bicyclemark

Secret Cities

As we stroll through the snow-ice-slush filled streets of Tomsk, my new friends here have come to understand my penchant for abandoned places and forgotten history. It just so happens that Siberia has plenty of forgotten history and strange stories that could keep a citizen reporter like me busy for a long time. The trick is getting access when you’re an outsider and you don’t speak the language.

My favorite story so far is about a place only 7 kilometers outside of Tomsk, a town by the name of Seversk. Some may remember it from when it was called Tomsk-7, the town where 3 important nuclear reactors were located. What makes this town stand out more than the already impressive number of nuclear facilities it houses, is that during the Soviet Union the government decided for security purposes, the existence of these towns should be kept a secret, and access to these towns would be restricted. How do you restrict access to a town? They took a page from the medieval days of kings and kingdoms, they built a wall around it. To get in one must have official permission, or be a resident, and surely NOT be a foreigner.

With the fall of the Soviet Union in the beginning of the 1990’s, it was decided that these towns (most at least) should be able to choose if they want to stay closed off by walls and armed guards. Amazingly, many voted to stay that way. Why? Perhaps it was fear of the outside world. Fear that their lives would change in a way they never wanted. Whatever the reason, it is amazing to think that 7 km from where I sit at this very moment, there is a massive wall that surrounds a town of 100,000 people who in order to go to work in the morning, must show papers to military personnel at a checkpoint.

Take this already interesting situation and add the facts that 1 – Through nuclear disarmament deals between the US and Russia, 2 of Seversk’s reactors have been shut down, and 2 – in 1993 there was an explosion at one the facilities resulting in a radio active cloud – what you get is a very confusing and difficult situation within the walls of Seversk. Or at least, that’s what I think when I consider potentially large unemployment plus an extreme environmental hazard, bottled up in one town.

Coming up next – A podcast about Seversk and life in a secret city. I can’t get inside, but I’m hoping to speak with someone who comes outside on a regular basis, maybe I’ll even get to go to the wall just to see it first-hand.

Siberia is Below

It is 5:08am in Tomsk, Russia; 2:08am in Moscow, Midnight in Amsterdam, 6pm back in New Jersey, and 3pm in LA. I didn’t have to come to Siberia to give you a run down of time zones, but after taking off and landing a couple of times today, I feel like I’m really living in all of these. As I look down to see scattered lights of unknown Siberian towns, I’m like an astronaut looking down at earth, watching land masses go by and fairly often; in awe of it’s vastness.

Beautiful girl next to me has a book. It’s probably nothing special as far as books go, but looking over at it’s pages spilling over with Cyrillic text, in my eyes it is some ancient text drafted by a highly advanced society. The girl herself- a beautiful scholar with the wisdom to understand it all and dare I think it- to explain it all to me during the next four hours aboard Siberian Airlines flight bla bla with nonstop service to Tomsk. “angleski?” I ask in my makeshift Russian dilect I create on the spot. “very bad” she responds. We smile at each other….

The Crime Known as War

My good friends and colleagues at wikileaks have released a long anticipated and truly horrifying video obtained unofficially from the US military. Unofficially is putting it kindly, the US military never wanted you to see this video where civilians are targeted and killed over and over. I could say more but I’d rather let the video and wikileaks do the talking, so please watch for yourself.

A Place Like Lloret

As the bus drove further and further out of Barcelona, I stared out the window, following the coastline as it occasionally disappeared behind a hill or houses. I watched the Costa Brava unfold in front of me, just as the sun was going down at the end of a beautiful spring day in March. Looking at the landscape on the way to Lloret, I found myself wondering if that beach town up ahead was it, hmm not this one, perhaps its the next one. After doing this several times, I dosed off.

Waking up not 20 minutes later, it was now clearly dark out and the bus was moving slowly along regular two lane roads. The sign ahead read “Lloret de Mar – Centro” or something to that effect. As I scanned the lights outside, I noted an abundance of neon signs: “Go-Go Dancers”, “Exotic Dancers”, and so on. Welcome to the outskirts of Lloret, just a little tap from a city that when you arrive after nightfall, the atmosphere punches you in the face.

