Atlas 01 English

ATLAS ATLAS 1

The world in motion: the Gebrüder Weiss magazine

01/September 2013

Pioneers

Rainer Groothuis

Istanbul ��D Tbilisi Thomas Roser

Anchors aweigh in the Adriatic Harald Martenstein

Half-deaf and heat-resistant Gerald Hüther

Networks within relaxed spaces Bettina Baltschev

Mrs Gruber makes a splash Also: Reports from China and Africa, an anniversary and a plane to make at home

Towering waves and the bitter cold

Leif Eriksson was probably the first European to discover North America – not only that, but a whole 500 years before Christoph Columbus did. Leif ‘the Fortunate’ was an Icelandic explorer, who discovered uncharted territories on his journey from Norway to Greenland in around 1000 AD. According to the Vinland Sagas, these were Helluland, Markland and Vinland on the North American coast. Archaeological tests have confirmed that his Vin­land corresponds to modern-day Newfoundland. Remains of a Viking settlement that match Leif Eriksson’s descriptions were found at L’Anse aux Meadows on the northernmost point of Newfoundland and declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.

Steamy heat and pattering rain

A teacher at a village school in the Ore Mountains set to become an Amazonian adventurer: Samuel Fritz first became interested in the New World while studying theology in Prague. In 1684, he escaped his existence as a teacher in the provinces and decided to work in the Amazon as a Jesuit priest. He explored the depths of the rainforests there in his canoe, through the steamy heat and pattering rain. He met the Cambeba people, learned their language, cured simple illnesses and established the Jesuit faith.

He also founded settlements and ultimately became a geogra­pher and the first person to draw a semiaccurate map of the Amazon region.

Low on fuel with ice on the wing tips

The first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic was the American Amelia Earhart in 1932. Three years before, she had helped to found the first women’s pilot association, the Ninety-Nines. She was also one of the first pilots involved in global commercial flights; together with Charles Lindbergh, she represented the company Transcontinental Air Transport.

Earhart, not only a pioneer in the field of flight but also as a feminist, disappeared in 1937 during an attempt to fly solo around the world.

6 Zahlen und Fakten

Bruno Bastiani, a handling agent for Gebrüder Weiss for the past nine years, has a roguish look and a ready smile. He’s a master at scanning – without which modern and efficient ­logistics solutions in the field of incoming and outgoing goods would not be possible.

T

he best means with which to combat boredom are attitude, character and personality.

Where personality shines through, there is the ­po­­­ten­­­tial for fresh curiosity about your environment – the kind of curiosity that could potentially change the world and put things in motion. It is this curiosity that makes a pioneer.

That’s why the authors and photographers of ­ATLAS – our new magazine – aim to describe, inform, entertain and inspire. We hope they have achieved this, and that you enjoy reading this issue!

Best wishes, Gebrüder Weiss

Roads

DELIVERED

DELIVERIES

NETWORK

Combined length of the world’s roads in km:

Number of wine bottles delivered by DPD in 2012:

GW deliveries made every year around the globe:

Extent of GW branch network in central/eastern Europe in km2:

31,700,000

2,300,000

9,500,000

1,800,000

GEBRÜDER WEISS OFFICES WORLDWIDE

ANNIVERSARY, GREAT RESULTS

With only the Austrian postal service ahead, and leading the rest by miles, DPD – in which Gebrüder Weiss has a significant holding – is not only ­celebrating its 25-year anniversary in 2013 but also achieving second place in the Austrian market rankings.1 For more information on DPD, see page 44.

Post

35. 5 %

DPD

26. 9 %

DHL

8. 3 %

GLS

7. 8 %

Hermes

7. 4 %

TNT

3. 4 %

Others

10. 7 %

Storage

Launch

The warehouse logistics area covered by Gebrüder Weiss amounts to 450,000 m2 – that’s 63 football pitches!

It’s the year 1896. Car pioneer Gottlieb Daimler builds the first motorised van, the ‘Phoenix’, a small vehicle with incredible power by the standards of the day: a load capacity of 1.5 tonnes and a twocylinder four-stroke engine, available for a staggering 4,600 German gold marks. Its top speed is a little less impressive, however, at around 16 kph.

