← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Feb 24, 2011
00:27:58
The Black Sea resort of Sochi is preparing to host the next Winter Olympics.
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You're listening to a download from the BBC. This is from our own correspondent. You can hear the version of the programme broadcast on the World Service by following the link to the iplayer on the top of our website. To keep up with our latest reports and get a sneak preview of the stories, you can sign up to our Twitter feed as well. But now, with the edition Broadcast on Radio 4, here's Kate Ady.
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Today, the security fears in Russia as it prepares for the Winter Olympics. There's a neo Nazi rally in Dresden conducted to the strains not of Wagner, but Britain's own Edward Elgar. Memories of war overshadow a picnic in Zimbabwe and we visit the Mennonites, a Puritan Christian sect who fled to paraguay in the 1930s. Ever since the Munich massacre in 1972, security has been a major concern for any country hosting the Olympics. So fears have been raised that terrorists might be planning to attack the 2014 Winter Olympics, which are to be held in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Just last weekend, armed men struck at a nearby Russian ski resort in the Kabardino Balkaria region, which forms part of the North Caucasus Mountain range, an area riven by nationalist and Islamist tensions. Tourists were among the five people shot dead when a minibus was ambushed. Steve Rosenberg has been talking to the people there, who have to try to ensure the Games will be safe.
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If there's one city which Russians love writing songs about, it's Sochi, the Black Sea resort where there's always sun in the sky, palm trees on the promenade and love in the air. If you believe all the lyrics, that is one of my favorite Sochi ballads translates roughly like this. Casanovas come here from all over the land and have their love affairs on the sand. Then there's a famous Russian pop song which declares, the heat is on down Sochi way. Forget about St. Tropez. I was down Sochi way recently, but I have to tell you, the heat was definitely not on in February. Sochi feels more like Siberia than St Tropez. As I walked through the city centre, I was battered by hailstones and then caught in a snowstorm. The winters in Sochi may not be very suitable for love affairs on the beach, but they are great for winter sports, which is probably why the International Olympic Committee chose Sochi as the host city for the 2014 Winter Olympics. With three years to go before the Games, Sochi is one colossal construction site. Everywhere you look, there are cranes and cement mixers and scaffolding. On the edge of the city, though, in the ski resort of Krasnai Paglana. The downhill track is ready, and this month, for the very first time, the Olympic slopes have been tested out. I went along to one of the test events, but it wasn't the facilities here that caught my eye or the quality of the skiing. It was the scale of the security. The metal detectors by the cable car stations, the officers with sniffer dogs, and the police teams spread across the mountain. To understand why there is a need for such tight security here, all you need to do is look at a map. These are the Caucasus Mountains, an area of considerable regional instability and conflict. For example, close to the Olympic ski slopes, runs Russia's border with Abkhazia. That's the small republic which broke away from Georgia and is now a source of deep tension between Moscow and Tbilisi. Russia has already accused the Georgian authorities of plotting provocations in the run up to the Winter Olympics. And then, rather too close for comfort, is the North Caucasus, where Russia is fighting an Islamist insurgency in restive Russian republics like Chechnya, Kabardina, Bulkharia, Ingushetia and Dagestan. In these places, there are almost daily explosions, targeted killings and gun battles between militants and the police. The head of Russia's Federal Security Service, the fsb, has already warned that terrorists are planning to attack the Sochi Olympics. Out on the ski slopes, I walked up to some policemen who'd been receiving orders on their walkie talkies. Who you on the hunt for? I asked one of the officers. Are there any suspicious individuals out on the slopes? The policeman smiled. These days, he said, we treat everyone as a suspicious individual. I even suspect myself when I look in the mirror every morning at Sochi's Olympic park, where many of the sporting venues are being built. They've got plenty of equipment to help them secure the site. Everything from giant explosives detectors that punch Passover trucks like a car wash to armies of CCTV cameras guarding the perimeter fence. But in the battle to prevent a terrorist attack, the Russian authorities have one other powerful weapon, and his name is Nikolai Gryaznov. Nikolai is vice president of the company which is building the Olympic site. His brief is security, and he knows the Caucasus Mountains like the back of his hand. Nikolai used to be the Federal Security Services top man in Dagestan. He's aware of the potential dangers in this volatile region, but he says he's satisfied with the security measures put in place at some of our checkpoints. Revealed. Nicolae. We've already detained some individuals who've been on police wanted lists, and we've Also caught people who've been trying to steal from the Olympic site. That shows that our security system is working well. But what about those official warnings of terror attacks on the Sochi Olympics? The Caucasus is a difficult region, Nikolai conceded. You can't rule out completely the possibility of a crime. Our job is to make it as difficult as possible for anyone with criminal intentions. It's our job to make them make mistakes.
