish, tench fish or any other kind of fish.   I should mention that it’s been very hot, humid and sunny every day that I’ve been here (with the occasional late night or early morning thunderstorm.    This is very unusual weather for Latvia.  It’s rare to get a lot of sunny days, I’m told, and temperatures this high are extremely unusual.  Today we were told it got to 43 C (107 F!!), with a lot of humidity.   In fact, several of us, myself included, got sunburnt at the picnic.  It is, I think, the height of irony when a guy from Southern California goes to Latvia to get a sun tan!! :-)

Picnic

Picnic

Lena and Artyom

Sandris and Sergey

Sveta and Tanya

Bruce Fishing

I think it is quite an honor to be welcomed into this family that is so close.   Julia, the matriarch of the family, told me at the train station that she welcomed me not as a cousin but as a brother.   I felt this deeply;  Julia grew up with only a sister and mother, and their family was all they had in the world.   Family means everything to Julia, so for her to think of me as a brother is a great honor.

Marina's Dad joking around

When Julia was growing up, she had friends in Vishki who had some family in America.  Julia asked her mother if perhaps they had family in America and her mother very sternly said, “No!”   For Julia’s 60th birthday last year, I sent her this photograph:

Dumes Family Reunion 2006

The caption that I added basically says, “Dear cousin Julia, Happy Birthday from Bruce, Debra and all your American cousins!  May 2008.  Love and the very best wishes for many more birthdays!”   Julia framed this photo and it hangs in the center of her dining room.  I’ll take a photo of it on the wall and post it here.

They all greeted me at the train station.  I brought yellow roses for Julia, Tanya and Marina and boxes of chocolates for the kids.

Family at the station with Marina in the photo (Ilya taking the picture)

Family with Ilya (Marina taking the photo)

We went to Julia’s house for dinner, which was really wonderful.  They asked me if I’d be afraid of eating mushrooms that Leonid found, but I knew that they know their mushrooms :-) and so I had a really wonderful soup that Julia made with them.

Very tasty (очень вкусный) mushroom soup

We had blin, which is very much like a blintz, with sour cream.  There is a Russian expression, “Первый блин камом”, which means the first blin is a lump.  My Russian teacher said that to us in my class after the 1st quiz of the 2nd year of Russian.  It described very well the results of the quiz. :-) The word “blin” is also a mild swear word, as in “Blin, I locked my keys in the car!”

We had some fried fish that Leonid caught. The type of fish in Russian is called линь which my dictionary says is “tench fish”, though I’ve never heard of tench.  It’s very tasty.  We had tomatos and cucumbers, sliced kilbasa, chicken in a jelly made from consumme, which also was very tasty.  So much food!  Julia loves to see people eat.  :-)   For dessert we had wild strawberries that Leonid had collected.  These look very much like ornimental strawberries, very small and round-ish, which my wife says are inedible, but these are delicious.   Julia is diabetic and doesn’t (well, isn’t supposed to) eat sugar, so she has these strawberries in her tea to make it sweeter.

Wild strawberries picked by Leonid

The boys, Ilya, Tanya’s son and Maxim, Marina’s son, were very anxious to show me some “break dancing” after dinner.  Here is a sample for you:

Then Marina’s daughter, who is mad for dancing, performed for us:

And of course Leonid had to get into the act;

It was a wonderful introduction to everyone.  I feel as if I have always known them.

Marina, Bruce, Julia, Nastya, Tanya in front of Julia's apartment