Austrian Observations

Austria is one of the few countries where there are practically no tramps. And I mean specifically native Austrians. Yet I have come across tramps even in such rich federal states as Salzburg and Tyrol.

Well, what can you do, they just like being tramps! That's their human nature. And none of them is destitute: Austrians receive quite decent money from the state, enough to rent a flat and eat well.

But they have such a calling: to wander! And the vagrants never travel beyond Austria. That is their sort of patriotism, even though the borders are open to them. And they have the proper passport.

For a while I lived in the federal state of Salzburg, in a small town where a young woman lived as a tramp. By day you could meet her in a perfectly decent café, and in the evening she went to an underpass where she liked to spend the night. Her sleeping bag lay there, along with some blankets and a pillow and clothes, which nobody ever cleared away. They know she will come.

But there are non-Austrian tramps too; the Poles, for example, are very fond of the vagrant life. They often tramp in groups of several people.

These ones beg for money actively.

They may spend the night under awnings on the central streets. Nobody touches them or chases them away.

- What for? - says a policeman in surprise. - We'll drive him out, and he'll move to a new place. This way they are all on our register. We'd have to look for him.

Indeed, keeping them on a register is not hard when there are only a few of them in all of Vienna.

Once I observed a colourful tramp from Poland, with a 100-euro haircut and a beard trimmed in the latest fashion, who spoke quite good German.

He lived under the canopy of a department store, next to the entrance. He even fenced off his spot with a rope so that nobody would step over him. He had a decent warm sleeping bag. A pillow. A blanket. After a while a girl joined him. They slept together, head to toe, however. Then a dog appeared, vigilantly guarding their sleep. A household gradually took shape: a thermos, cups, dishes... Something like a family formed. They lived like that in front of the store entrance for half a year. Then they disappeared somewhere.

Perhaps they moved to another place, or perhaps they moved into a flat.

But the Pole

About ten days ago my sixteen-year-old daughter lost her wallet in Vienna while going to the ice rink with her friends. An annoyance, of course...

It held about thirty euros (not much money, but a sum for a child); a bank card (in Austria they issue them from age 12); assorted girlish trinkets (small beads, stickers); and her gymnasium student ID (that was the biggest loss, since it gives all sorts of advantages, including free travel on public transport; it can't just be reissued, especially during the pandemic).

My daughter blocked the bank card right away and mentally said goodbye to the money and everything else.

What was her surprise when, a few days later, a notice came from the city administration, addressed to her at the address where we live outside the city, asking her to come and collect the wallet.

My first thought was: “Surely they took the money. But they took pity on the child and left the gymnasium student ID in the wallet.”

I was even more surprised when everything that had been in the wallet turned out to be there, down to the last cent. Even the blocked card was left. But most importantly, the ID was in it.

The wallet itself had made a rather complicated and winding journey before reaching its owner. After all, her address was written nowhere. But of course it was in some database.

Of course, there is nothing surprising in the fact that a wallet with money was returned.

But still, still...

Some ignorant people dare to claim that true love does not exist. They say these are not the times of Romeo and Juliet. The technological age has dulled the feelings. How wrong they are! Love exists, the very one about which writers write books, poets compose verses and musicians create music.

Love can be so all-consuming that you yourself seem not to exist, and there is only the object of your adoration, for whom you are ready to tear a star from the sky by the roots!

And what is a star?! People sacrifice themselves in the name of a great feeling.

Love knows no borders, no barriers, no ages. It is unrepeatable and always new, even if you have fallen in love a thousand times, and the thousand-and-first love will seem extraordinary.

But it is not only people who love; animals, birds and insects love too. Love is many-sided, varied.

Remember the pigeons cooing in attics, and the tomcats singing serenades to their beloveds on the roof...

Such examples can be listed endlessly.

There are quite a few cases where a she-wolf falls in love with a handsome fair-haired wolfhound, and then somewhere by a rotting haystack, to the sound of a shepherd's pipe, in sweet torment, by the will of invincible love, they create their own kind.

It also happens that a stern wolf, who knows no magnanimity, falls in love with a coquettish blonde lapdog. And, drunk with love, he is ready to carry his beloved in his arms for the rest of his life, that is, in his teeth.

I think it was Freud who said (or perhaps not Freud) that lovers in a fit of passion nibble each other. The love of lovers is so deep that, had they their way, they would simply eat each other up, savouring every morsel.

Precisely such love is what you see in this photo. A husky has fallen in love with chickens. Seriously. Like a grown-up. Not once has the dog failed, on her morning walk, to stop at the chicken coop and gaze at the object of her love.

