ABIKS IDAEUROOPLASE INKUBEERIJALE

Lääne munad

“Miks me ei tohi olla uhked, et meil oli nõukogude impeerium?” küsis Aleksandr Lukashenko 2012. aastal ühes intervjuus. Tahtsin selle lause kirjutada suurelt pihustivärviga Berliinis Mühlenstrassel asuvale East Side Gallery seinale, mis on kuulus vanade, klassikaks kujunenud maalingute poolest. Näiteks on seal Dimitri Vrubeli teos “Mu jumal, aita mul see surmav armastus üle elada”, mis kujutab Brezhnevi ja Honeckeri suudlust, ning Birgit Kinderi kuulus pilt, mis kujutab müürist läbi kihutavat Trabanti. See paik on tuntud turistiatraktsioon, mis toidab Berliini nostalgiatööstust. Mõistagi on sel nostalgial omad piirid – kõnealune müür on mitmekordselt restaureeritud mäluobjekt, mitte vaba, tänavakunstile mõeldud platvorm, nagu esialgu tunduda võib. Sellega on müür ideoloogiliselt monopoliseeritud ning kõneleb eelkõige sellest, et peale müüri langemist on hakatud seda inimestele tükkhaaval maha müüma. Lukasheno tsitaadis näis aga olevat midagi, mis ületas kõik need lääneliku nostalgia piirid, mida Berliinis kohtab. See oli sõnum ühiskonnast, mida on raske pidada “endiseks Idaks”, mida üks osa Berliinist endast kujutab. Igatahes, kui ma värvipurkidega müüri äärde jõudsin, oli see politsei poolt sisse piiratud ning eemal ootasid suured bussid märulipolitseinikega. Selgus, et kohe on algamas suur demonstratsioon linna ja kinnisvaraarendajate vastu, kes tahavad Spree äärde kortermaja ehitada ning selleks tarbeks müürist üht tükki välja võtta. Minu plaan nurjus, ent tänavaprotestist osavõtt oli muljetavaldav. Kohal oli näiteks David Hasselhoff, kes 1989. aastal laulis langeva müüri ääres kohatult oma juhmi lugu “Looking for freedom” ja tegi nüüd sama, et toda vabadust manifesteerivat müürijuppi üleval hoida. Mina aga tundsin end selles seltskonnas võõrana. Ma ei ole nõus, et Berliini müüri langemine on sündmus, millega võib tähistada kogu Ida-Euroopa saatust. Ja et Berliin oli ja on kogu Ida-Euroopa epitsenter. Arvan, et müüri langemine on oma olemuselt Lääne, mitte Ida narratiiv. Nikita Hruštšovilt pärineb tsitaat “Berliin on nagu Lääne munandid. Kui ma tahan Läänt karjuma panna, siis ma pigistan Berliini!”. Nüüd kui Berliin on nõukogude haardest väljas, on aeg neid mune lihtsalt imetleda – East Side Gallery ja Checkpoint Charile on suurepärased näited sellest. Samas üritatakse nende munadega kaunistada kogu Ida-Euroopa diskursust, mille keskseks sündmuseks on müüri langemine, ning kuhu on “endise Ida-Saksa” eeskujul siginenud ideoloogiline mõiste “endine Ida”.

