WIEN – Rund 8.000 Demonstranten beim Urban-Loritz-Platz am Gürtel

Tausende Studenten haben am Donnerstag in ganz Österreich für die Verbesserung der Studienbedingungen protestiert. In Wien versammelten sich rund 8.000 Demonstranten am Urban-Loritz-Platz bei der Stadthalle. Auch an anderen Uni-Standorten gingen Hunderte auf die Straße. Das in Wien befürchtete Verkehrschaos blieb aus.

Reportage about student’s strike in Vienna

Galina Toktalieva for Die Wiener Nachrichten
In spite of energetic cries of young people around me, I could not get rid of feeling of looking at performance or game, which rules everybody followed. Austrian students not only civilly demonstrated their disagreement with politics of authorities in sphere of education, but also – many of them – drank certain beverages during manifestation as one could drink water and use common euphoria as pretext to consume certain things to their satisfaction

Werner Braun für die Wiener Nachrichten

Ich kann mich noch gut erinnern, als der erste Block des Wohnparks Alt-Erlaa fertiggestellt war und die Wohnungen in allen Medien beschrieben wurden. So gerne hätte ich selbst auch eine kleine eigene Wohnung dort gehabt. Allerdings war ich zu der Zeit noch in Ausbildung und hatte keine Chance, auch nur das Geld für die Anzahlung aufzubringen.

Lange Zeit – auch schon lange vor der Fertigstellung – war das Projekt Stadtgespräch und eifrig wurde das Für und Wider diskutiert, natürlich von Leuten, die nicht selbst dort wohnten, sondern bloß Vorstellungen davon entwickelten wie das sei oder sich einfach Vorurteile angelesen hatten. Nach und nach gab es auch Leute, die tatsächlich dort wohnten. Hin und wieder lernte man einen Alt-Erlaa-Bewohner kennen, oder man kannte jemand, der einen solchen kannte, oder auch nur jemand, der seinerseits jemand kannte, der einen Alt-Erlaa-Bewohner kannte. Und langsam mischten sich damit auch Erfahrungs- und Praxisberichte in die bislang theoretische, aber deswegen nicht minder emphatische Diskussion. (more…)

Werner Braun für Die Wiener Nachrichten

Wenn man sich der Urania vom Stadtpark her nähert, dann sieht man deutlich, dass sich zumindest in einer Himmelsrichtung das relativ neue UNIQA-Gebäude über dem Donaukanal dem spähenden Teleskop in den Weg stellt, welches dann vielleicht statt ferner Welten die Unterlagen auf den Schreibtischen der Versicherungsbeamten entdeckt.
Diese sitzen noch dazu in fast uneingeschränkt einsehbaren Büros und werden sicher auch kein angenehmes Gefühl dabei empfinden, wenn sie in kurzer Entfernung ein Teleskop auf sich gerichtet sehen, auch wenn niemand ernsthaft die Absicht hat, ihre Arbeitsplätze mit dem Teleskop zu durchsuchen.

Man kann sich ja kaum vorstellen, dass sich mitten in der Stadt eine Sternwarte befindet. Aber die Urania am Donaukanal ist tatsächlich ein richtiges Himmelsobservatorium. Es wurde um 1909 von Max Fabiani, einem Schüler Otto Wagners errichtet und 1910 von Kaiser Franz Joseph feierlich eröffnet. Neben der Himmelbeobachtung dient die Urania vor allem der Volksbildung. Sie beherbergt die Urania-Puppenspiele, ein Kino und etliche Vortrags- und Schulungseinrichtungen, die vor allem von der Volkshochschule genutzt werden.

Im Zweiten Weltkrieg wurde die Urania schwer beschädigt und die Kuppel fast zur Gänze zerstört. Erst 1957 war sie wieder soweit instand gesetzt, dass sie wiedereröffnet werden konnte. In den Jahren 2002 und 2003 erfolgte dann eine Generalsanierung. Im Zuge derer wurde auch eine Gastronomieeinrichtung mit Terrasse zum Donaukanal hin eingebaut. (more…)

As I am quick reader and frequent visitor of Thalia bookshop, I often experience choice problems in front of shelve with non-fiction books in English there. It seems, most prominent motivation and inspirational American authors market their creativity so well, that my buyer capabilities stand in direct proportion to sacred knowledge I can attain from these gurus. Often book bought here, its price extracted from provision sustenance, had diminished or repetitive content and extra quantity of illustrations or empty sheets. Whatever contemporary spiritual teachers write in their books inspiring us to free ourselves of materialistic attitudes and vanity, book industry, representing them and many other authors, demonstrates opposite, non-spiritual and profit-orientated approach.
I felt increasing interest toward Austrian authors and book events that took part in Austria.

