ATLAS special edition

THE WORLD IN MOTION: THE GEBRÃœDER WEISS MAGAZINE

SPECIAL EDITION 2018

ASPIRATIONS

Improved survival rate: ­B etween 2000 and 2015 the number of people worldwide dying from ­m alaria halved from 839,000 to 438,000.

Efficient agriculture: During the past 50 years global grain production has tripled on almost the same amount of land.

Women at work: In 2015 some 50 percent­ more women had jobs than in 2000.

Booming world economy: ­ Total exports and imports ­b etween countries account for more than half of all ­g lobal production today.

Travel broadens the mind: According to estimates from the United Nations World Tourism Organization, there were some 25 million tourists in 1950. In 2016 there were 1. 2 billion, almost 50 times as many.

Airborne safety: In 2000 there were 37 fatal accidents in commercial ­aviation, in 2017 just ten.

There were zero aircraft ­h ijackings in 2017 compared to no fewer than 27 in 2000.

What can I hope for?

Given the sad and often depressing events unfolding around the world today, hope might be considered a ­naive impulse. But it isn’t. It’s a virtue.

And a virtue, as Aristotle taught us, is not something that falls from the sky. It is something we need to ­nurture by ­doing good deeds, and then it will gradually take root. Once we have cultivated a virtue, it is easier to find the right balance between too little and too much – and do the right thing. And if we do that, we’ll enjoy more success in life – indeed enjoy life itself more.

The virtue of hope is no different. Anyone seeking hope needs to put it into practice. And focus on things that ­inspire and foster it. That is precisely what this ATLAS is all about.

We have gathered stories from each of the 30 countries where we operate – stories that open our eyes to ­ge­nuine wellsprings of optimism. Because people with hope allow themselves freedom: the freedom to take an active part in our communities, to help shape them, to expect nothing less than the best. So hope for whatever you want. Just never give up on hope!

Yours, Gebrüder Weiss

The world in motion:

wolfgang niessner “I’d rather trust” 6 A RMENIA

tigran petrosyan Chess in their blood – and their school schedules 11

CZECH REPUBLIC

kilian kirchgessner A new lease on life for an age-old craft 35 imke borchers A date with number eight 37 GEORGIA

AUSTRIA

andreas uebele Both beautiful and good 20 questions for Stefan Sagmeister 13 emanuel moosbrugger It’s all about the vision 17

nino haratischwili Georgia – all and nothing 39 alexander kharlamov Spanning Europe and Asia 41 GERMANY

rayna breuer Youth exchanges and reconciliation 19

andreas spaeth A dense network, high in the sky 43 christian engel Consistent customer orientation 45

BULGARIA

HONG KONG

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

rayna breuer If everyone goes, who’s going to be left? 21

felix lee The perfect port of call 47

CANADA

HUNGARY

jörg michel The polar highway 25 CHINA

felix lee China goes electric 27 gao zhen “E-mobility is our bread and butter” 28 CROATI A

marijan vrdoljak Rimac Automobili – the flying start-up from the garage 31 barbara bujacic Long coastlines, start-ups and doing one’s own thing 33

martin fejér The future from the puszta 49 stefano dal cin Disappearing borders, emerging ideas 51 JAPAN

martin fritz When man becomes subservient to machines 53 K AZAKHSTAN

edda schlager Paving the way for prosperity 55 MACEDONIA

keno verseck “As an entrepreneur, I have a responsibility towards society” 57

MONTENEGRO

TURKEY

martin kaluza Warming up to school 59

philipp mattheis Overcoming boundaries 85

ROMANIA

TURKMENISTAN

miruna munteanu, bogdan alexander The Enlightener 61 viorel leca Tapping the energy 62

edda schlager In the realm of the golden horses 87 UKRAINE

RUSSIAN FEDERATION

denis trubetskoy Anja takes off 89

wlada kolosowa Talk, talk, and talk some more 65

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

SERBIA

imke borchers EXPO 2020 in Dubai 91

alex raack A star that stands for you 67

UNITED STATES

frederic spohr Den of drones 71

andreas spaeth Seven runways for a single hub 93 john mulrow Sweet beginnings 95

SLOVAKIA

VIETNAM

kilian kirchgessner The blossoming of Kosice 73

frederic spohr Powered by the people 97

SLOVENIA

wolfram senger-weiss Keeping the spirit alive 98

SINGAPORE

krsto lazarevic One woman’s story: women in history 77

Authors 102 SWITZERLAND

peer teuwsen Outlet for public anger 79 miriam holzapfel Highs and lows 81 TAIWAN

klaus bardenhagen Taiwan’s tireless mirror cleaner 83

Impressum 104

“I’d rather trust” After nearly 15 years at the helm of Gebrüder Weiss, Wolfgang Niessner will be retiring as planned at the end of the year.

His tenure has marked a highly successful era for the company. But how, in retrospect, does the top executive view his years in office? What has been ­accomplished? What still needs to be done? An interview about the different stages of life, about beginnings and endings.

ASPIRATIONS 7

interview: Frank Haas Mr. Niessner, what were your hopes when you first took up the post of CEO at Gebrüder Weiss 15 years ago?

I was hoping things would turn out well – both for the com­ pany and for me personally. The initial situation in 2004 was impeccable, but it was clear that soon clouds would appear on the horizon. In other words, there was a certain amount of pressure – coupled with the hope of be­ing able to lead the company into a new era. That being said, hope is a very ­future-oriented word. Notwithstanding the strategic and visionary thinking that this job demands, you still have to make sure that you’re anchored firmly in the present and reflecting both the company’s past and its evolved corporate culture.

Are you saying that you weren’t planning for your tenure to become a marathon?

No, I wasn’t saying that. But in the course of those 42 kilome­ ters, the point is to negotiate every single one. I had a goal in mind, namely to make the company fit for new challenges with new methods and a clear focus on service excellence.

I communicated that goal quite explicitly to my team, because I believe that employees have a right to know what to expect.

And did you attain that goal?

In my view, yes. And I was still feeling relatively fresh when I reached the finish line (laughs). Seriously, though: we ­comfortably exceeded my expectations. But that’s actually always been the way. Maybe it’s because I’m more con­ cerned with the concrete task at hand than with expectations.

Having more than my fair share of luck also helped.

How have you changed personally during these years with the company?

I have had the privilege of being able to work with lots of very interesting people. I have learned to assess my own strengths

and weaknesses more accurately. And I have come to appre­ ciate what values such as loyalty and commitment really mean. People placed enormous trust in me. I hope that they were never disappointed.

You have always stressed that trust is a key element of any corporate culture. How do you deal with situations where people abuse that trust?

I’m disappointed, but not surprised. When you interact with people, you need to be prepared for setbacks. But I don’t let something like that throw me off course. As a rule, I chalk it up to experience and begin a new chapter. And if haven’t suffered too badly on a personal level, I can be quick to ­forgive.

When you first came to Gebrüder Weiss in 1999, you had a reputation as a “tough cookie” who was into control and judged his people based on the KPIs. That’s quite right. The situation back then demanded as much. One of my first jobs at Gebrüder Weiss was to reor­ ganize the all-important Vienna location. And for that KPI s and professional processes were vital. But the better the ­situation got, the better I got to know and value my team, the more I could trust them and delegate. It’s my opinion that a leader needs to be flexible enough to deploy different tools in different phases. But still: at the end of the day, I’d rather be the trusting than the controlling one.

Another cornerstone of your leadership approach is simplicity.

In a world that is constantly growing more complex, sim­plic­ ity can really be empowering for a company. I must admit, though, that my hopes were not completely fulfilled on that count. Not least because of external influences, particu­larly new regulations, have done little to simplify business.

8

And doesn’t simplicity often fail due to a lack of trust?

Yes. And to old processes that people have come to value and are reluctant to abandon.

Is simplicity a guiding principle in your personal life as well?

For sure! I try to delegate everything I find unpleasant (laughs)!

What do you mean by “unpleasant”? Having to deal with public authorities, or electricians and such?

You need to know that, in my private sphere, I usually let my sanguine side out. By that I mean that, when dealing with suppliers or handymen, I don’t set out to drive a hard bar­ gain. Not to mention the fact that I don’t know enough about these things to give myself airs and graces. I just don’t like empty mileage. If I need a new television set, I go out and buy one – without having spent days on the Internet reading all the reports. I know that means I make the occasional ­mistake, but I deliberately accept that. Please don’t interpret this as the arrogance of someone in a financially comfort­ able position. There have been times when we were not doing so well in that respect. But I was the same back then, too.

Yet you can understand why some people take a completely different approach and take the time to read up all the details?

Of course. Look, I am not someone who is particularly inter­ ested in technology. I’m a miserable handyman. That furni­ ture you need to assemble yourself? It has had a terrible time with me (laughs). To be honest, I don’t think I have ever read a set of instructions in my entire life. But I can certainly

­“Notwithstanding the vagaries of our diversified democratic decision-making, we should still uphold this system.”

­ nder­stand – and wholeheartedly respect the fact – that u ­people are different and think differently. That kind of hetero­geneity is vital – for a company as well.

How do you maintain your decision-making power?

Making decisions is part of management and part of my job.

That said, there is no dogma involved. I’m a hopeless prag­ matist … but as such never betray my principles.

Would you have expected, 15 years ago, that the eco­ nomic and political circumstances would have changed so much?

I’m from an era in which every year was predicted to post three or four percent economic growth. There were obviously a few exceptions, but then came the 2008 – 2009 financial crisis. It was totally unexpected, and it demonstrated that forecasts are rarely set in stone. There were also several ­developments on the political front that I had not anticipat­ ed – and in some ways I am disappointed, angry and con­ cerned. On the other hand, you need to respect even unwel­ come decisions if they have been made by the majority.

Notwithstanding the vagaries of our diversified democratic deci­sion-­making process and its occasional erratic results, we should still uphold this system.

Today it’s a fact that many politicians communicate ­exclusively on Twitter and completely ignore traditional diplomatic practice. You are a self-proclaimed opponent of social media.

It’s not as though I don’t appreciate the positive aspects of these new methods of communication. But because I hold the negative aspects – the populist rantings and the public yet anonymous character assassinations – to be so horren­ dously detrimental, I have personally opted out. In terms of our society, my hope is that this world remains a place worth inhabiting, and that reason will finally triumph over these excesses. On the other hand, I think the chances of that ­happening are only fifty-fifty. Unfortunately. It’s hurt­ ful to see how carelessly, how ruthlessly we sometimes treat one another. The growing trend to sow division is very disturbing.

You have three children and three grandchildren. What advice would you give them for the future?

That you need to be both courageous and circumspect.

You need to have self-confidence without being overbearing.

Pragmatism without opportunism. And ambition without ruthlessness. That you should not lose sight of respect and decency. And that success is not the only thing that counts; quality of life matters as well. If you can only achieve suc­

ASPIRATIONS 9

“I’ve ­ always wanted to win, whether it be in my career or in sports, and even played it tough if neces­ sary. Victory – but not at any cost.”

cess by making an enormous effort and enormous sacrifices, I’m not sure it’s worthwhile. I myself have made sacrifices at times, but I have never overstepped certain thresholds.

In what circumstances could that occur?

If my family were to fall apart, for instance. Or if I were to do something improper that would make me feel ashamed. I’ve always wanted to win, whether it be in my career or in sports, and even played it tough if necessary. Victory – but not at any cost. Defeats help shape a person’s character, and they can teach you important lessons.

Do you have a strategy, some way to prepare yourself for reversals or personal calamities?

When my father died I was totally unprepared. All I felt was grief. So no, I don’t have any strategies. It’s an interesting question. You know, hope always has to do with your own perspective on life. When you can see that the glass is half full – and that’s how I’ve always seen it – then at some point you somehow find your way back to this new reality. Pre­­ paring myself for some twist of fate that might throw me off ­balance would make me sad even before the event, and I don’t like being sad. What’s more, it wouldn’t fit with my creed of living in the present.

Which phase of your life do you remember most fondly?

The best time of a man's life is between the ages of 30 and 50.

At 30 you’re no longer as dumb as you were, but still quite youthful. At 40 you’re a good bit more mature, although many men at that age start going crazy and think they need to buy a big, bad motorcycle.

How did your midlife crisis manifest itself?

I think I skipped it. My wife made sure of that.

Now you’re entering the retirement phase. Some men have problems with that as well …

I’m less sentimental about retirement than many people might think. But the fact that I will be 64 years old and know

that, best case, two thirds of my life is over – the best ­two-thirds – I’m not really happy about that.

When did you start tallying up the years like this?

I think it was when I was 50. And at 60 I started thinking about it more often.

So human immortality is a paradigm you would embrace?

Sure.

Immortality in retirement … ? … in a well-paid retirement (laughs)! Seriously, though: I have had a tremendous amount of good fortune in my life, you might even say an overdose; you can’t hope for more.

That being said, if we could add another hundred years to the equation, I wouldn’t object.

What new things do you plan to do when you retire?

First of all, I’m going to put my memories down on paper.

I’m not planning to publish them; it’s something I’m ­doing for myself. There will only be one copy of that book.

And I will still be with the company as a member of the ­supervisory board.

What advice would you give your successors?

None. Both Wolfram Senger-Weiss and Jürgen Bauer (Editor’s ­Note: joining the board in the business area Land Transport) are extremely competent men who are widely respected and very well versed in the workings of the ­business and the company. What is more, every era has its own challenges and every executive his or her own style.

Yesterday’s recipes won’t necessarily solve tomorrow’s ­problems.

What do you wish for Gebrüder Weiss?

My hope would be that Gebrüder Weiss remains an organi­ zation that makes lots of people happy. I hope this company will be able to prevail in the face of stern and sometimes unfair competition. And that it will be able to add many more chapters to its unique story.

Armenia

approx. 270 km

Yerevan

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

1 / 2

Foodstuffs and live animals Mineral products Base metals and their products

LANGUAGES

Armenian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

35.1 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

7.15 °C LAND AREA

29,743 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

7,792 km / 703 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

76.40 %

Mineral products Foodstuffs and live animals Machines and industrial plant NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Referendum on independence 1991: September 21 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Gata – a sweet pastry typically prepared for ­Candlemas on February 14 BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Franz Werfel: “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh” * PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Armenian brandy, apricots

A tip from the GW employee Armine Bedevyan

ASPIRATIONS: ARMENIA 11

The greats look down from the walls at the young and old masters playing at the tables.

C hess in their blood – and their school schedules text: Tigran Petrosyan Reading, writing and arithmetic – these are the three disci­ plines that children learn when they start school. But in ­Armenia there’s a fourth: in 2011 the republic in the Caucasus with three million inhabitants became the first country to make chess a compulsory subject from second to fourth grade. Chess is the national sport in Armenia and politicians prefer not to leave the next generations’ skills to chance.

“As a child I didn’t enjoy chess because I wasn’t as good as my brother, who was the junior world champion,” recalls Mikayel Andriasyan. Andriasyan is just 27 years old and ­already general-secretary of his country’s chess federation.

So, evidently, he did finally succumb to a passion for the game. In addition to his work at the federation, he also coor­ dinates the schools program and all the activities of the ­national chess academy. Potential stars of the future aged ­between five and 20 study here, honing their skills in amateur tournaments on top of their regular chess courses at school.

The academy operates branches in 53 different towns. ­Gaining admission is no easy task.

Given the positive experiences of the mandatory lessons, plans are now afoot to extend the program, the general-sec­ retary explains: a curriculum for 11- to 15-year-olds is current­ ly being tested. Even countries like Belarus, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have approached Armenia about it, he adds: they wanted to adopt the chess program in Armenia for their

own schools, not least – presumably – because of effects that have nothing to do with winning medals. Andriasyan points to international studies and notes, “Chess players don’t do drugs.”

The role model for many Armenian chess players is Tigran Petrosian. A grandmaster, he was world champion between 1963 and 1969 and also topped the team world r­ ankings with the USSR , which won nine Olympic gold medals with his help. Simultaneously he completed a Ph. D. on the role of logic in chess and spent years as the editor-in-chief of the Soviet chess magazine.

Petrosian, who is still revered as a national hero today, also laid the foundations in 1967 of the Chess House in Yere­ van’s central park, the chess federation’s headquarters. In­ side the building’s foyer old folk play against each other and engage in animated discussion about moves and strategies.

Not far away there are several benches and tables in the park. There’s a bubbling atmosphere because here, under the trees, residents of the capital can be found facing off over the black-and-white boards. All kinds of residents: children, women and men. Young and old. They compete with each other or analyse famous matches from the past. They are all familiar with the ideas and tactics of the old masters. The people here have no doubt: “Playing chess leads to a better future.” And that future begins at school.

Austria

approx. 295 km

Bludenz, Feldkirch, Graz, Hall / Tirol, Innsbruck, Kalsdorf, ­Kennelbach, Lauterach, Leoben, Leobendorf, Leopoldsdorf, Linz-Hörschig, Maria Lanzendorf, Maria Saal, Pöchlarn, Salzburg, Sulz, Vienna, Vienna-Schwechat, Wels, Wolfurt, Wörgl

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

T OP THREE EXPORT AREAS

38 / 3,046 LANGUAGES

Machines and vehicles Processed goods Chemical products

German and, regionally, Slovenian, Croatian, ­Hungarian

TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS

AVERAGE AGE

44 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

6.35 °C LAND AREA

83,882 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

133,597 km / 4 ,937 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

100.60 %

Machines and vehicles Processed goods Other finished goods NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Declaration of Neutrality 1955: October 26 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Leberkässemmel –A bread roll containing a slice of boiled sausage made in the form of a cheese loaf BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Robert Seethaler: “The Tobacconist” PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Mozart balls, Manner wafers

ASPIRATIONS: AUSTRIA 13

Both beautiful and good 20 questions for Stefan Sagmeister on beauty and function, Austria and America

text and interview: Andreas Uebele What do logistics have to do with the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture? Quite a bit, actually.

Stowing cargo and making on-time deliveries are an act of aestheticism. You can simply stuff packages, crates and ­other objects willy-nilly into the relevant receptacle – or you can use logic, packing densely and saving space. The order that results is practical, because you’ve made maximum use of the available space; nothing will slide around and get ­damaged in transit. It’s also more pleasing to the eye than chaotically loaded cargo, and the recipient will be happy when everything arrives in good shape and in good time. And that is the bridge to the pavilion in question, which was sponsored this year by Gebrüder Weiss.

The Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale was built by Josef Hoffmann, one of the most prominent representatives of Austrian architecture in the 19th and 20th ­centuries. It is, if you will, an architecture founded on aesthetic function­ alism: the buildings are attractive, but at the same time ful­fill a very precise purpose. This principle has been further ­refined in the current design of the Austrian Pavilion. A huge equality sign cut into the floor connects two rooms in which typographic films are projected onto the c­ eiling. One centers around beauty, the other around function. In other words, beauty equals function, as postulated by ­Sagmeister & Walsh, the American design agency that ­created this installation – and was founded by Bregenz-born Stefan Sagmeister.

People have long been reflecting on the interplay between beauty and function. Louis Sullivan’s “Form follows func­ tion” postulates that beauty – or more precisely, a beautiful shape – results only if it is developed from its function. Adolf Loos distilled this pronouncement into “Ornament and Crime,” by which he meant that pieces of a whole that do not serve a function are ugly per se – we want an attractive house, but also want to live comfortably within its walls. But is beau­

ty really inextricably linked to function? Andreas Uebele asked Stefan Sagmeister 20 questions.

1. This year you’re representing Austria at the Biennale, but you’ve been living abroad for 27 years. What is ­Austrian about you?

I spent all of my really formative years in Austria, until the age of 18 in Vorarlberg and then until 23 in Vienna. Although I would call New York my home, I still feel Austrian and not American. I’m here on a Green Card and have never be­ come a citizen. So here’s the short answer to “What is Aus­ trian about you?” Everything.

2. Beauty = Function is the theme of your work. Can you give me some everyday examples?

We arrived at it through our experiences in our studio: we learned that the more seriously we take a form, the more love we invest in its beauty, the better it will function. There are myriad examples that illustrate this. Take all the function­ al residential buildings that were erected in the seventies and needed to be demolished in the nineties because no one wanted to live in them. That would have worked much better, had beauty been part of the overall objective during the plan­ ning phase.

3. Where is beauty lacking?

Everywhere. Every day. Online. Everywhere.

4. Can beauty exist without function?

Of course it can! In spades! Almost all art has either no func­ tion at all or only a very marginal one. It simply is. It doesn’t need to do anything. The French philosopher Theophile Gautier even believed that functionality inhibits beauty.

He held that only things that don’t function can be beautiful.

The most functional room in a home? The bathroom.

5. Or function without beauty?

Yes, that exists too. Driving on the autobahn may function beautifully: take the ideal curve of the exit ramp. But that’s

Animations depicting the concepts of beauty and ­function are projected onto adjacent ceilings.

An “equals” sign links the rooms.

ASPIRATIONS: AUSTRIA 15

16

Josef Hoffmann’s Pavilion on the grounds of the Biennale. Right: The graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister has ­produced record covers for stars like Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones. He and Jessica Walsh run the New York agency Sagmeister & Walsh. www.sagmeisterwalsh.com

not beautiful. Most people will agree that highway exits are not beautiful; that’s why no one spends their vacation there and there aren’t any hotels built underneath those viaducts.

But that could change – if the exits were designed with love and care.

6. Can things that are kaput be beautiful as well?

Yes, of course – in a certain context. A John Chamberlain sculpture will always look great in a Dia:Beacon museum.

But if you show people photographs of the Taj Mahal and a garbage dump, almost everyone will find the Taj Mahal more beautiful.

7. What is beautiful about Austria?

St. Stephan’s Cathedral. The Kunsthaus Bregenz art museum.

James Turrell’s Skyscape in Oberlech.

8. What is beautiful about America?

The New York skyline. The Grand Canyon. “Spiritual” by Pat Metheny and Charlie Haden.

9. Is ornamentation a crime?

No. At the end of the day, I don’t even think Adolf Loos believ­ed that.

10. Does form really follow function?

No. This idea was voiced by the Chicago architect Louis Sulli­ van. Yet when you look at his work, for instance the entrance to the Carson Pirie Scott building, it’s readily apparent that this form does not follow any function whatsoever. It is fanci­ ful, decorative – and ornamental.

11. Is beauty a luxury?

No. We all feel better in a beautiful environment. And we behave differently. Every morning I go jogging on the High Line in New York and only rarely do I see even a scrap of paper littering my way. Just 50 yards away, in the neighboring Meatpacking District, there’s lots of litter in the gutters.

But not on the High Line. The care used to design the green­ way affects visitors’ behavior.

12. What would you “embellish” if you could?

The security checks at airports.

