31.10.08

So I saw Seu Jorge last night at the Roundhouse in Camden. The building had been refurbished apparently sometime last year, making it a far more presentable place than I remembered.
The concert had been meant to feature Afro-reggae, the 14 piece band from the favelas of Rio, as the opening group but legal battles over contracts, rights and money kept them back in Brazil, and Gilles Peterson took their place in the opening slot. I had been to Gilles Peterson shows before (EXIT festival) but I don’t think his music is well suited to a place like the Roundhouse. The music is chilled, acid jazz with (in this instance) some Brazilian infusions, and it would be ideal as a back drop in a chill room in a club, on in your living room towards the end of a party, but as the opening act in a large venue, it didn’t really go.
Seu Jorge came on at exactly 9, punctual to the minute, and started his set. In addition to all the expected hits (Tive Rizao. Carolina), he did two odd but interesting Bowie covers (Rebel, Rebel and Life on Mars) before launching into a crowd sing-a-long of Jorge Ben Jor’s Mas que Nada ~(think 2006 world cup FIFA song) which got people excited.
Pity it was so cold though, it made going out on the patio area a bit painful….



28.10.08

Confused

Interesting: The Georgian prime minister, who I feel like I have been chasing in conferences around Europe this past month, has stepped down. According to Saakashvili: "We made this decision together with Lado Gurgenidze, the decision that he will chair the new financial commission in charge of controlling the financial crisis and stabilizing the financial situation in Georgia." To be sure, he is an economist by training and used to run the Bank of Georgia- but why the sudden switch? Stepping in will be Grigol Mgaloblishvili, who was at the Georgian embassy in Turkey, and more recently the combined embassy of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the opposition leader Kakha Kukava, “Nobody knows Grigol Mgaloblishvili in Georgian political circles. He is a dark horse. In reality, Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili implements the functions of the prime minister," Kukava speculated that if Saakashvili, keeps Merabishvili on his post, then everything will "remain as earlier."
The BBC reported Gurgenidze was "sacked," while Saakashvili insisted Gurgenidze had only ever intended to stay in power one year or so.
I am a bit confused, but then the piles on my desk are mounting concerning other areas, and I sense the focus is to turn elsewhere now.

22.10.08

the bubble burst

I find myself in yet another 5 star soulless business hotel at yet another financial/ banking conference. There appears to be a hard core group of 15 bankers on the permanent conference circuit, or the “rubber chicken circuit” as my father used to call it, after having been served a few too many rubbery platters in his day. But these same 15 guys (for they are all men) show up at every event, in every country. They recognise me now, and sometimes nod as I walk in. As I am often the only youngish female in attendance, I suppose I am rather noticeable! Over the past 4 months the tone in these conferences has changed rather dramatically. In June there was still the hope that Europe would escape the worst of the credit crunch, and that Russia would be unaffected completely. We all know now that this will not be the case- things are bad and they are set to get much worse. Reports suggest that several times over the past month, the British banking sector has come close to complete collapse. Iceland, once the model, has gone under completely. Russia has weather the crisis worse than most other emerging markets, yet even China has started to wobble this week. In short, things are bad, and the projected recovery dates are receding further into the horizon. The head of Credit Suisse estimated things would stabilise by the end of 2010, with recovery beginning in 2011. Ernst and Young’s recent report also has pushed recovery dates back to 2011. In a similar investment conference I attended in June, these same guys were talking about the end of 2009 as the date by which things would be back to normal. Today, one speaker claimed that possible half of all Russian banks will go over in the near future. Several Western ones are already gone.
And unemployment is rising. In Britain, it is anticipated that it will reach 2 million by this Christmas, and 3 million by next Christmas. So Europe has not escaped. No one has: even Canada, where the leaders saw clearly what was coming and took strict measures to protect their banks, is not safe. The banks might be in better shape, but Canadian industries are among the hardest hit, thanks to their economic ties with their southern neighbour.
I listen to the gloom and doom with half an ear, wondering what the free lunch will include. I like when they serve wine at lunch, it helps make the rest of the afternoon go more quickly, as I discretely snooze with my eyes open in the back….i have heard all the figures already, I know things are bad, and I can only feign attention for so long.