The feathered ones repay the dog with equally boundless love. They are ready to look at her without turning their eyes away.

The love I spied on is so strong that the dog is ready to devour all the chickens in one sitting.

The other day I had a frank conversation with my dog, a husky. Huskies can't bark, and I wouldn't understand dog barking anyway! They only howl, so it turned out to be a quite meaningful conversation. The dog howled at my every word, and there was so much heart in those sounds, such a palette of intonations, that the answer was easy to guess. And then at times something articulate could be heard in that canine howl, so that I became finally confirmed in my opinion: the dog was giving me a concrete answer to the question asked.

Excerpts from my conversation with the dog....

- Tomorrow there will be a dog show.

- At last! I was wondering why I had to take so many tests!

- The organisers just wanted to make sure you weren't a mongrel.

- Can't they tell as it is? Let them look at my coat, at my muzzle. At my bearing, finally! They have never in their lives seen such pedigree dogs!

- Take the crown off your head. Be a bit more modest. And at the show you won't be the only one. There are lots of dogs there! If you make the top three, that will already be good.

- The top three?! Master, tell me you're joking!

- Understand, Ingrid, taking part is what matters.

- What, is this the Olympic Games, where only taking part matters? I want to shine! I want to be not just noticed but admired! Can there really be real huskies in Austria? It's all one misunderstanding! Whereas I came from Siberia itself, where huskies formed as a breed!

- Don't turn your nose up too much. We'll see what mark they give you.

Ingrid was right: she was given the highest score of all possible. So we celebrated her victory.

At last real snow has fallen in Austria. Like in Russia. Fluffy, sticky, beautiful.

To my dog's delight. A Siberian husky, after all. The dog kept trying to break loose, but I kept reining her in.

Several times people told me:

- So much snow has fallen, just like in your Russia.

And none of them had ever been to Russia.

But I remembered something else...

For a while I had to live for a long time near Salzburg, in a mountain resort village.

The young people there mostly rode around on all sorts of scooters and motorcycles. Even in winter. It must have been the custom there. The girls didn't lag behind. And practically nobody wore a helmet. Evidently such riding was considered particularly chic. The fallen snow didn't frighten them in the least. And more than once I watched the scene of girls in flocks, bare-headed, in fluttering jackets or even just little dresses, slicing through the mountains at good speed. Hurrying to some local discos of theirs, to school, to the shops.

But credit must be given to the road services: before a snowfall, everywhere, even in the most remote places, they spread gravel on the roads a finger thick, on which I tore up more than one pair of shoes.

Two years ago the fair looked practically dying. It was practically closed. In the whole city there remained a few kiosks where you could have a glass of punch to take away. Naturally, without any sandwiches or nuts. You bought the drink in a plastic cup, walked twenty metres away and enjoyed your scalding drink.

This time it's a little different. The fairs have opened. True, they don't operate everywhere, only in some places. So the fairs have acquired a certain intimacy. I would even say exclusivity. The venues are fenced off, there are guards at the entrance who ask for vaccination documents, and for ID along with them. Without these documents it is impossible to get to the drinking spots.

But hardly anything can kill the Fair, which has existed for many centuries. In every town, in every village. They are everywhere! It is a national tradition. And the Austrians regard what has happened as a temporary inconvenience. We survived the plague, we'll survive this affliction too!

Perhaps that is precisely why they have a rather disciplined attitude to vaccination. Though there are sceptics too. As everywhere. Only the percentage is low.

This year I visited three fairs. I plan to visit one more, which will be open until New Year, on Karlsplatz.

I went to the post office to send a registered letter from Vienna, where I live, to Moscow. I was very surprised, but the cost of sending a letter had gone up fivefold.

I asked why.

They told me that the computer simply does not respond to this service and offers another, more expensive one.

- Maybe because I'm sending the letter to Russia?

- Yes, exactly.

- But Austria is a neutral country.

- Neutral. But we are sending from our post office to another country, which means that in this case EU laws apply. And you also have to pay a customs fee.

- But earlier there wasn't one.

- Now there is.

- I see.

I had to pay a rather substantial sum for an envelope containing a couple of sheets of paper.

- And which other countries have this burden imposed on them?

The clerk glanced at the computer screen and listed a number of Balkan countries. Serbia included, no surprise. And for some reason she also named Holland.

I asked her again:

- Holland?

- Yes, precisely Holland.

- But why Holland?

- I don't know, that's what the computer shows.

I wandered around the city and returned home. Suddenly the neighbours, who had never noticed me before, began greeting me, and very politely at that.

Why would that be?

Hm, I think I understand the reason. Because I'm Russian.