Galina Toktalieva for die Wiener Nachrichten
Photo Galina Toktalieva
It seems not long time ago I stood before Moscow grocery store, chilled to the marrow and hungry, eager to get my portion of buckwheat, in line with hundreds of other hopping, popping and clinking with empty bottles Muscovites. It was after putsch time, when Boris Eltsin – then boisterous and robust-looking man who instigated spirit of rebel in red-carpeted corridors of ruling power, would appear in front of White House mounted on the tank, like Lenin in 1917. Eltsin conquered particular admiration and support from inhabitants of suburban Zelenograd, where I resided at that time. It was center of national electronic industry with military styled, barbwire fenced plants standing in ruin, with workers getting no salary for years in a row. We greeted all the revolutionary change could bring. It brought hope. But also disorder. Shop windows stared back at us with blind sockets of empty shelves. Pensioners could buy only a box of vodka for their lifelong savings. We kept in purse not money but ration cards. Life was wasted in queues.
The broken window was secured with piece of carton, and February wind
whistled in cracks of small hotel room. I pooled old newspapers and jacket at the top of my bed, but could not fall asleep. Tranquility and slumber eluded me. The sheets of manuscript at the table seemed snowy blue in lucid moonlight. Rolling over, I eventually sprang to the feet. I boiled some tea with camp boiler from my travel set, and after sipping it hastily, came out. (more…)

Galina Toktalieva for die Wiener Nachrichten

Jetzt_mit_Übersetzung

Whenever I go to Main Square with idea to make good photo of a horse, the blinders – leather flaps of bridle to keep horse from seeing anything on both sides – abash me. They say horses need those blinders to drag carriage with tourists forward. They also say about folks who are not able to accept reality: people have their blinders on. However, to move steadily forward, one virtually needs to concentrate at target and ignore anything else around – to put blinders on. Photographers experimenting with image know that any occasional element included in frames suddenly gets quality of wholeness. Frames draw attention to detail retrieved from blurred zone of our perception. Can we really believe our eyes, if consider that eagles, cats or flies see the world differently? (more…)

Galina Toktalieva for die Wiener Nachrichten

Far-rights in Austria: hard times bring chauvinistic core of many to the surface

(VIENNA) – The far-rights in Austria may get strong gains when the nation goes to the polls on Sunday to elect its 17 members of the European Parliament.
The FPOe – with xenophobic slogans such as “The Western lands are in the hands of Christians” – may effectively divert the electorate attention for its own populist and highly nationalistic agenda.
With only a few days to go before the vote, the FPOe and its handsome blue-eyed Aryan leader dentist Heinz Christian Strache, 39, looks probable to win 14-17 percent of the vote, three times more than in 2004. At the same time, the Social Democrats SPOe and the conservative OeVP parties are expected to receive a defeat, after running dull election campaigns. I talked to a few supporters of FPÖ in Graz and Vienna, who declared the main reason of their vote for Strache is deep dissatisfaction with present economic situation in the country, passiveness of SPÖ, overall conservatism of ÖVP, and lack of efficiency of Greens and also decline of KPÖ popularity in Graz. One can see on Internet photos of Graz teenagers tossing their arms in Nazi Salut  as their FPÖ blue-eyed  idol once did. The overall opposition to present state of things in economics, politics and media supports tentative sympathies of many adult Austrians for nationalists.

Galina Toktalieva for Die Wiener Nachrichten

Moscow City Hall does not allow a gay parade that activists had planned, according to Russian news agencies.
City Hall spokesman Sergei Tsoi said “there have never been gay parades in Moscow and there never will be”
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has described homosexuality as “satanic” and tried to justify official discrimination against gays in Russia by telling they spread the AIDS virus.
Russian gay rights movement leader Nikolai Alexeyev said the May 16 parade would go ahead in spite of ban.
“I would like to point out that police and City Hall will be responsible for any negative consequences of the event,” he said, adding that right to be gay or not guaranteed by Russian constitution.
Russia decriminalized homosexuality only in 1993, but opposition to it remains widespread. Russian spiritual leaders have claimed that homosexuality threatens traditional Russian values.
When Vladimir Putin was asked by one of the young journalists what was his personal attitude toward prospect of having gay parades in Moscow, he replied his attitude was justified by difficulty of demographic situation in the country. Reply was met with laughter and applause of audience.