63

Founding

As the oldest forwarding company in Austria, we have been around for over 500 years and have been known as Gebrüder Weiss since

1823 Around the World

EUROPE’S LOGISTICS MARKET IS GROWING

By the age of 77, the average European has travelled the distance around the equator

The volume of the European logistics market is on the up: the largest country in terms of logistics in the EU today is Germany, followed by France and the UK. Austria is in the 12th place.2

25 times

240 € billion 220 200

On the Road

180

Making sure everything arrives at the right time and in the right place, Gebrüder Weiss has a fleet of

160 140

3,500 Trucks

120 100 1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

1 ‘Courier, Express and Parcel (CEP) Services in Austria in 2013’, a study by Kreutzer Fischer & Partner Consulting GmbH in Vienna.

2 ‘Die Top 100 der Logistik 2012/2013. Marktgrößen, Marktsegmente und Marktführer’(The logistics top 100 in 2012/2013. Markets, segments and market leaders), a study published by the Fraunhofer Working Group for ­Supply Chain Services (SCS), Deutsche Verkehrszeitung and the Bundesvereinigung für Logistik e.V.

2008

2009

2010

2011

The world in motion: Rainer Groothuis 10

Istanbul ��D Tbilisi

44

HArald Martenstein

Ana Kordsaia-Samadaschwili 22

Children of the Sun

47

Anchors aweigh in the Adriatic

48

Gerald Hüther 29

33

Networks within relaxed spaces It’s all about the journey

58

Take to the skies with your children Ulli Kulke

38

The floating boulevard

Orange network Bettina Baltschev

60

Mrs Gruber makes a splash

64

Imprint

Family Competition 36

Half-deaf and heat-resistant walter schneider

Thomas Roser 24

Every man is a piece of the continent

Istanbul

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Istanbul ��D Tbilisi 13

Across the countryside – with the mosques sparkling in the distance; below: a wide sky is reflected in a rice paddy.

Reportage: Rainer Groothuis

J

ust outside Kemalpaşa on European route E97, there is a man sitting on a fold-down chair, watching his cow graze.

We are 1,380 kilometres from Istanbul, 400 kilometres from Tbilisi and 80 metres from the Black Sea. Next to me, Hans Schlaffer, a trucker for the past 27 years, sits in the dri­ ver’s seat of the 2003 model, 31-tonne, 610 h. p. truck with a tank capacity of 1,150 litres. We are taking the old beast eastwards from Istanbul to Tbilisi – from predominantly Muslim Turkey to mainly Christian Georgia, from a NATO partner country to a former Soviet republic.

Of mounds and mountains Three days before the protests kick off in Istanbul, we set off in the very early morning – trucks are prohibited in Istanbul between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. At 5 a.m., we’re ­already crossing the Bosporus, bathed in the milky morning light. We leave Europe and drive, kilometre after kilometre, through the Asian part of Istanbul that stretches endlessly past austere satellite towns and industrial zones populated by names familiar even in Germany – Bauknecht, Media Markt, Ikea.

Eventually, yet somehow suddenly, there are horses grazing next to the motorway, now snaking its way through a lush green valley – we’ve reached the edge of Istanbul and the countryside begins. Creeping zinnia, poppies, delphiniums and lupins grow next to the road that takes us towards Ankara.

Plus, an added bonus is sitting 1.8 metres above the road which gives you a great perspective on things. We look down into the gorges of the densely forested Köroğlu Mountains, which reach heights of up to 2,400 metres and are named after the Turkish Robin Hood, who lived in the 16th century. A wide

blue sky stretches out above us, reminding us of holidays past. We head uphill and downhill again, with the motorway stretching like a silvery grey ribbon through breathtaking ­landscapes. Schlaffer is concentrating – with inclines of 15 %, it is imperative that the 31-tonne truck is kept under control.

From afar, the roofs of mosques sparkle, with their min­a­ rets pointing up like fingertips towards Allah’s omnipotence.

