hidden europe's home city, Berlin, walks a social tightrope: in part a capital in the chic western European mould and yet still a city with rough edges, an unkempt place that defies the efforts of Germany's Federal Government to make it more respectable. While the tourists rub shoulders with the political élites along the grand boulevard of Unter den Linden and in the contrived elegance of shopping malls that become ever glitzier each year, for the average Berliner life is rather tougher. The Berlin suburb of Marzahn is a place that doesn't figure in the mental maps of the tourists and political élites, even though this high rise jungle of apartment blocks from the late seventies and early eighties is less than thirty minutes by train from the city centre. Marzahn is home to not just many thousands of poorer Germans but also to a good chunk of the city's Russian community. These are the dispossessed, the ones who live in blighted space and give the lie to the misconception, common among Germans, that migrants from Russia are all ridiculously affluent. The fur coat and caviar image is a tad removed from the reality of everyday Marzahn.
hidden europe 7
In the ghetto
by Nicky Gardner
Summary
on the margins of Berlin, several thousand Russlanddeutsche (Russian-Germans), migrants who arrived in Germany in the mid 1990s, live as an underclass
There are two sides to Sylt. The east has soggy edges as tidal flats and salt marshes separate Sylt from the German and Danish mainland. The other side can be wild and treacherous, a place where shrapnel spray pounds the beach and bodies are washed ashore.
On the tidal flats that surround the North Frisian island of Sylt there are millions of lugworms. On the island itself there is a peculiar sub-species of homo sapiens. hidden europe explores both!
Port cities often have a very special feel. Hamburg, Genoa, Liverpool and Bergen have much in common by virtue of their connection to the sea. Berlin writer Paul Scraton explores the quaysides of the Norwegian port of Bergen and reflects on the cultural, economic and social ties which enliven port cities across Europe.