13. Can beauty also be obstructive?

Maybe. But I for one would rather be obstructed by beauty than repelled by ugliness.

14. What can you say in defense of ugliness?

We can describe beauty as a “formal intention,” and ugliness can also be defined as such. We tend to like and treasure what is intentionally ugly. But most ugly things in the world are not ugly because somebody wanted them to be. They’re ugly because someone didn’t care.

15. What hope underpins the belief in beauty?

That it will be taken seriously again, and once more become a goal of our endeavors.

16. Is the American concept of “beautiful” different from that in Europe?

Many of us think something is beautiful because it’s familiar.

Context also plays a big role: the more secure I feel, the more likely I am to perceive new, surprising things as beau­tiful.

Last week I visited the museum MassMoca in Massa­chusetts and experienced a piece from James Turrell entitled ­“Perfectly Clear.” (By the way, he is also the artist who will be redesign­ing the façade of the MAK museum in Vienna.)

It was so beautiful that, for me, it came close to a drug-­ induced experience.

17. What would it take for you to transfer your permanent residence back to Austria?

Beautiful gas stations. Beautiful bus stops already exist, at least in Krumbach in the Bregenz Forest.

What are your secret hopes …

18. … for your homeland?

I never have secret hopes for Austria.

19. … for your current homeland?

That Trump doesn’t get reelected.

20. … for the world?

That Trump doesn’t get reelected. He is not exactly beauti­ful.

ASPIRATIONS: AUSTRIA 17

It’s all about the ­vision

Emanuel Moosbrugger is the fifth generation of his family to run the Bio­ hotel Schwanen at Bizau in Bregenz Forest. www.biohotel-schwanen.com

The hotelier Emanuel ­Moosbrugger on his return to Austria’s Bregenz Forest interview: Miriam Holzapfel Eighteen years ago I packed my bags and set off from Bizau, a small community in the Bregenz district. I wanted to spread my wings, see the world and live my dreams. To that end I took up a job at a New York restaurant. I started at the bottom and gradually worked my way up. I soon realized I would be staying longer than the planned 18 months in the United States. That said, you really have to be determined to stay put in New York. Otherwise why would you subject yourself to it, to the mindset there? You have to be willing to embrace it.

Before I knew it, seven full years had passed. After that I spent three more years in San Francisco, where I had a great job and the most wonderful lifestyle. But then, one day, I got a phone call from Austria. And I promptly returned to Vorarl­ berg and took over my parents’ business.

I only visited Austria four or five times during my 13 years abroad. I wasn’t really that interested in the events there while I was away. So coming back wasn’t a straight shot. I had become a different person. Life in the United States had re­ shaped what I valued and what I expected. But my homeland had changed as well. My belief that everything would pan out somehow, that I would muddle through and eventually fit in – that was a misapprehension. The old threads I expected

to pick up were no longer there. I was on my own. All the things I did in America, what surviving in New York entails – nobody here could relate to that. So I spent much of the next two years working out how to find my feet. Today I can see that some things are much easier here, raising a family, bring­ ing up children for example. In the States, a place at a good kindergarten costs as much as at a good private school here.

Back in Vorarlberg, I’m putting all the things into practice that I learned during my travels and now consider right. In the restaurant sector here, people typically do what their neighbours are doing. You are constantly asking yourself what your guests would like most. In the U. S., at slightly more ­upmarket establishments, they do things differently: the sole focus is on a vision, a concept that you believe in. Obviously the quality needs to stand up to scrutiny, and value for money is important too. You aren’t constantly obsessed with what your guests want. You wait for them to come and then try to impress them. It’s a relationship between equals. So people can only make reservations if they send me a personal email.

I want to be certain that our guests are a really good fit for us. That way they will come back. Whether this strategy will work in the long term? We’ll have to wait and see.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

approx. 301 km

Sarajevo

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

1 / 30

Raw materials Machines Chemical products

LANGUAGES

Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

42.1 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

9.85 °C LAND AREA

51,129 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

22,926 km / 1,027 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

88.20 %

Foodstuffs Chemical products Crude oil NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Referendum on independence 1992: March 1 ­Pro­clamation of People’s Republic 1943: November 25 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Besauski Lonac – a stew containing meat and ­vegetables BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Ivo Andric: “The Bridge on the Drina” PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Balkan Beats

ASPIRATIONS: BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA 19

Youth exchanges and reconciliation

The RYCO youth exchange program promotes encounters between young people from the western Balkans and their peers from neighboring countries.

text: Rayna Breuer Following two bloody world wars, youth exchange programs have served Germany and France well. Now an agency has been established in the western Balkans that will serve as a model for exchanges involving Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo and the Republic of Macedonia.

A group of young people is standing outside the former Hotel Colombo, listening to a tour guide describing its history.

Some 150 years ago, this building was the site of a very spe­ cial party. Its purpose: to celebrate the completion of the railway line between Thessaloniki and Skopje. Hailing from Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedo­ nia, Montenegro and Croatia, this is the first time these 14 attentive young tourists are visiting Thessaloniki. The second largest city in Greece, it is the capital of the country’s “Mace­ donia” region. For decades this name has been a source of dispute with the adjacent republic of the same name. And for the majority of the tourists, it is the first time they are meet­ ing anyone from a neighboring country.

FORGING A COMMON FUTURE

“It’s important that we connect with other young people in the region. Preconceptions build up when people don’t actually know each other. When we do get together, the ­prejudices soon evaporate,” says Azem Kurtic from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who is taking part in this exchange – which has been jointly organized by Germany’s international broad­casting service Deutsche Welle and the Regional Youth ­Cooperation Office, abbreviated RYCO . It aims to provide services similar to those offered by the Franco-German and German-Polish youth offices that preceded it: networking and establishing personal relations.

The RYCO was created as part of the so-called “Berlin Process.” Its aim was to acquaint the western Balkan states with the EU . The organization supports 35 projects in the

region, ranging from sports events and art projects though to transregional get-togethers for schoolchildren. Nikola Ristic, who is responsible for communication at the RYCO , explains during the tour of Thessaloniki, “People from the western Balkans, maybe from a country like Serbia, don’t really know much about life in Albania. That’s why we form stereotypes. You interpret reality exclusively through the prism of your own subjective views.”

ADMINISTRATIVE BARRIERS

But as curious as many young people might be about their neighbors, there are still plenty of obstacles in their way.

“The ability to travel doesn’t only depend on young people’s financial situation. There are administrative hurdles to over­ come as well. For example, Bosnia and Herzegovina does not recognize the state of Kosovo. Kosovans need a visa to travel to Sarajevo.” And vice-versa. Azem Kurtic from Bosnia and Herzegovina was last in Kosovo almost ten years ago, when there was no visa requirement. Today he needs to travel to the nearest Kosovan consulate in Skopje or Zagreb and apply for one. And the infrastructure in the Balkans adds yet another slew of hurdles to master: “To reach Thessaloniki, I need to get a bus from Sarajevo to Belgrade, then another one from the capital to Skopje, and then complete the journey to Thessaloniki on a third bus.

Altogether that takes 28 hours. And flying is no easier. First I need to take a flight from Sarajevo to Belgrade and from there, board a connection to Thessaloniki. It’s much too com­ plicated,” reports Azem Kurtic. Youth exchange programs and improvements to infrastructure are therefore first on the agenda at the annual EU -western Balkans conferences. ­Regrettably, action rarely follows all the warm words. But there is one ray of hope: since 2014 the historical railway line has been back on track, up and running between Thessa­ loniki and Skopje.

Bulgaria

approx. 330 km

Kazanlak, Musachevo, Varna

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

3 / 118

Foodstuffs Chemical products Non-ferrous metals

LANGUAGES

Bulgarian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

42.7 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

10.55 °C LAND AREA

111,002 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

19,512 km / 4 ,029 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

124.10 %

Chemical products Crude oil Machines NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Treaty of San Stefano 1878: March 3 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Shopksa salad – a mixed salad with tomatoes, ­cucumber, peppers, onions, parsley, salt, oil, feta cheese and lemon juice or vinegar BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Anton Donchev: “Time of Parting” * PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Rose oil, Bulgarian yoghurt A tip from the GW employee Marieta Grigorova

ASPIRATIONS: BULGARIA 21

Granny Milka depends on treatment provided voluntarily by young ­doctors like Sheip Panev.

If everyone goes, who’s going to be left? text: Rayna Breuer Bulgarian medical students don’t generally plan to stay in the country. Sheip Panev too is packing his doctor’s bag, but rather than leaving for western Europe, he is driving out to see the elderly in Bulgaria’s villages.

His stethoscope is packed, the white coat too. The shops are still shut and the sun peeking over the horizon as Sheip Panev begins his working day this Sunday morning. He gets into his car and heads off for his destination about an hour away.

The young medic is in the last year of his degree. He will be taking his final examinations in the fall, after which he hopes to train as an ophthalmologist. He often travels to the remot­ est corners of Bulgaria with his colleagues from the Aleksan­ drovska Hospital in Sofia.

HOPE FOR THE ELDERLY

Granny Milka has high blood pressure. Maybe the soap operas she watches every day are to blame, she suggests. “I really get caught up in some and others are just awful. That makes me mad.” Switch off the TV ? No way, she says. It’s prob­­a­ bly because she doesn’t take her medication properly. Sheip

Panev eyes her meaningfully. “You must take your medicine daily, that’s extremely important. Every day, first thing in the morning, not too late in the day.” This Sunday he has come to a small village about 60 miles north-west of the capital.

Once there he treats the few old women and men that remain.

This stretch of the country is one of the poorest in the EU .

Young people are most likely to be found there at weekends; the rest of the time the dogs and chickens rule the roost. ­Doctors visit these distant outposts once a month, if the in­hab­ i­tants are lucky. In winter, they come when weather permits.

“I always tell my daughter: If something happens to me, by the time I’ve called you and you’ve made it from Sofia, you might as well bury me straight away. We don’t have a doctor here. How often have I prayed that we might find one who at least comes two or three times a week? We only have a mid­ wife who is here looking after her mother. If my leg starts playing up, I go to her and get a shot,” Granny Milka laments.

This situation was too much for Sheip Panev. He couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. He saw it as a call to action.

That’s why he’s here – voluntarily and unpaid. “We must help the people because the state evidently can’t afford to. In every

22 

ASPIRATIONS: BULGARIA 23

Dying villages: emigration and an ageing population have hit Bulgaria more than most other countries worldwide.

grandmother I see my own grandmother, and I feel like there’s a bond between us. The people here appreciate our work and it makes me feel good if I can help, if I can really make a difference.” It also lets him gain practical experience in his profession.

FREE MOVEMENT IN THE EU – A BLESSING FOR SOME, A CURSE FOR OTHERS

Lots of Panev’s fellow students take a different view. Rather than heading for the boonies, they are attracted by the bright lights of western Europe. The pay, working conditions and career opportunities are far better in countries like Austria, Germany and Switzerland than at home. But Sheip Panev is planning to stay. “You only live once and everyone makes their own decision. I don’t blame my colleagues for emigrat­ ing. It’s more difficult for young doctors in Bulgaria. I too could imagine myself going to Germany, but only to train in a specialism. In my view I have an obligation to the people of Bulgaria. I want to treat the people here. That’s my mission.

After all, if everyone goes, who is going to be left?”

Doctors like Sheip Panev are often the difference between life and death in areas like this. “At first we welcomed the opening of European borders, but it also had its downsides.

Nowadays we have the problem that our doctors are lea­ ving for abroad,” says Galinka Pavlova, the former deputy chair of Bulgaria’s federation of doctors. But in future more and more patients might seek treatment in western Europe, ­because the medical services in Bulgaria are below par. ­How­ever, that could put a severe strain on healthcare systems there. And that’s something that foreign countries should consider before they start hiring cheap labor from Bulgaria.

SOCIAL SERVICES? NOTHING DOING

The volunteer medics are a boon for the NGO “Project ­North-­West.” For the past three years Jana Rupeva has been working with the doctors and helping take care of the re­ gion’s for­gotten people. Demand is high. “On top of our work with the elderly, there are mentally handicapped young peo­ ple who have spent their whole lives in homes. We try to help them integrate into society. We sometimes need to teach them really basic things. How do I get to the street from the home? How do I take a train? What do the hands on the clock mean?” she explains. In the country’s backwaters there is no functioning social services infrastructure. Rupeva has

built a workshop for disabled people – and financed it exclu­ sively from voluntary donations.

She doesn’t get a penny from the state. She’s also plan­ ning a kind of soup kitchen service, with disabled people preparing and delivering food to the elderly. She has already collected 90 percent of the funding required. Most of the donations come from Austrians. “The old folks can hardly believe it when people do things for them, when anyone actu­ ally cares about them. They’re incredibly grateful because it allows them to have a decent lifestyle even when they get old,” says Jana Rupeva.

This afternoon the summer festival is being held in a neighboring village. Together with other elderly women, Granny Milka will be singing traditional Bulgarian songs on stage. Her knees may not be cooperating anymore, but that doesn’t matter if her voice holds up. Sheip Panev will need to do something about her knees on his next visit.

Personal mobility within the EU Doctors can leave Bulgaria for France, tourism experts Austria for Spain. Not only is the unrestricted movement of goods and capital guaranteed within the EU ’s member states. The free movement of people is also a pivotal feature of the single market, enabling EU citizens to participate in economic life in each of the member states. They can work, study, live and shop anywhere within the Union.

A passport or national ID card suffices for nationals visit­ ing another member state for up to three months. To stay for a longer period, specific other conditions have to be met, e. g. employment or an apprenticeship. But freelancers and service providers can easily change their location as well. And they can have their families follow.

The prospect of a higher income is the main magnet for workers leaving one EU country for another. This allows countries with skill shortages, particularly those in western Europe, to fill the gaps in their workforces. However, the temptation to ply trades abroad is sometimes offset by perceived social and cultural factors, language obstacles and problems in getting domestic qualifications recognized elsewhere.

Canada

approx. 4,604 km

Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

3 / 16

Cars and automotive components Crude oil Foodstuffs

LANGUAGES

English, French TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

42.2 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

– 5.35 °C LAND AREA

9,984,670 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

1,042,300 km / 52,131 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

64.40 %

Cars and automotive components Machines Electrical engineering NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Declaration of Independence 1867: July 1 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Poutine – fries with gravy and diced cheddar cheese BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Alice Munro: “Heaven and Hell” PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Maple syrup

ASPIRATIONS: CANADA 25 ASPERATIONS: XXX 25

T he polar highway

The all-weather highway is not surfaced because it runs atop the permafrost.

text: Jörg Michel A year ago Canada opened its first road to the Arctic Ocean. Residents are hoping it will boost the economy, make their lives easier and generate more tourism.

The journey to Canada’s Arctic coast begins with little or no fanfare: there are no arrows or signs pointing northwards.

There’s no need because there’s only one road up here. Cov­ ered in ice, it leads past corrugated iron huts, telegraph poles buffeted diagonal by the winds, and motorized sledges parked in the snow.

Then we reach the tundra. The temperature outside is – 30 °C; the wind shakes the car’s chassis; a crystalline, icy sheen covers the rear-view mirror and visibility is little more than a few hundred feet.

So this is the highway that has spawned so many dreams.

One of the most isolated roads in the world, it begins in the small Canadian town of Inuvik about 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, and extends some 90 miles to the Inuit settle­ ment of Tuktoyaktuk on the Arctic Ocean.

The Inuvik-Tuk Highway is the northernmost road in Canada and its first all-weather route to an Arctic port. Com­ pleted last fall, it took three years to build at a cost of some 300 million dollars. The government hopes it will boost the economy in the extreme north, promote tourism and cement its sovereignty in the Arctic.

The project engineers faced major challenges: the un­sur­ faced road, which is meant for speeds up to 45 mph, is built on permafrost. A roadbed up to six feet deep is designed to prevent subsidence in the summer months – although it is no guarantee of success, as sporadic closures have demonstrated.

In winter, by contrast, the surface is frozen and as hard as rock. Like a gigantic snake the road winds its way through the tundra. It is difficult to make out anything of substance on either side: beyond small trees and bushes there is nothing.

No guard rails or mileage signs. And no gas stations or toilets either.

Just the tundra – and people like Kylik Kisoun Taylor who benefit from it. We meet the 33-year-old on the road. Half-­ Inuit, he runs a small tour company in the region. “Visitors are taking a growing interest in the Arctic, and that offers a real opportunity,” he explains. “Not that we’ll ever live to see hordes of tourists in the region.” Tourism is still in its infan­ cy here and the infrastructure required – accommodation and restaurants – is still scarce. But every year some­thing new springs up. Taylor uses the highway as his de­­parture point for adventure tours of the tundra. His guests can spend the night in an igloo or venture out to see herds of reindeer in the wild.

Just over two hours into our journey, the skies clear and a radio mast comes into view through the windscreen, followed by a radar station, a few oil tanks, and containers. We have reached the outskirts of Tuktoyaktuk. Gas and oil companies have opened outposts in the area, testament to their hopes of discovering crude oil, natural gas, minerals and precious metals.

Industry has welcomed the highway because it improves accessibility to this previously remote region – even if most hopes of tapping resources have yet to be fulfilled. The price of these natural resources is still too low to make their ex­ploi­ tation worthwhile and the government has announced a ­moratorium for parts of the region.

The highway does bring relief to the 900 inhabitants of Tuktoyaktuk. In a small wooden house just inside town we meet Maureen and James Pokiak. She is a retired teacher who moved to the settlement from southern Canada almost ­50 years ago. He, like his ancestors, works as a hunter and trapper.

The Pokiaks still aren’t sure how the highway will change their lives, they say. But one thing is certain: visiting friends has become much easier, as has shopping. With everyday goods arriving by road rather than air, they should also cost far less – at least in the long term. A new era has dawned in Tuktoyaktuk.

C hina

approx. 3,940 km

Beijing, Changchun, Chengdu, Chongqing, Dalian, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, Qingdao, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Urumqi, Wuhan, Xiamen, Xi’an, Zhanjiang

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

17 / 475

Electronics Textiles and clothing Electrical engineering

LANGUAGES

Chinese (Putonghua) TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

37.4 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

6.95 °C LAND AREA

9,596,961 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

4,106,387 km / 67,212 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

37 %

Electronics Raw materials Crude oil NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Wuchang Uprising 1911: October 1 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Baozi – hot yeast dumpling filled with ground pork BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Yu Huan: “Brother” PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Karaoke, fortune cookies

ASPIRATIONS: CHINA 27

China goes electric text: Felix Lee Subsidies and strict legislation are driving a surprisingly fast transition to e-mobility in China. International automakers are being forced to respond.

As the largest event of its kind, the CES technology fair in Las Vegas normally sets the tone for entertainment electron­ ics, e. g. new game consoles. But for some years it has also become a showcase for autonomous and electric cars. This year one company created a true sensation: Byton.

The Chinese start-up presented the prototype for its first electric SUV . What unnerved its rivals most? The presence of former BMW managers among its top management, and in its technology and design departments. Former Tesla, Apple and Google developers have also found new homes in the Chinese company. “The design and vehicle concept are ­handled in Munich; the electronics and autonomous func­ tions in Silicon Valley; and the purchasing, supply chain and production in China,” explains the company’s co-founder and CEO Carsten Breitfeld.

The Byton SUV will market for some 45,000 US dollars, making it cheaper than comparable models from Germany and the United States. It will be sold in China from 2019, in the rest of the world from the following year. “There’s a very large middle class in China that is willing and able to spend that much on a car,” says Breitfeld. And thanks to huge state subsidies, the country has become the world’s leading market for electric cars, he adds.

Yet until recently electric cars were also a niche market in China. For years it has been the declared aim of the Chinese government to increase the percentage of battery-operated cars. But for most of the population, a powerful engine beats low emissions any day. VW , Daimler and the other auto­ makers saw little reason to adjust their product ranges while gasoline-driven vehicles continued to sell well.

Now the Chinese government is upping the ante. At the start of the year it prohibited the construction of 553 car mod­ els. Its rationale: they guzzled too much gas. In the months before, it had already adopted a number of measures, the aim

of which was to significantly boost the proportion of electric and hybrid cars in China. Thousands and thousands of charging points were installed across the country, and new regulations were issued which encouraged the purchase of electric cars.

The strategy seems to be working. The People’s Republic is leading the way in e-mobility. In 2017 Chinese customers bought over 777,000 cars with non-conventional drive sys­ tems, a year-on-year increase of 53 percent. As a result, ­ China now makes up over half of the global e-mobility market.

Apparently, the leadership in Beijing still isn’t satisfied.

By 2020 it wants to see at least five million exclusively elec­ tric cars on the country’s roads. Drastic measures are being taken to accelerate this process. New production quotas are being introduced at the start of next year, mandating that nearly every fourth new car be electrically powered. If auto­ makers fail to achieve this target, they will have to purchase points from more successful manufactures.

While discussions still rage in other countries – should governments sound the death knell for the combustion ­engine? – China is already creating facts on the ground. Being a huge country, it has a huge edge: its market power. For years it has been the world’s largest and fastest-growing auto mar­ ket with the clout to impose its own standards. Nor are its leaders hesitant to wield that power: anyone wanting a piece of the action not only has t o build the cars in China, they also need to partner with Chinese component suppliers.

As is the case with battery technology. The domestic manu­ facturer BYD makes highly competitive products, but their equivalents from Japanese and South Korean companies lead the global market. When China introduced new rules for subsidies a year ago, only two Chinese suppliers met the size criterion: BYD and CATL from the southwestern city of Ningde. Peugeot and BMW now number among their cus­ tomers. That’s how the market works: the government in Beijing sets the pace and the other international players have to follow.

28

­“E-mobility is our bread and butter” interview: Felix Lee China’s emergence as a pioneer of e-mobility is down to chance, says Gao Zhen. He chauffeurs his guests around the city in an electric sedan.

Mr. Gao, how’s business?

Fine. Why are you asking?

You’re a chauffeur for an upmarket car service. In the past your clientele has been accustomed to high-horsepower limousines. Now you’re driving a car with an ­electric motor. Doesn’t that turn them off ?

Not in my view. Our passengers’ main priority is reaching their destinations safely and in comfort. I can guarantee that with my electric car too. Sometimes my passengers even get there faster than in a conventional gasoline-driven ve­hi­ cle. On some highways, electric cars can use a dedicated lane. So we simply zip past the gridlock and the other drivers have to yield the way. There’s a social set in Beijing too that thinks being in an electric car is cool. They inquire about my availability using a special app.

How does it feel to drive an electric limo?

I must confess, I had my problems at the outset. The engine obviously doesn’t have the acceleration of an Audi 100 or

Powered by electricity, the chauffeur Gao Zhen is riding Beijing’s fast lane.