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That was Steve Rosenberg. The anniversary of the bombing of Dresden during the Second World War by the British and Americans has just passed. In the city itself, it was marked by the main political parties, centre left and centre right, literally joining hands to form a human chain, and by the far right and far left who shouted at each other. Steve Evans found himself close to the far right faction, penned in by the police.
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I never got close enough to the swarm of black shirted followers of Hitler to ask them if they realized that the lush string music swelling from their loudspeakers was actually Elgar, the quintessential English music. For some reason, the neo Nazis on the march in Dresden seemed to think that the right music to swell German nationalist pride was the Enigma Variations. You'd think that Wagner would be better, but no, they liked Elgar. I did ask them why they were there, what they wanted. Just grunts and shuffles came back, even from the large man with a Kraftfuehr Deutschland T shirt. Power for Germany. It's hard to work out the ideology. Or is that too strong a word? Like trying to work out the ideology of a football mobile? To do that, I met Dr. Olaf Rose, who advises the far right National Democratic Party of Germany on history. He is the respectable face of the march, which he described as our march. He's genial, with a goatee beard and pretty good English. He has he says nothing against the British airmen who bombed Dresden, nor does he have anything against a memorial to them in London. In fact, the National Democratic Party of Germany is collecting money for it. He has respect for all soldiers, he says. No, it's not them he's got anything against. It's the people he sees as criminals. Churchill and Butcher Harris, as he calls Bomber Harris, who led Bomber Command, the section of the Royal Air Force which conducted the raids. He warms to his theme. Hitler wanted peace, he says. You can look at the documents. Nine times he sued for peace. But didn't he start the war? I wondered. Just because you fire the first shot doesn't mean you start the war. This contesting of history on the anniversary of the air raids on Dresden matters today if you believe that German crime had equivalent British crime, then then the values that inspired that German crime might be less unacceptable. Today. The constraints of guilt are loosened. On one side in this contest over the past are the far left, dressed very much like the far right, all in black but waving the English flag, the cross of St George, to symbolise, I suppose, their siding with Britain. On the other extreme, the neo Nazi march, which with its Elgar both demonstrations were tiny compared to the human chain of thousands of people marking the anniversary by linking hands. Across the city on this human chain, I met Germany's Interior Minister, Thomas de Mezieres, one of Angela Merkel's right hand men. How did he read the history? Germans started the war, he said, but. But Germans were then victims of the war. Germans as perpetrators, certainly, but Germans as victims. That is a locution with which not everyone is easy. Germans as victims too, past and present can confuse In Dresden. Mostly the city is a new town. Only a few of the golden domes of what was once called Florence on the Elbe remainder. Not that you can always tell. The magnificent opera house is a post war replica, for example. But you can still see ghosts there, particularly if you sit in the gilt chairs like I did and lean forward, craning from the balcony to watch Richard Strauss's opera Salome, exactly where it was first performed in 1905. The Ghost of Strauss is there, I swear it. He wrote the most gorgeous, sublime music and also hobnobbed with Hitler and Goebbels, to whom he dedicated a song. How do you work out that marriage of beauty and beastliness? Draped down the facade of the opera house now is another echo of the past, a banner which reads Ess istendig zu Bienemen als gutter Musik zu machen. The man who said that was the conductor Fritz Busch, who was driven from Dresden and its opera house by the Nazis in 1933. In exile, he did much to create a great British cultural institution as the conductor at Glyndebourne, the opera house nestling in the soft English downs, just like the ones which inspired Elgar. The slogan, by the way, means it is more important to behave well than to make good music.