Many of them were only built in recent years. In the past ten years of his tenure, Prime Minister Erdoğan revitalised the Turkish economy but the provinces show another side to his policies – the nationalist re-Islamisation of Turkey. Each settle­ ment presents its own mosque, each testament to the ‘new’ Turkey: all made from pre-fabricated concrete blocks, they are all identical in construction – some larger, some smaller – with almost no trace whatsoever of traditional craftsmanship.

We trundle along the road with our goods in the back and, to our left and right, farmers till the earth, shepherds watch their flocks and women lead goats on tethers. In the villages, cattle are free to graze on football pitches, and satellite dishes and solar panels glint in the rising heat.

Chatting away, we leave the motorway and haul onto ­highway 100 towards Merzifon, and the landscape becomes much rockier. Only the occasional tree or shrub dots the ochre-coloured soil like a pompom; the villages become hamlets, leaning towards the street. Sadly, there’s no time for a detour to Safranbolu and its beautiful 18th- and 19th-century half-timbered buildings to the north: the Schlaffer rally is ­always a race against time.

Behind Ilgaz, we see paddy fields with old people working bent-backed, where storks and herons stand proudly and frogs and toads croak loudly in the midday heat. Every time we reach the crest of a hill, we are presented with another vista of this wide landscape with its enchanting emptiness – sparsely

‘The Schlaffer rally is always a race against both the self and time.’ populated, shaped by mounds coloured like tiramisu, with surfaces ridged like the bark of ancient olive trees. Even here, wherever we slow down enough to see it, there is the ever-­ present Turkish crescent moon – on gigantic flags on towering masts that look extreme to European eyes.

After enjoying a delicious lamb köfte somewhere in the middle of nowhere, we finally reach Samsun, which, with 570,000 inhabitants, is the largest city on the Turkish Black Sea coast. As it is, Samsun is hardly a place of beauty, but now a new four- to six-lane eyesore is being built between the sea and the city that will simply bring the sea breeze carrying the noise of the traffic inland … After 30 minutes creeping along in heavy traffic, we leave the noise behind us and drive towards Trabzon on highway 100.

14 Istanbul ��D Tbilisi

On the left, we have the Black Sea – with its white gulls and bright water, pine trees and fields, and on the right we have the north Anatolian Pontic Mountains, towering to heights of up to 4,000 metres, which will accompany us on our journey all the way to Georgia. Apart from a few kilometres, the road follows the coast, through Ünye and its little port, along the boulevard in Fatsa, lined by palm trees and oleander flowers, through Gülyali and Piraziz.

The magic is broken by the views of the towns and the buildings on their outskirts – thin concrete skeletons filled in with brick and painted, already doomed to decay even while

‘The air tastes of chocolate – then a ­ pigeon collides with the windscreen.’ they are being built, and often never completed: the top floor has no roof; concrete pillars extend, broken, into the blue.

Some of the storeys might be inhabited while others remain unoccupied, where the facade is left open to the elements.

Akçakale is enchanting, like the Riviera of the Black Sea, with oleander, palm trees, pines, flowers with the scent of chocolate trailing from balconies – and a pigeon crashes into the windscreen. When a second follows 45 minutes later, Schlaffer comments: ‘Ah, come on.’ It all seems routine to him.

Onwards, onwards, past Trabzon, it’s not far now to the border. The border, which used to be part of the Iron Curtain, the delineation between the NATO partner country of Turkey and the USSR and its Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia.

On the Turkish side, the border officials simply take their time – time that truckers don’t have. We are motioned to pull out of the line so the truck can be X-rayed. As an Austrian, Schlaffer feels like he is being picked on and only relaxes when two Turkish trucks and one from Azerbaijan also turn into the X-ray lane behind us. Time marches on. While the smaller vehicles flow past in the 28-degree heat, the lorries have to wait. Hans Schlaffer broods at his steering wheel like a badtempered eagle in his eyrie, grimacing at his natural enemies – customs and border officials and the police.

Istanbul ��D Tbilisi 15

Left: Hans Schlaffer, lord of the roads; centre: somewhere in the middle of Turkey; above: fields, meadows, old pylons – our first views of Georgia.

