Translated from german to english by Kaiser Annina
e-mail: sanna@gewi.kfunigraz.ac.at
Letzte Änderung: 06-02-98
ursprung@gewi.kfunigraz.ac.at
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It was a challenging project. All over Europe borders are getting loose, and the passports' colorful stamps are becoming sentimental reminders of the past. And at the same time, the countries of the former East are establishing new borders - with the same enthusiasm as they are torn down in the West. Countries with new currencies are developing - enthusiastic about the autonomy they gained and about the various possibilities they see in new control mechanisms. Border officials carry out recently introduced laws that they themselves are hardly familiar with. Everything so fresh and new that no one was able to inform us about how to transport things legally and officially across those borders. The majority of transports goes via the Czech Republic, while taking the route through Hungary, Ukraine, White Russia, and the Baltic Countries is almost impossible since there exist neither customs and nor trade agreements between those countries.
But, for us, only this route allowed to realize the project we had in mind: to expose the works of 178 woman artists as a mobile installation in a Russian railway carriage from Graz to St. Petersburg. The exhibition should take place in a public sphere and thus be accessible for everyone. Only on this route is it possible to remain in one an the same carriage from Europe to the countries of the former Soviet Union. The gauge of the tracks varied so, at the border to Hungary, huge cranes had to heave carriage by carriage one and a half meters above the ground to exchange the base of the carriages.
Together with ÖBB's customer advisory service we set up our route: Graz - Wien - Nicklsdorf - Hegyeshalom - Budapest - Debrecen - Chop - Rovno - Lvov . Stryj - Mukachero - Goryn - Luninec - Baranovichi - Minsk - Ezergige - Orscha - Centr - Vitebsk - Alescha - Duo - Leningrad. The journey's expected duration: 63 hours, 25 minutes.
Whether it was possible to book a Russian carriage with exchangeable bogie was still unsure. It was ÖBB's first time to handle a case like ours. Moreover, there is no train going straight from Graz to St. Petersburg. The train has to be coupled up to other trains several times. "All services can be provided only if the Railways involved agree on guiding the carriage and if the RZD is able to provide an appropriate sleeping car". Those were the exact words of the ÖBB's offer. And they wanted to know whether we were serious about our request.
There were also doubts about which kinds of visa were required: does White Russia require a separate visa or is the Russian one sufficient. The Russian embassy didn't give any information about that. So we got in touch with the Austrian embassy in Russia and Hungary, the Foreign Ministry and with transportation firms specialized on Russia. The legal situation was unmistakably clear: an unsealed transport containing artistic works and accessible for the public which passes through all those countries was against all laws. It hadn't happened before and therefore was regarded as impossible. Everyone tried to talk us out of the project. At the same time they liked the idea, found it challenging and started helping us.
The embassies of Mosque and Budapest sent letters of recommendation in the particular languages. cultural attache, Christian Siegl, called severaltimes to warn us about the dangers inherent in our project: organized gangs which would rob us after making us dumb by using gas. Railway robbers who would stop trains at uninhabited areas. He was talking about murderers, rapists, and the like......The state he described was one of lawlessness, the "Wild East" so to speak. Under no circumstances should we take any valuable objects with us. He suggested that we always stayed within the group, never alone, not even two people at a time. The best thing would be not to leave the carriage at all and if necessary then only if accompanied by a man. And he wanted us to call him as soon as we were back in Austria - he was terribly worried. The fact that three men we joining us calmed him down a bit. We were warned, prepared - and more curious than ever.
Nervous excitement about the journey
After measuring a Russian sleeping car at the Südbahnhof in Vienna, the show-cases were made, and a concept of where they would be installed was designed. Our journey's time schedule according to the ÖBB: "Leading the carriage towards Graz possibly August 28 by 11 a.m., place it ready for arrangement, departure to Vienna SŸdbahnhof August 29 at 19.25. Departure from Vienna Westbahnhof August 30, if possible presentation at the gate at 10:07. In Budapest transfer of the sleeping car to train 16 with 16:15 departure time, if possible by the Hungarian Railway. Place ready of the carriage after arrival or before departure for presentation at the gate. Ultimately, the journey to Leningrad/ St. Petersburg."