Mercedes S-Class. But now I’ve gotten used to it. On the plus side, the electric motor is far quieter. Like being in a space­ ship. That’s really good.

And the constant charging?

That doesn’t bother me anymore. On the contrary: finding somewhere to park in Beijing is a real pain. Five years ago there were two million cars in the city. Now that number has more than tripled. It’s all but impossible to find downtown parking if you’re driving a conventional car. But the city ­authorities have created special bays for electric cars, with their own charging stations. And they are usually free.

Of course, the situation may well change when more e-cars take to the streets.

But battery-powered cars need charging far more often than gas-powered cars need refueling.

That’s right. But for drivers like me in Beijing, e-mobility has been part of our daily lives for a good while now. We’ve been riding electric motor scooters and mopeds for years.

Those contraptions aren’t particularly fast. They might man­ age 30 mph, the top models maybe 50 mph. But that’s usu­ally more than enough to get to work. The batteries are usually detached and charged up at home overnight, or using a pow­ er socket at work. So charging just gets to be a habit.

What made China of all places the leader in electric ­mobility?

It was the product of chance. When the country opened up its economy in the 1980s and 1990s, few Chinese could ­afford their own cars. In Asian cities like Bangkok, Taipei and Manila, you see mopeds. But before they could conquer the roads in China, the government banned gasoline-pow­ ered two-wheelers. You rarely see a Harley or a Yamaha here in Beijing.

License plates for gasoline-powered vehicles are only available in Beijing through a lottery system.

That’s right, the chance of getting one is currently 1 in 80,000. It’s all but impossible to buy a gasoline-powered car in Beijing unless you have relatives who will assign an ­existing number plate to you. Nowadays license plates are hoarded like gold dust. By contrast, electric cars get their registrations approved instantly.

ASPIRATIONS: CHINA 29

Croatia

approx. 463 km

Rijeka, Split, Zagreb

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

4 / 111

Foodstuffs Machines Raw materials

LANGUAGES

Croatian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

43 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

10.90 °C LAND AREA

56,595 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

26,958 km / 2,604 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

99.60 %

Foodstuffs Machines Cars and automotive components NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Declaration of Independence 1991: June 25 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Zagorski Štrukli – sweet or savory strudel that is ­either cooked or baked BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Winnetou movies* PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Ham, cheese, olive oil

A tip from the GW employee Suzana Takač

ASPIRATIONS: CROATIA 31

Mate Rimac presents the C_Two hypercar.

R imac Automobili – the flying start-up from the garage text: Marijan Vrdoljak It’s a humid day in July, with cars crawling through Zagreb’s rain and rush-hour traffic. Somewhere among them is a dark station wagon. There’s nothing unusual about that but, if we look closer, we can see that the man in the passenger seat has his eyes trained on his laptop. And the driver isn’t touching the steering wheel, even when she changes lanes. Could they be actors filming a movie? Is this an episode of Candid ­Camera? One glance at the Renault logo reveals the answer.

It has been covered with a sticker bearing the words “Rimac Autonomous Driving.” Another stroke of genius from Mate Rimac, the “child prodigy” of the Croatian car industry.

For the third time in quick succession the young automaker has captured the attention of people around the world. It began at this year’s Geneva International Motor Show, where he presented his “Concept Two,” a car whose performance puts some small aircraft to shame: a 1,914 HP engine catapults the electric supercar from 0 to 60 mph in just 1.85 seconds.

It has a top speed of 256 mph. A few months later Porsche acquired a 10 percent share in Rimac Automobili and its sub­ sidiary Greyp Bikes. Just a few years ago Croatia was unchart­

ed territory on the automaking map of the world. That has changed almost overnight thanks to this startling start-up.

Mate Rimac is the only automaker in Croatia. Companies such as AD Plastik and Lipik Glas supply components for brands like Ferrari, BMW and VW , but the country only start­ ed building its own cars in 2009 – when Rimac launched his company. At that time, his little operation was in a different universe than the big players in the automaking industry.

Like Steve Jobs, Rimac started his career in a garage. The passionate amateur racing driver and his friends spent long days and nights there, tinkering around with a 1984-vintage BMW 323i. When the gasoline engine gave up the ghost during a race, they envisaged a replacement that was radical­ ly new, something so revolutionary that it would put the ­competition in the shade. At that point Rimac decided to con­ vert the old BMW entirely to electric power. He hired experts and began to produce his own components – laying the ­foundations for Rimac Automobili.

By April 17, 2011, the big moment had come, with the E30 first seeing the light of day at a test circuit outside Zagreb.

32

The specifications for the updated 3-series BMW were hugely impressive: 600 HP , 900 Nm torque, from 0 to 60 mph in 3.3 seconds and a top speed of 174 mph. The then 23-year-old Rimac made automaking history with his “Green Monster,” setting no less than five world records for electric-powered vehicles. But while fans were still rubbing their eyes in aston­ ishment, Mate and his team were already at work on their next headline act: Concept One. Concept One was the first vehicle to be constructed in full by Rimac Automobili. From its futuristic design down to the individual components, everything was developed by the now several-dozen-strong workforce at its factory in Sveta Nedelja, which also handled the lion’s share of production.

The car’s world premiere at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany, proved a sensation: never before had

Nikola Tesla’s scientific inventions once paved the way for the ­combustion engine. Just 120 miles away, Rimac Automobili is building today’s electric supercar, Concept One.

enthusiasts seen such performance from an electric super­car.

The Concept One’s four independent electric engines acceler­ated from 0 to 60 mph in just over 2.8 seconds, while the electronically capped top speed clocked in at 211 mph.

Following the company’s success in Geneva, the first out­ side investors appeared on the scene and Rimac Automobili continued its steady growth. Today Rimac’s 400-strong workforce manufactures components and systems for other manufacturers (including SEAT and Jaguar) – and develops and builds its own cars and electric bicycles under the name Greyp. It took Rimac less than ten years to turn his garage-­ based startup into one of the world’s leading manufacturers of electric cars – the automaking equivalent of 0 to 60. Yet he has only just turned 30 himself.

ASPIRATIONS: CROATIA 33

Greyp Bikes combine the technologies and mechanics of bicycles and motorcycles to build powerful, hybrid e-bikes.

Long coastlines, start-ups and doing one’s own thing interview: Imke Borchers

An interview with Barbara Bujacic, Country Manager at Gebrüder Weiss Croatia How would you characterize the logistics industry in Croatia?

We live in a small but – seen from a logistics perspective – ­demanding country. Croatia has over 16,000 miles of roads and almost 4,000 miles of coastline, including numerous islands. In my view we have managed to cope with these conditions very well.

Rimac Automobili is a successful international start-up from Croatia. Have you heard of it?

Sure I know Rimac. We partner with its sister company ­GreypBikes. They design, develop and manufacture great elec­tric bikes. The technology they have is really impres­­sive!

In 2014 we started handling international transport services for this up-and-coming firm, and since then our partner­­ship has grown closer and closer. You could say that we supply the whole world with Greyp Bikes: they are sold in 26 countries on five continents. For me the key to the company’s ­suc­cess is a concentration on what it does best: technology and ­mo­bility. The bikes make people’s everyday lives easier.

Do you have any other customers from the start-up scene?

The majority of start-ups are in the IT sector and they, ­obviously, don’t have any goods that require dispatching.

But emerging companies that need logistics and transport support come to us because they value our advice and ­network. We really like working with these customers, and growing together.

Where do you see the economic future of your country?

We generate a lot of income from tourism. But there are plen­ ty of other areas that Croatia should also be focusing on in the future, areas that can impact our economy. These include projects like the development of the container port in Rijeka and the floating gas terminal off the island of Krk which will be supplying liquefied gas to central and southeast Europe.

You are a woman and a top executive. Is that unusual in Croatia?

In Croatia there are still far fewer women than men in top positions. But we aren’t quite as rare as we used to be. In my career things have happened to me that likely wouldn’t have, had I been a man. But I emerged stronger and more self-­ confident from these situations. Typically female qualities like communication skills, empathy and creativity differentiate me from my male colleagues – and they are a real help in our fast-moving world. I’ve never used my gender to justify or excuse anything but have always done things my way, come what may. That has proved to be a good call, which makes me very happy.

Czech Republic

approx. 279 km

České Budějovice, Hradec Králové, Jablonec nad Nisou, Jeneč, Plzeň, Praha, Ostrava, Říčany-Jažlovice, Syrovice

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

9 / 3 56

Cars and automotive components Electronics Machines

LANGUAGES

Czech TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

42.1 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

7.55 °C LAND AREA

78,867 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

130,661 km / 9,467 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

153.30 %

Electronics Machines Chemical products NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Declaration of Independence 1918: October 28 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Parek v Rohlik – sausage in a roll BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Jan Novák: “Zátopek” PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Beer, wood carvings

ASPIRATIONS: CZECH REPUBLIC 35

Creating crafts coveted around the world: the glass cutter Jaroslav Madle.

A new lease on life for an age-old craft How Bohemian glass cutters are embracing the future

text: Kilian Kirchgeßner A long hallway and heavy-duty door protect Jaroslav Madle from the heat of a mighty glass furnace. “I don’t get the glass until it has cooled well down,” he says. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the roaring that fills the air here. M ­ adle is one of the most experienced glass cutters at the Bohemian company Rückl. His workplace is in the enormous cutting hall that he shares with two or three dozen colleagues. A few years back, he remarks, they all expected to be out of a job: sales at the glassworks had plummeted. Fewer and fewer cus­ tomers wanted the fancy glass dust catchers in their homes.

And now? A broad smile spreads across his face as he points to the rolling carts beside his bench, each of them packed full with vases, goblets and carafes. “That’s enough work for the next few weeks, and there’s more and more on the way!”

You have to think back a few centuries to appreciate what saving these jobs means. The Victoria & Albert in Lon­ don, an internationally renowned arts and crafts museum, is crammed full of glass cut in Bohemia. Back in their heyday, the region’s glass cutters were rated the best in the world, and royals everywhere were clamoring for specimens of their art. “Essentially,” says Jaroslav Madle, “the techniques used have hardly changed over the years!” He sits down on his stool, facing a work surface with a small round disc that ro­

tates at lightning speed. Madle holds the glass against it and markings appear on the side. Making them look good is a matter of skill. In the current collection Jaroslav Madle is cre­ ating star motifs, each of a different size and each with its own unique shape. “This little vase will take me a couple of hours to finish, but the big vase over there, for instance, will keep me occupied for a day and a half.” If he loses concen­ tration and makes a mistake at the end, all his work will be for naught – and he has to start all over again.

For a time, glass cutting was suffering from an image problem. Bohemian vases were often associated with the Communist era, when even the smallest high-rise apartment could find space for a monumental, candy-colored vase with kitschy engravings. Only now is hope being restored to the industry. The old, frequently bankrupt proprietors have sold their companies – and the new, younger generation of owners is giving the ancient craft a new lease on life. As is the case at Madle’s company: Rückl hired Rony Plesl, one of Europe’s most famous glass artists, as its new chief designer. He cre­ ated a collection that swept away all the cobwebs with a single stroke. The designs that his staff engrave on cool, contoured glasses are more akin to street art. All of a sudden the patterns look like sophisticated, abstract graffiti. Since then, pieces

36

hand-made by Jaroslav Madle and his colleagues have fea­ tured at furniture and design fairs around the world. They are selling so well that long waiting lists are forming for the most coveted specimens.

This is the ray of hope that has lit up Madle’s life. Glass cutting is a calling, Madle says, and you have to pursue it with a passion. Anyone interested merely in the money might as well give up straight away. Sometimes he stays on after work and engraves veritable works of art on a glass, which he then showcases in a cabinet at his home. This is how he hones his skills, developing new tricks and ideas to enhance the ancient craft. He completed an apprenticeship right after school, but then found himself becalmed in a creative crisis. “At one point I took a job in sales at an ad agency, at another I worked as an assistant in a dental laboratory,” he recounts, shaking his head. “But, put simply, it’s glass that I really connect with.

It’s such a natural material, a mixture of wood, water and stone. There was no comparison.” And today it still has him under its spell.

Jaroslav Madle brushes his long hair back from his fore­ head before moving onto his next piece of glass. He hopes to

Turning simple stones into valuable glass.

train up some apprentices over time. In the old days, people’s interest in glass cutting progressively declined: nobody ­wanted to put so much effort into learning a profession that was on the way out, he says. He runs his eyes over the numer­ ous carts full of glass that are waiting for him. Now, he says, there has been a sea change. Glass cutting, he is confident, once again has a future. And maybe that will even attract some new blood. Madle ponders for a moment and an anal­ ogy occurs to him that is as Bohemian as the Rückl glass ­factory where he works: “If cooks want to make good dump­ lings, they too need to practice and invest a lot of love. It’s the same with us. We need to show the new generation how the process works, step by step, slowly and patiently. We need to take our time familiarizing them with the craft, so that they discover the fascination that drives us for them­ selves. We need to guide them towards a place from where they are inspired to pave their own way forward.”

Given this start, it looks as though Bohemia’s tradition of glass cutting will continue to prosper after all, at least for the next few generations.

ASPIRATIONS: CZECH REPUBLIC 37

A date with ­number eight text: Imke Borchers In 2018 the Czech Republic is marking the centenary of its foundation.

Given the country’s history, its commemoration in the eighth year of a decade almost seems only natural. Not that the eighth year has always brought cause for celebration.

The country’s fate began to unfold back in 1618 when, in a symbolic act, three of the emperor’s supporters were thrown out of a window in Prague. While the victims survived large­ ly unscathed, this so-called “Defenestration of Prague” pre­ cipitated the Thirty Years War, which caused unprecedented devastation on the European mainland. As fate would have it, the confrontation ended thirty years later – in 1648 – with the Peace of Westphalia accord. The territory of modern Czech­ia became part of the Habsburg Empire, and was to stay that way until 1918, another year ending with the number “8.”

In 1848 the Spring Uprising in Prague was suppressed, thwarting an insurrection by Czech nationalists and keeping Bohemia and Moravia within the Austrian Empire. This changed in 1918 when the First World War came to an end and the Czech Republic, the territory’s first democratic state, was established – the brightest spot to date in the country’s

checkered history. That lasted until 1938 when, under the Munich Agreement, it was ceded to, and occupied by, Nazi Germany. In 1948 it was the Communists’ turn to take control. And two decades later, in the spring of 1968, the Czech Communist Party attempted to reform domestic poli­ tics, create a more liberal state system and ultimately intro­ duce democracy. However, this rebellion too was crushed when the forces of the Warsaw Pact marched in.

During the 20th century, most years ending with “8” were causes of dismay. However, in 2018 the spirit of celebration has once again come to the fore. The country’s separation from Slovakia a quarter-century ago progressed peacefully, with a strong bond remaining between the two nations.

The Czech economy is performing well. And a new national ­heroine has been born: at the Winter Olympics of February 2018 in South Korea, Ester Ledecká first won gold in an alpine skiing discipline – the Super-G – and then beat all comers in the snowboarding giant slalom. As such she became the first sportswoman to win medals in disciplines using different equipment at a single Olympics. And given her tender age of just 23, Ester Ledecká could easily win more. In four, or even better, eight years’ time.

Georgia

approx. 245 km

Tbilisi

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

1 / 79

Copper ore and copper ore concentrates Hazelnuts Ferroalloys

LANGUAGES

Georgian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

38.1 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

5.80 °C LAND AREA

69,700 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

19,109 km / 1,491 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

102.60 %

Pharmaceutical products Crude oil and crude oil products Cars and automotive components NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Declaration of Independence 1918: May 26 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Shotis puri – a traditional bread typically baked in a clay oven and shaped like a canoe BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Schota Rustaweli: “The Warrior in the Tiger Skin”* PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Wine

A tip from the GW employee Tamar Vashakidze

ASPIRATIONS: GEORGIA 39

Georgia – all and nothing

The country’s interior is also marked by contradictions.

A love-hate homage to a country that can only be explained by the ­diversity of its extremes text: Nino Haratischwili Recently a friend who was visiting Georgia for the first time asked me about Kartlis Deda. “Mother Georgia” is an ad­ mittedly not exactly beautiful architectural jewel in my home­ town of Tbilisi, a colossal monument erected in 1958 to ­commemorate the city’s 1,500-year anniversary. The statue portrays a woman exuding the distinctive aura of hard-work­ ing socialism, a bowl of wine in one hand and a sword in the other. I explain to my friend that this antithesis crystalliz­ es the Georgians’ attitude towards outsiders. If you come as a guest, you’re welcomed with wine. And as an enemy with a sword. He laughed and remarked that the country seemed to have a strong disposition toward extremes; everything was either black or white. Shades of gray were more likely to be treated with contempt. It was difficult to disagree.

All my life I’ve been battling with these extremes. Over and over again, I have been driven to exasperation by the lack of a happy medium. It bothered me and I wondered how it could be that the Orient and the Occident, infinite kind­ ness and caustic irascibility, impulsive abandon and stubborn

ambition, the soft and the hard, the narrow-minded and the open-minded, the social and the egocentric, rustic and trendy, regressive and futuristic, patriarchal and matriarchal, blind patriotism and cosmopolitan inquisitiveness – how all these could coexist in this small country without it dissolving into utter chaos.

More often than not I have surrendered to superstition one minute and fallen in love with human logic the next; I have railed against the repressive strictures of the Orthodox church and been mesmerized by the sight of a fifth-century house of worship; I have ranted against the lack of punc­ tuality and taken all the time in the world to savor a meal, a glass of wine, a moment. Above all, I have balked at the glori­ fication of the past and rarely felt so emotionally overcome than upon hearing the traditional polyphonic chant sung at a ­classic Georgian banquet table.

I have searched through all these extremes for the iden­ tity of this country, an identity which is indistinguishable from my own. And I have never been able to provide a clear

40 

ASPIRATIONS: GEORGIA 41

answer when asked, in Germany, what Georgia was like, what was Georgian about me, if my style had been influenced

by Georgia. I always wanted to make a decision and take a stand, to filter out certain character traits – as though simpli­ fication were the only way to capture this country in words.

But I always failed; it did not seem possible.

To romanticize Georgia – claim that the country is simply beautiful and sunny, the stuff of dreams, brimming with ­music and earthly delights – would even fit with a Soviet cliché that cast this country in a distorted, partly misleading light.

To consistently criticize Georgia for all the things it isn’t and can’t do – one of the country’s favorite pastimes – would be wrong. And it would omit so very much that the country is and can do.

So how do you explain this country? Is Georgia Europe or Asia? And where does its odd language come from, a tongue that has prevailed through the centuries in the face of so many occupying armies, in the face of both friends ­received with wine and foes with swords? A language with 33 ornate Georgian letters from an alphabet that was already used in 400 A. D.? Is this southern or eastern? Is it modern or mired in tradition? Not to mention the country’s blooddrenched history, endless wars and occupations and libera­ tions, and in between those countless bizarre, humorous, compassionate, moving stories of individuals and their fates, captured initially between book covers and later on cellu­ loid as well.

One thing seems to be certain: many of these stories that the Georgians tell themselves are extreme. They are absurd and paradoxical, extremely funny or extremely sad – and seldom anything in between. Which reminds me of some­ thing someone important to me said, a visitor to Georgia.

He noted that the people who lived here seemed so “all-andnothing.” Lost in his own thoughts, he elaborated that this must be due to the country’s history, to all the things these people had suffered and experienced; they clung to the mo­ ments when they had it “all.” I listened, unable to find words.

Yet I registered a certain sense of relief. For the first time, it seemed that someone from outside my own country could explain it to me in a way that made me understand it better – and grasp it for the first time. I realized that Georgia cannot be explained in terms of either-or; that this country

can only be experienced though the prism of all its disparities and contradictions; that it can only manifest itself in these extremes – and perhaps that was exactly the point.

For me, this is the very reason why Georgia belongs to Europe, and why embracing Georgia within European culture might be worthwhile. For me, its diversity and the coexist­ ence of differences is a paradigm that defines Europe – despite, sadly, this idea often being questioned today. Yet people should not need to decide. An identity is not something that excludes diversity and demands clarity. Nor is a culture.

Complexity is exactly what we love about good stories, good books and good music. And Georgia is nothing if not com­ plex.

Spanning Europe and Asia interview: Imke Borchers The Country Manager from Gebrüder Weiss Georgia, Alexander Kharlamov, on geography and business Georgia effectively straddles two continents. Do you feel more European or Asian?

I definitely think of myself as a European.

Gebrüder Weiss is operating very successfully in the ­Republic of Georgia. Do you do deliver more goods to the East or the West?

At present, to the West.

Which industries provide the majority of your clients?

We have lots of customers in the automotive and high-tech sectors. Beyond that we transport power tools and textiles made at Turkish factories to the Caucasus region.

Who would you really like to work with at some time?

With other top European companies that operate to the same standards as we do!

Germany

approx. 867 km

Aldingen, Dusseldorf, Esslingen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Kirchheim unter Teck, Lindau, Lossburg, Lüdenscheid, Memmingen, Munich, Nuremberg, Passau, Wernau

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

16 / 836

Cars and automotive components Machines Chemical products

LANGUAGES

German TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

47.1 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

8.50 °C LAND W

357,409 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

645,000 km / 33,332 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

84.40 %

Cars and automotive components Data processing equipment Electrical and optical products NATIONAL HOLIDAY

German Unification Day: October 3 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Curry sausage BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Juli Zeh: “Unterleuten” PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Beer, Oktoberfest, Audi

ASPIRATIONS: GERMANY 43

A dense network, high in the sky text: Andreas Spaeth It’s one of the most famous scenes in movie history: with the mist swirling around them, Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart stand on an airfield at night and gaze into each other’s eyes. Bogart says: “Here’s looking at you, kid,” and “We’ll always have Paris.” Almost everyone knows these immortal words from the 1942 Hollywood drama “Casablanca.” There is a final, poignant moment of hesitation before they finally part. Then she boards the aircraft and the propellers begin to turn.

Hopping on a plane to visit family, presenting fresh tropi­ cal fruit on the breakfast table, supplying urgent compo­ nents overnight from distant factories, or transporting valu­ able works of art from one museum to another: all of these con­veni­ences are an accepted part of everyday life today.

Aviation has also become a matter of life and death in critical situations, as with the rapid medical assistance provided by air ambulances or the delivery of donated organs for trans­ plants. Or when aid workers and provisions are flown in to help with natural disasters, or forest fires spread so rapidly that they can only be extinguished by aircraft.

None of this would be possible without airports, and Ger­ many has one of the densest networks on the planet. Relative to its size, it can claim the highest number with asphalt orconcrete runways worldwide: 318. This puts it seventh in absolute terms, surpassed only by far larger countries. The United States is the undisputed leader with 5,054 airports,

while second-placed Brazil only has 698 and Russia just 594.

