The World is Talking About…

Moscow is Talking About...Gay Rights

Clash of Cultures at a Square in Moscow

Gay rights advocates versus Orthodox Christians in the New Moscow

By Michael Schwirtz and Joshua Yaffa, New York Times

Moscow,  Russia - They came, they said, to clean the square. Every evening for several weeks, a dozen or so Orthodox Christian youths gathered at a chapel monument in a central Moscow park around seven o’clock in the evening, roping off a perimeter and shooing away the people chatting and drinking beer on the chapel steps.

The youths—who call themselves the Georgiyevtsy, after St. George, the patron saint of Moscow — said they were trying to chase away the gay men who cruise the area to meet friends and look for sex.

“They are gathering around a holy place, and engaging in very shocking activities, kissing, and not only,” said Diana Romanovskaya, a 19-year-old organizer of the youth patrol, who said she and others were inspired after advocates for gay issues attempted a demonstration in Moscow in May.

The nascent signs of gay activism in Russia — including protests and an increasing presence on the Internet — have produced a social and political reaction, encouraged by prominent political leaders like Moscow’s mayor, Yuri Luzhkov

The patrol around the chapel, which also serves as a memorial to soldiers killed in the 19th-century war between Russia and Turkey, has also attracted members of various nationalist groups, who have melded the antigay demonstration with their own battle against migrants from the Caucasus, who, they claim, similarly threaten Russia’s traditions and culture.

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Books about Russia on my shelf:

• Pattern Recognition by William Gibson (2005)
• Metro Stop Dostoevsky: Travels in Russian Time by Ingrid Bengis (2003)
• Open Lands: Travels Through Russia's Once Forbidden Places by Mark Taplin (1999)
• The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz (1955)
• A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck and Robert Capa (1948)

 

La Viñuela is Talking About...Blind Dates

Cupid's arrow hits Spain's heartland

62 City Women Agree: The Farmer Needs a Wife

By Victoria Burnett, New York Times

La Viñuela, Málaga, Spain - Ramón Sánchez is not a great believer in the powers of Cupid. But when Mr. Sánchez, a wiry 54-year-old bachelor, heard that dozens of women would be coming to this quiet village for a blind date with the local men, he happily signed up.

Mr. Sánchez, who lives 13 miles out of town on a farm with no telephone and with only sheep and cattle for company, said he had come along in the hope of meeting somebody with whom he could spend his old age.

“It would be nice to have a woman to share things with,” he said, his dark skin polished by wind and sun. “Really, what I want is someone to take care of the house. Not so much me. I’ve been doing that all my life.”

At lunchtime on a recent Saturday, Mr. Sánchez stood with a throng of single men and other villagers awaiting a bus that would bring 62 women from Madrid for an evening of dinner, dancing and — all involved hoped — a little romance.

A migration of young people from rural areas to cities in the 1960s and 1970s led to a scarcity of potential spouses for the men — now middle aged — who stayed behind to farm in Spain’s rural areas, several villagers said. Women, drawn to the cities by the lure of nonagricultural jobs, left in larger numbers than the men...

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Books about Spain on my shelf:

• Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Spain by Chris Stewart (1999)
• Spanish Lessons: Beginning a New Life in Spain by Derek Lambert (2000)

 

Isle of Lewis is Talking About...Windmills

Sheltered In Every Way But One

Massive wind project divides a British isle; "This is the land of our ancestors. If we lose it, we've lost the thing that makes us who we are," says schoolteacher Catriona Campbell.

By Tom Hundley, Chicago Tribune

Isle of Lewis, Scotland - Those who inhabit this faraway island of windswept moors and rocky crofts seem to possess a sense of place that does not leave them at a loss for words.

Listen to Finlay MacLeod, a local broadcaster and writer who enjoys long ambles on the desolate moors, a jelly-like terrain that is more liquid than solid: "I know this place through the soles of my feet. I revel in it. I serenade it. I never go on holiday. When I do go away, I'm desperate to get back," he told a visitor.

"And now we are facing this terrible thing that threatens the very essence of what Lewis is. It's a small island. It's unique. And this will tear it asunder," he said.

The "terrible thing" to which he refers is a plan to construct what some promote as an environmental and economic blessing--a vast wind farm. Two British energy conglomerates have applied for permission to build 234 giant wind turbines that would generate 702 megawatts of power, one of the largest such projects in Europe.

The turbines would be 460 feet high; their rotors would have a diameter of 330 feet. A Boeing 747 jumbo jet could fly through the circumference with room to spare.

"There'd be no escaping them," said Catriona Campbell, whose kitchen window view would be compromised by dozens of the turbines about a mile away. She calls them a "physical and cultural desecration."

