Philharmonia

This is the concert hall of the philharmonic orchestra, the first landmark we found and learned to recognize as a meeting point. The architectural monumentalism permeated all, as you can see.

Metro station

I don't have any photos from down inside the metro, I regret. But I found a pink metro jeton in my pocket when I returned back home...

Fika for peace - follow-up

The good intentions from last week have so far been strong enough to carry through - the mentioned new border opening in Nicosia took place today. Svenska Dagbladet reports and Dagens Nyheter also comments.

My own visit to northern Cyprus last year was dominated by a feeling of sadness due to being isolated from what I perceived as an important piece of European heritage.

Friday update: BBC also reports, and has an open comment field too.

Parks and trees

In one way it looked very Nordic, in another way you would never believe it was.

But living where I do, in the Middle East, where public space is a different concept from in northern Europe, I was fascinated by parks and people in parks.

Culture palace

People's Palace or Palace of the Republic or something similar, is this, on October Square - a concert hall I believe.

New books

I looked at several newly published books in Sweden last week - all on current affairs. I haven't read any of them though.

Catrin Ormestad's book on Gaza I mentioned earlier.

Ove Bring on the history of Swedish neutrality and non-alignment. Swedish radio gives the floor to professor Bring here.

Former minister Pierre Schori writes on Iraq and dire new world order, here in a debate article from Svenska Dagbladet.

And a new biography on Swedish travel writer par excellence, the politically marginalized (by his own accord) Sven Hedin (here reviewed by Svenska Dagbladet).

I am sure there was more, will add on as I recall them.

Egypt in pictures

BBC has a set of photos of historic and natural wonders in Egypt, "off the beaten track". Enjoy!

I should also say that I was given the lovely new Swedish photo book on Egypt "Österlandet" that I wrote on previously, as a gift recently!

April Fools?

But only one joke from me today, my favourite April Fools today is from Dagens Nyheter "Hammarbybacken goes Ski Dubai", about how our local ski slope in my family's Stockholm suburb is to be covered with a glass roof to make sure the skiing season runs from September to May every year! For us living in the Gulf it is only tooo close to reality which makes it all even more hilarious!!!

Other, sadder new from recent weeks is this article from Svenska Dagbladet on honour violence in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Sweden's influx of Iraqi's is seen here by the BBC. Facts here have prompted a lot of debate at home.

And Newroz meant clashes in southeast Turkey again... A liberal op-ed in Expressen today points out Turkey's tender political points!

Another topic much recently discussed is of the controversial film (here from the BBC) on islam by Dutch Geert Wilders, later published and removed and/or altered or whatever. I wish the discussion could be lead in such a way that the benefits of freedoms where more obvious to those not already convinced was made more clear...

Thos story on a women's shelter in Dubai also merits some attention.

And the Swedish Crown Princess visited the UAE!

BBC has followed Emirati troops peacekeeping in Afghanistan!

The sorry state of education in Egypt is explored here by the BBC.

ICG published reports on Azerbaijan and on Gaza under Hamas.

A view also from the BBC on Basra.

A Swedish journalist has written a book on Gaza in the years 2005-2007, the despair but also the lost hope for real life personal interaction with Israel, where Gazans were the first Arabs to achieve that - review from Aftonbladet.

More discussion on a state-controlled Swedish imam-education. I am sceptical to the concept as such, but this one has quite decent arguments.

And finally a Turkish travel glimpse, from Trabzon, in Today's Zaman.

Minsk industries and post-Soviet stereotypes

I guess this first sight we had of Minsk was as stereotypically post-Soviet as it gets? Hideous industries pitching out masses of smoke.



This, the view from our hotel room confirms it, right? Grey grey and grey - end enormous distances. I assure you, once you talked to Belarussians, they weren't at all like that.

Minsk Olympics???

I'm not sure of the meaning of this massic Olympic building, but round the corner it houses a branch of Latvian Lido restaurant!

Remember the spaceship?

I forgot to show the inside of the library!

Climate compensation

After flying quite a lot recently, I have been considering how to calculate the climate effect of this, in order to compensate with money afterwards. Unfortunately, neither of the airlines I have been using (Air Baltic and British Airways) seem to offer such a service on their website. Does anyone know a trustworthy calculating tool?