Canada, China and Australia occupy the next three places.

In Germany only 39 airports and landing sites are genuine­ ly significant; each of them handles a share of the country’s commercial passenger and cargo services. This figure is still high for a country the size of Germany, a statistic that is ­partly due to the country’s history. Before, during and after the Second World War, many military landing fields were built in the east and west of the country, and numerous have been converted for civilian use in recent decades. Unlike France and the United Kingdom, Germany is a decentral­ ized country with several strong regions. Even sparsely popu­ lated federal states like Saxony-Anhalt can boast at least one airport, and the largest – North Rhine-Westphalia – has no fewer than three long-haul airports plus four operating domestic destinations. As a result, passengers and suppliers in Germany are never far from a connection to an inter­ national flight. Approximately 64 percent of all Germans live within an hour’s drive of an international airport, while all but 10 percent can reach one within 90 minutes.

Gebrüder Weiss also taps this localized network for its own operations. In addition to having locations close to ma­ jor airports like Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Munich, it maintains others not far from regional airports such as Friedrichshafen and Memmingen.

Air freight is handled at a total of 23 airports across Germany –

44

Aerial photo of Frankfurt’s new Terminal 3, which is slated to be Europe’s cutting edge.

almost five million metric tons in 2017. Almost half of this – 2.2 million metric tons – is channeled through Frankfurt, while Leipzig (1.1 million metric tons) and Cologne / Bonn (828,000 metric tons) are also established cargo hubs.

Aviation is and will remain a growth industry. In 2017 more than 234 million passengers took flights, a further five percent increase over the previous year. As a rule of thumb, the number of passengers doubles worldwide about every 20 years. Occasionally the system reaches its limits, as ­happened most recently in summer of 2018 when repeated bottle­necks in passenger handling plagued German airports.

Creating new infrastructure takes an extremely long time, as illustrated by Berlin’s new airport BER which was originally

scheduled to start operation back in 2012. An opening date of October 2020 is currently being mooted – but don’t hold your breath! Nor does anybody know when the planned third runway will materialize at Munich Airport, one of Europe’s leading international hubs.

However: aircraft are becoming increasingly efficient, allowing even substandard infrastructure to be tapped more effectively. Never before have aircraft engines been as quiet as they are today. Never before, given the lower fuel con­ sumption, have they generated such low emissions. And nev­ er before has flying been as safe as in recent years. All that is lacking is the romanticism of the old days in Casablanca.

ASPIRATIONS: GERMANY 45

Cleanliness and shopping are key factors in customer satisfaction – the planned arrival area in the new terminal.

Consistent customer orientation interview: Miriam Holzapfel Operators always await international airport rankings with bated breath. In 2018 Frankfurt was rated the tenth most popular worldwide in the Skytrax Awards. ­Christian Engel is the media spokesman for infrastructural issues at Fraport, the company that runs Frankfurt Airport. He explains the reasons for its success.

What are the biggest challenges faced when designing an airport?

Frankfurt is comfortably the largest airport in Germany.

To maintain its leading position in the international market as well, it – the product “airport” – needs to be closely ­oriented towards customer needs. This has to be achieved both resolutely and proactively. The biggest challenge lies in an ability to model sufficient capacity when it is needed.

What does Frankfurt do better than other European ­airports?

In 2017 the airport welcomed more than 64 million passen­ gers and handled freight totaling approximately 2.2 million metric tons. In the league table of European airports, that puts us in second place for cargo and fourth for passen­ ger flights. The 2018 summer schedule has seen 99 air­lines ­taking off for 311 destinations in 97 countries around the world. Mastering these volumes by aligning our operations with customer needs, is just one aspect of becoming Eu­­rope’s best airport operator. As the air traffic industry evolves, we are setting sector-wide benchmarks in processes, ser­ vices and infrastructure. We want to offer our customers the ­perfect platform for their business models and provide ­passengers with a good travel experience – one that is safe, ­reliable and comfortable.

Many Asian airports feature in the top 20 rankings.

Do Asians and Europeans have a different approach to travel?

The Asian market is dominated by numerous densely popu­ lated conurbations – that applies from China and Japan through to South Korea and Singapore. Economically speak­ ing, Asia also numbers among the world’s most dynamic regions. So you would expect dramatic growth in the mobility market. As a consequence, demand for flights in Asia has increased sharply. The past 20 years have seen a multitude of large, modern airports built. They are designed for complete­ ly different capacities than were envisaged when Frankfurt Airport opened its Terminal 1 during the 1970s.

The Skytrax Awards are based on passengers’ feedback.

Aren’t their impressions overly subjective?

Customer surveys are always a good yardstick. The larger the sample, the more objective the results. The key for ­airport operators is to draw the right conclusions from the data. In recent years we have completed an array of improve­ ments based on our customers’ feedback – from installing yoga rooms and silent chairs through to creating areas where passengers can watch movies and TV series free of charge, play video games, and work in a relaxed atmosphere. Our customers really honor that: we posted a new top score of 85 percent in our current customer satisfaction survey.

Those are important figures that steer our future decisions.

How will the airports of the future look?

Airports will continue to grow; they must in order to handle the increasing passenger volumes projected by numerous market studies. Over the next few years we will be providing annual capacity for at least 25 million more passengers at Frankfurt Airport alone. Our new Terminal 3 will then be the most modern in Europe. It will also significantly raise our own quality standards in respect to the airport experience, services and processes.

approx. 45 km

Hong Kong

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

1 / 61

Precious metals Machines Instruments

LANGUAGES

Chinese (Putonghua) TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

44.4 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

22.5 °C

TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

1,095 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

2,100 km / 230 km

FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Wuchang Uprising 1911: October 1

LAND AREA

372.60 %

Machines Precious metals Instruments

Gai daan jai – a sweet snack known around the world as egg or bubble waffles BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

“Infernal Affairs” (Directed by Andrew Lau, Alan Mak) PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

LEE KUM KEE soy sauce

A tip from the GW employee Claire Lin

ASPIRATIONS: HONG KONG 47

The perfect port of call

The port and city nestle up against the mountains.

text: Felix Lee Hong Kong may have been overtaken by its near-neigh­ bor Shenzhen, but, thanks to its exceptional efficiency, the former British crown colony remains one of the world’s leading ports.

Night fell hours ago. Yet with the port illuminated by flood­ lighting, everything is still shining bright. Cranes roll back and forth on rails, collect containers, move on and then set them down at their new locations. Time and again they ­perform this task, as if in a continuous loop, stacking hun­ dreds and hundreds of containers. There is not a soul to be seen. Most of this occurs fully automatically, around the clock, in one of the world’s most efficient harbor infrastruc­ tures: the container port in Hong Kong. The towering ships dock for an average of ten hours here, during which they are unloaded at one of the nine container terminals before being dispatched with their new cargos to one of 500 des­ tinations around the world. In other ports this process takes an average of four times as long.

Surrounded by offshore islands, this natural deep-water port boasts numerous benefits, as the British recognized when they claimed the largely uninhabited region from the Chinese Empire more than 175 years ago. “Excellent an­ chorages everywhere, protected by the mountains, so that ships are even safe in the severest storms,” enthused the British colonial administrator Charles Elliot. And with these words he laid the foundations for decades of thriving trade – initially with opium and then with other goods.

Handling some 20 million standard TEU containers a year, the port in southern China is now only the sixth-largest in the world – after Shanghai, Singapore, Shenzhen and two other Chinese ports. Not that Hong Kong’s turnover of ­containers has diminished. Although now a special admin­ istrative region of China, it remains one of the busiest transit points between China, southeast Asia and the rest of the world. Almost 40,000 ships dock here each year.

For years the port of Hong Kong was indisputably the main transhipment hub for industrial products from Hong Kong itself and then the whole of China. Divided from Hong Kong only by a narrow river and with an equally mod­ ern deep-water port, the industrial city of Shenzhen on the Chinese mainland has recently surpassed its near neigh­bor in container handling; what is more, the port of Guangzhou is less than 60 miles away. Yet in recent years, the pie has become incomparably larger. One of the biggest enterprise zones worldwide – the Pearl River Delta – borders on the Hong Kong city limits. Almost 80 million people live here, working in hundreds of thousands of factories. The region produces a third of all Chinese exports; a third of these ­continues to leave the region via Hong Kong’s container port.

As a special administrative zone which had been a British crown colony until 1997, the offshore territory still enjoys a singular status – with numerous benefits for entrepreneurs.

“In Hong Kong you can set up and register a business with­in a single day,” says Andrew Au, the Hong Kong government’s chief economist. Much of the manufacturing may have re­ located to the Chinese mainland during the past 20 years, but the majority of companies – including thousands from the United States and Europe – have retained their headquar­ ters in Hong Kong, Au adds. Trade and logistics make up more than 25 percent of Hong Kong’s economic output. And a signi­ficant portion of that is due to the port.

At the same time, the production output is also changing in the Pearl River Delta, with added value being created.

According to James Wong, a logistics expert at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the surrounding industrial areas are now manufacturing high-tech products rather than plastic toys and sneakers. Services are also playing an increasing role in the logistics sector, he adds. As a result, the tradition­ ally international city of Hong Kong is far better positioned within the global supply chain than its rivals on the Chinese mainland.

Hungary

approx. 317 km

Biatorbágy, Dunaharaszti, Győr, Hajdúböszörmény, Mosonmagyaróvár, Vescses

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

6 / 314

Machines Cars and automotive components Electrical engineering

LANGUAGES

Hungarian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

42.3 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

9.75 °C LAND AREA

93,024 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

Machines Electronics Chemical products NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Revolution Memorial Day 1848: March 15 St. Stephen’s Day: August 20 Proclamation of the Republic 1989: October 23 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

203,601 km / 7,896 km

Lángos – deep-fried flat bread, usually brushed with garlic oil or sour cream

FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

174.70 %

“On Body and Soul” (directed by Ildikó Enyedi) PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Palinka (fruit brandy), wine

ASPIRATIONS: HUNGARY 49

Gábor Hangay and Györgi Samodai even use the Pannonrider in uptown Budapest.

The future from the puszta text: Martin Fejér It looks like a cross between a bubble car and an MiG 15.

And yet the Pannonrider is officially categorized as a bicycle.

Whereby, more accurately, it is a recumbent tricycle com­ plete with an enclosed passenger compartment, battery and solar modules. Gábor Hangay wheels it out of the tool shed behind his attractive home in Zugló, an elegant residen­ tial part of Budapest. “It’s our pre-production prototype from 2012,” he explains apologetically. Before lifting the lid on the driver’s cockpit, he points to the dents and scratches on the bodywork. “We still use it around town and in races.”

A large number seven is emblazoned on the side.

It all began in 1997 when Hangay, together with his part­ ner György Samodai and a number of other colleagues, launched their company Pannon Solar. Driven by a pioneering spirit and an ecological calling, they set about creating solar collector equipment for buildings – and succeeded in produc­ ing high-quality, custom solutions in their home workshops.

When, in 2010, the industrial-scale photovoltaic systems came and conquered the market, they quickly switched from heating to transport, and began developing the Pannonrider.

The 52-year-old construction engineer eases himself into the bucket seat and positions his feet on the pedals. “That’s all

the police here care about,” he says. “The moment they see pedals, they’re happy.” Classified as a bike, the Pannonrider can reach speeds of 30 mph and even use the country’s bike paths. It does not have to be registered or insured, which should make Hungary the ideal launchpad for this solar-pow­ ered speedster. Owners of the most powerful e-bikes in other countries have to reckon with a whole raft of requirements, ranging from a minimum age, a driver’s license and proof of insurance through to bike-path bans. That said, the EU Com­ mission is currently working to standardize the regulations and introduce compulsory insurance for all light, motorized vehicles. This would be good news in our case, because the Pannonrider – with its enclosed design, high speed and 70-­kilogram weight – falls into the gap between a bike and a car. Indeed, it is operated more like a tank. The steer­ ing levers on either side of the driver and individual controls of the two front disc brakes guarantee maximum maneu­ verability and racy cornering. Backpedaling slows the single drive wheel at the rear.

No sooner has Hangay gripped the accelerator throttle than the little white leprechaun is buzzing down the street.

Samodai, who lives in the house opposite, joins us to watch.

50

“That Rider hasn’t been near a power socket for months,” says the sixty-year-old IT professional. The range of its power­ ful battery, which is continuously recharged by the solar cells and recovered brake energy, means that it hardly ever runs down when confined to typical big-city use. It only needs an average of 6.2 watt hours per mile, whereas an electric car traveling at the same speed requires 20 times as much power.

It’s a “get-in-and-go” vehicle. Forget about gas stations; worn tires are the only running cost. And parking is a piece of cake. That should be enough to make commuters salivate.

Not least as they can keep their suits on and their laptop bags behind the seat. But the SUV s parked along the road are in a different league. Samodai understands the conundrum: if you don’t have money to spare, you don’t have 7,500 euros for a Pannonrider. And if you do have enough cash, you buy a car. “On the other hand, driving a car has never had much to do with reason. To compound matters, this first version of

It might look intergalactic, but the Pannonrider is an electric bike.

the Rider turned out to be too small. It is only suitable for drivers of five foot eight inches and shorter, and there isn’t even enough room for a shopping bag.

For this reason, Hangay and Samodai are looking to the future. The five original Pannonriders have all been sold.

One stayed in Hungary, and the others went to France, Bel­ gium and Holland. Over the past four years they have rat­ tled off tens of thousands of miles, and proven the durability of both the design and the construction. Now the Pannon­ rider 2 is around the corner. It will be longer, taller and afford space for luggage behind the driver, maybe even for a child as well. Made of Kevlar, carbon and fiberglass, on paper the self-­supporting composite monocoque bodywork looks like an ­express train engine. Applications have already been ­sub­mitted for state financing. Production is due to start later this year, and in 2020 the Pannonrider 2 will be ready for the road.

ASPIRATIONS: HUNGARY 51

Hungary and Austria have always been joined by the Danube, but economic links have also blossomed since the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Disappearing borders, ­emerging ideas text: Stefano Dal Cin In fields such as logistics and e-mobility, you need to believe in your own vision if you want to put groundbreaking ideas into practice and tap new markets. The courage and deter­ mination to challenge the status quo and think outside the box are additional musts. That, most likely, explains why ­Gebrüder Weiss resolved to extend its network eastwards following the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Iron Curtain was – quite literally – first parted in Austria on June 27, 1989, when the country’s Secretary of State Alois Mock and his Hungarian counterpart Gyula Horn cut through the barbed wire with shears. A few months later the Berlin Wall had fallen. Politically and economically, a new era had begun that saw Austria move from the peri­ pheries of Europe to its center. Gebrüder Weiss recognized the new opportunities and quickly expanded its operations into neighboring countries to the east. Back then much of the workforce was less than enthusiastic about the previously uncharted territory, as Alfred Denk, Branch Manager in ­Vienna, recalls: “Many of my colleagues viewed my interest in the east as a distraction from the company’s main com­mer­

cial goals. But Denk and his team refused to be deterred and, with the support of the management board, began to install a distribution network there under the Gebrüder Weiss banner.

The most rapid progress was made in Hungary. Fully Western-owned firms were not permitted in the country at first and the company’s existing partner had no interest in a joint venture, so Gebrüder Weiss initiated negotiations with a Hungarian warehousing company – which operated a site with spare capacity in Törökbalint, near Budapest’s ­former airport. As early as February 1990 Gebrüder Weiss was launch­ing “Hungaroweiss” for its Hungarian customers.

Gebrüder Weiss held a 60-percent interest in the compa­ ny and appointed the managing director, while its Hungarian partner supplied the chair of the supervisory board. That same spring, a subsidiary was opened in Prague, followed shortly after by branches in Bratislava, Brno and Slovenia.

The wisdom of these steps towards further internationaliza­ tion soon created a mold for Gebrüder Weiss. And in one way or another, they might offer a template for future devel­ opments in the e-mobility sector.

Japan

approx. 1,703 km

Osaka, Tokyo

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

2 / 36

Cars and automotive components Machines Electronics

LANGUAGES

Japanese TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

47.3 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

11.15 °C LAND AREA

377,930 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

1,218,772 km / 16,704 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

35.60 %

Electronics Foodstuffs Crude oil NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Emperor’s Birthday: December 23 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Miso soup and sashimi – raw fish or finely sliced ­seafood BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

“Black Rain” (directed by Ridley Scott)* PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Sake, Pokemon

A tip from the GW employee Stefan Aebi

ASPIRATIONS: JAPAN 53

When man ­ becomes subservient to machines text: Martin Fritz Intelligent machines can take the place of people – and create jobs for them elsewhere. In Japan this process has just begun.

There’s no stopping the future. And its robots are already on the way. In fact, they are already here. In 2017 the Japanese insurance company Fukoku became one of the first in its sector to replace staff – almost three dozen in number – with artificial intelligence (AI ) from IBM ’s Watson Explorer. Since then this smart software package has been trawling through the company’s patient histories. Its algorithms identify which costs are covered by the various policies. And, finally, they calculate the payments due to the policyholders. The result: a 30 percent increase in the claims adjusters’ productivity and a reduction in associated costs. Fukoku isn’t the only insur­ ance company to tap AI . Nippon Life is using software to determine and analyze insurance quotations for its custom­ ers. To this end, the program factors in data from all of its previous 40 million policies. And Dai-ichi Life also employs Watson Explorer – to process payouts.

Other companies will soon follow suit. According to the latest estimates of the Mitsubishi Research Institute, arti­ ficial intelligence and physical robots will do the jobs of 7.4 million Japanese by 2030. In the eyes of the government, what sounds like a horror scenario will be a blessing in disguise; Japan’s population is declining so quickly that there are labor shortfalls at every turn. AI , it hopes, will be the per­fect remedy. Within the same period, Mitsubishi’s experts expect the new technology to create five million new jobs.

And the remaining 2.4 million employees will not end up on the digital scrapheap. They should be able to find work in the country’s service sector, which understaffing is already hitting hard.

For this reason, Japan’s unemployment rate will not be surging; in numerous service industries, personnel deficits are at a record high. De facto full employment in the country is reached when the jobless rate falls to 3.1 percent – despite employment figures rising for years. According to the latest calculations, there are 141 vacancies for every 100 people out of work. These include jobs in retail, food service, construc­ tion and geriatric care. These types of positions are often part-time and short-term. They offer instant opportunities to the employees made redundant by insurance companies – at comparable pay levels.

Another factor makes Japan unique. The primary purpose of its companies is to create jobs, and to sustain them by whatever means possible. Profits and dividends are tradition­ ally viewed as secondary. Even if there is no “real work” available, permanent employees are still retained, even if that means them being assigned apparently superfluous duties.

It’s not uncommon to see staff brandishing signs – “Turn right for event XYZ ”– or making unnecessary announcements with a megaphone: “The escalator is out of order. Please take the stairs.” While these things may prompt occasional mirth, they reduce the burden on the country’s welfare state and the population as a whole.

AI will never replace people in these tasks. Japan appears to have forged the framework needed to survive the advent of automation without causing social strife. And there are other areas where human beings still reign supreme. A special­ ly created AI program was incapable of passing the entrance examination to Tokyo University. “Artificial intelligence does not perform well on examination questions that require a broad spectrum of knowledge,” ­concedes Professor Noriko Arai from the country’s National Institute of Informatics.

The researchers abandoned their project a few weeks ago.

Kazakhstan

approx. 1,655 km

Almaty

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

T OP THREE EXPORT AREAS

1 /9

Crude oil Non-ferrous metals Iron and steel

LANGUAGES

Kazakh, Russian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

30.6 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

6.40 °C LAND AREA

272,490 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

97,418 km / 14,767 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

61.80 %

Machines Foodstuffs Iron and steel NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Declaration of Independence 1991: December 16 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Samsa – pastry traditionally baked in a tandoor clay oven, usually filled with horse meat or mutton BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Mukhtar Auezov: “Abai” * PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Durum wheat

A tip from the GW employee Ailyana Aletova

ASPIRATIONS: KAZAKHSTAN 55

Paving the way for prosperity

Naziyam Ibragimova already feels at home in Khorgos.

Kazakhstan’s gateway to the New Silk Road text: Edda Schlager Once upon a time, textiles, porcelain and exotic spices found their way along the Silk Road from China to Europe. Today mosques and madrasas in central Asia still testify to the glo­ ries of an age when the trade between East and West brought affluence to entire regions.

China now intends to revive this legend – by investing more than a billion euros in a “New Silk Road.” At the end of 2013 the Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the giant infrastructure project known as the “Belt and Road Initia­ tive” (BRI ). The BRI is already dwarfing its medieval proto­ type, with China investing in improved transport routes worldwide.

Zhenis Turkiya from Kazakhstan also has high hopes for the mammoth project. He is an investor and the developer of a hotel and shopping complex in Khorgos, on the site of the so-called International Center of Boundary Cooperation (ICBC ). “We are one of the first investors here from Kazakh­ stan and there are bound to be a fair share of risks,” says ­Turkiya. “But there are some incredible opportunities, too.”

Situated about 1,000 miles southeast of the Kazakh capital Astana, Khorgos is Kazakhstan’s gateway to the New Silk Road. The ICBC is an 800-hectare area on either side of the Kazakh border with China – a base where the two countries can run joint commercial projects while benefitting from tax incentives and visa-free travel in both directions. Turkiya’s hotel is due to have 180 rooms and attract business travel­ ers and tourists alike. Casinos, a racetrack, wellness centers and beauty clinics are also planned.

There is scant sign of all this so far. While a completely new town has risen from the dust on the Chinese side of Khorgos, the Kazakh side has remained a gigantic building site for three years. Despite the lack of progress, Turkiya wants to complete construction of his hotel in 2018. “The Kazakh authorities are often slow to issue permits,” he says.

“I don’t understand why; after all, there is huge potential for us to sell our own products in China too.”

Some twelve miles further along the New Silk Road, the logistics already seem to be up and running. The Dry Port of Khorgos is a transhipment hub where containers can be transferred from Chinese to Kazakh trains, a necessity given the different track gauges in the two countries. It used to take 45 to 50 days to transport Chinese goods to Europe by sea.

But the overland route via Kazakhstan takes only half as long.

And while the costs are ten times higher, many customers consider it worthwhile.

As head of PR at the Dry Port of Khorgos, Naziyam ­Ibra­gimova regularly gives guided tours around the site with its bright yellow gantry cranes. The 25-year-old fully expects Khorgos to generate an economic revival in the entire ­southeastern corner of Kazakhstan. Ibragimova grew up in the region but spent several years living in Almaty. “I would ­never have believed I would ever return from the capital to take up a better job,” she says. Her employer found her an apartment in Nurkent, a satellite town built exclusively for the facility’s employees just a few miles away. It currently has a population of 1,200 but has been designed for 100,000. ­Despite the somewhat desolate surroundings – the steppes begin directly behind Ibragimova’s concrete high-rise – the young woman feels happy in her new surroundings. “We don’t pay any rent and we have everything we need here – a kinder­garten, school and shops.” Every day a shuttle bus ferries residents to and from the Dry Port, and that too is free.

