My Trafikant (proprietor of the Tabak Trafik I always go to) has died. He was in his 80s and had been in bad health for a long time, but it is sad news for me. He was a complicated person — I thought he might be on the autism spectrum and from a time when no one understood that — but he was a fixed point in the neighborhood, and he loved Maylo. (In fact, he loved all dogs.)
The women who worked for him, who, quite possibly are now out of a job as concessions for this kind of shop are so limited, have written in the announcement of his death that he was more than a boss and employer. He was a person (a Mensch) with a heart, principles, and open ears. They should know. They worked with / for him for many years and took care of him when he had no family left.
I fear, given government efforts to reduce the number of Trafiks, that this is the death knell also for my Saturday ritual of picking up the Kurier and an instant lottery ticket, at least at this one place.
To see what kind of place this Trafik and its Trafikant had in my heart you can check out these previous posts shown below. I think my favorite is “Our Trafik”. That captures him well.
Hard to believe, but I am wrapping up my Christmas preparations today, not on the 24th (or 25th or 26th, etc., invoking the Twelve Days of Christmas, which are taken seriously in Austria).
May you all have peaceful and happy holidays and a wonderful 2026!
There is an impromptu memorial to Alexei Navalny right across the street from the Russian embassy.
It is good to have somewhere to go to commemorate him. He was very brave and, apparently, had a sense of humor and seemed to truly want nothing more than a better life for average Russians.
It was a bit scary to go and place a flower there. There were guards prowling about. (Mind you, I get quite unnerved by the Marines guarding the U.S. American embassy, too.) There was no interference, though. I was able to leave my flower (a white rose, for those familiar with the student resistance in Nazi Germany) and look at and read what others had written.
It was a bit scary, yes, but also moving, and I’m glad I went.
As the year draws to a close, I would like to wish all my readers Happy Holidays, a good slide (as one says in German) into the New Year, and a peaceful and prosperous 2024. (And what would these wishes be without the annual haiku. 😉)
Some of my readers know from other sources that my darling dog, Maylo, is no longer with me. He got sick around Easter and all the vet and other care in the world didn’t make him better. Then he took a sudden turn for the worse, and his very kind vet came in especially on a Sunday (June 18) to end his suffering. He died peacefully in my arms. One word people have used a lot in sending their condolences is “companion” and, indeed, he was my wonderful companion in walks and more for over 11 years.
I was introduced to the “Wiener Zeitung” (newspaper) by my former partner who is a lawyer and, like all lawyers, had to subscribe because certain official announcements, about new laws, for example, were published by requirement in the “Wiener Zeitung”. He also read the rest of the paper with interest and pleasure, finding it a wonderful source of edification. At some point, I did catch on to the interesting tidbit that it is the oldest daily paper still in print. That will end on June 30th this year after more or less 320 years. (To be precise, the first issue appeared on 8 August 1703 so it’s not a full 320 years, but what do the few weeks matter with a timeframe like that?)
What happened? In April, the National Assembly passed a law that did away with the requirement described thereby pulling the financial rug out from under their feet. It is the way of all things, and it is still sad. I wanted to commemorate it briefly here.
The front page of the Kurier reminding us that it was three years ago today that the first coronavirus cases were detected in Austria. Things moved very fast after that. As of March 1st this year, most of the restrictions will fall. Public transportation in Vienna has been something of a holdout, still requiring FFP2 masks. Even that will no longer be the case, although a third of Kurier readers polled have said they will voluntarily continue to wear them.
This morning, as on every Saturday I’m not teaching, Maylo and I went to the Trafik on our way home from our morning walk. He got his treats and I got mine (newspaper and instant lottery ticket). Then because it wasn’t busy we got into a chat, quite a heavy chat as it turned out.
The Trafikant, nearing 80, was born in Vienna during the Second World War and told how his mother would wrap him in a blanket and carry him down to the air raid shelter in the cellar.
One of his employees then started talking about her experiences during the war in Bosnia before her family fled to Vienna, how she, too, spent time in bomb cellars. From her accent, I could tell that she wasn’t Austrian born, but we had never talked before about where she came from. (I personally am so allergic to the question “Where are you from?” when I have lived here over half my life that I very rarely ask it of others.)
We had gotten onto the topic of how each time we thought it was the last war in Europe and how the whole misery is being repeated now in Ukraine when another customer came in and Maylo and I left.
I think Trafiks are often microcosms of the world around us.
ecbinvienna 