17 MAY - Saturday

Saturday, May 17, = = (Luga City - Maps)

I slept badly, maybe I dreamed, but I do not remember, I greet with affection the family, a special hug, the man who the night before gave me a lesson in life that does not forget.
As I start the next step off the radio and thinking about how, with few words, un'uomo "useless" I was taught.

42 km Zaplus'e = 18 km Ludoni 72 km = arrival in Pskov = (tot 132 km)

Pskov population = 203,000 =

Despite the destruction the past, have most of the walls intact, inside the citadel with the Cathedral of the Trinity, and there are others in town.
In the river Velikaja There is also a monastery, one of the oldest in Russia, the destination of hundreds of pilgrims every year.
I try as usual for a place to sleep, an old lady wearing the




usual foule on the head, I indicates an information office. Before I make my request to the employee, actually a couple of phone calls and return for a few Rubli, I wrote the address on a piece of paper and giving me salutes returned.
I found a studio apartment, next to the old walls decorated with sobriety, with antique furniture dating back to end 800, very well kept, which would make the happiness of un'antiquario.
In the countries I have traversed, and in many places where I stayed, I could see that the furnishings are often made of similar works of art. I leave and I come across a very poor market for goods, but with a swarming of older people, sell and buy everything: clothes, old clocks, tools, work benches miserable vegetable products in sealed jars containing impossible to decipher and many other poor things. Me around for so many quarters, and between me curious one that sells old military junk, look closely and notice that not only articles from the Russian but also rusty and consumed by time, helmets, medals, knives to serramanico, friezes and many other armies from across Europe.
I ask the seller where they come from, a lean old man with his face furrowed by deep wrinkles, with eyes of ice, look at me as if I were an alien for a long time, it seems that I read in thought, I answered slowly:

"Count my wrinkles and understand that the years that I carry are many, but the memory of the Nazi hordes who invaded my country is always alive in me.
The soldiers who trample the earth, they could not stop our resistance. On "Leningrad - Stalingrado =" your armies, at the cost of tens of millions of martyrs Russians, just the most bitter defeats of the Second World War. Soldiers of all nationalities, have left their lives on these fronts in the battle and retreat, hundreds of thousands of them, Germans, Italians and other nationalities died in hardship or killed by the fire of our Katiuscia.
From these parties have fought many battles, the snow and the mercy of their comrades, covered the bodies of those poor young men. Their weapons, backpacks, helmets and all that he was wearing had abandoned shed in these desert plains.
I like others, these relics are exhumed and try to sell them to those who want a souvenir of those years or by simple taste to have a trophy to show for his friends. "

I think of all the fallen of the wars, terrorism, dictatorships, civil wars and those who died for an ideal wrong.
Me neither I go by the market, I should go and eat something, but now I have gone hungry, I shall simply a coffee and try to understand where I can go to see the monuments of this city.
There are many small churches, or visit some then I approach the medieval walls and walking slowly back towards my accommodation. I am hungry, I try a restaurant, a plate placed across the pavement at the top shows me a small inn, before I sit down, the waiter tells me that the only dish I can serve those who are soup of pork and potatoes mixed of vegetables, is good.
The dish is rich, I eat with appetite and calmly, even going so soon after going to bed.

> (DIARY DAY FOLLOWING MAY 18 )