Galina Toktalieva for die Wiener Nachrichten
A stage productions of the Vagina Monologues by Eve Enslerin in Kyrgyzstan was to serve goals of the Central Asian women�s rights movement.
It is an episodic play based on interviews with over 200 women relating how they view their bodies, sexual experiences, sexual abuse and sexual violence. Central Asia is not known as a region where women have tried to assert their rights. Of the 22 cast members, the overwhelming majority are young women born and raised in Central Asia.
“Kyrgyzstan, like many other Central Asian countries, is a very masculine and patriarchal society where women, youth and children are often repressed and invisible,” – said Selbi Djumayeva, the manager of Bishkek production, – Gender norms are rigid and mostly assign a secondary and devalued role to women”
Traditional practices such as bride-kidnapping have proven resilient even as a more austere Islam has taken hold in some regions, and many here feel that what little progress women have made in direction of obtaining equal rights. (more…)

JETZT mit DEUTSCHE ÜBERSETZUNG!
Reading through “Gulag Archipelago” by Nobel prize author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, I ponder again why elimination of millions took place and how such mass eradication was possible to maintain at all, not only in Soviet Union, but also in other countries of the world, including fascist Germany.
Author writes, that organs used to hire so-called informers among ordinary people, whose secret occupation was to make a report on commonplace events and talks of their neighbors, colleagues and acquaintances, and on the base of such flimsy information people were arrested afterward, send to prisons and camps, tortured and killed.
Some of informers did such work from fear of possible arrest, some – from pure enthusiasm.
Coming back to now, I contemplate, what motivates people to advance in certain professions, joining military troops in Iraq, becoming policemen, subordinate in penitentiary or executing controlling functions in unemployment institution. What drives them, what are their moral rewards?
We often read and talk about violation of human rights somewhere – on the other side of globe, about murders of journalists and activists, who dared to reveal the truth, about wars, corruption and overall decrease of life value there. (more…)

JETZT mit DEUTSCHE ÜBERSETZUNG

There are 580 entries for ‘escort agency’ in Vienna yellow pages
There are more than 1.506 registered prostitutes in Austrian capital.
There is no data how many prostitutes work in Vienna illegally, at least 3.000.
(Prostitution in Österreich, Wien, 2008, Bundeskanzleramt)
In Österreich sind nach Schätzungen von NGOs etwa 5.000 bis 7.000 Frauen in der Prostitution tätig. Der Großteil sind Migrantinnen (Sexworkers News)

AMS (Austrian work market service)
Early in the morning I arrived at AMS for routine checkup as one of 287.150 Austrian unemployed. There was already a queue by the door. Jobless stood by the wall with air of hopelessness and anxiety expecting their names to be called out. Their faces kept traces of adjustment to existing order of things and their cloth – traces of long-time scarcity, when bright yellow shirt with writing “boss”, perhaps gained at charity, shone defiantly in dim light of corridor beside velvet shabby designer suit and hiking jacket, that saw better times decades ago. I already knew that such appointments scarcely bring good news or worthy job offer, but may change my life to the worse. Unemployed may be send as herd of sheep to variety of mandatory courses, distinguished by formality and coercive discipline, which is based at threat of allowance abort. Nervousness of others infected me, I felt sweat pouring down my back, and my knees trembled. As if escalating tension of situation, man in yellow shirt started to hiccup loudly, and others stood around and looked in the space numbly. Then Tanya appeared. (more…)

Galina writes about her adventures with Wohnbeihilfe (accommodation social help) and Austrian post-office.
Do you know somebody never making mistakes? It must be specie of artificial intellect. Humans simply need to miss a target now and then to guarantee one accurate shot.
I don’t claim to be possessor of absolute truth. Like any other mortal, I make wrong judgments on certain occasions in my search for true fact. I may be completely in the power of ego sometimes, feeling the world developed personal grudges against me.
But then change of tide brings ability for detached view and main condition for objectivity – inner piece. Unhappy people tend to be subjective and make those around them unhappy too. Those who steadily accumulate unhappiness: poor, sick, outcasts, drug-users, illegal immigrants, persons in refugee camps and prisoners – accumulate also enormous destructive force to strike back, subjected to uncontrollable aggression, which affects innocent people. Society must care more about deprived and downtrodden to improve general psychological climate and prevent murder, rape, robbing, domestic violence and suicide.
As I also witness certain deprivation, I started to use instinctively such instrument of defense as word to restore my equilibrium between good and evil. This instrument contains huge destructive and creative potential, in spite of mask of Internet gibberish it carries.
I always tried and would use every my word with consideration. (more…)