Soe koht

Mida peab aga silmas Kirill Tulin, kes püstitas EKKM-i katusele siniselt hõõguva sildi “IDA”, tsiteerides sel aastal Berliini Volksbühne katuselt seoses direktori vahetumisega eemaldatud silti “OST”? Viimane paigaldati sinna aastal 1994, osana Bertolt Brechti etendusest “Hea inimene Sezuanist”, ning pärast seda jäi see teatri katusele mitmetähenduslikke sõnumeid edastama. Tulini näitus “Abiks keskküttekatla kütjale”, mille raames see “Ida” välja ilmus, seisneb selles, et kunstnik töötab umbes kuu aega galeriis katlakütjana ning tema ülesandeks on hoida üks ruum soojana. Selles ruumis saavad külalised niisama aega veeta ja mõtteid vahetada, samas kui tagaruumis, mis on muuseas varustatud ka pesemis- ja magamisvõimalustega, töötavad Tulin ning tema abilised, kellele kunstnik töö eest palka maksab. Arvestades seda, et külmal ajal pole võimalik aega veeta ja mõtteid vahetada mitte kuskil peale kommertsruumi, ning et enamus galeriisid kujutavad endast üsna ahistavat keskkonda, mis paneb inimesed hiirvaikselt liikuma ja sosinal rääkima, on Tulin tabanud üht suurt probleemi – nimelt seda, et meie avalik, poliitilist potentsiaali omav ruum on kokku kuivamas, samal ajal kui privatiseeritud ruum ülekaalukalt vohab. Kõik need äri- ja eluhooned, kohvikud, restoranid ja spad on hästi köetud, kuivad, mõnusad. Põhimõtteliselt on kõik neis kohtades veedetud hetked tasulised. Jah, veel on alles jäänud mõned avalikud kohad, kus võib tasuta olla, ent mitte niisama, vaid ikka mingil kindlal otstarbel. Raamatukogus pead sa lugema, koolis õppima, galeriis näitust vaatama. Istuda, mõelda, juttu ajada ning vahepeal võibolla ka silma kinni lasta pole talvisel ajal mitte kusagil võimalik. Nõnda ongi meie avaliku ruumi avalikkus vaid formaalne ja näiline – selle tegelikud omadused sõltuvad paraku väga palju kliimast. Väljakutest, parkidest ja tänavatest ei ole võimalik ühtviisi rääkida suvel ja talvel. Ent mingil põhjusel sisaldavad näiteks kõikvõimalikud linnaruumi planeerimisega seotud töökavandid pea eranditult rohelisi puid ja põõsaid, vabas õhus liikuvaid inimesi, jne. See loob illusiooni, et meil on palju avalikku ruumi – suurema osa aastast on avalik ruum justkui koridor, mis kulgeb, ühest privaatruumist teise. On ikka väga suur vahe, kas väljakul ja pargis on 26 kraadi sooja või sama palju külma! Sellest sõltub ilmselt rohkem kui me arvame – kogu ühiskonna mentaalne kliima! Tean, et Kirill Tulin on varem termokaameraga uurinud kohti, kus on toimunud suured meeleavaldused. Vaadates erinevate ühiskondade poliitilist kultuuri, samuti kriitilise mõtlemise, vaimse ärksuse, kogukondliku aktiivsuse omadusi, tuleks mõelda ka tingimustest, mis soodustavad seda kõike. Kui palju inimesi oleks läinud Balti ketti näiteks jaanuaris? Võimalik, et Ida-Euroopa eneseteadvus vajab kasvamiseks sooja kohta – jugoslaavlased kui minu arvates kõige teadlikumad idaeurooplased on ühtlasi ka kõige lõunapoolsemad idaeurooplased.

EKKM, mis asub kunagise katlamaja kontorihoones ning on talviti kütteprobleemide tõttu enamjaolt suletud, on kahtlemata vaadeldav kui paljude Ida-Euroopa sümptomite kogum. Kesklinnas asuval tühermaal seisvat düsfunktsionaalset tehasehoonet skvottinud ning seal hiljem legaliseerunud kaasaegse kunsti muuseum kõlab nagu düstoopia. Ja mingi kosmilise juhuse läbi kattuvad linna ja arendajate huvid rajada sellele mereäärsele krundile suured ärihooned, mis ähvardavad varjutada selle kunstimaailmas väga eduka institutsiooni tulevikku. Ma ei tea, kas silt “IDA” jääb EKKM-i katusele ka pärast Tulini näitust. Kui ei jää, siis on tegemist lootuskiirega, mis kustub kiirelt nagu novembrikuine päike. Kui jääb, siis on sellel võime kinnistada EKKM-i hoone ja selle saatus Ida-Euroopa kui diskursuse ja geopoliitilise teadvusega. Seda viimast peangi ma piiratud kontekstis toimivast diskursusest palju olulisemaks, ja arvan, et just selle teadvuse soojendamisega Tulin algust teebki.