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Steve Evans Zimbabwe gained its independence less than 30 years ago and its birth was traumatic. The white minority relinquishing its grip on power only after a long and hard guerrilla war. After independence, there was violent tension among those who'd won the liberation struggle. Petroch Trelawney spent a day in the south that stirred memories of that difficult past.
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We leave Bulawayo on the busy road to Bight Bridge, the main border crossing into South Africa. There's just one police roadblock on the outskirts of the city and we're waved straight through. Mind you, it's often difficult to tell whether police and soldiers at the side of the road want to inspect your documents and or are simply after a lift. We're soon in once rich farming country. The signposts give a clue as to the European settlement of this area. Avoca Road, Montrose Road, Killarney Road. At Mbalabala, we turn east off the main highway towards our destination, De Dire Ranch. This day out was the idea of Judith Todd, whose father, Garfield, first came to Dedaia as a missionary from New Zealand. Later he raised the money to buy the 50,000 acre estate, became an MP, and then in 1953, South Rhodesia's Prime Minister. He was the last liberal leader of this country, perhaps not liberal by today's understanding of the word, but a radical in his time who was committed to finding a place for the country's African population in the political system. When Todd fell in 1958, Rhodesia moved inexorably towards its unilateral declaration of independence and civil war. Judith Todd sits in the back of our borrowed Japanese 4x4. Next to me. In front, a veteran of the civil war, Zephania Nkomo. He fought on behalf of Zapu, the revolutionary movement led by his namesake, Joshua Nkomo. The records of Zappu combatants were largely destroyed during the Gakura Hundi massacres of the mid-1980s, when the Fifth Brigade of Robert Mugabe's army murdered tens of thousands of fellow Zimbabweans. Now Nkomo is trying to rebuild those lost accounts of lives dedicated to the fight for freedom. Eventually, I spot the sign for De Dia and we turn off down a worn old strip road. It's Parents Day at Dudia Mission School, proud mothers and fathers arriving in battered cars and pickups. Education for life is the college's motto Robert Mugabe once taught at one of its satellite schools. A student called Desmond greets us, his badge announcing that he's treasurer of the Scripture Union. Zephania introduces him to Judith Todd, but poor Desmond is unaware of her father's connections with the school. Zephaniah quizzes the tall sixth former further, then ticks him off. We must know our history, says Zephania. Without it, we have no future. Desmond goes to put on a tie so he can come with us to the cemetery behind the school, which where Judith Todd's parents are buried. Word of our arrival has leaked out Men with scythes slash away at the tall grass around the graves. Garfield Todd was put under house arrest here in 1972. From his house on the hill, he would watch the railway line where sanction busting trains brought fuel and other essentials in from then Portuguese Mozambique. Judith was arrested at the same time considered a threat to the regime and was force fed after going on hunger strike. After six months, the authorities decided it would be easier to release her and send her into exile abroad, where she remained until just before independence, which eventually came in 1980. Dropping Desmond off, we leave the school to visit an agricultural cooperative set up on the Dudaia ranch in 1982 to provide work for disabled ZAPU war veterans. Its chairman gives Judy a warm hug, the smiles on her and Zephaniah's faces showing their delight at discovering the place is still flourishing, although there's a picture of Lenin on the wall. They no longer farm as a collective, but the 24 members of the co op still work closely together, pooling resources. Two years ago, Zimbabwe's financial crisis meant they couldn't replace a broken water pump threatening their vegetable crops. Now they've started growing green beans and begun looking for new members to bring in fresh ideas. It's after 2 by the time we finish the co op, ready for our picnic. We find a spot by the river and Judy unpacks hard boiled eggs, anchovy paste sandwiches and thick ham sandwiches. It's marvellous, she says. Zimbabwe has started producing ham again. That's got to be good. Zefaniah talks about how he's tracking down missing war records, interviewing veterans and their families. But he says it's a task that will probably never be completed. Then we talk about the co op and the fact that its chairman has become an active member of ZANU pf. Despite his background and the rival zapu, his new connections have paid off with the delivery of essential fertiliser sent out by President Mugabe to his supporters. We all have to change our colours when necessary, says Judy. It's a fact of life in Zimbabwe now. If you want to survive, you have to learn to live like a chameleon.