After almost five hours, we’re back on the road again, enter­ing Georgia at walking pace.

The language of the roads Georgia is wedged in between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus Mountains in the south and north, the Black Sea in the west and Azerbaijan in the east. It has a population of around 4.7 million and is trying to find its way in this limbo between East and West. It’s a poor country, yet also rich at the same time.

In all the hoo-ha at the border, Schlaffer has met Hussein, an Azerbaijani who has seen even more of life than Schlaffer himself. The language of the roads is ‘trucker Esperanto’, a kind of gobbledegook made up of lots of different languages and dialects, peppered with attentiveness, eye contact, miming and gestures, and the two men are able to understand one other. Hussein says he knows the best route to Tbilisi and agrees to lead us there. This is how convoys come to be, and fleeting friendships are formed. Just after the border, Hussein takes the lead for the 380 kilometres we have left.

We cross the Çoruh River. The sky stays the same but the type of poverty around us changes. What we see on our journey through the southern outskirts of Batumi, a traditional coastal resort on the Black Sea, makes us avert our eyes and

16 Istanbul ��D Tbilisi

lower our camera: we glimpse scenes in garages where men search through piles of rubbish in the half-darkness, looking for anything of value; rusty metal that was originally a frame intended to help build something that can no longer be guessed at; corrugated iron huts between dilapidated silos where laundry has been hung up to dry in the dust of the potholed streets – there seems to be too much decrepitude and dilapidation for the shiny new Batumi Art Center ever to fit in here.

Beyond Batumi, the road continues to hug the coastline, lined by pine trees glistening dark green in the sun. Hussein manoeuvres his truck into a dead-end street, turns and parks.

Is it possible this place might have somewhere to take a break?

Where? But behind the trees and shrubs, there is a makeshift food stall whose facade is covered with laminate. ‘I know it here, good place to have a coffee,’ states our Azerbaijani guide as he sits down on the roughly hewn wooden bench outside the stall.

Two women appear, asking what the guests would like, serving coffee and tea, ‘chaka’ strained yogurt and ‘werry gutt chicken’, while five other women – ranging from slim to full-­ figured, with heavy make-up and dressed somewhere between tasteful and its exact opposite – present themselves one after the other at the table with ‘Hello, I’m …’. Slowly, it becomes clear that this restaurant also has something else on offer. The women are not intrusive; the potential client has to decide for himself whether he wants to take her up on her offer. Hussein is disappointed, too, when we decide not to go along with it – it means less money for him in the commission that the establishment’s madam slips him.

We follow European route 97 a little further, past dachas and ‘Uncle Vanja’ houses that look out to sea and have clearly witnessed the ravages of time. Passing Kobuleti, with the sea behind us, we head into the country’s interior, and the street becomes little more than a thin layer of tarmac poured over the hardcore that is now pushing through its thin covering. We pass people tending sheep, goats and small brown cattle, through villages that have never known pavements or street lights, where young people sit on walls and wait for the future to come. Periodically, we pass enormous crucifixes by the side of the road. 85% of Georgians are Christians and belong to the Georgian Orthodox Church. One such crucifix can be seen in Nigotti: at least three metres high and decorated with a chain of LED fairy lights, it lights up the approaching dusk in brilliant blue.

120 kilometres away from Tbilisi, Hussein wants to take a break, so we drive to the ‘Özobul Euro Park’ car park. We are led through a kitchen where an old man is chopping vege­ta­ bles and into the ‘parlour’: with red artificial leather on the benches and Turkish disco hits on the ghetto blaster, Madonna announces herself as our waitress. Speaking broken English

Idyllic setting by the Black Sea; opposite: the community centre in Tbilisi; right: Madonna, lady of the night.

Istanbul ��D Tbilisi 17

ranging from ‘welcome’ to ‘whatyuwant’, she serves tea. She’s 30 and has a very small rosebud mouth that is painted very red. She tells us she has a 12-year-old daughter. How else could she earn money in this region, where there is nothing else available? I can only imagine the extent of the twilight economy here in impoverished Georgia.