Ida-Euroopa geopoliitiline teadvus on midagi klassiteadvuse sarnast ning eeldab inimese võimet reflekteerida ja politiseerida oma päritolu. Ida-Euroopa on ühelt poolt negatiivsete sümptomite kogum, millega igaüks võib end suhestada seeläbi, et märkab, kas ja kui palju mõjutavad tema päritolu ja asukoht ta elukäiku. Teiselt poolt võiks idaeuroopluse eneseteadvust sisustada asjaolu, et suur osa sellest maailmajaost ei oma koloniaalminevikuga kaasnevaid hüvesid ning vastutust. Näiteks Jugoslaavia oli riik, mis esitles end kui mittekoloniaalset Euroopat, vastandudes nii Nõukogude Liidule kui ka Läänele, ning moodustades koos teiste Erapooletusse Liikumisse (Non-Aligned Movement) kuuluvate riikidega Kolmanda Maailma. Samas võivad päris mitmed teised Nõukogude Liidu koosseisus olnud Ida-Euroopa riigid või pigem rahvad kuulutada end osaks mittekoloniaalsest Euroopast ning püüda heastada oma viimase kahekümne aasta neokolonialismist tekkinud süü. Praeguseid tendentse arvestades jääb see aga kindlasti unistuseks. Rumeenia filosoof Ovidiu Tichindeleanu kirjutas juba 2010. aastal, et Ida-Euroopa on sisuliselt eimiski – kui see üldse eksisteerib, siis on see pigem lootus kui tegelikkus, ja pigem minevik kui tulevik. Praeguseks on Ida-Euroopa omandanud tõepoolest mingisuguse eneseteadvuse, mis väljendub Läänele vastanduvas, ent samas üdini õhtumaises uuskonservatismis. Ent mida ei suuda riigivõim, seda võib suuta kultuur. Ma väga loodan, et meie kultuurivaldkondades hakkab pead tõstma idaeurooplus kui dekoloniaalne hoiak, ja kaob universalistlik samastumine valge Läänega.

Metamorfoos

Oluline on mõista, mida me tegelikult mõtleme, kui ütleme “Ida”. Kas Ida-Euroopa on nagu tükike suveniirina müüdavat Berliini müüri – lihtsalt üks lisanauding, üks luksuslik nostalgia hetk? Või teadvusest välja tõrjutud massiiv söötis põldudest, lagunevatest kolhoosihoonetest, tühjaks jäänud küladest? Ida-Euroopa eneseteadvuse eelduseks on pigem koloniaalse trauma sõnastamine, isikliku mälu seostamine väliste asjaoludega, mida saab järele kontrollida. Kuna need asjaolud on enamasti politiseeritud, sõltub idaeurooplase eneseteadvus paljuski tema olemasolevast maailmavaatest. Austria ajakirjanik Hannes Hofbauer kirjeldanud väga kompleksselt seda olustikku, millest kasvas välja see Ida-Euroopa, mida me kõik oleme kogenud. Ta kirjeldas sotsialismijärgse transformatsiooni aluseid läbi järgmiste kapitali loogikal põhinevate protsesside: a) hüperinflatsioon ja šokiteraapia (kaasa aitasid Maailmapank ja Rahvusvaheline Valuutafond); b) turu loomine: “stagneerunud” ühiskonna uuendamine, Lääne jaoks tööturu loomine (1994. aastal oli Saksa ettevõtja jaoks Ungari tööline 10 korda, Slovakkia tööline 15 korda, ja Bulgaaria tööline 33 korda odavama kui Saksamaal); c) reformid ja erastamine.¹ Ida-Euroopa üleminekuaeg kätkes endas muutusi, mille suurusest ja tähendusest hakkame me alles nüüd aru saama, sest piisavalt palju aega on möödunud, ning need muutused toimusid inimpsüühika süvakihtides ja keele semantilises sfääris. Näiteks taipasin ma alles hiljuti mõelda tõsiselt Scorpionsi loo “Wind of Change” sõnade peale. Need ütlesid otse: “Let your balalaika sing, what my guitar wants to say!”. Seda lugu võiks pidada Ida-Euroopa hümniks, sest ta kerkis esile keset kõige pöördelisemaid sündmusi ja pani massid kaasa vilistama, sest inglise keelt räägiti tol ajal vähe, ja kui räägiti, siis ilma kriitikameeleta.