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Petroch Trelawny in the heart of South America lies a vast tract of land known as the Chaco region. It's a hot, arid scrubland and a tough place to live. Jonathan Fryer has been to the Chaco in northwest Paraguay, where he encountered the members of a community which has managed to put down roots in this wilderness.
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The main street in the small town of Philadelphia in The north of Paraguay is wide and sandy and usually empty. It stretches straight and perfectly flat as far as the eye can see, though buildings quickly peter out. This is the capital of an extraordinary state within a state, a community of Mennonites, a Puritan Christian sect who came here in the 1930s to escape the pressures and profanities of modern life. Today, as Philadelphia quietly celebrates the 80th anniversary of its founding, they're still there. Farming fields that have been cut out from the inhospitable scrubland of the Chaco. I travelled nine hours by bus to get to Philadelphia from the Paraguayan capital, Asuncion. But as Philadelphia's local historian Agatha explained in 1930, it took the original settlers three weeks hacking their way through the undergrowth to make a path for their horses and carts. Life was hard for those pioneers who'd fled persecution and military conscription in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia and Ukraine. Many died from typhoid fever and other diseases or were bitten by poisonous snakes. But the colony took root and was named Fernheim, which means distant home in German. In 1931, Philadelphia, meaning city of Brotherly love, was established as an administrative centre for the scattered farmsteads. The original clapboard offices, freshly painted and standing in a neatly tended garden, are still there, now serving as a museum. Agatha, tall and slender with the air of a kindly but firm schoolmistress, explained to me that the Paraguayan government had been happy for the Mennonites to come to occupy an area much coveted by neighbouring Bolivia because of its reputed oil deposits. These have so far not been exploited, being in such a remote location, but the danger is always there. If the world price of oil rises much further, production in the Chaco could become viable. In the meantime, the Mennonites are allowed to run their own affairs, to marry amongst themselves and to educate their children in German. As I wandered round the museum's garden, I stopped to examine a memorial pillar erected to celebrate Philadelphia's 50th anniversary, and was startled to read an inscription thanking Paraguay's then brutal military dictator, Alfred Stressner, for leaving Fernheim well alone. As I later pondered the contradiction between the pacifist Mennonites and the man who'd ruled Paraguay with an iron fist for nearly half a century. I sat in a tiny deserted cafe on the other side of the street from the museum, drinking tea and munching Mennonite cake. A sponge filled not with glazed fruit, but cooked vegetables, carrots and maybe courgettes. Away from the town you can see these straw hatted men still dressed in black dungarees and immaculately laundered and pressed checked shirts. Just like their ancestors, they use no machinery and go everywhere by horse and buggy. Their womenfolk in long dresses, their hair often gathered in headscarves, mainly cook and wash and look after the children. But some, like Agata, have found employment in town, including running small shops. I spotted outside one such establishment a rack of brightly coloured Hawaiian shirts, each priced at the equivalent of just over a pound. When I asked the woman sitting behind the shop counter why these were so cheap, she said with a sigh that she received a large consignment of clothes from China every few months. The plain or checked shirts inside the bundle were quickly snapped up, but no Mennonite man would be seen dead in one of those garish Hawaiian garments, though possibly some Guarani Indian might. She was delighted when I promptly bought six. This shopkeeper was born in Philadelphia, but when younger, she'd gone to Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, to see what the modern world was like. But it hadn't pleased her with its noise and its fumes and its boisterous people. So after a while she returned. She does act as the local travel agent, however, and it was from her that I bought a bus ticket to Santa Cruz in Bolivia, a journey that would take nearly 24 hours along largely unmade roads. As I paid for my ticket, I asked her what the route was like. I wouldn't know, she replied. I've never been. Why would I want to leave here again?
