7 ms·

The Kingdom of the Dead: For post-Soviet people, Crimea was a gigantic madeleine

60 points by lermontov 10y ago

serg_chernata 10y ago
The first paragraph really spoke to me, because that is how I spent every summer for the first 14 years of my life. My family took a trip from Kiev to Yalta as a summer vacation. The joy and excitement mixed with hot, gross conditions of the train are spot on. I will forever hold onto those memories as some of my most precious. This year I went back to Kiev for the first time in well over a decade since I moved to the US. To see my family, friends, as well as show my wife all of the places and the way that I grew up. Due to the current political climate and overall conditions in Crimea going there was not even an option for us. A real disappointment as some of my most cherished memories were formed there.
- andreiw 10y ago
  I am pretty sure that visiting Crimea would have been a safer option to visiting Kiev. Many, many Ukrainian citizens continue to visit the peninsula even today.
  - serg_chernata 10y ago
    This isn't something to have an argument over. However, while in Kiev I did not see a single armed person nor any signs of conflict. My visit was almost a month ago. On the flip side, Crimean border is protected by armed forces on behalf of Russia and overall sentiment in the peninsula is not that favorable to Ukrainians. Though I do agree that many still visit. My only point was that I did not feel comfortable.
  - ptico 10y ago
    Any examples of unusual unsafe conditions in Kyiv?
RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago
In terms of Kingdom of the Dead, what is interesting is that the Black Plague (which would kill about 1/3 of Europe) is speculated by some to have entered Europe from Crimea due to the siege of Caffa (also spelled Kaffa) by the Tatars. The Tatar army was devastated by the Plague, and before they left, they catapulted the infected bodies into the city. In the city were Genoese traders who left the city and took the Plague back to Europe.
dschiptsov 10y ago
Why here? Does this hipster's travel diaries contain some valuable advice for startups? Update: you might downvote this into oblivion, but objectively this text has nothing of value, but naive, oversimplified views and generalizations any traveler could produce. I honestly cannot see why it should be published here, on HN. There are specialized sites for narcissistic "writers" - medium.com etc.
clarry 10y ago
Well, it does make me want to go and see for myself. It could be more interesting if I knew some russian.
Asooka 10y ago
Can someone explain what is the meaning of "madeleine" here? Is it referring to the famous incident of "let them eat cake"? I'm not familiar with it being used to refer to anything other than food.
- jacoblsievers 10y ago
  It's a reference to Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past." The taste brings forth memories involuntarily.
- HillRat 10y ago
  It's a reference to Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, wherein he famously recounted how, upon eating a "dispiriting" madeline as an adult, he was abruptly and involuntarily taken back to the emotions of childhood, when he and an aunt shared madelines every Sunday. Since then, it's shorthand for "something that emotionally transports us back to happier times," more or less.
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  I wasn't familiar with the term, but Wiktionary has some good hints: n. A small gateau or sponge cake, often shaped like an elongated scallop shell. n. Something which brings back a memory; a source of nostalgia or evocative memories (used with reference to its function in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time).
- drivers99 10y ago
  I think it's "one that evokes a memory": http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/madeleine http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/madeleine That seems to be how it's used in the article and some of the comments here: "Crimea was the ideal site for this post-Soviet reunion, since it was the place where so many children, now adults, had spent their happy summer vacations, flocking there from all over the Soviet Union. For post-Soviet people, Crimea was a gigantic madeleine." I see others have beat me to a response. m-w also has a paragraph about it: "The madeleine is said to have been named after a 19th-century French cook named Madeleine Paumier, but it was the French author Marcel Proust who immortalized the pastry in his 1913 book Swann's Way, the first volume of his seven-part novel Remembrance of Things Past. In that work, a taste of tea-soaked cake evokes a surge of memory and nostalgia. As more and more readers chewed on the profound mnemonic power attributed to a mere morsel of cake, the word madeleine itself became a designation for anything that evokes a memory." I had never heard of it either.
rdtsc 10y ago
> They called the Tatars “heathens,” “uncivilized” and “warlike,” evoking old stereotypes about the Turks. That resonated with me. My childhood is peppered with memories of Russians, who were bused in at some point by the Soviet Union to take over administrative positions, telling me to speak a "human" language - Russian instead of my native language (implying I was sub-human). I always remember that and am sad for them for living with that kind of prejudice (especially when you tell that to a child).
- RandomName2020 10y ago
  On the other hand, Soviets/Russians did not kill the native population of the republics on massive scale, did not have "sits only for white" in the public transit, had 15 republics where native languages had equal representation with Russian. Everything is relative.
  - pilsetnieks 10y ago
    > Soviets/Russians did not kill the native population of the republics on massive scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor > did not have "sits only for white" in the public transit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes > native languages had equal representation with Russian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification
    - RandomName2020 10y ago
      If you are from a Baltic country there is no point to argue with you, because the sentiment against Russia and everything Russian, for whatever reason, is so strong, that people celebrate Nazis as heroes, just because they against Russia. Holodomor was not a genocide against Ukranians, it was ideologically charged event, so it is not comparable to genocide gainst Native Americans, or lynching. "And you lynching Negroes" is more applicable to you line of argumentation than to mine; the way minorities were treated in post-Stalin USSR and America of 40-50-60s is absolutely incomparable, not even close. I myself grew up in former republic of USSR and can attest that Russian and the local language (let say Azerbaijani; may be it was a different one) had equal representation with Russian and all the position of local power were stuffed by the local ethnicities.