Ibragimova has no thoughts of returning to the capital.

And, if necessary, Turkiya is happy to wait for hotel guests to bring a return on his investment. Kazakhstan’s dream of an economic boom in the Khorgos region may not been realized as quickly as hoped, but the gateway to the New Silk Road is open wide.

Macedonia

approx. 169 km

Skopje

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

1 / 17

Chemical products Textiles and clothing Iron and steel

LANGUAGES

Macedonian, Albanian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

37.9 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

9.80 °C LAND AREA

25,713 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

14,182 km / 683 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

113 %

Non-ferrous metals Chemical products Foodstuffs NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Referendum on independence 1991: September 8 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Cevapčići BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Petre M. Andreevski: “Wild Rye” PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Honey

ASPIRATIONS: MACEDONIA 57

­“As an entre­ preneur, I have a ­responsibility ­towards society”

It’s that Friday feeling: a Breon employee helps out with a community project.

text: Keno Verseck When still a child, the civil engineer Fikret Zendeli fled his native Macedonia for Switzerland. After completing college he returned to his homeland and established a flourishing construction design company. Now an experienced entrepreneur, the 35-year old is determined to do something for the public good. To this end, he established “Social Friday,” a project he is now promoting inter­nationally.

One snowy evening in December 2009, the then 26 -yearold Fikret Zendeli left Zurich in his father’s clapped-out VW Golf III to embark upon a new and uncertain future.

Ahead of him lay over 1,000 miles of driving through seven countries, behind him – on the back seat – two computers.

Twenty hours later he arrived in Skopje, the capital of Mace­ donia, the land where he was born but had left with his fami­ ly at the age of nine. This time he had come to stay.

Today, nine years later, Fikret Zendeli is a successful ­businessman. He runs a construction design company with ten employees in Skopje, and ranks among the region’s ­highest-quality providers of civil-engineering services.

But Zendeli’s achievements extend beyond the commer­ cial success he has attained since his “homecoming.” His renown has spread beyond his professional field, above all as a result of his company’s charitable work. Last year he launched what he dubbed his “Social Friday” initiative – to highlight the Fridays on which he and his team work on ­community projects that benefit society.

The project owes much to his own life experience. Zendeli was born in the western Macedonian city of Gostivar. His father was a so-called “guest worker” in Germany, and sub­ sequently in Switzerland where he found employment as a painter. In material terms, life was often tough for his family, Zendeli explains. But at an early age his parents, above all his father, had impressed upon him the importance of help­ ing people who were less well off.

Fearing for his family’s safety during the Yugoslav wars, his father brought his wife and three children to Switzerland in 1992. They were welcomed with open arms, enthuses

Fikret Zendeli. He went on to study construction technology and was then offered a lucrative post at a Swiss company.

But, to his family’s horror, he turned it down – and departed for Macedonia. His decision, Zendeli explains, had less to do with rediscovering his roots than a spirit of adventure. And a desire to establish a company in his country of birth that was capable of “supplying top-quality products to Switzerland.”

Zendeli has evidently achieved that ambition with his company Breon – at least to judge by a project portfolio that extends from construction designs for commercial high-rises through to plans for converting historic buildings. And that’s not all. Zendeli also tries to provide good working condi­ tions. Breon pays more than twice Macedonia’s average wage, and tops that up with bonuses, vacation pay, childcare bene­ fits and subsidies for leisure activities.

Zendeli got the idea for his “Social Friday” while reading an article about a British survey, according to which the ma­ jority of employees had run out of steam by midday on Fridays.

Why not use this unproductive time for something else, ­Zendeli thought – and promptly arranged for his staff to spend Fridays working on a community project four times a year.

He and his staff plant trees, cook meals for the homeless, and do arts and crafts projects with orphans and children in homes. Needless to say, Breon employees receive their full pay. Zendeli also donates money to the various projects.

In the meantime, others are following his lead. In Latvia the cosmetics company Oriflame staged its first-ever “Social Friday” in August. When Breon received inquiries from Kosovo, Switzerland and Portugal, Zendeli decided to launch an international campaign in support of his social project.

In addition to filming a promotional video about “Social Fri­ day” in Skopje, he will be sending out “Social Friday pull­ overs” to well-known entrepreneurs and politicians.

“As an entrepreneur I have a lot of social responsibility,” says Fikret Zendeli. “I can scarcely buy myself a yacht if my employees and neighbors are struggling! If there’s a fire next door, I need to put it out. Otherwise my house could go up in flames, too.”

Montenegro

approx. 190 km

Podgorica

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

1 / 6

Non-ferrous metals Raw materials Electricity

LANGUAGES

Montenegrin TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

40.7 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

10.55 °C LAND AREA

13,812 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

7,762 km / 336 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

107.90 %

Foodstuffs Petrochemicals Cars and automotive components NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Declaration of Independence 1878 and uprising against German occupation 1941: July 13 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Pita – yufka bread filled with cheese, spinach or meat BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

“Meet me in Montenegro” (directed by Alex Holdridge, Linnea Saasen) PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Pear brandy

ASPIRATIONS: MONTENEGRO 59

W arming up to school

Even public buildings in Montenegro’s remote villages deserve a functioning heating system.

text: Martin Kaluza When Bodo Schmülling paid his first visit to the school in Pljevlja, its limitations as a learning environment were plain to see. The building was dilapidated and the heating was provided by an ancient coal boiler. It can get bitterly cold here: the town is situated in the mountains of north­ ern ­Montenegro where temperatures often fall to between –10 to –15 °C. Schmülling works for the German-based Kf W Development Bank. And he is managing a project aimed at improving energy efficiency in Montenegro’s pub­ lic buildings, particularly its schools.

Trying to heat public buildings across the country is an endeavor practically doomed to failure. Montenegro’s 233 schools have not been renovated for decades, and some are almost a century old. The buildings can hardly retain any heat because the roofs have holes and the windows are only single-glazed. Mold has formed on many of the walls.

At least, that was how things were for years.

Part of Yugoslavia until 1992 and independent of Serbia since 2006, Montenegro has a population of just 640,000.

The country is dependent on energy imports, with 40 percent of its electricity coming from abroad. That makes energy wastage in its public buildings all the worse. But now, it seems, there is hope on the horizon. Eight years ago the gov­ ernment passed a law designed to improve energy efficiency nationwide. It hired help from foreign experts, including from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammen­arbeit (GIZ), an organization specializing in inter­ national cooperation. With the aid of loans from the Kf W Development Bank, an initial 21 schools were upgraded at a cost of 11.5 million euros. Local and German energy con­ sultants inspected the buildings. Based on their reports, the Montenegrin Ministry of Commerce issued a call for tenders and then commissioned local construction companies to

upgrade the heating, install insulated windows and seal the roofs – simple steps that make a real difference. “Standards in the past were so bad that temperatures inside are now comfortable despite the schools’ spending less on heating,” Schmülling explains.

The first phase of the project was already completed by the end of 2015, and the second – this time funded by a loan of some 22 million euros – is now underway. A third phase, with increased funding of between 40 and 50 million euros, is in the planning stage. “We’ve put any teething problems behind us so the projects are running smoothly now and we’re making good headway,” says Schmülling. “We send inspectors around once a year to monitor the progress of the renovations.”

The benefits are visible at every turn. For example, one company involved in the project, the construction consul­ tants Fichtner Bauconsulting, calculates that the modernized schools will save an average of about 35,000 euros a year in heating costs. As a consequence, the state has moved closer to achieving its climate goals. Local economies are benefiting from the construction contracts. And last, but certainly not least, schoolchildren can concentrate better in the com­ fortable temperatures – an outcome that Germany’s Univer­ sity of Marburg is currently scrutinizing in academic studies.

“When a modern wood pellet heating system was installed in Pljevlja, local residents asked the school management what was going on. What had happened to the columns of smoke above the buildings?” says Schmülling. He was happy that not only the air quality had improved: “Others have ­followed our lead,” he reports. “Since then a number of local people have installed pellet heating in their homes.” After all, what’s good for public buildings can’t be bad for private houses.

Romania

approx. 517 km

Arad, Bacău, Brașov, București, Bolintin Deal, Chiajna, Cluj Napoca, Constanţa, Pielesti, Oradea, Sibiu

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

12 / 595

Cars and automotive components Electrical engineering Machines

LANGUAGES

Romanian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

41.1 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

8.80 °C LAND AREA

238,391 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

84,185 km / 10,770 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

83.70 %

Chemical products Machines Electrical engineering NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Unification of Transylvania and Old Reich 1918: ­December 1 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Covrigi – circular yeast bread sprinkled with poppy seeds, sesame seeds or coarse salt BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

“Wild Carpathia” (directed by Charlie Ottley)* PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Dacia Duster, Dracula, Simona Halep A tip from the GW employee Georgiana Ecovescu

ASPIRATIONS: ROMANIA 61

The Enlightener text: Miruna Munteanu, Bogdan Alexander Some cities in Romania are renowned for their glittering nightlife. In contrast, there are villages whose inhabitants spend every evening in the company of candles. Not because they are romantics, but because they have no alternative: there is no electricity. The villagers are often forced to walk hours just to charge their cellphones. And everyone takes a dim view of that.

Modern Romania offers the security of the EU , free wi-fi, and products from major brands like Carrefour, Lidl, Kauf­ land, Auchan, Delhaize and Starbucks. With its breathtaking scenery and some of the last remaining spots of pristine na­ ture in Europe, it is also a dream for adventurers. In rural areas, fans of the past can find communities that have seem­ ingly been passed unnoticed by time and progress. On a tour through the Romanian countryside ten years ago, Iulian ­Angheluţă discovered that much for himself. He came across villages that were cut off from all the conveniences we cher­ ish in the civilized world. They were miles away from the nearest power supply. When he grasped what that meant for the people, it changed Angheluţă’s life. Now aged 43, he gave up a job in advertising and has since devoted his life to an extremely ambitious project: bringing electric lighting to the country’s forgotten people. He established the NGO Free Mioriţa – the name alludes to a famous folk song that many think epitomizes the fatalistic Romanian mindset. But Iulian Angheluţă refuses to believe in destiny. In his conviction, everyone is capable of changing the world.

According to a 2011 census, three percent of Romanian households are not connected to the national grid. That may not sound like much, but it means that about half a mil­ lion people still live under nineteenth-century conditions.

And that in a nation with the sixth-highest proportion of IT specialists in the world, a country that produces 5,000 IT and engineering graduates a year – and proudly claims to have one of the fastest data highways on the planet! In the past six years alone, the Romanian IT sector has doubled its gross sales to five billion euros, while the country’s economy has expanded steadily and posted record 6.9 percent growth in 2017.

But the wealth is not shared equally. Indeed, in some areas it has not been shared at all. The villages abandoned to the past face a divide that will likely grow wider and wider. While some local children possess computers, they cannot even turn them on.

Iulian Angheluţă has found a simple solution to this ­complex problem: solar energy. Securing the support of pri­ vate sponsors, he built a team of volunteers. With their help he purchased, transported and installed the first solar ar­ rays in some of Romania’s most inaccessible regions. That was a start. But to extend the project to the whole country he needed accurate maps, which didn’t exist. What did Iulian ­Angheluţă do? He turned himself into a cartographer and set about mapping the remote communities himself. To this end he cycled across the land for seven months, covering over 5,000 miles in the process. And since 2015, thanks to his efforts, every single school in Romania has electricity and a computer. But Angheluţă has only just begun: wherever ­darkness still reigns in private homes, he continues to bring light. And where there’s a will, there’s a way. Of that, Iulian ­Angheluţă is living proof.

Renewable energies in Romania The majority of electricity in Romania is still produced by thermal power stations that run on fossil fuels. Renew­able energies play only a marginal role, but subsidies for electricity generated using renewable energy sources have been mandated by law since 2010. Within the space of a few years, the country could be exporting wind and solar power – if only the existing potential were exploited more effectively. In addition to wind power, solar energy represents a major opportunity for Romania. This is true particularly in the south, where numerous photovoltaic projects are currently under construction.

62

T apping the ­energy Interview with Viorel Leca, ­Country Manager at Gebrüder Weiss Romania on the economy, infrastructure and future of Romania interview: Miriam Holzapfel There are some rural areas in Romania where there are still problems getting electric power. By contrast, the phone and internet connections are good everywhere.

Which location would you personally recommend as a base for a company?

The choice of a location hinges on numerous factors. Our country has a lot to offer which is why I consider both major cities and rural areas suitable. If a company needs lots of space for manufacturing or warehousing, it is more likely to choose somewhere out-of-town. Quite simply, large premis­ es are more difficult to find in urban environments. On the other hand it’s easier to find highly-qualified personnel in cities, especially in the areas of IT and communications tech­ nology. That’s why technology companies create work sites there. Cluj, for example, has become an important hub for IT companies.

It’s true that Romania is one of the few European coun­ tries where part of the population is not served by a power company. In reality Romania has a highly developed energy infrastructure. Nowadays, there are hardly any public or commercial buildings that don’t have an electricity supply.

Poverty is the main reason why private homes are left out in the cold. That, too, is something that needs to change.

The state railway company CFR has one of the largest networks in Europe, but there are only two highways in Romania. From your point of view, what are the most pressing challenges facing the country’s transportation system?

The transport infrastructure in Romania is underdeveloped so substantial investment and modernization will be re­ quired. While a long-term master plan was drawn up for its

highways over a decade ago, virtually nothing of it has actu­ ally materialized since the country joined the EU in 2007.

From my perspective, the main priority remains the highway between Sibiu and Pitesti, as this is an important segment of the Pan-European Corridor IV . Beyond that, I’d consider the completion of the beltway around Bucharest and the expressway running between Craiova and Pitesti to be the most ­urgent needs. Change is also vital in the Romanian rail network. At just 8 mph, the average speed of cargo inside the country is currently one of the slowest in the whole of Europe! As such it poses a major obstacle to the country’s supply chains. So modernization of the rail network is a must.

Which sectors do your Romanian customers come from?

Having an extremely well-balanced customer portfolio is very important to us. Indeed, our customers come from an array of very different industries. If you asked me for my personal “top three,” I would certainly rate the automo­ tive sector as most important, followed by consumer goods (­including retail) and then tools and building materials.

How do you expect companies like these to perform in the future?

Romania is an extremely dynamic and diversified market that is constantly changing, evolving and aligning with the ­latest technologies. We are absolutely convinced that our customers too will follow this trend.

What are your hopes for Romania’s future?

I hope that Romania continues to go from strength to strength.

That will open up more and more investment opportunities for both local and foreign companies, rendering the growth sustainable and consolidating it for the long term.

ASPIRATIONS: ROMANIA 63

Russian Federation

approx. 4, 462 km

Moscow, Naberezhnye Chelny

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

2 /1 5

Crude oil Petrochemicals Non-ferrous metals

LANGUAGES

Russian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

39.6 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

–5.10 °C LAND AREA

17,098, 246 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

128,338 km / 85,262 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

46.30 %

Machines Foodstuffs Electrical engineering NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Declaration of Sovereignty 1990: June 12 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Okroshka-Kartoshka – baked potato with Russian ­salad dips BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Nikolai Gogol: “Dead Souls”* PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Crude oil and vodka

A tip from the GW employee Maximilian Karner

ASPIRATIONS: RUSSIAN FEDERATION 65

Talk, talk, and talk some more

Sun In aka Sveta at her shop in Vladivostok.

text: Wlada Kolosowa Sun In had chosen her own name: Sveta. “Svetlana means ‘the bright one’,” she explains with an almost perfect accent in Russian. “And you can never have enough light here – the Russian winters are long.” Sveta is sitting at the checkout in her shop at the Sportivnaya Market. Chinese cabbage and ginger are laid out alongside potatoes and beetroot, soya sauce next to three-liter jars of mayonnaise, seaweed crack­ ers beside baranki, the ring-shaped Russian pastries made from hard dough. Behind Sveta’s back, Caishen – the Chinese god of prosperity – is smiling down from a poster. In front of her on the counter is a Russian-Chinese dictionary.

“Learn, learn and learn some more – that’s what this fa­ mous Russian Lenin said. And I say, ‘Talk, talk and talk some more.’” Sveta never misses an opportunity to polish up her Russian with some chitchat. Every few minutes someone from a neighboring shop pops in: “Svet, can you change a 1,000-ruble bill for me?” – “Svet, do you still stock that green tea in tins?” – “Svet, I’m going to get some ice cream. Would you like something too?” She chats with them all. She started learning Russian at school and loves the language. She only dislikes mat, the vulgar expressions that can either con­ vey a profanity or a simple outburst of emotion, depending on the context. “But I know how to use mat if I need to – ­believe you me!” she says. Anyone wanting to survive here at the Sportiv­niy Market needs to master it quickly.

She came to Vladivostok at the age of 21, worked seven days a week, and shared a single room with five compatriots.

After a year she was in a position to rent her own shop and a single room from a Chinese landlord. Her son, parents and husband have stayed behind in Suifenhe, a small town on the border between Russia and China, about 100 miles northwest of Vladivostok. Occasionally she gets visits from her five-year-old son and her husband Liu Wei, a k a Sasha.

She rarely travels home herself: “Only if my visa needs re­ newing or my mother isn’t doing well.”

Since she opened her own store, Sveta has rarely had a minute to spare. “If you’re your own boss, you get to work for yourself but you never get to take a break,” she says. She has

hardly seen any of Vladivostok’s sights. Just occasionally she permits herself to finish work at five and go for a walk along the sea front. Time is money, and she only has another two years to save enough. She would like to return to China before her son starts school: “That’s when parents are most import­ ant.” She aims to open up an internet café in Suifenhe with the money she has made in Russia.

She doesn’t get homesick, she says, but she does long for her son and family. She doesn’t miss things like the food either. She can’t stand Russian pelmeni but luckily the Sport­ ivnaya Market is full of Chinese food stands and restaurants.

One is called “Anya and Valera,” another “Lena and Ivan.”

With names like these, the proprietors try to attract Russian guests who like the spicy flavors and humongous servings familiar from Chinese cuisine.

During the Chinese New Year the Sportivnaya Market is all but deserted. There are numerous shoe shops, hairdress­ ing salons and nail care studios operated by Chinese people there. The employees call themselves Vanya, Kolya, Borya – notwithstanding surnames that are most likely similar to Li. Most of them speak good Russian, but when it is as hot as it is today, they sit outside at the cafés, bare their stomachs Chi­ nese-style, sun themselves and sip green tea. Occasionally the market’s mascot trundles by, a small dog called “Banza” – Chinese for “money.”

“Everybody is nice,” says Sveta. “Except those brazen police who not only get all their food free but demand mon­ ey from us as well.” Beyond that she has no complaints about Russia. She has found some friends here at the market, she adds. “I would never have thought it, but the Chinese are really OK ,” says Sveta’s fellow worker. “When it comes to work ethic and commercial sense, we Russians could learn a thing or two from them.” Then she shows off the gift she has prepared for Sveta’s son: a plastic cat with a built-in calcu­ lator in its belly. After all, Sveta’s son needs to get a head start on how to run a business. He is due to pay them another visit in two months. Then she will make him his favorite meal: mashed potatoes, Russian-style.

Serbia

approx. 482 km

Dobanovci, Niš, Novi Sad-Veternik, Vučje

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

4 / 241

Foodstuffs Cars and automotive components Machines

LANGUAGES

Serbian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

42.6 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

10.55 °C LAND AREA

77,474 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

44,248 km / 38,096 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

109.01 %

Cars and automotive components Machines Foodstuffs NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Uprising against the Ottoman Empire 1804: February 15 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Smoki – peanut chips, extremely popular brand since the 1970s BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Bora Cosic: “Breakfast at the Majestic” PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Plum brandy

ASPIRATIONS: SERBIA 67

The fans watch calmly from the stand. At Red Star’s home games – seen here against Spartak Trnava in August 2018 – that is normally the exception.

A star that stands for you text: Alex Raack No other soccer club epitomizes Serbia’s sporting ­culture – and history – like Red Star Belgrade Crvena Zvezda: Red Star Belgrade. A name that recalls a ­glorious past. The legendary Yugoslav team that won soccer’s European Cup in 1991, only to fall apart like the war-torn multinational state that it called home. Crvena Zvezda: One of the world’s most famous clubs. A magnet for obsessively impassioned fans, and a home base for extremists and ­radicals. “Més que un Club” – more than a club – is how fans of the Spanish soccer team Barcelona describe their favor­ ites. In Belgrade that strikes a very familiar chord. The name ­“Red Star” also conjures up a sense of hope: that the city, and the country, can be restored to its former glory. And the memories of what followed banished to the past.

SPORTING HIGH, HISTORIC LOW

But the story of Serbia’s most prestigious club cannot be told without the events of the 1990s. When the team starring Robert Prosinečki, Siniša Mihajlović and Darko Pančev be­ gan the new season in 1990, a season that it climaxed by winning Europe’s premier team competition, Yugoslavia was already a powder keg. Ten years after the death of its founder Jozip Broz Tito, the country was drifting inexorably apart.

Croatia and Slovenia had already opted for independence.

The nationalistic, religious and ethnic fault lines were ­becoming impossible to ignore. And when Red Star played Croa­tia’s Dinamo Zagreb in May, ferocious fighting broke out between the fans, players and police. For many observers today, it was this violence that ignited the civil war. And as, in the midst of all the chaos, Crvena Zvezda slowly advanced to the final of what is now called the Champions League, a toxic atmosphere gripped the Red Star supporters. And it boiled over into an explosion of nationalism among arguably the most fervent fans in Europe. As tens of thousands ac­ companied their team to the final in Bari and ­mar­veled at its victory over Olympique Marseille in a penalty shoot-out, their one-time leader Željko Ražnatović, aka ­Arkan, had long enlisted an army of hooligans. Its campaign began with brawls inside the stadiums before progressing to war crimes on the country’s battlefields. The club may have been cele­ brating its greatest-ever triumph, but the world outside the 100,000-capacity Marakana Stadium was falling apart.

FAMED FAR AND WIDE: THE LOYAL FANS

The war is long over. But neither the club nor the country have recovered from its horrors. Despite winning the Serbian championship again in 2018, Red Star is light years from

68

Red Star Belgrade’s fervent fans fire up their team during a Europa League match against Cologne in December 2017.