‘Red artificial leather on the benches and Turkish disco hits on the ghetto blaster.’

The commission is once again small when we set off again an hour later. The motorway stretches like a chain of fairy lights over the last few hundred kilometres to the capital. Once we’ve arrived in Tbilisi, we have to say goodbye again – Hans Schlaffer, trucker par excellence, has to unload, reload and drive back to Istanbul, racking up a new score on top of the 4.5 million kilometres he has already driven as part of his job.

I remain in the city.

Guests, friendship and life The Mtkvari River flows through the city and divides it in two.

The banks are lined with plane trees, bordering roads on either side with no speed limit. From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. there is so much traffic that it seems half of the population must be in their cars, driving constantly from left to right and back again.

Confident use of the car horn is essential in this high-speed race forwards to wherever that may take you.

Rachel Gratzfeld fights for Georgia in her own way: although she lives in Zurich and works for Klett publishing house, she is also an agent for Georgian literature, looking to bring together authors with foreign publishers, acting as an agent for translators and helping to raise funds for translations – anything that

18 Istanbul ��D Tbilisi

Above: view from the Peace Bridge over the Mtkvari towards the ­presidential palace with its glass dome, with the cinema in the ­amusement park in the foreground; below: between the past and the present – street scene in the east of Tbilisi.

could raise the profile of Georgian literature. Although generally rather reserved, Rachel lights up when she speaks about Georgia and its language: ‘People here love listening to and reading stories. Georgia has a fantastic oral tradition as a ­result of oriental influences.’ Georgia is currently working towards becoming one of the countries featured annually at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The country is rightly proud of its culture, theatre and music, as well as its handicrafts.

You see girls here both with and without headscarves, burkas, orthodox Christians, priests, redheads, people with dark skin and the Asian features of their predecessors, the very occasional kaftan, Russians from all regions, Azerbaijanis, Arme­

your way back to your hotel – even if you haven’t asked them to: Georgians treat their guests with great respect, which is why there is also no aggressive begging here. For many western Europeans, this hospitality is as unusual as the very real importance of traditional values, family and religion. But even Georgia is losing touch with these values, without any new ones around to take their place. When the old order started to break down, religion became like a life raft for many – so it is little wonder that the influence of the Orthodox church is once again on the rise.

‘You see girls here both with and ­without headscarves, burkas, Orthodox Christians, priests, redheads.’ nians, Arameans – Tbilisi has always been a cultural melting pot. There might be 1.3 million people living in the city limits – maybe more, maybe not: no one really knows for sure. The majority of them have nothing, a handful of them own everything, and the ones in between have to scrape a living to get by. The UN estimates that around 70 % of Georgians do not have a regular income in the Western sense. Basic benefits such as unemployment benefits and health insurance are nonexistent, and the family unit is responsible for its own survival.

But if you stand still in the same place long enough, the people here will approach you willingly, talk to you and help you find

Living in the present is not easy I meet Alexander Kharlamov in ‘people’s’, one of these new trendy lounge restaurants of the kind you’d come across in Hamburg or Vienna. Kharlamov is one of many here with ­German predecessors: both of his great-grandmothers were Germans, his mother Russian and his father Georgian. He’s the managing director of Gebrüder Weiss, which is set to open a logistics terminal on the edge of the city soon: 240 em­ ployees from Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey will work seven days a week in two shifts a day for just six months to construct this 10,000 m2 high-tech facility, ‘a congregation of markets’. Kharlamov is a modern patriot, proud of what has been achieved here. In the past few years, corruption has been all but eliminated, the state simply functions better, the police are respected and there is more work, he says. ­According to the IMF, per capita income has risen to about USD 3,500 – about 7 % of what the average Austrian earns in a year. This means that Georgia occupies rank 114 of all the

Passau–Tbilisi

CAPITAL CITY

The journey from Passau to Tbilisi is around 3,800 kilometres long and takes you through six countries – Hans Schlaffer was one of the first people of Gebrüder Weiss to drive this route; Groothuis joined him in Istanbul.

