I’ve been catching up with the blogs on my website, sadly neglected for over a year, but now back in action. In fact, I’ve neglected it for longer than that, considering I hadn’t posted anything about my foreign travels since 2015, when I went on two trips, to Italy https://wolfiewolfgang.com/it-was-all-mistake-my-three-inspiring/ and to Portugal https://wolfiewolfgang.com/my-time-in-lisbon-portugal-was-pure/

During my travels, I usually take my camera and, when armed with that, I am unstoppable. Looking through my photographs recently, I was worried that soon it would be too late to remember the details and, reluctantly, I would have to abandon ideas of writing about my experiences abroad.

So, to make it up with all those photographs lying dormant and ignored in my crazily crowded computer files, I decided a few weeks ago to do a blog-marathon and write these 17 blogs about my European travels over the the last 7 years – 7 years of real change in all our lives, here in the UK, and around the world.

Four failed UK prime ministers – plus another one soon.

There was Covid and Trump

Putin

Netanyahu

The world definitely changed and some of those changes were made only too apparent on my various journeys around Europe. I’m hoping that although things have got so bad, they can’t get much worse before, who knows, the bad guys are forced out, and the rest of the world will be pressured by the rest of humanity to make a real change for the better.

With apologies to all you disenfranchised UK citizens, and on a totally selfish note, there was at least some good news for me since 2017. I got my Irish citizenship and retained my EU passport.

If you want to look up my latest set of travel blogs, the links are below:

Amalfi Coast, Italy (2017): https://wolfiewolfgang.com/on-the-amalfi-coast/

Naples and Sorrento, Italy (2017) : https://wolfiewolfgang.com/category/travel/page/2/

Puglia: Polignano a mare, Italy (2018): https://wolfiewolfgang.com/two-weeks-in-puglia-polignano-a-mare/

Puglia: Lecce, Bari and Trani, Italy (2018): https://wolfiewolfgang.com/some-other-towns-my-journey-through-puglia-in-southern-italy/

Puglia: Alberobello to Matera, Italy (2018): https://wolfiewolfgang.com/on-the-road-from-polignano-to-matera-via-alberobello/

Milan, Italy (2019): https://wolfiewolfgang.com/milan-city-of-fashion-music-and-art-even-in-the-rain/

Naples, Italy (2020): https://wolfiewolfgang.com/back-in-naples-weeks-before-covid-soon-we-were-all-told-to-stay-home/

Pompeii, Italy (2020): https://wolfiewolfgang.com/in-2020-i-went-to-pompeii-and-then-to-troy/

Tropea, Calabria, Italy (2022): https://wolfiewolfgang.com/tropea-taking-it-easy-in-calabria/

Lahti, Finland (2022):https://wolfiewolfgang.com/flying-to-lahti-in-finland-for-sibelius/

Helsinki, Finland (2022): https://wolfiewolfgang.com/a-week-in-helsinki/

Ainola, Finland (2022): https://wolfiewolfgang.com/a-week-in-helsinki/

Tallinn, Estonia (2022): https://wolfiewolfgang.com/day-trip-to-tallinn-in-estonia/

Leipzig, Germany (2023): https://wolfiewolfgang.com/an-easter-meeting-in-leipzig-with-js-bach-300-years-on/

Berlin, Germany (2023): https://wolfiewolfgang.com/im-a-berliner-now/

Sysmä, Finland: (2023) https://wolfiewolfgang.com/away-from-it-all-at-the-centre-of-all-things-in-rural-finland/

Lahti, Finland, (2023): https://wolfiewolfgang.com/back-to-lahti-in-september-2023/

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Looking at Vladimir Putin’s chilly expression, I felt cold too this morning. I had just been looking at the appalling images coming from the destroyed and corpse-filled Donetsk Airport and despaired of the situation in Ukraine which is running out of control and challenging anyone who loves many things Russian to keep faith with that inspiring country.

The images from Donetsk are painful and depressing and, it’s pretty obvious that, if it’s not the Russian army that is doing this, then it’s most definitely Russian- (I mean Putin-) inspired.