­ esmerizing Europe’s soccer elite. Yet the fans refuse to go m away. Even today, Red Star Belgrade is synonymous with fanaticism: enthusiasts from around the globe converge on the Serbian capital when the team faces its local rival Partizan in what is known as the “eternal derby.” Because they expe­ rience something here that is otherwise extinct. The German groundhopper Markus Stapke has attended this unique match-­ up 30 times. “With their nickname, the ‘Delije’ or ‘heroes,’ the Red Star fans have always been masters of choreography – not only in Serbia.” And, as Stapke can also testify, “the fans in the grandstand are aware of their social clout. What they sing reverberates through to the country’s political classes.”

The journalist Frank Willmann summarized his experiences of the derby for the German weekly Die Zeit. “Raucous laugh­

ter and yelling. But was that it? Had I become a bit actor in a wild and romantic piece of stadium drama?” It’s a cocktail of tradition, passion and anarchy that lends the Red Star fans their unique charisma.

SERBIA – A NATION OF SPORTS LOVERS

How do the club and its history fit into Serbia’s sporting cul­ ture? According to Nebojsa Viskovic, one of the country’s best-known sports reporters, “Serbia’s image is still tainted by its past. The damage is done. It can’t be undone that quickly. But here sports are the best form of advertising: the highs of recent years have been closely associated with sport­ ing triumphs.” Like the national squad’s recent qualification for the soccer World Cup. Or the mercurial achievements

ASPIRATIONS: SERBIA 69

of its tennis players, above all the 13-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic. “It’s unbelievable what has happened here in tennis,” says Viskovic. “Serbia has no heritage in the sport whatsoever. The infrastructure is rotten and not a single dinar has been invested. It’s a complete mystery.” The shoot­ ing star Djokovic was quoted as follows in the German maga­ zine Der Spiegel: “The war made me a better tennis player because I swore I would show the world that there are good Serbians as well.” For his fellow tennis pro Janko Tipsarević, currently the world number 56, Djokovic is more than just a sportsman: “I always tell him: ‘Novak, one more victory and we’ll be in the EU !’”

Currently only the fans at Red Star are capable of breath­ taking achievements like those of tennis idol Djokovic.

And not just in soccer. When, in 2017, Brose Bamberg of Ger­ many played Red Star’s basketball team in a EuroLeague game and the 8,000 spectators in Belgrade created a sen­ sational atmosphere, the visibly moved Bamberg point guard Fabien Causeur stammered into the microphones: “Sure, we play basketball to win trophies, but most of all we play for evenings like this.” After the game, the Serb’s sports director Davor Ristović was asked how the club attracted such pas­ sionate supporters. His response seemed to speak for every­ one associated with Red Star. “You may get your wages late, and there’s no way you’ll be taking charter flights to games – but you are playing for a club that is one big family.”

approx. 34 km

Singapore

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

1 / 20

Electronics Petrochemicals Chemical products

LANGUAGES

Malay, Chinese, Tamil, English TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

34.6 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

26.45 °C LAND AREA

719 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

3,425 km / 150 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

318.40 %

Electronics Petrochemicals Machines NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Declaration of Independence 1965: August 9 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Karipap – deep-fried pastry puffs with a filling made of curry, chicken and potatoes BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Lucy Lum: “The Thorn of Lion City: A Memoir” PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Service: best airport, best airline, best digital bank, most efficient customs authorities

ASPIRATIONS: SINGAPORE 71

Den of drones text: Frederic Spohr Singapore offers a window to the future of the world and the district of One North to the future of Singapore. Well-known research institutes call it their home, while countless start­ ups are concocting new products in the futuristically styled buildings. When the district stages a neighborhood party, it looks like an inventors’ fair.

The skies of One North are center stage. Occasionally a drone whirrs by overhead. This year the government issued a license for unmanned aircraft in this district. The modern city-state wants to help pioneer the technology – after all, ­Singapore is one of the world’s leading logistics hubs.

“There’s lots of potential for drones to impact mobility and logistics in urban environments,” says Loh Ngai Seng, a secretary of state in Singapore’s Ministry of Transport.

“We want to foster the technology’s benefits for use in prac­ tical applications here.”

Singapore is pinning its hopes on an array of projects, including one involving the European aviation technology company Airbus. Initial tests of the so-called “Skyways” have already proven successful. As early as this year, the com­ pany’s drones will be regularly ferrying packages weighing up to four kilograms back and forth across the University of Singapore campus. What makes this unique? The packages are automatically loaded at special stations.

And that’s not all: in future the Airbus drones are due for use in the port of Singapore, the world’s second largest tran­ shipment harbor after Shanghai. This year, as part of a trial, they will start transporting components and documents

­ etween the ships and the port authorities. Small boats are b currently being used for this task, a slow process given the huge distances involved. In addition to the numerous anchor­ ages, the port has 1,000 spaces for mooring ships.

The participating companies anticipate that the drones will reduce costs by 90 percent. “Using this innovative tech­ nol­ogy could help us improve productivity,” says Andrew Tan, CEO of the port authority in Singapore. The personnel and resources freed up can be deployed on other functions.”

But the city center is also expecting more drones, and residents here are in favor of the government’s plans. Accord­ ing to a survey of 20,000 consumers in ten countries con­­­duc­ ted by the digital payment provider Worldpay, the residents of Singapore are particularly willing to embrace receiv­ing their goods by air. Only in China were more ­respondents ­likely to accept drone delivery.

Today, Singapore is not far from turning this scenario into reality. This summer the government commissioned a consor­ tium to create an airspace management system – covering the entire island – for drones. Thirteen countries are involved in the project, including a hospital hoping to deliver medica­ tion etc. by drone.

The numbers of partners for the project will continue to grow. “It’s our goal for every company to have the capacity to fly drones – safely, effectively and without visual contact,” says Ong Jiin Joo, the consortium’s director. The system should be ready for rollout in two years. At that point, the fu­ture really will have begun in Singapore.

Slovakia

approx. 208 km

Bytča, Presov, Senec, Zvolen

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

4 / 156

Cars and automotive components Electronics Machines and industrial plant

LANGUAGES

Slovakian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

40.5 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

6.80 °C LAND AREA

49,035 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

54,869 km / 3,626 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

183.90 %

Electronics Cars and automotive components Machines NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Constitution Day 1992: September 1 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Ciganksa – a piece of meat (typically pork) with onion and sauce in a bread roll BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Movies by Pavol Barabáš* PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Cars (VW, Kia), traditional sheep and goat’s cheese (shaped like string and braids) A tip from the GW employee Paul Zoglauer

ASPIRATIONS: SLOVAKIA 73

T he blossoming of Kosice

Artist, founder and director: Peter Radkoff in his cultural center.

A city is miraculously transformed text: Kilian Kirchgeßner Sometimes he sits in the courtyard, a cool glass of beer in hand, and simply winds down. Peter Radkoff has put a few years of maximum effort into this project; on summer days like this he realizes it has all been worthwhile. Floating on the balmy evening air, the voices and laughter echo across from the customers who have gathered around the array of tables. Waitresses are delivering fresh burgers from the bistro and increasing numbers of guests are entering the courtyard.

“This is exactly how I always imagined it,” says Radkoff.

This man is responsible for the minor miracle that has occurred at the most unlikely of locations. Radkoff is actually an artist but here, above all, he is the founder and direc­tor of a cultural center. Not so long ago, people would have laughed at him. A cultural center, here in Kosice of all places, this backwater of 250,000 souls in the eastern corner of ­Slovakia! The Ukrainian border is just a few kilo­meters away, the city’s old steel industry has been in decline since the fall of Communism, the young people head for distant climes as soon as they finish high school – and he wants to open a cultural center?

The place has been chosen for its symbolism: an old ­to­bacco factory from the Habsburg era is the venue for Rad­ koff ’s independently-run establishment – which has been aptly christened “Tabacka.” A huge building, it takes up a whole block. The view on the street side is of old, crumbling plaster. But the interior, inside the attractively lit courtyard, showcases all that is new here: hipsters with racing bikes, musicians, young people from further afield. Extending over

a full 27,000 square feet, the center houses a cinema, office space for creatives, an atrium with a huge stage and, of course, the bistro.

“I went to Bratislava, the capital, for college and basical­ ly stopped spending time here,” says a young man at a table with a group of friends. “Then it suddenly dawned on me: Wow, Kosice is changing! It’s nothing like the old, gray, ­moribund city I knew.” When he began looking for a job, he found one in his home town. The others around the table nod in agreement. Their experiences of returning home were similar, and they have become part of a wave of hope that has swept through an entire region and is crystallized here in the old tobacco factory.

The moment when Kosice metamorphosed from a bas­ tion of unemployment into a paradise for high-flyers can be pinpointed with absolute accuracy. It was in 2013, when it became the European Capital of Culture – a designation awarded to a different city each year. Often enough it amounts to little more than an expensive exercise in tourism promo­ tion that fizzles out when the year is up. But Kosice was dif­ ferent.

“From the very beginning we viewed the year as a trans­ formative project,” says Radkoff, one of the program coordi­ nators at the time. “The goal was to turn a conservative, ­tra­ditionally industrial town into a creative hub. We wanted to move the arts away from the city center and transplant them in every part of town. And it worked!” Rather than fo­ cusing on operas and exhibitions, they dreamed up plays that

74 

The old tobacco factory’s courtyard has been revitalized in recent years.

ASPIRATIONS: SLOVAKIA 75

could be staged in the concrete jungles at the city limits.

They converted an old barracks into a youth center. And in the Baroque town center, they encouraged cool cafés and bars of a kind more easily imagined in London or Berlin.

That sparked a virtuous circle that even the most starry-­ eyed optimists could never have predicted. At first, young and highly qualified Slovaks began relocating to Kosice.

That in turn attracted employers who were looking for this very demographic. The burgeoning career opportunities drew growing numbers of educated young people. Today Kosice has become a key IT center. Dozens of domestic and inter­national companies have opened software develop­ ment ­centers here. As a result, well over 10,000 jobs have been created in the sector.

And this, at the very latest, is where the old tobacco ­factory comes in. Without the concerts, without the appe­ tizing whiff of the burgers and the open-air movies in the courtyard, Kosice would be one attraction poorer. And all the programmers, agency professionals and artists who have changed the face of this city would have nowhere to meet up after work, no place to thrash out their ideas over a drink.

Peter Radkoff sets his beer glass down on the table and stands up. He needs to check out the musicians next door who are preparing for their concert that evening. A rock group from Colorado is on the bill: they have scheduled a performance in Kosice as part of their European tour. Peter Radkoff shrugs his shoulders, as if it were the most natu­ ral thing in the world for Kosice to be back on the map and the old factory to have risen from the ashes. “You know what?” he says as he heads off, “I’m an eternal optimist.”

IT in Slovakia Europe’s Silicon Valley could well lie in Slovakia: for sev­eral years now, numerous start-ups have been basing themselves in Bratislava and other major cities. The legal conditions for new companies are favorable, the wages in the IT sector comparable to in Austria – while the cost of living is considerably lower. Big-name players like Siemens, Microsoft, IBM and Cisco have long recognized this. Above all, companies that offer software, data pro­ cessing and hosting services are on the rise.

Sales in these areas grew in double-digits during 2017 and the first quarter of 2018. Business centers providing IT services for large companies are also well-placed in the country; these employ more than 30,000 people.

Slovenia

approx. 162 km

Ljubljana

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

2 / 65

Chemical products Cars and automotive components Machines

LANGUAGES

Slovenian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

44.5 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

8.90 °C LAND AREA

20,273 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

38,985 km / 12,09 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

148.50 %

Chemical products Cars and automotive components Machines NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Declaration of Independence 1991: June 25 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Štruklji z Kranjska – buckwheat dumplings served with smoked sausage BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Noah Charney: “Slovenology”* PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Idrija lace, decorated beehives, gingerbread hearts

A tip from the GW employee Jana Čokl

ASPIRATIONS: SLOVENIA 77

O ne woman’s ­story: women in history

Setting a good example: tour guide Jasmina Jerant.

text: Krsto Lazarevic Only one city in the world offers regular tours from a ­feminist perspective – the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana.

The guides include a young woman who has spent much of her life in California and Budapest, and has now ­returned to promote women’s rights and political edu­ cation in her homeland.

Ninety-eight percent of the monuments in the city depict men. Although the activists from the Center for Urban ­Culture in Ljubljana had been expecting a gross discrepancy, the result of this “headcount” left them incredulous. The history of its women needed to be told as well, they soon resolved. To this end they devised a feminist tour of the city.

Now, every evening at 6:00 p. m., groups of visitors gather at the fountain downtown where a tour guide is waiting to escort them.

Jasmina Jerant is today’s guide. She wears stern brown bangs and nerdy glasses and totes a brown leather bag.

At some sights, she brandishes her fist combatively in the air, as if she wants to take on the patriarchy on the spot. In addi­ tion to giving guided tours, she presents a feminist radio show. “Lots of visitors are surprised that only a single street downtown is named for a woman. One of the most popular segments of our tour takes us to the medieval prison where so-called witches awaited execution.”

The main focuses of the tour are the rise of the women’s movement in the nineteenth century, the anti-fascist wom­ en’s front and its role in the country’s opposition to Ger­ man National Socialism, and the current battles being fought by gender equality groups in Slovenia. Tourists hear how, even today, only five of the 84 members of the Slovenian

Acad­emy of Arts and Sciences are women – another glaring disparity. During the two-hour-long tour, they learn about the ­country’s female artists, architects and politicians. Places need to be booked in advance, with tickets costing 12 euros per person. Held in English, the tour normally attracts be­ tween five and 30 participants.

Jasmina Jerant is among the many young Slovenian ­women to have left the country. She spent ten years living in California and Budapest, where she earned a degree in Poli­ tical Science. But in contrast to many other expatriates, she returned to Ljubljana last year: “I have seen a lot of the world and lived in different places, but nowhere have I seen a dynamic and alternative feminist scene like we have in ­Ljubljana.” Her profession as a feminist tour guide testifies to this uniqueness. Evidently, a regular guided tour of this type does not exist anywhere else on the planet. There is huge interest in the subject among women, although less among men – particularly among her compatriots. The few male participants in Jerant’s tours are usually foreign tourists. She has a simple explanation: “The word ‘feminism’ alone is enough to strike terror into most male Slovenian hearts, and the whole issue is quite unpopular. On Instagram there are fewer than 50 posts under the Slovenian word ‘Feminizem.’

If you ask me, that speaks for itself.” Above all, she hopes that her tours are entertaining, but also that they raise ­political awareness: “Often enough, women’s history seems to have passed people by. As a result, people on the tour are often surprised or even appalled. Some are even moved to tears.” It may take a while for histories of women to sound as normal as those of men. But a start has been made in ­Ljubljana.

Switzerland

approx. 222 km

Altenrhein, Pratteln, Zurich

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

7 / 220

Chemical and pharmaceutical products Machines and electronics Clocks and wristwatches

LANGUAGES

German, French, Italian, Rhaeto-Romanic TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

42.4 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

5.50 °C LAND AREA

41,290 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

71,464 km / 3,976 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

114.10 %

Chemical and pharmaceutical products Machines and electronics Vehicles NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Rütlischwur 1291: August 1 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Iklemmti – sandwiches with a variety of fillings BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Diccon Bewes: “An Englishman Among the Swiss”* PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Wristwatches, Swiss Army Knives

A tip from the GW employee Silvia Smailovic

ASPIRATIONS: SWITZERLAND 79

Outlet for ­public anger text: Peer Teuwsen Why the Swiss incarnation of direct democracy would benefit other countries today.

Here we go again. The Swiss had once more caused a flurry of head-shaking around the world. On November 29, 2009, a Sunday, 57 percent – and a clear majority of the cantons – had voted for a constitutional ban on minarets in the country.

“It’s a dark day for Europe, for the West and for freedom,” one headline asserted.

On the following Monday my phone rang. “Teuwsen, write a name-and-shame article now!” barked an editor at the German weekly that employed me as its Switzerland corre­ spondent. I refused point blank. I told him I would gladly try to explain the Swiss decision – but that condemnation would be more than a little arrogant. So somebody else got to write the critique. And I, at least, I got an opportunity to respond in the following week’s issue.

I penned a defense of direct democracy which may have erred on the side of over-zealousness, fueled no doubt by my indignation at the command I had received from on high.

I wrote about the relationship prevailing between citizens and their representatives in Switzerland, describing it as an ­“antidote to politicians’ predisposition to promise the earth in their election campaigns. Direct democracy compels the Swiss government and parliament to serve the will of the people; often enough the hypothetical threat of a referendum reminds them to deliver on their pledges.”

True, Switzerland’s flavor of democracy has become in­ creasingly complex as the decades have passed. Anyone can initiate a popular ballot on their ideas – provided they are endorsed by 100,000 others and do not violate international law. And these plebiscites can challenge almost any law that parliament passes. If just 50,000 supporters call for a vote, the whole nation gets to have its say.

For the most part, this system also prevents politicians from buying the backing of special interest groups. Direct demo­cracy imposes greater constraints, encouraging them to protect taxpayers’ money more vigilantly. It also enables citizens to pursue demands that would be hopeless causes in today’s world, e. g. lowering taxes or increasing the efficiency

80

of the state. But they can also loosen the purse strings where it makes sense. In February 2014 a large majority of Swiss voted to spend an additional billion francs on maintaining and extending the country’s rail network. Public transpor­ tation enjoys almost universal support in Switzerland because it helps connect its disparate regions.

However, when it comes to direct democracy there can be none of the half-measures that some European politicians would like. It’s a binary choice, all or nothing. And it can’t simply be transplanted into a country. It requires practice.

The Swiss have been learning about its intricacies and pitfalls for over 150 years, even if many of its most bizarre mani­ festations belong in the past. Nowadays popular participation has become far more prosaic for the Swiss. About four times a year a grey envelope lands in their mailboxes containing a big stack of ballot papers that list the national and regional resolutions. They have to answer the questions with a simple yes or no. Then they add their signatures, reseal the en­ velopes and drop them into the nearest mailbox. And, with that, the good democrats of Switzerland have exercised their rights. After a while, it becomes almost routine.

Unlike the traditional alphorn, Switzerland’s direct democracy has nothing to do with folklore.

Unfortunately, direct democracy is a traditional rite that only about half of Swiss citizens still perform. To all appear­ ances, many find the quarterly polls rather tiresome – be­ cause they are time-consuming and participants have to nav­ igate their way through issues that are sometimes complex.

All of that takes time. But in the big picture, direct democracy brings major benefits. In addition to the occasional downside.

Because mishaps occur as well. The above-mentioned referendum on minarets was just one. Bans on construction projects have no place in the country’s constitution. But ­evidently most people, assuming that the proposal would be rejected anyway, wanted to take a stand against the influx of foreigners. A so-called “mass immigration initiative” was also a minor disaster. It scraped through in 2014, notwith­ standing the fact that it violates the EU ’s principle of freedom of movement. Years of argument and counter-argument ensued among the political classes. The upshot is a solution that satisfies no one – because it both panders too strongly to the will of the people and generates more red tape. Further­ more, direct democracy is excruciatingly slow. As one conse­ quence, Swiss women stayed disenfranchised until 1971. The country’s men doggedly refused to abandon their privileges.

But these hazards are tolerable because, for better or worse, they can be amended later by parliament or the people.

To err is human, at least occasionally.

But the major benefit of direct democracy is that it serves as a safety valve for public discontent. It provides a legiti­ mate channel for venting anger, which stops it from festering unnoticed. Popular ballots air issues that other countries try to suppress, whether this be a fear of fundamentalism or of unchecked immigration. In Switzerland issues are dis­ cussed openly because the system of government prescribes as much.

A week after writing my defense of direct democracy, the editor-in-chief ’s office invited me to the annual Christmas banquet in Hamburg. Right at the entrance I bumped into the editor who had ordered me to castigate Swiss democracy.

He cut a genuinely impressive figure but, although I had ­never met him before, he evidently knew who I was. He strode up and, rather than greeting me, simply said “That’s what you get from ‘the people.’” Perhaps I even discerned a hint of envy behind his condescension?

ASPIRATIONS: SWITZERLAND 81

Highs and lows How crossing the mountains became a cakewalk

text: Miriam Holzapfel Switzerland was born in the mountains. Its three original cantons lie deep in the heart of the Alps, and the north and northwest borders of the country are defined by the Jura Mountains. But the Swiss have never been isolated: over the centuries long-distance trade has supplied both their raison d’être and their livelihoods. Some historians even suggest that Switzerland would never have become an autonomous state had it not been a transit region connecting the expanses of central Europe with Italy’s fertile and densely populated Po Valley.

Reports of traders crossing the Alps between Italy and Europe date back to antiquity. There is evidence from as early as 950 A. D. that documents the transfer of goods between the current territory of Switzerland – which was then part of the Holy Roman Empire – and the adjoining countries. Socalled bridle paths led across the mountains, and goods were transported along these narrow, frequently steep tracks with the help of pack animals. Via the small town of Nauders, the Swiss could also take mountain paths to Arlberg or the Tyrolean Mountains in the neighboring country of Austria.

But the north-south routes along the ridge were more ­popular, as they are easier to navigate than their east-west counterparts.

Today the route through the Gotthard Massiv is the pri­ mary north-south axis in Switzerland. In the Middle Ages and early modern period, the Splügen Pass and much lower Brenner Pass were more convenient for international trade.

But following its construction in the 19th century the Got­ thard Tunnel became one of the main channels to Italy. The idea of traveling through the mountains, rather than over them, was not new at the time. The world’s first road tunnel – the Urnerloch near the Swiss town of Andermatt – was built as early as 1708. By today’s standards it was anything but comfortable, being 200 feet long and having just about enough headroom for a riderless mule and – needless to ­say – no lighting whatsoever. The appalling stench inside was ­frequently described in documents by travelers of the time.

But the tunnel significantly shortened the journey for mes­ sengers. When the first railways were built in 19th-century ­Europe, the decision was soon made to build the Gotthard

Today hikers scale the mountains to unwind. In the past it was anything but relaxing.

railway tunnel. Financed jointly by Germany, Italy and the Swiss cantons, the line was opened in 1882. And it proved a great success, transporting far more goods and passengers from the very outset than anticipated.

Far from being a hazardous adventure at the mercy of the elements, crossing the Alps in the 20th century became a short, reasonably safe journey of well under an hour. In 1964 the Great St. Bernhard Tunnel was opened. At the time it was the longest road tunnel worldwide. And with the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which opened in June 2016 and cuts through the mountain well below its historic antecedent, engineers have once again set new benchmarks for travel and trans­ port. At 35 miles, it is the world’s longest rail tunnel. In its first year of operation 24,757 freight trains and 18,395 passen­ ger trains passed through. There is more and more movement across the Alps through the bottleneck that is Switzerland.