Samal ajal, kui raadiod mängisid Scorpionsi, nägin mina oma elu esimest katlakütjat. Olin siis umbes kümne aastane, kui koolis juhtus selline lugu, et sööklatrepile oli purjus katlakütja magama jäänud. Terve parv lapsi oli tema ümber kogunenud ja nad piidlesid hirmuga seda meest, kes mõjus nagu amortiseerunud tööriist, laguneva nõukogude võimu kehastus. Lilla nina, peas villane suusamüts, seljas presendist kattega vatijope, jalas robustsed saapad! Võimalik, et ma polnud varem ühtegi katlakütjat näinud, sest just sellisena see amet minu teadvusesse kinnistus. Katlakütja – harimatu, ajale jalgu jäänud joodik! Vedeles laste ees nagu porri kinni jäänud kolhoosi traktor. Ta tekitas hirmu, talle võis inkrimineerida mistahes süütegusid, alates mõrvast, lõpetades riigikukutamisega. Räägitakse ju, et Nõukogude Liidu kukutas süsteemi allakäik, tööpostil joomine, varastamine! Tolle aja lapsed olid oma mõtteviisilt väga poliitilised, sest poliitika, õigemini geopoliitika, oli kõikjal õhus. Kodus räägiti sellest kogu aeg. Me kõik oskasime naerda nõukogude võimu üle ja otsida igalt poolt märke, mis kinnitasid selle nõrkust ja naeruväärsust. Ma teadsin väga hästi, et “riik on halb peremees”. Lihtne oli näha katlakütjas halba peremeest ja mõista, et küttesüsteemide kaasajastamine ja privatiseerimine on selles olukorras ainuvõimalik tee. Mungad ja nunnad. Vaarao.

Selle katlakütja pohmellihommik pidi olema midagi sarnast nagu Gregor Samsal. Ärkad ühel hommikul üles ja avastad, et oled katlakütja. Õigupoolest oled sa ju alati katlakütja olnud aga seekord on miski väga radikaalselt muutunud, ühiskonnaga on midagi juhtunud. Muutuseid ei ole näha, need ilmutavad end ainult läbi sinu. Pelgalt läbi fakti, et sa oled muutunud kohatuks, kasutuks. Lisaks kehastad sa midagi hoomamatult suurt ja kurja. Sa pead tundma häbi ja alandust. Diagnoos “homo postsoveticus” ei ütleks sulle mitte midagi isegi siis, kui sa sellest kuuleksid. Aga sinuni sellised asjad ei jõua. Ainus raamat, mida sa lugesid, oli “Abiks keskküttekatla kütjale” ja see jäi sinust maha sinna katlaruumi tol päeval, kui sind koondati. Alkoholism ja enesetapp on sinu kaaslased, nad on osa eelmisest elust, vanast ühiskonnast, ning kaitsevad sind nüüd muutuste tuule eest nagu kitiinkest. Joomine oli sinu kõige viimane tööülesanne, mille sa peale koondamisteadet said. Ülemus andis sulle justkui lohutuseks pudeli viina, ent käskis siis ametlikul toonil see kohe ära juua. Ja kui sa juba pooleldi ometuna ahju ees lebasid, tulid mehed ja tassisid su koolimaja sööklatrepile. Seal sa kustusid. Ajapikku oled sa kohanud teisi katlakütjaid, kel on täpselt samasugune kogemus. Kõikjal anti neile pudel ning tassiti siis teadvuseta olekus mõnda avalikku kohta, justkui vanakraami turule. Peale seda viimast tööd oled sa olnud kas pensionil või surnud. Selle uue ilmaga ei harjunud sa kunagi ära ja üsna tihti tabasid sa end unistamast, et kord tuleb keegi, kes kooli juhtkonna ees tõe päevavalgele toob ning vana katlakütja oma ametisse ennistab.