60 points by lermontov 10y ago

The first paragraph really spoke to me, because that is how I spent every summer for the first 14 years of my life. My family took a trip from Kiev to Yalta as a summer vacation. The joy and excitement mixed with hot, gross conditions of the train are spot on. I will forever hold onto those memories as some of my most precious. This year I went back to Kiev for the first time in well over a decade since I moved to the US. To see my family, friends, as well as show my wife all of the places and the way that I grew up. Due to the current political climate and overall conditions in Crimea going there was not even an option for us. A real disappointment as some of my most cherished memories were formed there.

andreiw 10y ago
I am pretty sure that visiting Crimea would have been a safer option to visiting Kiev. Many, many Ukrainian citizens continue to visit the peninsula even today.
- serg_chernata 10y ago
  This isn't something to have an argument over. However, while in Kiev I did not see a single armed person nor any signs of conflict. My visit was almost a month ago. On the flip side, Crimean border is protected by armed forces on behalf of Russia and overall sentiment in the peninsula is not that favorable to Ukrainians. Though I do agree that many still visit. My only point was that I did not feel comfortable.
- ptico 10y ago
  Any examples of unusual unsafe conditions in Kyiv?

RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago

In terms of Kingdom of the Dead, what is interesting is that the Black Plague (which would kill about 1/3 of Europe) is speculated by some to have entered Europe from Crimea due to the siege of Caffa (also spelled Kaffa) by the Tatars. The Tatar army was devastated by the Plague, and before they left, they catapulted the infected bodies into the city. In the city were Genoese traders who left the city and took the Plague back to Europe.

dschiptsov 10y ago

Why here? Does this hipster's travel diaries contain some valuable advice for startups? Update: you might downvote this into oblivion, but objectively this text has nothing of value, but naive, oversimplified views and generalizations any traveler could produce. I honestly cannot see why it should be published here, on HN. There are specialized sites for narcissistic "writers" - medium.com etc.

clarry 10y ago

Well, it does make me want to go and see for myself. It could be more interesting if I knew some russian.

Asooka 10y ago

Can someone explain what is the meaning of "madeleine" here? Is it referring to the famous incident of "let them eat cake"? I'm not familiar with it being used to refer to anything other than food.

jacoblsievers 10y ago
It's a reference to Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past." The taste brings forth memories involuntarily.
HillRat 10y ago
It's a reference to Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, wherein he famously recounted how, upon eating a "dispiriting" madeline as an adult, he was abruptly and involuntarily taken back to the emotions of childhood, when he and an aunt shared madelines every Sunday. Since then, it's shorthand for "something that emotionally transports us back to happier times," more or less.
kafkaesq 10y ago
I wasn't familiar with the term, but Wiktionary has some good hints: n. A small gateau or sponge cake, often shaped like an elongated scallop shell. n. Something which brings back a memory; a source of nostalgia or evocative memories (used with reference to its function in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time).
drivers99 10y ago
I think it's "one that evokes a memory": http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/madeleine http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/madeleine That seems to be how it's used in the article and some of the comments here: "Crimea was the ideal site for this post-Soviet reunion, since it was the place where so many children, now adults, had spent their happy summer vacations, flocking there from all over the Soviet Union. For post-Soviet people, Crimea was a gigantic madeleine." I see others have beat me to a response. m-w also has a paragraph about it: "The madeleine is said to have been named after a 19th-century French cook named Madeleine Paumier, but it was the French author Marcel Proust who immortalized the pastry in his 1913 book Swann's Way, the first volume of his seven-part novel Remembrance of Things Past. In that work, a taste of tea-soaked cake evokes a surge of memory and nostalgia. As more and more readers chewed on the profound mnemonic power attributed to a mere morsel of cake, the word madeleine itself became a designation for anything that evokes a memory." I had never heard of it either.

rdtsc 10y ago

> They called the Tatars “heathens,” “uncivilized” and “warlike,” evoking old stereotypes about the Turks. That resonated with me. My childhood is peppered with memories of Russians, who were bused in at some point by the Soviet Union to take over administrative positions, telling me to speak a "human" language - Russian instead of my native language (implying I was sub-human). I always remember that and am sad for them for living with that kind of prejudice (especially when you tell that to a child).

RandomName2020 10y ago
On the other hand, Soviets/Russians did not kill the native population of the republics on massive scale, did not have "sits only for white" in the public transit, had 15 republics where native languages had equal representation with Russian. Everything is relative.
- pilsetnieks 10y ago
  > Soviets/Russians did not kill the native population of the republics on massive scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor > did not have "sits only for white" in the public transit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes > native languages had equal representation with Russian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification
  - RandomName2020 10y ago
    If you are from a Baltic country there is no point to argue with you, because the sentiment against Russia and everything Russian, for whatever reason, is so strong, that people celebrate Nazis as heroes, just because they against Russia. Holodomor was not a genocide against Ukranians, it was ideologically charged event, so it is not comparable to genocide gainst Native Americans, or lynching. "And you lynching Negroes" is more applicable to you line of argumentation than to mine; the way minorities were treated in post-Stalin USSR and America of 40-50-60s is absolutely incomparable, not even close. I myself grew up in former republic of USSR and can attest that Russian and the local language (let say Azerbaijani; may be it was a different one) had equal representation with Russian and all the position of local power were stuffed by the local ethnicities.