Finally, the carriage's arrival at the Hauptbahnhof in Graz had to be postponed to 23:00. At that time there was no one left at the gate who was informed about our project. No one had deposited keys for the carriage - like we had arranged it. The train hadn't arrived yet. We kept waiting.
30 minutes later, it finally arrived. "Our" carriage - easy to spot with its Russian characters and a get-up that reminded of the plush Russian past - was put at a sidetrack. We had to find out that it was an old model and we had adjusted our show-cases to the new type!. The door was locked. Veronika noticed that the window was narrowly opened. An officer assisted and Veronika hung on to the window -looking into the horrified face of a man with moustache and naked upper body - pale and as surprised as the artist herself.
Negotiations. We want to get inside the carriage since we have to install the show-cases. "Njet". Please, only for a second, just to see whether they fit. "Njet". But we have to get in there!. "Njet". He leaves to come back with a piece of paper that has 19:22 written on it. From behind, another man appears - distressed as well. "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?, Do you speak English?" "Njet". They close the window and leave.
Frustration. Doris leaves to fetch Bernhard Wolf. Bernhard speaks Russian. In the meantime we keep trying to get the two men to open the carriage - supported by a female station-master in uniform. We knock at the window, we beg. The uniform seems to impresses them. Negotiations are taken up again.. We bring the show-case close to the window. "Njet". The woman in uniform leaves resignedly. Reluctantly, they open the door. The show-case is too big for the spot it had been designed for. Behind us the two men are making deprecatory gestures. "Njet!".
Finally Bernhard arrives and starts chatting with them. Puzzled faces at first, then laughter. It turnes out that the two men are our sleeping car attendants. They have been expecting a group of 30 travelers. No one told them about boxes and show-cases. Now, they allow us to get inside, already before noon, they are finally co-operating.
From Graz to Vienna
Our group consisted of 3 female artists of the W/BB team (Veronika Dreier, Doris Jauk-Hinz, Eva Ursprung), the photographer, Wolfgang Croce who simply liked the idea, Doris' neighbors, Hermine Posch and Dr. Karl Posch, assistant at the Institute of Computer Science at the Technical University in Graz, and Klaus Schweinzer, Veronika's neighbor and a computer expert as well. We brought an Apple notebook, a video camera, a DAT recorder and photo cameras of all price levels with us on the train.
In the evening we say good bye to the group of friends, journalists, visitors of the exhibition, some lost travelers, city councellor for cultural affairs Helmut Strobl, and the representative for women's affairs, Barbara Kasper. With a delay of 30 minutes the train departs into dusk. Curator for W/BB Austria and a group of friends joined us to Vienna.
Already on the train to Vienna we discover that our equipment is not convertible to the outlets in the train! Due to our investigations there were outlets with 220 V; outlets in every compartment. According to our measuring we had to deal with serious fluctuation in electricity. It was definitely less than 220V. The consequence was that we could not continuously use camera, DAT recorder, and notebook. We had to focus on the most essential. Our intention of working the video material already on the train, converting and processing it on the computer to transfer it to the event taking place simultaneously in Graz, had to be given up. The only hope that remained was that the storage cells would last until our arrival in Varshavski. We planned on broadcasting online anyway- St. Petersburg - Graz - Santa Barbara -as soon as we arrived there.
Hungary
After a press conference we held at the Westbahnhof in Vienna the following day, we continued our journey - on time - at 10:07. At noon we had reached the first border. Amazed faces of the border officials but after they read our letters of recommendation and the trilingual invitation folder (German, Hungarian, Russian) they smiled at us friendly. Encouraged by their friendliness, we asked them to walk through the carriage once again since we hadn't dared to film them in the first place. They agree and ask some more questions for the camera.
In Budapest we were welcomed by some journalists, artists, as well as a delegation of the Austrian embassy's department of culture. The station was crowded with police officers, the entrance to the hall was locked: bomb threat. We were looking for a way to recharge our storage cells. Why are there no lockers with outlets? . The lunch in Budapest was the last stay among what we considered the familiar.
Ukraine
From that moment onwards the atmosphere on the train changed. Up to Budapest it had been crowded with passengers from all nations, now English or German was rarely spoken. We were strolling through the corridors with our video cameras, distributed invitations, and invited everyone to come to our carriage. Our attendants were worried and shocked. If it would have been up to them they had locked the carriage and not opened it again. We set up hours people could come and look at the exhibition and we told the history of the boxes.