It punches you in the face with neon signs, blasting club music, and teenagers screaming, singing and chanting about anything and everything. I’m making my way from the bus station to the beach by walking down what should be the glorious mainstreet of this vacation hotspot, where the elderly come to stroll leisurely during the day, and adolescents come to go wild, in many cases, for the first time ever away from home.

It’s a Sunday afternoon and we have a 3 hour break between games. I walk away from the beach to buy some food supplies at a local supermarket, which happens to be on that infamous avenue with all the neon and vomit. The crepe man is smiling as people queue up in front of him, he greets me and starts showing me how many industrial size containers of batter he made fresh this morning. “I make them fresh every morning” he assures me while opening many different cabinets behind him revealing tall white 5 liter jugs. I start asking a bit more about his business when we’re suddenly interrupted by a loud cheering. Behind me a bus had pulled up, the doors open and out pour dozens upon dozens of Portuguese teenagers, ripe from a 12 hour bus ride from Porto. They look up and around as if they’ve landed on another planet, clinging to their hand luggage on wheels and travel pillows. The crepe man motions towards them with his spatula: “New groups arriving everyday, twice a day… even more next week for Easter vacation, they come here in their last year of high school- thousands of them.” He says this with half a smile. For him it means more business. But it also means tonight after he closes up, countless kids will smash bottles and urinate on the wall next to his crepe stand.

Its all in the game, people working in Lloret seem to say without saying it. This is what their city does, as an infamous and celebrated destination for youth from Portugal, England, the Netherlands, etc. They are there to cook the food, make the beds, run the nightclubs, and oh yeah – wash the streets every morning once the kids have passed out. Just in time for the elderly who get up for their daily constitutional along the beach.

Lloret could be any spring break town in many countries around the world. The place where the kids want to go, the place that although I may look upon with a sense of disgust, to them represents freedom and excitement.

On my way home from the obligatory post-frisbee party on my first night around 2am, I take the long way home, passing through some of Lloret’s narrow streets and alleys. Weaving through the bodies that seem to be strewn around randomly, I run into a thick crowd of kids singing in Portuguese. I take off my headphones to listen closely…. “Viva.. Viva Lloret” they sing. Why would anyone feel like they needed to sing praises to the city they are in, late at night, I wondered. Then I walked on past the kids making out here and there, and the groups of 6 and 8 kids laughing and walking arm-in-arm. I realized right there was the inspiration for their songs of praise, a thank you to the place that they feel has given them what they wanted.

Away throwing discs

Something I rarely do, I’m on hiatus for the next three days. Off throwing plastic discs in some tacky part of Catalunya.

Til I get back I recommend you browse the archives and categories; after more than 9 years of producing content for the internets, there’s plenty here to discover or revisit!

Hiding ACTA From the World

The first time I heard about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was in a news report on EURACTIV.com about how something called ACTA had suffered a defeat in the EU parliament. I figured it was one of these anti-file sharing, increase-internet surveillance type bills you hear about here and there in the media and through online discussions. Measures of that nature have been threatened and in some cases passed over the past decade with limited coverage and even more limited understanding among the general public.

A little further reading and it turns out that report out of parliament was just the tip of the iceberg. ACTA isn’t a European Union initiative, it turns out – ACTA is an international trade agreement which claims to create international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement throughout the participating countries.

Sound boring? It gets exciting. This trade agreement is being shopped all over the world in an attempt to convince nations to sign on because this will be the agreement that brings effective and up-to-date control over counterfeit goods, generic medicines, as well as “piracy over the Internet”. The terms to achieve these goals are being laid out during rounds of negotiations that have been going on since 2008.

Such an agreement that addresses so many areas of our lives, surely both we and our representatives should be able to read the terms and policies as they take shape? Nope. The negotiations are being handled through closed door sessions, the proceedings are kept secret. Since 2008 some information has leaked and a handful of corporations and organizations have been allowed to look over the treaty. Or so it seems according to some reports.

I have plenty more to learn about this treaty, but one thing that already has me concerned, is the power of this treaty, and the dangerous secrecy with which it is being pushed. In the coming weeks I intend to interview individuals who have insight and knowledge into this treaty and see what more can be learned. This will begin this week with a podcast interview with Michael Massnick of techdirt who has been following ACTA for the past few years.