1 - Hannes Hofbaueri ettekanne „Brussels Version of „Drang nach Osten“: The Economic Colonization of Eastern Europe (1990 – 2010), üritusel „Der Drang Nach Osten“ (28.10. – 20.12.2010), HIT Gallery, Bratislava

Help for the incubator of the Eastern European

Tanel Rander

The testicles of the West

‘Why are we not allowed to be proud that we had a Soviet Empire?’ Alexandr Lukashenko asked in an interview in 2012. I wanted to spray paint that sentence on the East Side Gallery wall, located on Mühlenstrasse in Berlin, and famous for old murals that have become classics. There are, for instance, the painting by Dmitry Vrubel titled My god, help me to survive this deadly love that depicts Brezhnev and Honecker sharing a kiss, and the famous artwork by Birgit Kinder representing a Trabant bursting through the Wall. The site is a well-known tourist attraction that feeds the nostalgia industry in Berlin. That nostalgia has its limits, of course: the wall in question is an object of memory that has been restored numerous times, it is not a free platform meant for street art as it might seem at first. The Wall is therefore ideologically monopolised and its primary message is that, after the fall of the Wall, it has started to be sold to people piece by piece. Yet there seemed to be something in Lukashenko’s quote that crossed all the boundaries of the Western nostalgia that we encounter in Berlin. That ‘something’ was a message about a society that is difficult to be considered as ‘the former East’ represented by one part of Berlin. Anyway, when I got to the Wall with my spray cans, it was besieged by the police and there were large buses full of riot police officers standing by a little farther away. It turned out that a big demonstration was about to begin, a demonstration against the city and real estate developers who wanted to construct an apartment building by the Spree and, in order to do that, remove a section of the Wall. My plan had failed but the amount of participants in the street protest was impressive. One of them was David Hasselhoff, for example, who had ineptly performed his daft song ‘Looking for freedom’ by the crumbling Wall and he did the same thing at the protest, only this time the intention was to maintain that piece of the Wall as a manifestation of freedom. I, however, felt as an outsider in that crowd. I do not agree that the fall of the Berlin Wall is an event that could designate the fate of the whole Eastern Europe. Nor that Berlin was and is the epicenter of the whole Eastern Europe. In my opinion, the fall of the Wall is in its essence a narrative of the West, not that of the East. There is a quote from Krushchev: ‘Berlin is the testicles of the West. When I want the West to scream, I squeeze on Berlin!’ Now that Berlin is out of the Soviet grasp, it is time to simply admire these testicles – the East Side Gallery and Checkpoint Charlie are excellent examples. At the same time, those testicles are being used to decorate an entire Eastern European discourse, the central event of which is the fall of the Wall, and within which, following the example of ‘former East Germany’, the ideological term ‘former East’ has emerged.