The journey was sheer luxury: each of us had his/her own compartment with one or two show-cases in it. The attendants were serving coffee and tea in sliver pots. We had more than enough food for the journey. Wolfgang roamed through the corridor with his camera, Doris went from compartment to compartment filming as well. Inwardly, we began to fear the stop at the next border.
Exiting Hungary was unproblematic. The reorganization of the carriages took place in the no where's land between Hungary and the Ukraine. A stay that lasted for hours - one and a half meters above the ground and at full moon. Workers with faces black from dirt. Two men grabbed Doris at her arms: "no camera!"
At our entry into the Ukraine, finally, all our expectations were met: brisk steps, loud and harsh voices. "Kontroll!" At 2:08 in the morning loud knocking woke us up. "No camera!" Then the faces of the officers the moment they discovered the boxes. "Dokument!" I gave them everything I had. Exit confirmation from Austria, the embassies' letters of recommendation, and the invitation folder. They shook their heads; again they requested: "Dokument!".
They fetched another delegation of officers. Again they were puzzled and didn't know how to handle the situation. Then another group with Geiger counter. Our sleeping car attendants were obviously frightened; they tried to explain and negotiate. They were shocked that we didn't have the proper documents, shook their heads repeating: "Problemo, Problemo...". At last, a group of 30 officers walked through the carriage.
Two hours later an officer who spoke some German and who had been dragged out of bed showed up. Graz, yes he had been there for several months. And this is supposed to be art? - Well... He nodded intelligently. We got a stamp on our Austrian exit confirmation which we had to show at any case when we would leave the country. Then we were allowed to continue our journey.
From that time on there were no more openly shot videos of border checks - only with hidden camera: darkness, feet, and Russian commands.
Lvov
Around 9 a.m. the train stopped at a station and the carriage was coupled off. "Lvov", our attendants explained. One pointed at his watch: at 17:00 we would get going again. He got a map and dotted at a town in the middle of the Ukraine.
Longing for electricity and coffee we got off the train. Women with colorful scarves and baskets which were filled with vegetables and fruit lay there sleeping. It was a bright late summer's day. We invaded the town as a group of noisy tourists. Those of us with cameras run into the first store that promised electricity. Gesticulating wildly they asked to plug in their appliances. It turned out to be a hairdresser's. Women in sky blue fancy dresses interrupted their work, trying to understand what it was that these people wanted from them. All we needed was 3 outlets. They were flattered. Doris showed them how to change the storage cells after 2 hours. I was afraid to leave my DAT recorder - the accumulator is installed. After we took pictures and filmed everything we headed for the city.
Broad roads, old yellow buildings reminding of Schönbrunnn's yellow in Vienna. We had ended up in Lemberg, a former metropolis of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy. A beautiful Jugendstil window drew us into a hotel. A tourist started talking to us. He said that he was from Santa Monica, California, and that he had friends in Santa Barbara. We told him about W/BB and sent him to the station. In a small street, we witnessed a mass wedding in front of a church: approximately 10 wedding couples posed for the photographer. So we took pictures.
A crowded tram took us to the center. An old man started talking at us in German and praised the good old times. We felt strange and at home at the same time. At the main square, finally, we discovered a second Grazer Opernhaus, a couple of meters away a market place with Icons, colorful scarves and pins with Ukrainian-American flags. At the post office they had modern telephones and the connection to Graz was amazing. The message we left on all answering machines was the following: stuck in the Ukraine, not possible to transfer the data simultaneously with the life event. We're still alive and in motion. The event has to take place anyway...since there still is St. Barbara.
At the coffee shop we started talking to a group of students asking them whether they would call the critics of the local newspapers. We would have an exhibition which they should bring a report on. One of them - studying something like business and international communications - spoke perfect English. He was quite pleased about this 'mission'. After a couple of phone calls we finally had found a journalist who was willing to write about our project.