I have shown you this before, where you can buy emission rights from Swedish Naturskyddsföreningen (Swedish Society for Nature Protection?). I think some airlines have their own compensation payment tools, too.

5 minutes later: a friend suggested this calculating function, where I think you can also pay directly (again in Swedish).

Sunday evening update (thank you!): Another calculation and payment site (used by SAS) was mentioned to me. And British Airways does have a scheme.

Advertising favourite! ;-)

My all-time favourite on the streets of Minsk! ;-)

Neo-monumentalism...

A little bit apart from the town center and the monumentalism of the Soviet era stands this new national library, built by the current president. Reportedly, it holds very few books... Belarussians we spoke with thought of it as a spaceship or extraterrestial communications device, as it blinks with multicoloured lights at night...

More "Stalin-baroque"

Variations of monumentalism... and more to come!

Superman in Minsk

I am really not sure of the changing-room qualities of these minuscule phone booths...

"Det svider i hjärtat"

I would have liked to see this film, but hope to do it online later when I have more time for such things - I just realized I missed it on tv yesterday (but I was doing MUCH MORE IMPORTANT things - family celebrations!). I'm talking about Swedish documentary film-maker Oscar Hedin's film on two jihadist young men "Det svider i hjärtat". If you follow the link, I think you can see it from swedish Television's website and at least check when the rerun is broadcast.

Catholic Belarussian

It was in Easter week (in the gregorian style of calendar counting) and when we sneaked into this church at a central downtonwn square - opposite the university - some sort of service was still going on, with a procession of mainly women walking around the church up to different icons, singing. The women were also leading the procession and the singing - either in a catholic or orthodox tradition I would have thought that unusual. I would have guessed a catholic service to have been conducted in Polish but my husband claimed to my surprise they were singing in Belarussian. I learn something new everyday!

Branding Minsk

Despite the architectural look of the city, the brand names recalled which era we in fact are in.

Potemkin facades?

The residential backsides and yards behind the monumental facades and fabulous portals however tended to be less spectacular and wellkept... ;-)

Openings in the facade

The enormous magnificent facades have equally impressive portals...

Monumentalism

This is of course a different style of monumentalist architecture than what I have been seeing elsewehere lately. Stalin-baroque we call it in Swedish.

More art

Maybe this is a more traditionalist and expected style of public art? ;-)

Minsk street art

Maybe this is not quite art, it stood outside a shop - so maybe it's an ad? But for what I'm not sure...



This pretty little girl stood near the railway station.

Fika for peace!

I'm stealing the title of this post (sorry, best friend ;-) ) but can't resist telling you about the renewed hope on Cyprus since the Friday-morning coffee meeting at the Danish UN Mission Head in Cyprus between Cypriot leaders Christofias and Talat. After this coffee meeting (Swedish FIKA!!! - may the word spread across the world!) news of breakthrough possibilities and plans for opening divided Nicosia reached the media. Hear Swedish radio on it also.

Downtown Minsk

The first picture is October Square, where the opposition tent demonstrations two years ago took place. The second one is of the central Independence Avenue (I dare not try out the Russian or Belarussian names - signs are of the later while people seem to mainly use the former - very confusing...)

Minsk was almost completely destroyed in the second World War - apparently only 5 buildings still stood at the end of the war. What you see was built afterwards, but what I can understand mainly along the same street plan. So the Stalin-baroque architecture dominates completely.

For deeper some Belarus-perspective, listen to the following rather recent Swedish radio talk programs on the political situation: Konflikt from 8th March and from 20th March morning news.

Train from Minsk

I'll start backwards, with our return journey from Minsk, on the 4-hour train journey to Vilnius. Old Soviet-style train and trainstation, no doubt. I was immensely proud to figure out from the board (in Russian or Belarussian, I'm not sure which even) what platform our train was on... ;-) It left on time too. And the Belarus border guards had portable computers they carried around with readers for the machine-reading field at the bottom of the identity page in modern passports!

This is of course a distinct break with the previous Dubai highrises (but don't worry, they will come back again later).