A warm place

However, what does Kirill Tulin have in mind, having set up on the rooftop of EKKM a blue glowing sign ‘IDA’ that refers to the sign ‘OST’ which was removed from the rooftop of the Berlin Volksbühne due to the appointment of a new managing director? The sign was installed in 1994 as a part of the production for Bertolt Brecht’s play The Good Person of Szechwan and it remained there, conveying ambiguous messages. The sign ‘IDA’ materialised for Tulin’s exhibition Help for the Stoker of the Central Heating Boiler that involves the artist working inside the gallery for about a month as a stoker and keeping the space warm. In that space the visitors can spend time and exchange thoughts while Tulin and his paid assistants work in the back room which, by the way, is also equipped with washing and sleeping facilities. Considering the fact that it is impossible to spend time and exchange thoughts anywhere but in a commercial room during the cold season and that gallery as an environment often tends to be quite constrictive as it forces people to move around quietly and speak in a whisper, Tulin has captured a considerable issue – our public space bearing political potential is drying up while the privatised space overwhelmingly proliferates. Those commercial and residential buildings, cafés, restaurants and spas are all well heated, dry, comfortable. There is basically a charge for every second spent in these locations. Yes, there still remain some public places that can be attended for free but only for a certain purpose. In a library you have to read, at school you must study, in a gallery you should see the exhibition. During winter it is impossible to find a place where you could just just sit, think, chat and sometimes maybe even catch a wink. Thus, our public space is only formally and seemingly public – its actual features depend strongly on climate. We cannot talk about squares, parks and streets the same way in winter as we do in summer. For some reason, however, all kinds of projects related to urban space planning almost invariably include green trees and shrubbery, people moving about in the open air etc. This creates the illusion that we have a lot of public space – for most of the year, public space is like a corridor going from one private space to another. On a square or in a park the difference between +26 and -26 degrees is very noticeable! It probably affects more substantial things thank we might think – the mental climate of the whole society. I know that Kirill has previously used a thermal camera to study locations where big demonstrations have been held. When we look at the political culture in various societies as well as the characteristics of critical thought, mental alertness, communal activity, we should also think about the conditions that prompt all of those things. How many people would have participated in the Baltic Way in January, for example? It is possible that the Eastern European self-awareness needs a warm place to grow – the Yugoslavians who, in my opinion, are the most conscious Eastern Europeans are also the southernmost Eastern Europeans. 

The EKKM, located in the former office building of a boiler house and mostly closed during winter due to heating problems, can undoubtedly be regarded as an ensemble of many symptoms of the Eastern Europe. A contemporary art museum that has squatted in a dysfunctional factory building in the middle of a wasteland in the city center and has later become a legal institution sounds like a dystopia. And by some kind of a cosmic chance the interests of the municipality and those of developers overlap in wanting to construct on these seaside grounds some vast commercial buildings that threaten to cast a shadow over the future of this institution that has become very successful in the art world. I do not know if the sign ‘IDA’ will remain on the rooftop of the EKKM after Tulin’s exhibition. If not, then it is a ray of hope that goes out as fast as the the November sun. If it does, then it has the power to attach the building of EKKM and its fate to Eastern Europe as a discourse and a geopolitical consciousness. I consider the latter much more important than a discourse that only functions in a limited context and I think that Tulin’s work is starting to warm up that very consciousness. 

The Eastern European geopolitical consciousness is something similar to class consciousness and it requires an ability to reflect and politicize one’s provenance. On the one hand, Eastern Europe is an ensemble of negative symptoms that anyone can relate themselves to by noticing if and how much their provenance and location affect the course of their lives. On the other hand, the consciousness of an Eastern European should also incorporate the fact that a considerable part of the continent does not have the advantages nor the responsibility that are incidental to a colonial past. For example, Yugoslavia was a country that presented itself as a part of non-colonial Europe, thus contrasting itself to the Soviet Union as well as the West, and formed the Third World along with other countries from the Non-Aligned Movement. However, there are several other Eastern European countries or rather peoples from the former Soviet Union who could declare themselves a part of non-colonial Europe and try to compensate for the fault of having had neo-colonialism as their regime for the past twenty years. Considering current tendencies, this will definitely remain a dream. The Romanian philosopher Ovidiu Tichindeleanu wrote already in 2010 that Eastern Europe, in principle, is nothing – if it does exist, it is hope rather than reality and past rather than future. By now, Eastern Europe really does have acquired some kind of a self-awareness that manifests itself in a new conservatism, it contrasts itself to the West but is nevertheless completely Western. However, what a state is unable to achieve, a culture might. I truly hope that eastern-europeanism as a decolonial stance will spring up in our cultural spheres and that the universalist self-identification with the white West will fade.