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Jonathan Fryer with the Mennonites of Philadelphia, spelt with an F, not a ph. Around the world, the people of the Nordic countries are sometimes thought of as being rather reserved, perhaps even a little like their climate, cold and austere. But such prejudices about national stereotypes rarely survive any collision with reality. Paul Miles joined in the fun in a snowy highland village in Norway.
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The first indication that the pace of the world kick sledge championships wouldn't be as punishing as I had feared was when one of the organisers, Tove Sleto, mentioned there'd be free hot dogs halfway through the race. The circular course along icy hiking and mountain bike trails in the ski village of Jelo in Norway is only three miles long. The second pointer that these championships, held annually for the last 30 years, are not taken all that seriously was when I asked the receptionist in our hotel if she knew whether any other guests were competitors in the next day's races. Yes, she said, just go to the bar and look for the drunkest a kick, sledge or spark from the Norwegian. For Kick is a uniquely Scandinavian mode of transportation. It looks similar to a husky sledge, but without dogs. Rather than a team of eager canines, Sparks are people powered. The sledge has six foot long skates or skis with foot plates and handlebars. You move forward with a scooting action, kicking and sliding. Some kick sledges have a seat in front for a passenger or it turns out, for a wicker basket. In a final blow that put paid to any notion that we, my friend and I, or as we came to be known, Team gb, had signed up to a test of physical endurance, Tove broke the news that sparks are usually used by old ladies to do their shopping. It is true that a spark could also be described as a zimmer frame on skis. No wonder an early night of sobriety before the race wasn't deemed essential. I soon found the drunkest guests, three men in their 40s. Before long, one of them, Henning, was demonstrating the footwork needed in another Nordic winter sport, telemark skiing beneath mounted elk heads in the hotel bar. His performance could have passed for Cossack dancing. Next, proclaiming himself to be a Viking, he lifted me off the floor. His friend Iving plonked his pork pie hat on my head, while Morton, also eager to entertain, tugged down his trousers to reveal a tattoo. Born in Bergen, it said, on one of his buttocks. If anyone finds me, they know where to send me back. He shouted, taking another swig of vodka and tonic. The next day at the starting line, Henning and chums were nowhere to be seen. Team GB was the only non Scandinavian team taking part in a field of 135 entrants in the trim or exercise class. This categorization was relative. It served to distinguish our race from a fancy dress parade. Once, a couple of old ladies on Sparks doing their morning shop had shuffled out of the way. The race starter, dressed for some reason in a bug eyed mask and dreadlocks, counted teams off at 30 second intervals. This was just time enough for Team GB immediately to have a spectacular fall without entangling other competitors in our incompetence. It has to be said in our defence that the course does start with a very steep slope that even the most seasoned old lady would not attempt unless she were drunk. Perhaps that was where we had gone wrong. Due in part to Norway's prohibitive alcohol prices, Team GB was, unlike some other entrants, sober. After disentangling sledge from limbs, we escaped the laughing spectators and continued scooting and skating around a frozen lake covered in thick snow, past wooden houses looking like something you might place on top of a Christmas cake, and down a thankfully gentle slope to a man dispensing those free hot dogs. Before mustard could be wiped from the corners of our mouths, other teams caught up, looking decidedly merrier than us. Bruised Brits. Men in patterned jumpers, britches and thick woolen socks took bottles out of rucksacks and passed us a bottle of a black liquid that tasted of licorice. A blizzard was now blowing, but conviviality continued as we sledged onwards to the finish line and a man with a stopwatch. Team GB's time, a dismal 53 minutes and 57 seconds. The fastest had clocked in at just 23 minutes. Some entrants never made it to the finish. They probably stopped off in a bar, explained Tove later at the After Spark party, where we found ourselves in a crush of 50 women from the fancy dress category dressed as strawberries in the melee of dancing. On tables, trophies were presented, adopting a practice familiar to many adult Scandinavians from their school days. The team that won the exercise race and walked off proudly with the world championship trophy was not the fastest, but the one which came closest to the average time. So it was mostly luck that determined that Team GB won nothing.
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Paul Miles among more drink than snow, bringing to an end another edition. I'll be here with more dispatchers from around the world on Saturday. Do join us. Goodbye.