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Kalmykia is Talking About...Chess

In Russia, a Checkerboard Field of Dreams

In the only Buddhist region in Europe, regional president built a chess kingdom and then watched them come

By Peter Finn, Washington Post

Elista, Republic of Kalmykia, Russia - The obsessive energy of one man -- Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, former car dealer, present-day multimillionaire, Buddhist impresario and president of the Russian republic of Kalmykia -- has turned this remote corner of southern Russia into the Caesars Palace of chess. Now he is hosting his dream event, a $1 million bout to determine the undisputed chess champion of the world.

The contest, which is being followed online by chess fans worldwide, has proved as controversial as its sponsor. Replete with trash-talking grandmasters, it was almost aborted by a slugfest over bathroom breaks and allegations of cheating.

But for Ilyumzhinov, who has also been president of the World Chess Federation for 11 years, the uproar has had the side benefit of attracting yet more publicity for his chess kingdom, a desolate expanse of steppe and desert that runs to the Caspian Sea. "It's a great moment for the chess world," he said in a recent late-night interview that bounced from Buddhism to the $50 million Chess City the 44-year-old president has built here in the capital, Elista, to encounters he claims he has had with UFOs and aliens. ("They wore yellow suits," he said.)

Kalmykia is the only Buddhist region of Europe, the faith having come here with Mongolian migrants. It has the continent's tallest Buddhist temple -- built, like so much here, by its president, who glides around town in a white Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit.

"Rolls-Royce is a good car," Ilyumzhinov said, calling the Silver Spirit and the five other Rollses he owns his only personal indulgence -- apart from chess, which in one of his first decrees as president he made a school subject. "It helps children study well in other subjects -- math, physics," said Ilyumzhinov, who was a regional chess champion in his teens....Read more...

 

Paris is Talking About...Smoking

Comment: Well, this seems familiar. Here in Tokyo, where smoking is still very common, many of the wards have gone so far as to prohibit smoking on the public streets. This has led to the sight of "Smoking Rooms" -- sponsored by Japan Tobacco -- in some commercial areas, where smokers go inside a storefront or standalone bus-shelter-like structure on the sidewalk to smoke. Given the price and rents of commercial real estate in Tokyo, this cannot be cheap.

Smoking No Longer Très Chic in France

Today, nearly 80 percent of the French support the idea of a smoking ban in public places.

By Elaine Sciolino, New York Times

Paris, France - Jean-Paul Sartre smoked. So did Colette, Cocteau, Camus, and Coco Chanel.

One of the most memorable scenes in French films is Jean-Paul Belmondo lifting his head, dragging on a cigarette and rubbing his thumb back and forth across his lips in Breathless. (He smokes about two dozen times in the movie.)

There is something about smoking that seems very French.

But as in other European countries, smoking in public increasingly has fallen out of favor here. This week, after a five-month governmental inquiry, a parliamentary committee approved a proposal to ban smoking in public areas.

Under the measure, cafes, hotels, restaurants, discos and casinos could designate spaces for smoking only if they could be “hermetically sealed areas, furnished with air-extraction systems and subject to extremely rigorous health norms.”

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said he would decide quickly how to proceed on the matter. “The French people would not understand if we do not make a decision” in the face of the research, he told members of Parliament on Monday.

But not everyone here agrees. To diehard smokers and many tobacconists and bar and restaurant owners, the campaign reflects the loss of a core French value — the rights of the individual.

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France is Talking About...British Invasions

Tourists Evoke Wartime Memories

Instructions for British Servicemen in France 1944 and Help! The English are Invading Us! are bestsellers in France; Madame Patrice and the English invaders of old and new

By Joanna Robertson, BBC News, From Our Own Correspondent

Paris, France - Saturday lunchtime at Le Dome café on Boulevard Montparnasse, and the regulars are feeling somewhat squeezed.

The usual midweek mix of locals - with the odd table of tourists - swells for 24 noisy weekend hours - from Saturday lunch to Sunday lunch - with British day or weekend trippers fresh off the Eurostar, ordering the Dome's fabled seafood in rather dreadful French or "shouted-so-you-might-understand" English....

At her usual place, shielded from the hubbub by her hat-of-the-day and the fronds of a brass-potted aspidistra, sits Madame Elisabeth Patrice.

Ninety years old, elegant, spry and beautiful, she is behind her daily dose of uplifting effervescence - a single glass of Deutz champagne (as recommended by her cardiologist).

Madame Patrice has a great many hats: "Simply hundreds - I adore them," she confesses. She keeps these hats in two large wardrobes - one here in Paris, and the other at her seaside house near Deauville in Normandy.

In 1944, when the Allies finally arrived, Madame Patrice donned a carefully preserved "confection of a hat", as she called it, and slipped her war-thinned feet into yellow shoes to dance through the streets of her liberated city....