20.10.08

shoes

I am not good a polishing shoes. I never have been. I make a mess, not only of the shoe, but everything in a metre radius of it. So I find myself standing with my foot up on a box in cities around the world having some one else polish my shoes, when I get desperate. It often costs less than doing it myself anyway (so I tell myself). In some cities (Rio, Mumbai) the polishers are often young boys, who do their job diligently and with minimal communication. In other places, (Santiago de Chile) this job seems to be the domain of older men, who ask polite questions and seem astonished to have a woman's foot on their box. But today the polisher was neither young nor old, mid thirties I am guessing, and I quickly recognised a familiar rhythm to his speech. "Glasgow?" I asked, although I already knew the answer. I then told him some portion of me hailed from the same northern city. A long chat followed (I was wearing super grimy boots). The guy left Glasgow at 18 and had been working his way around the world ever since, cleaning shoes and doing other tasks along the way. He assured me that the rumours are true: there is no city on this planet without a Glaswegian population. He has cleaned fellow Glaswegians' shoes in Berlin, Sydney and San Francisco. Like me, many of these diaspora Glaswegians have foreign accents, but they all assured him of their origins. Glasgow has been exporting people for several centuries now, so I suppose this is hardly surprising, but it was interesting to note none the less.
He cleaned my shoes well. I tipped generously, and we both continued our day.

13.10.08

honesty

I am increasingly thinking that Georgians are making a point of defining themselves against Russians. Most telling example: the police in Georgia don’t take bribes!!! I had heard rumours of this great transformation back when I still lived in Moscow. An acquaintance of mine who regularly travelled to Tbilisi assured me that the president had fired two thirds of the police force and given huge raises to those who stayed, on the condition they clean up their act. Some in the beginning pushed their luck and ended up in jail, and the message soon got out to the rest. Today on the streets you see a fair number of police, but unlike the Russian militsia, they do not seem to regard foreigners as walking banks. They appear polite and law abiding. On the autobahn, I was stopped once by the traffic police. The officer apologised for the inconvenience, checked the driver’s license, then saluted and wished us a pleasant journey on to the airport. I was shocked, but the driver assured me it was all normal these days, and I was just too used to living in Russia, “they will need 300 years to catch up to us” he announced proudly. Next came the tales of the war in August, when the soldiers were apparently stealing everything they could get their hands on, from shoes to toilet bowls, which reminds me of the stories older Hungarians used to tell me in Budapest….apparently stealing toilet bowls has long been a Russian soldier trademark- of it has become a self perpetuating myth of Russian soldiers at least. How much of this is true is of course anyones guess, but it is interesting to see what is valued here, and that apparently includes honesty…..

sidenote

Georgian TV shows an interview with a group of Russian soldiers during the war.



Georgian Journalist: “who is the president of your country?”

Soldier: “putin of course”

Journalist: “Putin is your PRESIDENT?”

Soldier: “yeah. I think.”

Journalist: “Who is Dmitry Medvedev?”

Soldier: “I have heard of him…..some minister?”

Journalist: “do you know who our president is?”

Soldier: “no”

Journalist: “have you heard of Mikhail Saakashvili?”

Soldier: “On kto? Gruzin shto li?”



I am sure the Georgians had fun filming that one.

land


The natural setting of Bakuriani is stunning. I arrived around 7am. I was tired from the overnight flight and I must have dozed off at some point in the ride over from Tbilisi, because all I remember was that at some point I opened my eyes and saw we were on a dirt road surrounded by mountains on both sides. It was so dramatic that my tired eyes struggled to take it all in.

This place has a great possibility to be one of the best skit resorts in Europe, I have become convinced. This potential has not escaped the notice of the Georgian authorities, which has recently started to pump money into the region. Thus, Bakuriani is a place in transition. Part of it has the feel of a backward and decayed village- there are mud roads and poorly constructed wood houses, and babushki sitting on broken benches watching the world go by. Yet, at the same time, much of the village is under construction, as luxury ski resorts are being constructed all over the area. Our hotel is not one of the top top range, but it is nice nonetheless. There is a sauna, a swimming pool, a fitness room, a billiard room and a cinema inside. Every day we have our breakfast in a glassed in terrace overlooking the woods. No complaints from my side….

food


Georgian food was widely considered to be the best in the Soviet Union. When my father used to organise tours of the USSR for Westerners, he always made sure that Georgia was included as the last stop on the tour, so the foreigners would leave with the impression of the Soviet Union as a place with friendly people and excessive quantities of good food. Part of the reason there is so much here is that everything grows. Georgia has several climate zones (sea coast, valley, mountains) and good weather most of the year. Thus, I kept meeting people who insisted I try the fruit from their grandmother’s garden or the wine made by their father etc. there are so many livestock animals that you see them wandering all over the place in the countryside. As country’s go, Georgia could not be better off in terms of its ability to feed itself.