Metamorphosis

It is important to understand what we actually mean when we say ‘the East’. Is Eastern Europe just like a piece of the Berlin wall being sold to tourists – just an additional pleasure, a luxurious moment of nostalgia? Or a cluster blocked out from consciousness, a cluster that consists of fallow fields, dilapidated kolkhoz buildings, abandoned villages? The precondition for an Eastern-European conciousness is rather a formulation of the colonial trauma, the association between personal memory and external circumstances that can be verified. Since those circumstances are mostly politicised, the consciousness of an Eastern European depends, in many aspects, on their existing worldview. An Austrian journalist Hannes Hofbauer has given a very complex description of the circumstances from which the Eastern Europe that we all have experienced has evolved. He has described the principles of post-socialist transformation through the following processes based on the logic of capital: a) hyperinflation and shock therapy (with the help of the World Bank and the International Monetary Foundation); b) formation of a market: the renovation of a ‘stagnant’ society, the creation of a labour market for the West (in 1994, a Hungarian labourer was 10 times, a Slovakian labourer 15 times and a Bulgarian labourer 33 times less expensive for a German entrepreneur than a German labourer); c) reforms and privatisation.¹ For Eastern Europe, the transition period involved changes, the magnitude and significance of which we are only now starting to take in because a sufficient amount of time has passed. Those changes took place deep inside the human psyche and in the semantic sphere of language. For example, I just recently realised that I should really pay attention to the lyrics of ‘Wind of Change’ by the Scorpions. They were straightforward: ‘Let your balalaika sing, what my guitar wants to say!’ This song could be considered as the hymn of Eastern Europe because it emerged during the most pivotal events and it made the masses whistle along because most people could not speak English back then and those who did, practised it with no sense of criticism.

It was while the Scorpions played on the radio that I saw a stoker for the first time in my life. I was about ten years old when it so happened that a drunken stoker had fallen asleep on the stairs of the canteen at my school. A crowd of kids had gathered around him, taking frightened glances at the man who seemed like a worn-out tool, the incarnation of the crumbling Soviet authority. Purple nose, wearing a woollen ski cap, a tarpaulin coated quilted jacket, robust boots! It is possible that I had never seen a stoker before because in my head it was that very image that became for me the equivalent of the profession. A stoker – an uneducated old-world drunk! Lying in front of the children like a kolkhoz tractor stuck in mud. He induced fear, he could be implicated with every possible crime including murder and overthrowing the government. Is it said that the cause of the fall of the Soviet Union lies within the downfall of the system, drinking on the job, stealing. The children of that time had a very political mindset, because politics, geopolitics to be more precise, was in the air everywhere. It was constantly discussed at home. We could all laugh at the Soviet authority and look for signs that proved it weak and ridiculous. I was very well aware that the ‘government was a bad master’. It was easy to see the bad master in the stoker and to realise that the only possible approach in that situation was to modernise and privatise the heating system. Monks and nuns. Pharaoh. 

That stoker must have experienced a ‘morning after’ similar to the one Gregor Samsa had. You wake up one morning and discover that you are a stoker. In fact you have always wanted to be a stoker but this time, something has changed very radically, something has happened to the society. The changes are not visible, they only present themselves through you. Through the mere fact that you have become inadequate, useless. Furthermore, you embody something unfathomably vast and evil. You have to endure shame and humiliation. You would not comprehend the diagnosis ‘homo postsoveticus’ even if you heard it. But these kind of things are beyond you. The only book you ever read was Help for the Stoker of the Central Heating Boiler and you had left it in the boiler room the day you were laid off. Alcoholism and suicide are your comrades, they are a part of your previous life, of the old society, and they protect you from the winds of change like a chitinous shell. Drinking was your last job after receiving the redundancy notice. Your superior gave you a bottle of vodka, as if for consolation, but then told you to drink it all at once. And when you were already lying, half uncounscious, in front of the boiler, the men came and carried you to the stairs of the school canteen. That is where you passed out. During time you have met other stokers who have the exact same experience. Everywhere they were given a bottle and carried in an unconscious state to a public location, like something dropped off to a junk market. After that last job you either retired or died. You never came to terms with that new world and you often found yourself fantasising about how somebody would come forward one day, set the record straight with the school board and reinstate the elderly stoker.

1 Hannes Hofbauer’s presentation ‘Brussels Version of ‘Drang nach Osten’: The Economic Colonization of Eastern Europe (1990–2010)’, at the event Der Drang Nach Osten(28.10.–20.12.2010), HIT Gallery, Bratislava.