Tbilisi POPULATION

Germany

4.7 million

Passau Vienna austria

Budapest Hungary

Romania

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE

Georgian Bucharest Bulgaria

Currency

Black Sea

Stara Zagora

Georgia

Batumi

Istanbul

Tbilisi

Lari (1 Lari = €0. 46)

Samsun

AREA Turkey

69,700 km 2 Form of Government

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Democratic republic with a presidential system

Istanbul ��D Tbilisi 21

Right: view over the rooftops towards the ‘Mother of Georgia’, a 20-metre-high aluminium statue created in 1958 by Elguja Amashukeli, holding a sword to protect the nation against enemies in her right hand, and a bowl of wine for guests in her left.

countries in the survey, followed by Swaziland. Exports of wine, fruit, mineral water and other products are on the rise, however, and tourism from the West is also growing. Yet ­finding a path into the country’s future is difficult, says Kharlamov, who worries that the country is becoming too similar to Putin’s Russia.

Tbilisi is a clean slate, one that has had its history rewritten many times by various conquerors: Romans, Mongols, Ottomans, and in 1924 by the Red Army. It is a city that has been repeatedly knocked down and always managed to rebuild itself. Today, there are hardly any houses here more than 150 years old. When it rains, you can smell the mould on the wet wood of the decaying balconies, doors, window frames and facades in the narrow alleys where nothing much has happened since the time of the tsars. But from the ruins, we hear voices, music and arguments – people live here. This is not

‘The city that loves you.’ the place for glorifying the melancholy of decay. What has been built or rebuilt since Georgia’s independence in April 1991 stands out against the old buildings with post-Stalinist style, or in its imitation of Western glass-and-steel architecture, or by being complete­ly featureless. The presidential palace is many times larger than Bellevue Palace, the parliament is a gigantic c­ olumned edifice, the home of an oligarch an imposing com­bination of laboratory, car showroom and rocket launch site.

Family possessions, medals and devotional objects from former times, Georgian wood crafts and icons, used mobile phones and lots of books – welcome to the flea market by the Mtkvari River. Georgians are very friendly and curious about people from other countries: they ask lots of questions about where you are from and where you are headed.

The city of Tbilisi seems like the street dog that winds its way around the tables in a cafe: full of parasites and dirty, yet its soulful eyes make you melt with evidence of the animal’s playful but cautious side, a charming thing with pale white skin underneath its grubby coat. This city is beautiful and yet for many, it is hell. Tbilisi’s very own slogan is: ‘The city that loves you’ – it’s adventurous, enchanting, deeply sad, rundown yet modern, independent, poor, impoverished, rich and super-rich.

Here, our journey comes to an end. On the one hand, we have a country with a skyrocketing economy that wants to join the EU and yet cannot as a result of its despotic government, and, on the other, a country whose economy completely dis­ integrated following the dissolution of the USSR and is slowly clawing its way back up. East, West – and yet so similar in their increasingly obvious political and cultural contrasts: the Ortho­dox religion, once ever-present here, clashes with eco-

nomic growth that knows no bounds, caring little for morality or social responsibility. The new generation of city dwellers who want to lead their own lives in a society of freedom, tolerance and openness is pitted against a culture of farming that has been passed down for centuries. The people are united, however, by their incredible hospitality and the countries by the beauty of their landscapes and the sea, whose coastline they share.

Rainer Groothuis, born in 1959 in Emden, east ­Frisia, is an author and the managing partner of the advertising agency ‘Groothuis.’ (www.groothuis.de), based in Hamburg and Berlin, Germany.

22 ET CEtera: Georgia

Children of the Sun The baby has grown A total of 240 employees from four countries will work seven days a week in two shifts a day for just six months to construct the first extension of the new Gebrüder Weiss logistics centre in Tbi­­­ li­si. The shining new terminal, which covers an area of 10,000 square metres, was built on grounds 90,000 square ­metres in size, extending over 15 metres into the Georgian sky.