Only the mountains have remained where they were.

Taiwan

approx. 379 km

Taipei

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

1 / 22

Electronics Machines Electrical engineering

LANGUAGES

Chinese (Putonghua) TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

40.7 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

22 °C LAND AREA

36,197 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

42,520 km / 1,541 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

96.4 %

Electronics Machines Crude oil NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Wuchang Uprising 1911: October 10 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Danzai – a hearty noodle soup with pork, topped with a single shrimp BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

“Eat Drink Man Woman” (directed by Ang Lee) PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Pearl milk tea

ASPIRATIONS: TAIWAN 83

Taiwan’s tireless mirror cleaner

Seen on international television: Mr. Chang, the mirror cleaner from Taipei.

text: Klaus Bardenhagen Mr. Chang has two missions: to keep other people alive and himself fit and healthy. That’s why he heads out on his round every morning.

It’s half past four in the morning as first light penetrates the thickly wooded hill on the outskirts of Taiwan’s capital ­Taipei. Eyed distrustfully by the yard dog outside a secluded house, a white-haired man climbs onto a folding ladder in a tight bend on the winding country road. A tradesman in a small blue low-loader races by on his way to work, almost brushing the ladder at the roadside.

The man standing atop it shows no alarm. He only has eyes for a convex mirror, attached six feet in the air, that helps drivers see oncoming traffic. He sprays the mirror with cleaning fluid from a plastic bottle and then wipes it dry with a cloth.

No foible for cleanliness has made Chang Hsiu-Hsiung rise and shine so early. Nor does he receive any pay for his pains. The 76-year-old simply wants to do something good for the world. The idea occurred to him when he witnessed a fatal accident on an outing with his children. The cause, he was convinced, was a mirror installed on a narrow road.

It had become so filthy that it was no longer fit for purpose.

“Somebody had to intervene,” says Mr. Chang. “So that’s what I do now.” Since 2011, Monday to Friday, he rises from his slumbers at this ungodly hour – to ride the streets of Tai­ pei and polish every mirror on his way.

Seconds later this mirror is spotless. And in no time his feet are back on terra firma, he has strapped the ladder onto the back of his old motor-bike and roared off to his next stop just a few yards down the road. He exchanges words with a local resident, another early bird. They know each other;

it isn’t his first time here. “After eight months every mirror on my route has been cleaned,” says Chang. “Then I start from the beginning again.” In his tiny handwriting he painstaking­ ly lists his every stop in a notebook. He already has over 130,000 cleanings to his name.

Chang may well have saved lives with his indefatigable efforts. He first came to the attention of local media, and then a German TV team featured him in a report. He received a medal of honor from Taiwan’s Minister of Transport – and a yellow hi-vis vest to keep him safe when the morning rush hour starts. The notorious blue delivery vans aren’t the only health hazard. More than once Chang has fallen from his ladder, and he occasionally has to flee wild dogs. Once a night watchman even called the police, assuming he was a burglar.

Even at the age of 76, he prefers this life to sitting at home alone. Shortly before he turned 60 his wife was diagnosed with cancer. He promptly stopped working as a plasterer and looked after her for four years. She left a void in his life that nobody could fill; his children had moved away long before.

So cleaning mirrors is about more than helping others. It gives him a regular routine, a purpose in life, and the feeling of doing something useful.

He has even attracted a team of disciples. Some women and men now lend a hand. He trained them and assigned them their own routes. But his young colleagues need to get their skates on, Chang feels. To date, according to his re­ cords, they have only cleaned 10,000 mirrors between them.

At 9:00 a. m. he reaches the end of his round and rides home. That’s enough for today. “How much longer will he keep it up? “As long as possible,” he replies.

Turkey

approx. 700 km

Istanbul, Izmir

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

3 / 57

Textiles and clothing Cars and automotive components Foodstuffs

LANGUAGES

Turkish TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

30.9 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

11.10 °C LAND AREA

783,562 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

385,754 km / 10,131 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

47.10 %

Machines Cars and automotive components Electronics NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Proclamation of the Republic 1923: October 29 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Köfte – a wide variety of meatballs, usually made of ground lamb or beef BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

“Crossing the bridge” (directed by Fatih Akin)* PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Textiles, nuts, olive oil

A tip from the GW employee Arzu Yavşan

ASPIRATIONS: TURKEY 85

Sinan Kutlu and Nevra Atan have set up their own language school in Istanbul.

Overcoming ­boundaries How an Istanbul language school is building bridges to the West text: Philipp Mattheis What do Ludwig Wittgenstein and a Turkish language school have in common? Plenty, says the school’s founder Nevra Atan. The German Studies graduate chose an Austrian ­philosopher’s aphorism – “The boundaries of my language are the boundaries of my world” – as the slogan for her com­ pany. “We discovered that lots of Turks are interested in Europe and the West, but they have real problems under­ standing what is being said,” the 31-year-old says. “Because the language teaching in state schools here is usually sub­ standard.”

In 2012 she and her partner Sinan Kutlu founded the ­company “Formula Lingua.” Its mission was to teach foreign languages to the employees of large international corpo­ rations based in Turkey. Kutlu had attended the Galatasaray Lisesi, a private school for French speakers in Istanbul, and then gotten a degree in French literature. He also secured the school’s first major customer, the French car manufac­ turer Peugeot. “No doubt about it, that was a big help in the early days,” says Atan. “Above all because we could see that it was working. We were going to make it.” Within a week the two of them had rented a small office in Kadiköy in the Asian part of the city, rolled up their sleeves and gotten down to work.

Strict hierarchies prevail in the Turkish employment ­market. And anyone wanting to rise through the ranks needs to know the right people. Career beginners get a maximum of one week’s vacation a year. “Needless to say, that also motivated us to set up our own company,” the 38-year-old Kutlu explains.

Peugeot was a start, but it didn’t take long for other major companies – German, American and Turkish – to begin hiring their services. As their first step, Kutlu and Atan engaged an English teacher. By 2014 they were profitable enough to make a living from their company. Atan also received a grant to promote women from Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women program. This helped her grow her network. Today the com­ pany has seven employees and hundreds of customers.

The business is running smoothly, on a sound and stable footing, notwithstanding that the economic climate was far better from 2012 to 2016. Turkey was then viewed as an inter­ national hotspot, a flourishing threshold country with a young and vibrant population. “That was a good time to be launching a company,” says Kutlu. “People from every corner of the globe were flocking to Istanbul. We knew there was a big market.”

The mood has dampened since the terrorist attacks and the failed putsch of 2016, and above all as the result of an increasingly authoritarian government. Many young, well-­ educated Turks are leaving for western Europe or the United States, seeking better career opportunities and full accep­ tance of their liberal lifestyles. Atan and Kutlu have also no­ ticed the sea change at Formula Lingua. “Fifty percent of our customers used to be expats who wanted to learn Turkish,” explains Atan. “Today ninety percent are Turks learning a foreign language.”

For many of their compatriots, the bridges being built to Europe have become more important than ever – and they always begin with the language.

Turkmenistan

approx. 854 km

Ashgabat

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

1 (partner office)/ 4

Natural gas Crude oil and crude oil products

LANGUAGES

Turkmen

TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS

AVERAGE AGE

Machines and equipment Non-ferrous metals Means of transportation

27.9 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

15.10 °C LAND AREA

488,100 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

58,592 km / 3,115 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

117.10 %

NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Declaration of Independence 1990: October 27 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Fuji – a type of pot pie made with ground meat BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

John W. Kropf: “Unknown Sands: Journeys Around the World’s Most Isolated Country” PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Akhal-Teke horses

ASPIRATIONS: TURKMENISTAN 87

In the realm of the golden horses

Horses from the Turkmen desert that ­sparkle like gold: Katharina Jakob with an Akhal-Teke.

text: Edda Schlager You see horses everywhere you look in Turkmenistan. As a larger-than-life monument showing a galloping herd in the heart of the capital Ashgabat. As a gigantic figurehead at Turkmenistan’s Olympic Stadium. And even as ornaments on the lampposts that line the six-lane highways.

It isn’t any old horse that the Turkmen idolize so much that they dedicate a national holiday to its honor. First bred more than three millennia ago in the deserts of central Asia, the Akhal-Teke is one of the world’s oldest breeds of horses. In Turkmenistan it is both the national emblem and the ­nation’s favorite pet.

“These horses are the epitome of the desert country of Turkmenistan,” enthuses Katharina Jakob. “They are tough, challenging, arrogant. And yet exquisitely beautiful.” Aged 36, the management expert and qualified groom from ­Germany is an internationally successful equestrian trainer.

And she knows Turkmenistan from a perspective to which no tourist is privy – from astride an Akhal-Teke.

The breed is considered particularly noble. They are reared first and foremost for horseracing. The horses are slender and tall, larger and more powerful than their more delicate Arabian cousins. But like these, Akhal-Tekes are extraordinarily well-adjusted to conditions in the desert.

In Turkmenistan itself, the summer temperatures can surge to 50 °C in the shade. But the horses’ most striking feature is their coat. Whatever its color – brown, chestnut or gray – the unique composition of their hair gives them a golden-­ metallic sheen that genuinely glistens in the sun. They also have unusually expressive heads with distinctive features and large eyes.

As a young girl in the southern German state of Bavaria, Katharina Jakob never dreamed that her love of these horses would one day take her to Turkmenistan. Despite Akhal-­ Tekes being all but unknown in Europe at the time, she had a friend who was breeding them. She learned to ride them and

entered her first equestrian events. And at some point she began running her own riding academy and stud farm – needless to say for Akhal-Tekes.

Having undertaken several trips since 2006 to Russia and central Asia in search of potential studs, she traveled to ­Turkmenistan – “the cradle of the Akhal-Tekes” as she calls it – in 2010. She had already made a name for herself among local breeders, and was promptly invited to the initial meet­ ing of the International Association of Akhal-Teke Breeders (IATHA ).

She was also given access to the gold-ornamented stables of the President’s stud farm, equestrianism centers with space for up to 600 animals, and a variety of racecourses.

She ­began to establish an international-standard riding school at which – to her surprise – girls and boys aged eight upwards from every social class were admitted and learned to ride together, free of charge.

Then, at some point, she was asked to train the Turkmen show jumping team. That was quite a shock. A young, ­blond-haired German woman was being expected to tutor seasoned Turkmen riders about horses? But Jakob took up the gauntlet!

For a year and a half she commuted between Germany and Turkmenistan to prepare the show jumpers for the Fifth Asian Indoor Games being held in Ashgabat in Sep­tem­ ber 2017. And none other than her best student Nikolay Beglaryan won the Akhal-Teke Show-jumping Cup on his eight-year-old gray, securing a gold medal for Turkmenistan.

The fame she garnered among the country’s horse ex­ perts matters little to her. Of far greater importance, she says, is the fact that she has found real friends in Turkmenistan.

The Turkmens, who rarely let foreigners near their horses, came to regard her as a horse-riding expert with a particular gift for training Akhal-Tekes. They accepted her as one of their own.

Ukraine

approx. 890 km

Kiev, Mukachevo

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

2 / 9

Herbal products Ferrous metals Fats and oils

LANGUAGES

Ukrainian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

40.6 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

8.30 °C LAND AREA

603,500 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

169,694 km / 20,975 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

104.80 %

Machines Mineral fuels Chemical products NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Declaration of Independence 1991: August 24 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Wareniki – filled pastries that are boiled or steamed BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Jonathan Safran Foer: “Everything is Illuminated” PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Antonov

ASPIRATIONS: UKRAINE 89

Anja takes off text: Denis Trubetskoy More and more global players are showing an interest in Ukraine – above all the budget airlines. Ryanair is launching operations this year while Wizz Air is substantially extending its route network.

Anja may be tired, but she’s wearing a huge grin. It’s four in the morning at the start of July, and the 21-year-old college student has just arrived at Kiev’s second airport Zhuliany.

She is looking forward to a trip to the German capital, some­ thing that would have been impossible not long ago. “Berlin has always fascinated me. And although I work part-time in a restaurant on top of my course load, I could never afford a city trip,” she says. For one thing, there was only one ­direct flight per day – operated by Ukraine International Air­ lines ( UIA ). For another, she would have needed to apply for a visa – and pay an additional fee of 35 euros.

Starting June 11, 2017, following years of anticipation and frustration, Ukrainian citizens in possession of valid bio­ metric passports were allowed into the EU , Switzerland, Nor­ way, Iceland and Liechtenstein, without a visa. This prompt­ ed the Irish budget carrier Ryanair to enter the Ukrainian market and offer low-cost flights between Ukraine and west­ ern Europe. That put an end to the UIA ’s effective monopoly.

The Hungarian budget airline Wizz Air had been oper­ ating in Ukraine for some years, and has significantly expand­ ed its schedule since the visa requirement was revoked. Since July 2018, for example, it has been flying from Kiev-Zhuliany to Frankfurt and Berlin-Schönefeld. Moreover, from October it will not only be serving destinations in Estonia and Por­ tugal, but also finally operating a daily connection to Vienna.

All this is opening up new horizons for Anja. “In the past, the idea of exploring European countries was just a dream. So last year, at my first chance, I applied for a passport. And now I can finally actually use it.”

“We’re banking on Ukraine proving a success. It offers ample potential for growth and the visa waiver has made it even more attractive,” says a spokesman from Wizz Air’s Budapest headquarters. Its Irish rival agrees. Originally

­ yanair intended to commence flights to Kiev in 2017, and R had even begun selling tickets for its prospective routes.

However, despite having already been signed, the initial agreement fell apart during tortuous negotiations with ­Boryspil, Ukraine’s main airport.

Now Ryanair is flying several times a week from Kiev to Berlin, and advertising fares as low as 27.50 euros. With ten further routes from Kiev and five from the western Ukrai­ nian city of Lviv, Ryanair is seeking to expand its major of­ fensive on the Ukrainian air travel market. The destinations include Germany, Lithuania, Britain, Ireland, Poland, ­Sweden and Spain – a genuinely impressive portfolio. “Since mid-2017 we have been accepting growing numbers of Ukrainian passengers on our international flights,” empha­ sizes Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary. “Kiev and Lviv are just the first step.” Services from Kharkiv in the east of Ukraine and Odessa in the south are also in the works.

“Our goal is to open up Ukraine to the world – and the world to the Ukrainians,” asserts the country’s Minister of ­Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelyan. He regards the boom in budget airlines as one of the big stories in Ukraine’s Euro­ pean integration. “I’m delighted that more and more Ukrai­ nians can spend weekends in the EU now. In a few years’ time, these trips should become the norm.” That being said, the flights are no longer the bonanza they once were for shoppers. Along with the budget airlines, Kiev is also opening its doors to leading European brands that had previously skirted the country to avoid corruption issues. The Swedish chains H&M and IKEA top the waiting list. Both are due to enter the market with new stores this year. “For me, that will be the icing on the cake – for Ukraine’s international status and our markets’ opening to the EU ,” says the country’s ­happy Vice-Prime Minister for European Integration, Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze. Not that Anja really cares. She is ­visiting a friend in Berlin and is most keen on experiencing the nightlife. She can sleep when she gets back home.

United Arab Emirates

approx. 383 km

Abu Dhabi, Dubai

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

2 / 52

Crude oil Electronics Non-metallic minerals

LANGUAGES

Arabian TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

30.3 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

27 °C LAND AREA

83,600 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

4,080 km / 357 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

205.20 %

Electronics Machines Cars and automotive components NATIONAL HOLIDAY

National Day 1971: December 2 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Lugaimat – small, deep-fried dough balls drizzled with date syrup or rose honey BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum: “My Vision – Challenges in the Race for Excellence”* PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Crude oil, gold A tip from the GW employee Oliver Nicolaysen

ASPIRATIONS: UNITED ARAB EMIRATES 91

EXPO 2020 in Dubai The fruits of London’s Great ­Exhibition of 1851 text: Imke Borchers We can’t hide from the future, that much is certain. So how can we prepare for it? What kinds of untapped potential can we unleash? How will we move around in the decades ahead?

And how can we shape our world so that it remains livable, and worth living in, for subsequent generations?

With its theme of Connecting Minds, Creating The Future, EXPO 2020 in Dubai will be devoted to concerns like these.

The show in the desert city of Dubai will not only be the first on the Arabian Peninsula, but the first-ever in the Middle East.

In some ways Dubai is the ideal venue: the metropolis in the United Arab Emirates grew large and rich in the 1970s following the discovery of oil. Today people from over 200 countries call it their home. Geographically speaking, Dubai is centrally located. Its airport accepts nonstop ser­ vices from all of the planet’s major cities, while passengers traveling between Asia and Europe, and America and India, can also board connecting flights at this hub. The Persian Gulf already has a storied history as a trading post.

The concept of world exhibitions dates back to the birth of the industrial age. The first Great Exhibition was staged in London in 1851. A dedicated venue – the Crystal Palace – was built in the south of the city to display inventions great and small from around the planet. That was the idea under­ pinning the exhibition that the British Royal family had initi­ ated: to give people of all nationalities an opportunity to ­promote and sell their products internationally. The concept of free world trade and hence globalization had therefore found a forum. At the same time, the exhibition enabled Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, to actively advance his pet cause of international understanding. During the six months of the exhibition, people from all over the globe gath­

ered in peace in the British capital to marvel at the latest technological triumphs, most notably the new generations of steam engines and the latest developments in tele­gra­ phy. Subsequent EXPO s during the 19th century also popu­ larized products and landmarks that have left an indelible ­impression on our world. These include the first lipstick ­(Amsterdam, 1883), the Eiffel Tower (Paris, 1889), and other significant innovations such as matchsticks (Paris, 1855), sewing machines (London, 1862) and the telephone (Phila­ delphia, 1876).

Much has changed since those heady early days in mid-­ nineteenth century London, and global trade no longer needs a special platform to showcase its innovations. Today the focus of world exhibitions has shifted towards cultural cross-fertilization. Whereas 25 nations took part in 1851, ­Dubai is expecting as many as 180 to parade their accom­­plish­ ments. In line with the event’s theme, up to 180,000 people a day are expected to visit the fairgrounds over six months and immerse themselves in ideas for the mobile world of tomorrow. Whereas the innovations were merely displayed in the past, this time they are going to be tested and col­ lectively developed in Dubai. Young people are at the heart of the event because they are the inventors of the future.

The ­program organizers are already offering funding to pio­ neers in the mobility and sustainability sectors. Grants are also available for research institutes and young academics, while the conference format is designed to bring people and ideas together in a huge melting pot. Perhaps Dubai will achieve Prince Albert’s original dream for the Great Exhibi­ tion in London: to bring all the people on our planet just a little bit closer.

United States

approx. 2,762 km

Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

6 / 118

Machines Electronics Cars and automotive components

LANGUAGES

English, Spanish (regionally) TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

38.1 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

8.55 °C LAND AREA

9,833,517 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

6,586,610 km / 228,218 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

28 %

Electronics Cars and automotive components Machines NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Declaration of Independence 1776: July 4 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Hamburgers BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Steve Tesich: “Karoo” PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Coca Cola, Disney, Apple products, Harley Davidson

ASPIRATIONS: UNITED STATES 93

United and American Airlines dominate at O’Hare Airport.

Seven runways for a single hub text: Andreas Spaeth Chicago O’Hare is an airport of superlatives that began life in an apple orchard back in 1942.

With the skyscrapers of downtown Chicago towering on the horizon, one aircraft after another lands here – some 1,400 a day. There are few other places on the planet whose skies contain as much flying steel as Chicago, a city not only ­served by O’Hare – with 79.8 million passengers in 2017 the world’s sixth-largest international hub – but also by the ­metropolitan airport of Midway (22.4 million). With almost ten million people living in Greater Chicago and its central location on the American mainland, the country’s third-­ largest city is also a key player in air transportation – not least because the two biggest U. S. airlines maintain their second major hubs here. United Airlines, long based in Chicago, is the top dog, followed by American Airlines. Together they serve 59 percent of the passengers that the airport handles.

Despite its numerous long-haul destinations, O’Hare is ­primarily a national airport: 85 percent of users are on domes­ tic connections. Almost half of the passengers change to connecting flights in the Windy City, making O’Hare a key transit point for both goods and people. It ranks seventeenth in the world for cargo.

Named for Edward O’Hare, the U. S. navy’s first pilot ace in World War II , the site initially hosted a construction plant for Douglas C-54 freight aircraft. This began operation in 1942, just outside what was then America’s second-largest city – and near a village called Orchard Place where it was surrounded by apple plantations. The factory needed direct

access to a labor force and Chicago’s well-developed rail­ way network. But that only lasted until 1945 when the compa­ ny premises – known as Douglas Field and complete with a triangular runway layout – were rechristened Orchard Field Airport. O’Hare’s three-letter airport code ORD derives from this original name.

Back then Midway was the city’s main airport, served by major airlines like Lufthansa. It was not until July 1962 that the scheduled flights were moved to O’Hare. By that time the airport had a complex network of seven runways, some of which criss-crossed others – a cause of unnecessary delays and an additional safety risk. At the end of 2015, following a ten-year modernization program, the runway configuration at O’Hare was aligned with modern standards. That re­ quired a huge effort. For the first time the airport grounds were ­extended beyond their original boundaries. This entailed hundreds of people being relocated from the village of Bensen­ville. St. Johannes Cemetery, with over 1,200 graves from the late 18th century, had to be moved as well. What was more, a river had to be diverted, eleven million cubic me­ ters of sand deposited on the site, and freight facilities ­demolished and then rebuilt. Two of the runways were closed and others extended. The upshot: five east-west and two north-south runways of which three could be used simulta­ neously. And, who knows, maybe somewhere on the gigantic site one or two apple trees have survived, bearing silent ­witness to the lengthy evolution of this former paradise into one of the world’s largest airports.

94 

ASPIRATIONS: UNITED STATES 95

Both humans and bees profit from the work of the NGO Sweet Beginnings; its products are also sold at O’Hare.

Sweet beginnings text: John Mulrow The ground staff at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport is used to con­ fronting the whims of nature. Frozen aircraft in the winter?

“No sweat.” Baking-hot runways in the summer? “Keep cool.” But when a swarm of bees decided to camp out on a jetway one sunny afternoon, everyone was suddenly hot ­under the collar. Fortunately, Brenda Palms Barber and her Sweet Beginnings team appeared on the scene, scooped up the visitors (including the queen), and spirited them ­swiftly away to a new beehive on a remote field inside the air­­port perimeter. “We took the opportunity for some im­ promptu PR,” recalls Barber, the founder and CEO of Sweet Beginnings. “As we collected the honey bees, we gave the ground staff tips about them, their behavior, and the ­eco­logical importance of pollination.” But while Sweet Be­ ginnings spends lots of time presenting bees as natural ­resources rather than pests, education isn’t the primary goal of their organization.