Our student did the translating. Each box was thoroughly examined, and its origins were traced. He was impressed by the quantity of the countries involved in this project and wrote down all our answers with preciseness. Whether there would be works from the Ukraine as well? We were embarrassed - there were none but from White Russia. "In the Ukraine, women make beautiful boxes. Here, we learn how to make them already in school!" What shocked him most, though, was that there were no flags attached to the boxes. One country next to the other - not really a systematic approach. In times when nationality was of such importance! The same evening we headed towards the next border.
At the exit, again a gathering of officers. "Dokumenta!" and "value", was what they wanted to know about. This time women, children and other relatives were dragged out of their beds to look at the exhibition. The Ukrainian stamps on our Austrian exit confirmations convinced them. We were allowed to pass. But as the train got rolling we had to discover that the document was gone.
Now the borders kept coming in shorter intervals. We couldn't keep track in what country and where exactly we were. The different uniforms were confusing. Finally it was impossible to located all the uniformed people: were they police officers, custom officials, or simply railway officers?
All of a sudden the train stopped in between two borders - without any obvious reason. From the window we watched two men: they had just come out of a forest and now started drawing on the diesel from the engine machine. Our first impression was that they were refilling fuel. But as soon as we saw them hiding when a train passed by we realized in what direction the diesel went. They had tapped five drums.
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, exit and yet again entry. The customs officers tried to appear Western and skipped the strict procedure of the border check. The rituals at the borders became a disturbing habit. They would read our brochures and shake their heads then they would ask other officers for a decision. After reading the papers they would be hesitatingly friendly when addressing us. The fear we had in the beginning soon turned into fatalistic indifference. We passed through areas which we couldn't even find on the map, there were strangers all over....what could they do to us anyway? Obviously we were considered by everyone as crazy but harmless. The one thing they didn't want to do was keeping neither us nor the boxes. Everyone involved was released as soon as they found a reason to let us pass.
The intention we pursued with the boxes went beyond their imagination. They had a different conception of art. What they were looking at didn't make any sense to them. At least they didn't consider it very valuable. Our Russian attendants turned into brave defenders. Each time we had successfully passed a border we offered them a beer.
Entering Russia we were told that our exit visa had been ripped off. Again misunderstandings: they were not allowed to let us pass without the proper visa. But where should they put us? So finally we were referred to the Austrian embassy in St. Petersburg.
Women out of control
We arrived in St. Petersburg after a journey of 75 hours and 25 minutes with a 12 hours delay. Exhausted and crumbled we bumped into two men who were busy with baggage cars. They grabbed our show-cases and put them into the car. Our attempt to resist them was in vain. The event on the Internet between Graz and St. Barbara had taken place without us, and the representatives of the local media were already asleep.
For transporting our baggage over a distance of 100 meters we were charged 30 Schillings. The women organizing the local W/BB, Polina Fedorova, whom we wanted to hand over the boxes, didn't quite know what to do with them. We hadn't got the money for the exhibition yet; neither did we have a place to spend the night. So we went to the storage room. Shaking her head Polina looked at our equipment. She could hardly believe how we could dare to display this valuable collection of appliances at the station. She told us that there would be only three people at the maximum in St. Petersburg owing Apple computers. None of them would dare to carry around their computers in this area without body guards to protect them. She advised us to be extremely carefully, particularly on the streets. In case anything suspicious happens we better ran and started yelling. On no account, should we let anything out of our hands. And we definitely weren't supposed to give away our documents at border checks.
The following day we spent at the Austrian embassy. From there a chauffeur drove us to the Foreign Ministry... We would be illegally in this country and actually all this would be impossible and we weren't even supposed to be there. And who had invited us anyway? Without an official invitation it is not possible to travel to Russia! After a great deal of argument we got new visa (not without paying for it,of course). They found a place where we could store the boxes and Polina- after having read our letters of recommendation - finally cleared up the misunderstanding: there is no equivalent for 'border' in the Russian language, all there exists is 'controlled districts'. The translation, then, of WOMEN/Beyond Borders in our letters said: "Women out of control".
Österreichische boxes: Doris Jauk-Hinz, Eva Ursprung, Claudia Klucaric, Barbara Putz-Plecko, Irmgard Schaumberger, Lies Bielowski, Evelyn Gyrcizka, Renate Habinger, Heiderose Bilderbrand, Renate Rosalia, Carmen Ramirez, Gina Ballinger und Ingeborg Pock.