Alexander Kharlamov, our managing director in Georgia, is proud of his project, which has been realised so reliably: ‘The baby has grown,’ he says, with a smile, ‘now it needs food – and then it will do good business.’ With an investment of ten million Euros, 70 muchneeded jobs will be created in the region and a new logistics hub will be set up within our international logistics network. Our next issue of ATLAS will cov­er the opening ceremony, which will ­be attended by the President of Georgia, among other guests.

Alexander Kharlamov speaks to project ­­manager Sahid about the progress of the work at the new GW logistics terminal.

Post-Soviet traumata and why it’s a good thing to come from Tbilisi. text: Ana Kordsaia-Samadaschwili

M

any years ago in Tbilisi city, in a square named after a famous revolutionary, ­Tamara, a rather plump and very jolly woman, would go out into the courtyard on the day of the spring equinox and, bent double at the tap for a very long time, noisily wash a miserly ten-kopek coin. But she wasn’t crazy: Tamara simply wanted to show the whole courtyard what a good housewife she was and how thoroughly that ten-kopek coin had been scrubbed.

That day, Tamara would bake a soft, round, golden-coloured cake and hide the ten-kopek coin inside it, and the person who received the piece of cake with the coin in it enjoyed a year of happiness and prosperity. Alas, I never discovered it and was always very upset.

The cake would be baked, and a big table put together using planks would be set in the courtyard for a feast, a table on which those a little older than us used to play ping-pong in the springtime and on which the women would wash rugs and dry mattresses. This was the table on which the feast would be laid out, and there would be great excitement at Number 1, Revolutionary Square.

Of course, it was always Tamara, our host, who made the first toast – in her own words, the only voluntarily un­ married Yazidi1 woman in the city: ‘Bless us, O Sun, your children, and the other 14 peoples2 of the world!’ There weren’t exactly 14 peoples living in our courtyard, which is why things never descended into ethnic conflict. For my

part, I very much liked the Children of the Sun. They wore such nice dresses!

If there was a wedding in the neighbourhood or some other cel­ebration, Tamara would give me one of her red silk party skirts. There were two parts to them: you first had to wrap the front part around you, then the rear part, and in this dress – hurrah! – all of a sudden it was as if I had hips. Because I had a very slight build, they had to wrap it around my waist three times. I learned to tie a headscarf like they did; the only thing was that I didn’t wear earrings. Mother had promised that I could have my ears pierced after I finished school, but there were still so many years to come …

For some reason, the Children of the Sun were constantly celebrating weddings that year, or a single wedding was so impressive that it seemed to me as if they were always celebrating. We would form a circle that revolved endlessly.

The duduk player’s cheeks were near bursting, the rhythm of the nagara drum would later resound in my heart the whole night long, and we, the represen­ tatives of the 14 peoples, would dance, little fingers linked, until midnight together with the Children of the Sun, in the small, well-lit courtyard of Number 1, Revolutionary Square, singing: ‘I don’t want Selo’s girl, I don’t want her, I don’t want her …’ Now was not the time for Selo’s girl, here was another bride altogether! Later, the women of the courtyard would gossip enthusiastically with the bride. I didn’t understand a lot, although I liked those conversations very

1 Yazidi: followers of Yazidism, an independent monotheistic religion.

The native language of the Yazidi is the northern Kurdish Kurmanji.

2 14 peoples: a traditional toast is made to them. For the Yazidi of Tbilisi, there are 15 peoples – themselves and 14 others.

Et Cetera: Georgia 23

much and I was very happy in Revo­lu­ tionary Square, in the city of Tbilisi, in that fantastic country named Georgia.

Here you will find everything the heart desires. If poverty, hardship and the like appeal to you – please, take some! Post-Soviet trauma? As much as you like.

Take a look at the heart of the city, nestled in the ruins of the old city wall.

Visitors with serious faces look at the houses in which the locals live and take photographs of them. They say that these houses are very old and historic, and they think they can feel the ‘breath of history’ here, but that is a lie. Simply put, the city is crumbling, balconies are rotting, verandas creek. Everything has aged. These houses were not built to last for eternity. It is a beautiful sight, like a store of old objects which, through an open cellar door, seems like heaven to someone passing on the other side of the street, while moth-eaten rugs, brokenspouted teapots, and the used dolls of children long-dead scare people from going inside. Is this the kind of city you want to see? Not a problem! Tbilisi is at your disposal.