Sweet Beginnings is a training program for people whose access to the labor market is restricted in some way, e. g. for­ mer convicts. Since 2004 the trainees have been learning how to look after bees, harvest and package their honey, and use it to produce soap and creams. During the program they are supported by a local beekeeper and a range of social and environmental organizations. The project has evolved into

a socially-oriented company that pays its own way and of­ fers its participants improved employment prospects.

The trainees are not only schooled in beekeeping and pro­ cessing ­honey, but in packaging techniques, distribution logistics and marketing as well. The honey and the products made from it are then sold in major local retail chains and the shops at Chicago’s airports. The company’s umbrel­ la organization, North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN ), monitors the number of convicts who commit sub­ sequent offences, and have confirmed that fewer than ten percent of Sweet ­Beginnings’ graduates fall foul of the law again. That com­pares to 40 percent in the entire United States and 55 percent in the state of Illinois.

Brenda Palms Barber describes the Sweet Beginnings philosophy with a metaphor: “Bees don’t distinguish between flowers and weeds. All they want is the pollen inside.” ­The program and its umbrella organization adopt the same prin­ ciple with their clients, concentrating on their potential and disregarding their backgrounds and any criminal pasts.

As a result, both the population of honeybees in Chicago and the numbers of health- and environmentally-aware ­experts are growing. Many of the latter can look forward to their sweet beginning leading to a far brighter future.

Vietnam

approx. 1,651 km

Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City

GW LOCATIONS / EMPLOYEES

TOP THREE EXPORT AREAS

2 / 21

Electronics Textiles and clothing Foodstuffs

LANGUAGES

Vietnamese TOP THREE IMPORT AREAS AVERAGE AGE

30.5 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

24.45 °C LAND AREA

330,967 km2 ROAD AND RAIL NETWORK

195,468 km / 3,186 km FOREIGN TRADE QUOTA

184.70 %

Electronics Machines Textiles and clothing NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Declaration of Independence by Ho Chi Minh 1945: September 2 TYPICAL COMFORT FOOD

Banh Mi – a sandwich usually filled with grilled meat or fish and coriander BOOK OR FILM ON PREPARING FOR TRAVEL

Graham Greene: “The Quiet American”* PERCEIVED LEADING EXPORT

Samsung products, traditional straw hats A tip from the GW employee Cristian Predan

ASPIRATIONS: VIETNAM 97

The dream of a country of ­automakers – ­powered by the people

If Vingroup has its way, traditional bicycles – still seen here in Hanoi – will soon disappear from Vietnam’s streets.

text: Frederic Spohr The first things that visitors to Vietnam usually notice are the countless motor scooters that wend their way along the southeast Asian country’s roads. There are very few better barometers of the impressive economic boom the country has experienced in the past ten years. Most of these scooters are made by domestic factories, with Honda alone produc­ ing over 2.5 million a year in its gigantic plants.

But Vietnam has bigger plans. The motor-scooter mecca with a population pushing 100 million wants to become a nation of car manufacturers. The Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup is planning to do something that nobody has ma­ naged for decades: conjure up a new automobile brand out of nothing.

The aim is for the startup, known as VinFast, to become the country’s first car brand – and to ultimately expand its reach around the world. “We possess the resources and scal­ ability required, and the motivation to become a significant new player on the global automobile market,” asserts the company’s CEO James DeLuca.

The company is breaking into a largely untapped market.

Just 1.6 percent of Vietnamese currently own a car. But thanks to the thriving economy, the middle-class is growing at lightning speed. Last year 260,000 cars were sold in ­Viet­nam, and VinFast is projecting potential annual sales of ­almost half a million by 2025. The ambitious target: to have half of all cars on the roads displaying the Vinfast logo, i. e. the letter “V” on its hood.

But that’s no easy task: VinFast is taking on global com­­ petitors, some of which can call on over a century of experi­

ence. In the 1990s Malaysia had entertained similar grand ideas for its car brand Proton. The company still exists but it fell far short of expectations and today is owned by the ­Chinese automaker Geely.

For this reason VinFast has called in international sup­ port: CEO Jim DeLuca, once Vice-President of the U. S. ­car­maker General Motors, scoured the world for potential partners. The design for the car was produced by the Italian agency Pininfarina, while the German automaker BMW is helping with the production plants. Other partners include the German technology experts at Siemens and Bosch, and the Austrian components supplier Magna.

Major construction work is still underway: workers and cranes are currently creating the gargantuan factory near the port of Haiphong in northern Vietnam. All in all, Vinfast is investing well over a billion euros. The first two models are due to be presented at this year’s Paris Motor Show: a sedan and an SUV . From September 2019 they should be available in the country’s showrooms.

Then comes the moment that many Vietnamese car fans are awaiting with bated breath. They were allowed to select the design for the vehicles: 62,000 participated in the online voting. VinFast boss DeLuca knows that he isn’t only creating an automotive brand but pursuing a national dream. “We are extremely proud to be the first mass produc­ er to emerge from Vietnam,” he declares. In an interview he pledges that “it’s about more than just us. It’s something for the Vietnamese people.”

98

Keeping the ­spirit alive Wolfram Senger-Weiss has been a member of the Management Board at Gebrüder Weiss since 2005. In 2019 he will be succeeding Wolfgang Niessner as CEO. Together with his brother Heinz Senger-Weiss, Peter Kloiber and – the newcomer on the board – Jürgen Bauer, it will now be up to him to lead the company into a new era. But where will the journey take us?

ASPIRATIONS 99

interview: Frank Haas Mr. Senger-Weiss, what are your feelings as you look forward to your new responsibilities?

You know, as a member of one of the families that own the business, “Gebrüder Weiss” has been a household term since I was young. I’m not the first generation to bear responsibil­ ity in this context: we’re standing here as a family and looking back on a long tradition. I am now assuming an important role and I’m grateful for the trust placed in me. I am entering this phase with a great deal of happiness and confidence; I am also, needless to say, aware of the task awaiting me. Nor am I alone: other members of the family have assumed key posts to ensure effective corporate governance.

Your family’s many years of commitment to the company can be traced back to the end of the Middle Ages. Do you feel the weight of the dynasty on your shoulders?

Our parents always gave us free rein when it came to career choices, but to a certain extent you put yourself under ­pressure. That said, I would like to emphasize that the leader­ ship of this organization is not mine alone. We are a good management team; our members are experienced team play­ ers and we have lots of wonderful employees who do out­ standing jobs and are also invited to contribute their input.

What are your own focuses when it comes to teamwork?

What qualities do people need to become members of the orange team?

I can probably best describe what’s important to me by ­summing up the virtues of a good businessperson: being re­ spectable, honest and humane – and able to look people in the eye. That’s an incredibly important quality in a world that’s getting increasingly superficial by the day. These vir­ tues can also set Gebrüder Weiss apart. And everyone happy to accompany us on this path is very welcome at our orga­ nization.

So “Trust is first, business is second,” as your father Paul Senger-Weiss once put it?

It’s an approach underpinned by a fundamental principle: we live with service providers and are service providers ­ourselves. We operate within a network of mutual dependen­ cies. That is why it is important – in both business and ­personal relationships – that everyone involved can hold their head high at the end of the day.

Do you sense that honesty and respectability are highly valued these days?

Much too little in society. Populism, ego-cultivation and self-­ realization are at a premium today. Respecting others, at­ tempting to find common ground – these have unfortunately been pushed to the margins.

Can Gebrüder Weiss combat this trend or offer something positive in its place?

Definitely, within limits. We can function as a multiplier with our 7,000 employees. No one can change the whole world, but you should always do what is within your power. Then, at least, the world will be a little bit better.

On another occasion you mentioned that you – like your predecessor Wolfgang Niessner – are envisaging a tenure of about 15 years. What challenges do you see ahead over that period?

Firstly, I’d like to comment briefly on those 15 years. When they are over, I will be in my early sixties, and in my view that’s a fitting age to be finalizing your contribution in a post like this. But back to your question: we need to take the next step in terms of our positioning on the market. Produc­ tion channels and logistics chains will change. Individual­ ized logistics concepts will place severe demands on our seg­ ment. We will also need to forge a response to the question of ecology. While I’m of the opinion that, in 15 years, the ­majority will still be reliant on fossil fuels, I am seeing a multi­ tude of positive approaches emerging. I’m confident that the alternatives will be playing their part at that point.

In recent years Gebrüder Weiss has also grown geographically, and is now represented in 30 countries around the world. Is further expansion in the pipeline?

In my view, we currently cover the key and most interesting markets very well, which is not to say that there might not be some territorial changes to come. I am strongly committed to making further inroads into Central Asia, which is also fondly referred to in common parlance as the “Silk Road.”

We can’t expect miracles here, but it will give Gebrüder Weiss the opportunity to cement a further USP as Silk Road ­specialists – not unlike our previous success in Southeast Asia.

Parallel to that, of course, we need to continue developing the major markets we’ve just entered, above all in the U. S .

100

“There

will be a lot of accompa­ nying innovations but the basic requirement will remain unchanged.”

Apropos Silk Road: after public interest in the project remained low for quite some time, there are now numerous voices warning that China will hold all the aces in its relations with Europe. Do you share this concern?

The Silk Road would never have risen from the ashes without the strong commitment of the Chinese. But thankfully, it has.

And I think that, at the end of the day, both the Chinese and European bridgeheads and the countries in between will profit from this development – which, by the way, can’t be halted now anyway. At this stage, the only thing the EU can do is decide whether it wants to have a voice or be forced to follow China’s lead. Regrettably, in the past, we ended up dancing to others’ tunes when shaping our transatlantic rela­ tionships as well. There hasn’t been a common unifying ­policy in Europe for a long time now; instead, the particular interests of individual states are the driving forces.

So you’re not afraid of the all-powerful Chinese?

No. I’m not sure this comparison really works, but 20 or 30 years ago we harbored similar fears about Japan. And they proved baseless. I think Europe has a lot to offer in to­day’s world. It’s a special place, and I am confident that we can main­tain and defend our strong position.

You travel a lot because of your profession. Which places do you like most?

I like to spend time in Austria. I think it’s a good place to live.

Austria is better than its reputation, which is often not all that it could be. I have lived in Asia and in the U. S. and felt very happy there. That being said, I know that Europe is my home, and this is the place I’d like to keep living most.

Specifically, Vienna is your home base …

I grew up in Vorarlberg and I gladly and often return. But Vienna is where my family is; this is where our children go to school. I enjoy living here.

Something most countries share today is a trend toward populism? Does that frighten you?

A bit. Unfortunately, the modern forms of communication, much as I value them, often serve as catalysts in this context.

But that’s only one half of the story. The other, of course, is that these new technologies open the door to very positive trends. Take the youth initiative that has arisen in conjunc­ tion with Brexit, for instance: “Let’s hug a Brit.” Obviously it employs humor, but this kind of thing helps us bridge the gap that populism is creating. It’s my impression that people are caring less and less about borders. And that would de­ prive the populists of the oxygen they need.

What do borders mean to you, personally?

Growing up in Vorarlberg, borders were a big part of my life.

Before the EU came along, we were locked inside a very small country. Borders are restrictive, they reduce your scope and your capacity for vision. Geographical limits some­ times put constraints on your thinking as well. On the other hand, of course, we all need to discipline ourselves in our everyday lives. Children need rules; I’m a strong proponent of that. And in both our private and professional lives, we need to stay within the confines of decency. Out on the road, people can’t just drive any old way they want.

How, from a mental point of view, do you maintain your discipline? Or, put differently: given the deluge of infor­ma­ tion you need to process daily, how can you separate the wheat from the chaff and know what’s important and what not?

I limit the number of media I concern myself with – but sometimes still feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information.

Does that surplus information sometimes make you ­angry?

Only in situations when somebody sending me an email doesn’t take the trouble to emphasize or summarize his or her point. That’s a disease that’s been spreading in the ­business world. We all have a responsibility to take a step back and ask: what do I really want to communicate?

What else do you find stressful?

Traffic sometimes, when I’m on the way to appointments.

I find it stressful when people miss deadlines so that I end up under pressure. Sometimes I get stressed when my

ASPIRATIONS 101

diary gets too full. And I also feel stressed when people close to me are having a hard time.

And how do you deal with stress?

When I’m working, I keep going until the wee hours (laughs).

Would you describe yourself as a workaholic?

Yes. I always say it’s better to work on vacation than not to go on vacation at all. I have no problems handling the ­occa­sional issue after a relaxing evening meal with my fami­ ly. That’s just part of my job.

Aside from mastering the sheer volume of work – what drives you?

Quite simply, I enjoy what I do. Gebrüder Weiss is a wonder­ ful company. There are lots of dedicated people with whom I have the good fortune to work. I demonstrate my respect by doing my best as well.

Are you calmer and more balanced when you have finished your work?

Yes. If things are left half-finished, that makes me nervous and sometimes irritable.

What kind of professional situations make you feel really good?

I feel good when I’ve been able to motivate people and get them fired up about a shared goal.

Digitalization will have a radical effect on the way we work. Do you agree with that statement?

Yes, but I don’t see any reason to be afraid. Obviously more and more parts of our work processes are going to be digitized and hence automated. On the other hand, new ways of work­ ing and new challenges are emerging, slowly but surely. I tend to believe that human labor will continue to be in short ­supply for the foreseeable future. What will change, though, is the speed with which new developments come. But here too I ultimately see a huge opportunity for Gebrüder Weiss.

What, specifically?

I think that we have built up a lot of trust over the past few centuries. The more complex the world becomes, the more companies that have established their trustworthiness will benefit. Many of the new digital innovations involve creating platforms that generate confidence. Independent of that, we ultimately have no option but to continue digitizing time-consuming processes in order to cope with all the red tape and bureaucracy that they involve. Idle slot exploitation will also be a major issue in the near future. Here we’re talking about how we can better harness existing infrastruc­ tures with the aid of digital tools – be it on the roads and rails, or be it in terms of unused parking spots or capacities in our warehouses and transhipment terminals.

But will the basic business of logistics remain the same for the foreseeable future? We won’t be beaming goods or doing masses of 3-D printing. Instead we’ll be delivering the goods to the customer on time and in the quantities the customer needs. Would you agree?

Yes, I agree with you there. There will be a lot of accompany­ ing innovations but the basic requirement will remain un­ changed.

In the future, will Gebrüder Weiss be able to assert itself against the big players in the industry?

Yes. For the very reason that the others are big players. ­Gebrüder Weiss can be more personal and more customized.

More commitment, better service. We will certainly continue to grow, but it is not my goal to make Gebrüder Weiss humon­ gous.

What do you value about your predecessor?

On a personal level, we have established a very good relation­ ship. I really appreciate the openness with which Mr. Niessner is dealing with the current handover process. He did an out­ standing job as CEO. I also really admire the passion and personality he has invested in the organization. And I would like to thank Mr. Niessner for the consistently great job he has also done as an intermediary between the different gene­ r­ations and the owner families, and for having been able to nip any sign of revolution in the bud. Kudos!

What do you hope for in the years ahead?

I hope that, if possible, we can steer a course that secures us against economic changes and other external influences.

I hope we can promote the dynamic development of our company and take our feeling of a shared identity to a new level. The number of markets and the number of people in our organization have increased significantly. Our challenge is to communicate what defines Gebrüder Weiss. We need to succeed by invoking new forms of communication and per­ sonal commitment, to ignite the orange flame in everyone – and not only in Lauterach. We have to keep our special spirit alive.

And how will you measure your success?

Success means that a company is performing well; it means that the shareholders are giving us a positive assessment and are acting in concert; and it means being able to keep the key people in our team on board. We are an organization that sparks enthusiasm. And if, in our rapidly changing world, we can offer our people a purpose, a real reason to work for us, then we will have achieved a lot in the next 15 years.

102

bogdan alexander spent his childhood in Romania, and now works as a ­de­veloper for the Designs & Innovations unit at SAP in Germany. klaus bardenhagen has been reporting from Taiwan since 2008. In Germany he writes for print and online media, works for radio ­stations, and produces TV reports. Prior to this, he trained at the broadcasting company Norddeutscher Rundfunk, acted as a TV reporter for its Economics unit, and served as news editor at ZDF television. imke borchers is an editor at Groothuis who studied Literature. She writes, commissions and edits literary texts and stories for ATLAS . In this issue she was fascinated above all by the favorite snacks in the different countries. rayna breuer spent her childhood in Bulgaria and her youth in Cro­ atia. She studied Political Science in Germany and Law in Austria. She now works as a freelance journalist. stefano dal cin is studying Journalism and International Economics in Vienna and hopes to work in the communications and ­media industry. He spent the summer of 2018 as an ­intern in the Gebrüder Weiss Marketing Department. martin fejér is the co-founder and co-director of the Franco-German photo agency Est & Ost Photography, which specializes in Central and Eastern Europe. He is based in Budapest and responsible to the agency for Hungary and the border regions of the Carpathian Basin. martin fritz worked his way from one failing socialist system to anoth­ er. Having lived in Berlin (genuine East German socialism) and New Delhi (Nehru socialism), he became a corres­ pondent in Tokyo (financial socialism). Since 2010, he has been reporting on Japan and developments in the Korean Peninsula. frank haas is Head of Brand Strategy and Communications at ­Gebrüder Weiss – and editor-in-chief of ATLAS . Hailing from the Bayreuth area, he held several positions at agencies and companies before taking up a post at the orange Head Office in Vorarlberg. He studied History and Philosophy.

nino haratischwili is a theater director, playwright and writer who lives in Hamburg. She most recently released her fourth novel Die Katze und der General (“The Cat and the General”) which has been short-listed for the 2018 German Book Prize. miriam holzapfel studied Cultural Studies and works as an editor and copy­ writer. She manages an array of corporate publishing pro­ jects for Groothuis, including ATLAS for Gebrüder Weiss.

Given the chance, she would happily visit all 30 GW coun­ tries once this issue has been published. martin kaluza graduated in Philosophy in post-reunification East Berlin – under arduous thermal conditions. He often fled his coal-­ fired home and leaky windows to study in the comfy climes of West Berlin’s Free University Library. The freelance journalist still lives in Berlin, albeit with central ­heating. kilian kirchgessner works as a correspondent in Prague and is regularly seen on the road between the Bohemian Forest and moun­ tains of northern Slovakia. His reports have earned him several prestigious awards. wlada kolosowa was born in St. Petersburg and grew up in Germany.

She studied Journalism in Berlin and Creative Writing in New York, including under J. S. Foer and Zadie Smith.

In 2018 her novel Fliegende Hunde (“Flying Dogs”) was ­published. She works as a freelance journalist in Berlin.

Her article is an excerpt from Russland (“Russia”) which was co-authored by Jessica Schober and published by ­Corso Verlag in 2015. krsto lazarevic lives in Berlin and writes for a range of media on subjects such as migration, refugees, economics, right-wing ­extrem­ism, Islamism, and art and culture in the countries of ­former Yugoslavia. He is also responsible for the pod­ cast Neues vom Ballaballa-Balkan (“News from the Offbeat ­Balkans”). felix lee has been reporting from the Chinese capital of Beijing since 2012, making him German media’s first Chinese-­born correspondent. Having studied at the Berlin School of ­Journalism, he took up a position at Radio Berlin & Bran­ denburg before becoming business editor at the Die Tages­ zeitung (taz) newspaper in Berlin.

AUTHORS 103

philip mattheis has been working as a journalist in Istanbul since early 2016.

Despite the turmoil of recent years, he finds Istanbul more fascinating than any other city. jörg michel lives in British Columbia, Canada. He works as a journalist, author and correspondent; via his company Stories and Discoveries in Canada, he also supplies content for German-­ language newspapers and magazines. He became one of the first journalists to travel the country’s Arctic Highway last winter. john Mulrow is on the Advisory Board of the nongovernmental orga­ni­ zation Plant Chicago, which supports local initiatives.

He also produces reports on these projects for the NGO. The text is published under a Creative Commons license (sharing content under the same conditions). It is an ­edited and shortened version of the original. miruna munteanu is a Romanian journalist who has been working for a ­variety of print and television media for 25 years. tigran petrosyan is a freelance writer for Armenian television, radio, print and online media, and also for German-language products such as the newspaper Tageszeitung, Deutschlandfunk ­radio and the website Zeit Online. The Armenian national current­ly lives in Berlin, where he is doing a doctorate on media and migration at the city’s Free University. alex raack was the editor of the German soccer magazine 11 Freunde from 2009 to 2016. He published his first book in 2012 – a biography of the player and alcoholic Uli Borowka.

A freelance author, Raack lives in his hometown of Celle and writes regularly about the big wide world of soccer. edda schlager has been living in Kazakhstan since 2005. She regularly travels to other Central Asian countries such as Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan – and sometimes even to the Caucasus. Beyond working for print and online media, she is a photographer and radio journalist. andreas spaeth is an aviation journalist. Since the 1990s he has been ­writing about all areas of passenger flight. He is also a much sought-after expert on radio and television.

frederic spohr graduated from the Cologne School of Journalism before studying Political Science. He has served as a corres­ pondent for southeast Asia since 2012. In his articles he ­describes the region’s dramatic economic boom and its social consequences. peer teuwsen studied German Language & Culture along with Economic History and Philosophy in Berlin and Zurich. Most recent­ ly he was a departmental manager for the Hamburg edition of Die Zeit. Today he is the editor of the historical magazine NZZ Geschichte. He was voted Switzerland’s Journalist of the Year in 2012. denis trubetskoy was born in Sevastopol, and studied Journalism at Moscow State University. He works as a freelance journalist in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, typically producing content on Ukraine and Russia for German- and Russian-language media. andreas uebele is a communication designer and Professor of Visual ­Communication at the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences. His agency büro uebele has already garnered more than 300 international awards. His work is featured in numerous museums. keno verseck is a freelance writer who has been covering the countries of central and southeastern Europe since 1990. He lived in Hungary and Romania from 1991 to 2000. His content is published in the news magazine Der Spiegel, on Deutsche Welle radio and arte TV etc. marijan vrdoljak works as a correspondent in Croatia. He studied TV Jour­ nalism and spent several years working as an editor for stations such as RTL Croatia. As a freelance journalist and producer, he has also produced content for a range of ­domestic and foreign media.

The next ATLAS: in spring 2019

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nothing springs longer the situation: very bleak the mood: one of deflation the expectations: less than weak could hope be our salvation? we cultivate this hope - it tries to help and be our crutch it comforts us, betimes with lies makes little of so much all those who hope (be it in vain) who tend their gardens well they pray the morrow might bring rain and better tales to tell

INGO NEUMAYER

Translated from the German by Mary Fran Gilbert & Keith Bartlett.