5 Photos: ECHT 1992

From late August to late December 1992 I was a non-digital nomad.

I was traveling with about 40 other Americans—mostly college students—on a 16-week (semester-long) tour of western and eastern Europe (mostly), visiting 16 countries in that time, starting in London and ending in Jerusalem. I picked up college credit for several classes, a new perspective on America’s place in the world, and a desire to return one day (which I didn’t do for another 25 years).

This was a time before digital photos. So I had a point-and-shoot camera and more than 30 rolls of 35mm film, with the little plastic tubes packed into an x-ray resistant pouch and stuffed into my classic college-kid-traveling-through-Europe backpack. I ended up with more than 700 photos from the trip.

These are just 5 of them. So you might see more from the collection in the future.

An art encounter in London

While exploring our first city I had an unexpected and formative experience with this piece of installation art by Joseph Beuys in the Tate Gallery (the old location off Trafalgar Square, not the new facility).

Titled The End of the Twentieth Century it embodied end-of-the-world symbolism I had learned growing up in a Christian home with end-of-the-world books around (the ones that used the book of Revelation as a predictor of future events). While Beuys used a different approach with his thinking, there was nevertheless a shared notion of death in cataclysm, a long period of silence, and then rebirth. There was an “a-ha” moment here I’d never had with art before.

Reflections on Lenin

Our tour included time in Russia, just 3 years after the Berlin Wall fell, with Boris Yeltsin as the ascendant President. Russia was only starting to open up, so we still had “minders” with our tour group every step of the way. Still, we visited St. Petersburg, Moscow, and a rural town a few hours’ drive east of Moscow.

Every trip to Moscow used to include a visit to Lenin’s tomb, so we definitely did that. What I love about this photo is the reflection of the polished granite, showing the opposite side of Red Square, where western-style shops were starting to appear in those very buildings. The Russian economy wouldn’t fully open up for another year or two. But the seeds were planted, even in the heart of the former USSR.

A somber but vital visit

After leaving Russia we stopped in Poland briefly to visit the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Our tour had several classes running all semester, including art and history, and you don’t get much more historical than visiting this Nazi death camp in person. It’s odd to recommend visiting such a place, but wow… I wish we could send every American to see it. There’s no way to see it in person and retain any sympathy for those that would deny this history or minimize the impact or horror.

Interestingly, Schindler’s List was released just a year after our tour. Seeing that movie after walking those grounds was chilling.

Turkey’s “Cotton Castle”

In addition to historical sites we also saw some natural wonders, none more fanciful than Pamukkale in southwestern Turkey.

This almost waterfall-like natural calcium carbonate formation is the product of a collection of hot springs that bubble up and release the blindingly-white mineral at the surface, creating tiers of pools that cascade down a steep hillside. It’s a hoot.

A fortress the Romans loved to hate

Our final country was Israel, which we entered from the southern port of Eilat, crossing over from Egypt. On the way up the eastern edge of the country we stopped off to see the Dead Sea, but we also made it to the second-most-popular tourist attraction in the country: Masada, a mesa-like site high above the Judean Desert that became a fortress nearly 2,000 years ago.

Aside from the expansive views, I remember one specific detail of the Masada visit. I stopped off at the men’s room and ended up standing at a urinal between two Israelis with automatic weapons slung over their shoulders. For them? No big deal, it’s a normal day. For me? Well… I learned I don’t like to pee at almost-gunpoint.

This presence of young men with automatic weapons was somewhat common across Israel at the time, as conscription into the military was (and still is) standard practice for young people, and carrying guns in the open was just normal. After a while, you got used to it.