But eating in Georgia is a particular affair. I got invited to a Supra, which literally means tablecloth, but the meaning it carries is closer to “mass feast,” and the seemingly endless rituals that go with it. Everyone who lived in the ex-USSR knows that Georgians are famous for their toasts, poetic affairs that seem to last up to 30 minutes. But, during this trip I have become acquainted with some extra details of the toasting procedure I did not know of. For example, it is a grave insult to toast with beer- you do this only to your enemies. If you like a person, you must toast with wine or spirits, nothing else. If the gathering is big, then someone (normally the oldest and wisest man) is appointed Tamada, or toastmaster. The tamada is basically the table dictator. Only he is allowed to make the toasts (unless he specifically gives permission to someone else) and you are only allowed to drink right after he has said his toast (ie, you cant drink whenever you feel like it). If the occasion is really big, then there is a alaverdi, who is like a second back up tamada, who makes sure everyone at the end of the table heard every thing correctly. In order to survive the onslaught of wine and chacha, you must eat enough to coat your stomach. But this requires careful pacing as the food arrives in huge quantities from the beginning…but then it keeps coming! So you must pace yourself carefully to avoid overeating in the first round, as more dishes continue arriving and it is something of a sin not to try ALL of them…..

Georgia


A friendlier people I have never met, or at least not in Europe. Georgians are famous for their hospitality, and rightfully so. Guests are treated like monarchs here. In a ride out to Bakuriani, it somehow came out that I had never seen a pig or a chicken. This is now no longer the case. On my first day some guys escorted me to a farm so I could see both a pig and a chicken together. The pig was lying lazily in a pile of mud and the chickens were walking about aimlessly in circles making strange noises. I was given the chance to kill one, which I declined. The hospitality continued. Not just were our hosts over the top in their efforts, but it seemed the whole population was as well. I walked into a café and the next thing I knew I was sitting around a table having the receipt for Khachipuri explained to me in great detail by the owner. Any time I got lost wandering about, I just stopped people on the street who often insisted on escorting me all the way to my destination. I speak no Georgian, but I found that almost everyone spoke fluent Russian, and unlike in some places (like the Baltics states) people were quite happy to speak with me in Russian, and never once did anyone make a nasty comment. Actually, while the Russian government, and Putin in particular, in universally despised, I did not sense real hostility towards the Russian people, although there were often tones of condensation. The laws of hospitality seem to eliminate the potential of rudeness towards foreigners. Then, of course, there is the over the top Caucasus treatment of women. My bags, even my handbags, are carried at all times. Chairs are pulled out, drinks are poured, and every time I approach a door, all the men queue along side and nod politely as I pass first them all. It is a bit hard to get used to, but I know the intentions are good. And then there is the foooood….

1.10.08

vukovar

Between 18 and 21 November 1991, the town of Vukovar, in eastern Slavonia, close to the Serbian border, fell to the Serbian army, still calling itself the JNA. The low point of this battle came on the 20th when the Serbian army burst into Vukovar's hospital, and started a shooting spree. Those who werent killed at the time were interned and many killed later on at Ovčara (located 5 kilometers southeast of Vukovar). There their bodies were dumped in a mass grave. 200 bodies were exhumed in 1996, in a process which took over 40 days. DNA testing revealed the bodies belonged to teenagers, journalist, a French guy, and several elderly people, among others.
I went to Vukovar several times after the fighting ended. On my first trip, very few buildings had four walls intact, and the place was a ghost town. With my Greek friend Harry and some locals we wandered around the shells of buildings. Bojan, himself a Serb, claimed the Serbs who burst into the hospital that night were high on all sorts of drugs. Their pupils dilated the screamed hysterically and moved irrationally. They were jumpy and shot to kill at the slightest sound. Some were JNA, many more were paramilitaries, or teens who had been given guns and drugs and swept up in the act. It is believed 200 dies in the hospital alone.
The incident is well document and there are plenty of witnesses. Several of the leaders were indicted by the Hague tribunal in the years after the war, at the instigation of requests for the Croatian government. The Serbian government went after many of its own people: in 2004 the Prosecution for War Crimes found three of the JNA leaders guilty of murder and inhumane acts, killing 192 people, and sentenced them all to jail terms between 5 and 20 years. One who escaped all of this, however, was former Yugoslav defense minister Velko Kadijevic. Why? Because he had seen the light and relocated himself to Moscow in 2001. A few months ago, the Croatian started trying to close in on him, requesting his extradition (he was born in what is now Croatia, and the alleged crimes took place in what is now Croatia.) Medvedev responded by making him an automatic citizen through a presidential decree. Today the Russian prosecutor General's office announced officially that he is protected by Russian law and cannot be handed over.
Ok, Russia sees themselves as the defenders of Serbs, as we all know, but even the Serbian courts have concluded that this massacre took place. Kadijevic doesn't deny that either, he only denies "knowing about it at the time." I fail to see what Russia is exactly gaining by protecting such people. It is not the 1990s. These guys can receive a fair trial- in Serbia if anyone has doubts about the impartiality of the Hague tribunal. Jumping over endless laws and having the president personally grant Russian citizenship to prevent someone from facing justice is hardly the "rule of law" way to deal with such a man.