Yesterday I was just roaming through two books – novel of Austrian Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, where it was hard to follow main idea due to odd amount of metaphoric curls and  through non-fiction book of John Leake about Vienna serial killer, when I suddenly got call from my old Graz acquaintance, who in his shopping ramble occurred to be not far away and asked me to meet him for a talk.
In spite of time deficit, I urge myself to be sympathetic toward person, who probably felt himself lonely in big city. (more…)

In breaks we were eating together in dim canteen of education center in routine of our unemployment compulsory course. Dining hall was full of people.

Social control in form of compulsory education

It was steaming stewed cabbage, which melted in the mouth and reminded me of hearty soviet meals, which were but 200 times cheaper. My companion treated cabbage with great appetite. She was attractive woman of forty, with trim figure and regular face features, which together with her lively way, made her looking more of brown-eyed Gallic type, than woman from Vorarlberg. Like many others in my surroundings, Martha was very talkative and exploded now and then with distinctly articulated passages of eloquence. Relative longevity of German lexical units and typically loud manner of speaking with low, throat voice always increased my impression of Austrian vocalizations affluence.
(more…)

Every housewife knows that the real sign of her adequate housekeeping is sanitary state of kitchen and WC. Smell of toilet can narrate story about  lodgers, as single bone can help paleontologist create picture of dinosaur. Human body is a system of exchange with environment where nor input of nourishment neither output of excretion can be neglected. In general terms, metabolism of living organisms is process of extraction of sun energy from outer space, where all derivatives of this process have equal value.

It is considered to be low to write about excretion and talk about it in society. But feces, as waste products, eliminated from our body, besides bacteria and microorganisms contain particles of our digestive tract, that means they are true product of our biological creative activity. When reading diaries of Salvador Dali, one can see artist paid special attention to his feces and observed them with interest as manifestation of his body creativity. Considering topic of toilets and its sanitary from global point of view, one can keep in mind absence of metaphysical  difference between nutritional inputs and outputs of our body as part of eternal energy circulation. Thoroughly washed apple we are chewing now accumulated range of layers of previous generations urine and feces, as well as air we breath, had multiple times come through millions of other lungs. (more…)

Whenever I look out of window, and see a piece of blue sky, roofs with black dots of crows at antennas, and hear distant lulling clang of tram, I feel piece and sweet anticipation of new rendezvous with Vienna. I go out and gaze at surrounding curious subjects as newly born soul and wish I would walk forever and lose myself in the city, where every street is terra incognita and deja vu. But if I dwell not in parks or secluded suburban streets, but move to the center, where heart of the city beats, very soon tiredness and gloomy indifference go down as fog at me. It is monotony, that saddens me. As many other cities of the world, Vienna central streets are there mostly for shops and cafes.
Accepting my destiny of frustrated pedestrian, und would enter all boutiques that will come my way, one by one, responding to appealing grace of mannequins in shop windows.
Avoiding enthusiastic assistance of sales-women, I would look at long rows of cloth and brood over the fact that many shops live on one simple operation of selling goods, that were produced in China, East Europe and countries of the third world.
By other words, trade gets profit at difference of prices. This wool pullover was made somewhere at the other side of globe and brought here for sale. Group of worn out factory women knitted it  and probably got their decent  share as 20 cents for item, and then the managers, drivers, pilots, watchmen got their modest rewards too. But main payment would be received by local shop-keepers, when you enter Vienna shop and buy this pulli for 40 euros. (more…)

Vienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria’s primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million (2.3 million within the metropolitan area), it is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by population in the European Union. Vienna is host to many major international organizations such as the United Nations and OPEC. Vienna lies in the east of Austria and is close to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site

With Vienna like with hearty meal, you must not eat before you feel piece in your heart and only with those, whom you really like, otherwise eat alone. Vienna opens its secrets to everybody, who already blessed with feeling of satisfaction. Catch the moment and enjoy it. It is worthy, and can never be repeated.