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Blagoveshchensk is Talking About...Chinese Immigration

Chinese Reap Opportunity, Rancor in Russia's Far East

Border-town life along the shared 2,264-mile (4,193-km) border

By Alex Rodriguez, Chicago Tribune

Blagoveshchensk, Amur Oblast, Russia - The imprint of China is everywhere in this Russian Far East city perched on the banks of the winding Amur River.

He Wenan's construction firm built 30 apartment buildings, three shopping centers and a hospital here. Wei Jing Qing is one of dozens of Chinese traders at the bustling Central Market who hawk everything from track suits to pipe fittings. Outside the city, Xiao Bin's produce farm fills Blagoveshchensk-bound trucks with cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, carrots and cabbage.

Just how this burgeoning node of Chinese enterprise should be received is the subject of fierce debate on the Asian side of Russia, a vast, resource-rich region where the population has been plunging for years.

For every Russian who argues that Chinese cash and labor are ably filling a void in a part of Russia that is withering, there's a Russian who believes nothing short of a Chinese takeover looms.

"There may come a day when China controls everything here," huffed Elena Prelovskaya, 46, who sells hats on the Russian side of Central Market. "They're buying out restaurants, buying apartments in our city and building shopping centers for themselves. And they're only hiring Chinese."

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Berlin is Talking About…Gay Politicians

Berlin Mayor, Symbol of Openness, Has National Appeal

Klaus Wowereit, charming and gay, edges toward stardom

By Mark Landler, New York Times

Berlin, Germany - Fresh from his never-in-doubt re-election as Berlin’s mayor, Klaus Wowereit was soaking up the vibe at Popkomm, a music-industry trade show where the conventioneers favor fishnet stockings and motorcycle boots. In short: a typical Berlin scene.

It is Mr. Wowereit’s kind of scene, too, though the sunny, 52-year-old mayor was trying hard to look statesmanlike as he toured the floor with a scrum of television cameras. Famous for once being photographed at a party sipping Champagne from an actress’s red pump, Mr. Wowereit politely declined the bubbly offered by the organizers, drinking water instead.

Only when he spied a bank of headphones did the mayor break into a grin. Strapping on a pair, he bobbed his head to a new release by the American hip-hopper Lupe Fiasco. Later, Mr. Wowereit, whose nickname is Wowi, confided that his favorite pop singer was Madonna.

Charming, sociable and openly gay, Klaus Wowereit (pronounced vo-vuh-rite) is the newest star in the German political firmament. It is a firmament short on stars. After his victory, the mass-market newspaper Bild ran a front-page headline asking, “Will Wowi Be the First Gay Chancellor?”

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Zurich is Talking About...Assisted Suicide

Four More Britons Go to Zurich Clinic to Die

Clinic founder reportedly setting up clinics across Europe to offer information on suicide

By Jo Revill, The Observer

Zurich, Switzerland - Four Britons have traveled to Switzerland in the past six weeks to commit suicide, bringing the total of British people who have died there to 54.

The Dignitas clinic in Zurich has seen a sharp increase in patients who want to die with medical assistance. Twelve Britons have sought the clinic's help since the high-profile case of Dr. Anne Turner in January.

Dignitas's founder, Dr. Ludwig Minelli, is speaking at the Liberal Democrats' conference this week. He is reportedly setting up clinics across Europe to offer information on suicide.

Under British law it is illegal to help anyone to die. Some of those who traveled to Switzerland have been investigated by the police, but so far no charges have been brought. Dr. Turner's children were not charged, nor Stefan Sliwinski for helping his mother, who had multiple sclerosis, die. However, Swansea police continue to investigate the family of Paul Bennett, who died at the Zurich clinic in May.

Deborah Annetts, the chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said: "The British government is content for people to have help to die elsewhere, but not in their own country surrounded by their friends and family."

From This story.

Paris is Talking About...A Holocaust Symbol

In a Holocaust Suitcase, a Question of Memories

Historical baggage, in more than one sense

By Alan Riding, International Herald Tribune

Paris - Old suitcases gathering dust in the homes of many second- or third-generation immigrants around the world are mementoes of journeys that changed the lives of parents or grandparents. No longer used or even usable, perhaps with yellowing stickers recalling the names of long-deceased forebears, they survive as family relics.

Yet still more powerful symbols, not least for European Jews, are suitcases separated from their owners.

Jews rounded up in France during World War II, for instance, were frequently encouraged to pack a suitcase, presumably to deceive them into believing they were heading for internment or labor camps, not death.

The French artist Christian Boltanski once evoked the one-way journeys of these deportees in a touching installation of battered and antiquated suitcases. With the suitcases displayed at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland, though, there is no ambiguity: All once belonged to Holocaust victims

This is the story of one such suitcase - and the memory it still carries...

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