ITINERARY NOTES: Nothing sacred…

Guys, it happened at last! Now I am going to add Israel to my travel record! You don’t even imagine how long it took me to come to the scratch… I guess these were deeply dug Jewish roots of my genealogical tree that still managed to appear. So what? I wasn’t even juiced so you’d better turn over the page once you intend to read about holy places (still there will be some details though) and bliss awing connected with them.

The trip presupposed getting acquainted with the country in most various aspects. Historical and archaeological were the first. Tiberias, Nazareth and their surroundings come first in the list. We courageously listened to the whole of the guide’s performance in order not to feel as moral freaks. It’s high time to point out that we got a wonderful guide: Jewiess and Hebrewess, smart and beautiful cookie, to say nothing of her sense of humor. To cut a long story short – she was an “all inclusive” set. In accordance with the plan we visited the most popular places: mount Tabor, Armageddon’s foot, extremely ancient Jericho and a great deal of other “must-visits”… But now I guess eating pickles in one of the road café is the only thing I can recall. You may treat me as a real boor, but all these stones seem to me to be as like as peas. The only difference is that this stone is 2.800 years old and that one is 200 years older. In addition to all this I can’t say that I was greatly impressed by their Jewish trick like: “it’s 100% sure, that this MAY have been the place where… “

Then we went to Jerusalem, the part of the way lying through the bordering Palestinian territories. That is a thing to remember! I will omit the description of dispiriting desert landscapes. It’s all about the people we came across in the course of our travelling, meaning diversiform soldiers. I call the “diversiform” as they were armed with diverse weapons, being far from resembling hussars, junkers or musketeers. These were gangster-like looking bearded men, carrying numerous gun-butts… Horrifying! We all felt like passing these spots with maximum speed. I must confess that they did nothing ill to us. They may just have not enough time or it may be that white people with purely orthodox appearance commanded their respect… All in all we survived.

Jerusalem deserves a special attention. The holy of holies of the whole of orthodox and all other people seemed to be the limit of cynicism and hypocrisy. And it’s not about historical differences. Rather a heavy strike turned to be our waiting for the opportunity to touch the holies, you finding yourself not in the temple but in a terribly long queue. “You are not meant to be here! Mind the queue!” and so on and so forth… And what do you think about big boys in suits turning to avoid the queue for “just 20 dollars”? And what about the attendants’ faces, expressing what-a-pain-in-the-ass-you-all-are attitude. What about the dollar price list hanging on the wall of the Russian orthodox church? Can you imagine my emotions after I witnessed all this and failed to feel at least anything. As a punishment for naked scepsis I displayed I decided to physically suffer and to hold the night service. That was a real punishment. But it was of no result.