Inspired, as you may have noticed, is my chosen word for today. I’ve always been inspired by Russian culture, its music, film, literature and art and I’d like to swap that photograph of Putin with this portrait of the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893) and remember the nobility and sensitivity of the Russian spirit than the devastation that its current leader has let loose in Ukraine.

I don’t want to just turn my face away from the horrors of Donetsk but I’d like to rekindle some of my inspiration and faith in Russia. Beauty can, after all, open our eyes to our humanity.

On my chronological journey through the history of classical music, I’ve reached the year 1889 and, recently, I’ve been listening to Tchaikovsky’s great ballet score from that year, Sleeping Beauty. I thought of Putin and Donetsk while watching the currently matchless Russian ballerina, Svetlana Zakharova, in the Rose Adagio from Sleeping Beauty in a production from the Bolshoi Ballet, and thought about the other sleeping beauties that Putin has hidden from our eyes here in the West.

I have only recently taken to watching classical ballet, so I’m am no expert but I do know that this wonderful dancer is about as inspiring as ballet it can be. Physical prowess meets artistry and beauty on a level that we can all understand.

Take a moment to watch this glorious performance to Tchaikovsky’s passionate music, while thinking of the terrible things coming out of Russia these days. It can give us hope for the true spirit of that country and for our own future.

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Listening to the music of Modest Mussorgsky this week, the extraordinary portrait of the composer painted just days before his death has never been far from my mind. I decided  to look at some more of Ilya Repin’s work and discovered that this remarkable Ukrainian Realist artist, Ilya Repin (1844-1930)  was, like his friend Mussorgsky, painting a series of images about ‘Mother Russia’ in all her variety and, often, sorrow. Rightly and unsurprisingly he is honoured as one of the greatest of 19th Century ‘Russian’ artists and his work now has a permanent home in the State Russian Museum, St Petersburg.

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My first novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, is published  on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

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The downside of Britain having such a run of sporting successes this year has been missing one of my favourite tunes. It was marvellous that Bradley Wiggins became the first Brit to win the Tour de France but it meant I didn’t get my fix of the wonderful French national anthem, La Marseillaise. I know it is a bit on the blood-thirsty side but it was born out of the French Revolution and its revolutionary zeal can still inspire even though there were many gruesome deeds committed through revolutionary ardour. I am not French but, embarrassingly, any time I hear La Marseillaise, I am there mounting the barricades, roused by those cries of “Aux armes, Citoyens!” ‘To arms, citizens!’ – I prefer to remember the spirit of revolution from those days rather than the crimes committed in its name.

Here it is in its full glory, sung by the dashing French-Italian tenor Roberto Alagna in Hector Berlioz’ sabre-rattling arrangement.

It was the same at this year’s Olympic Games too. Britain with its 29 Olympic Gold medals came third after the USA and China and here in Britain hardly a day passed without hearing our dreary national anthem, God Save The Queen with its leaden melody and obvious cadences it really challenges me to get even the slightest rush.

France didn’t totally disappoint though, it managed 11 Gold medals so I wasn’t entirely denied my musical pleasure.

Russian did well too this year winning 24 gold medals even if it was beaten into fourth place by all those crowds singing God Save The Queen. The trouble with the Russian victories was that, the sporting achievements apart, I just couldn’t help thinking about my all-time favourite national anthem…the Soviet Union one.

Vladimir Putin congratulates Russian 2012 Judo Gold medalist Tagir Khaibulaev

Every time I witnessed those Russians receiving their medals, I thought of the now neglected Soviet anthem and remembered how we all celebrated the Soviet Union’s demise hoping that a new spirit was  being born in Russia.

La Marseillaise and the Soviet anthem were both written out of revolutionary idealism and, after reading about recent events in Russia, I couldn’t help regretting the loss not just of a great piece of music but also for the loss of the great hope that was born with the Russian Revolution.

Here’s the anthem sung by the Red Army Choir, I still think the best ever written, with images of the political and military leaders of those Soviet days – heroes, idealists, visionaries, victemsmachine-cogs, villains, criminals, murderers, polit-bureaucrats and madmen. Maybe there is something to be said for having a dull national anthem after-all. Music can be very dangerous.

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