But if it’s joy you want, then Tbilisi is just the right place. First, at daybreak – trust me! – you must head for Abano­ tubani and sink into the hot water that gave Tbilisi its name (‘tbili’ means ‘warm’ in Georgian). If you ask me, it’s more hot than warm, but isn’t that much better anyway? The bathhouse attend­ ant will do things to you that, when you get out, will make you think the water has taken 20 years off your life – you are so young and beautiful (and, indeed, you are). For this, my friends, is no or­ dinary water, but something magical!

Then, further up in Kharpukh, in a beautiful Azeri teahouse, you have to drink some boiling hot tea from ceramic Kashan cups decorated with roses and flowers and, upon leaving, look down at Tbilisi from above. Are there exhaust fumes? Of course there are! What did you expect? But, on the other hand: what

a city! If you’re really lucky, you’ll catch a glimpse of distant Mount Qazbeg. And when the day begins with sulphurous water, fragrant tea and Mount Qazbeg …

For your information: directly across from Sioni Cathedral, on the other bank of the river, lives Shushanik. There was an arch there before the Mtkvari was closed in by concrete. Now it can no longer be seen. Malicious people say it no longer exists, but it does. Of course it does. This is where Shushanik lives.

Shushanik is a very beautiful girl. She has the longest plaits you could imagine.

She lets down her hair after dark and combs it and combs it, and her hair ­covers all of Tbilisi, every street, every courtyard, every sleeping individual.

Those entwined in Shushanik’s hair dream that they are the most beautiful, the wisest, the richest, the most carefree. The sleeper dreams of love and clasps the person lying by their side very tightly to their chest. The guardian angel passes its hand over the faces of the pitiable and the lonely and – quietly, so as not to awaken them, but so that they can still hear – tells them how they are loved. If only they knew how they are loved …

For this alone it is worthwhile living in Tbilisi, don’t you think?

Ana Kordsaia, born in 1968, is an author, translator and journalist for cultural affairs in Tbilisi. She has already published two collections of short stories, two novels and has been awarded various Georgian literary prizes. She won an award from the GoetheInstitut in Georgia for her translation of the novel Die Liebhaberinnen (­Women as Lovers)

by Elfriede Jelinek. Her collection of short stories, Ich, Margarita, will be published in German in October 2013 (published by Verlag Hans Schiler, Berlin).

The sounds of Georgia Hard work in the fields, healing the sick, traditional viticulture – these set pieces of Georgian life have one thing in common: they are all sung about in Georgia’s polyphonic music. This musical style is a cornerstone of Georgian culture, with a tradition that stretches all the way back to the 8th century. This style of singing in several parts became world-famous less as a result of its everyday lyrics and more as a result of its beautiful textures and harmonies. The exceptional complexity of its harmonies – which feature three to four individual voices singing in increments of quarters and eighths of a tone – creates incredible force and intensity. The style also has a pioneering character: Georgian polyphonic singing developed independently from European music and is based on its very own scale and tuning system; it is a cultural heritage that has been passed down through generations and has been on UNESCO’s ‘Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage’ since 2001.

The Rustavi Choir, founded in 1968, includes the best-known singers.

Find out what the polyphonic singing of the Rustavi Choir sounds like by clicking here:

Anchors aweigh in the Adriatic How a small town became one of the biggest ports in the Mediterranean.

25

The port never sleeps: thanks to its openness and flexibility, Koper has excellent market potential.

keep the young people in the region – and discourage them from emigrating to Italy.’

Text: Thomas Roser

R

ecords are broken almost daily in Slovenia’s exceptionally successful Koper port. At the ce­reals terminal, a bucket dredger ­descends deep into the rusty red belly of the Brazilian ocean freighter ‘Ultra Panther’ to unload the 61,000-tonne cargo of soy – the biggest delivery that the port of Koper has ever seen. A few hundred metres away, the ‘Crown Princess’ is moored against the quay wall of the passenger terminal: measuring 290 metres, she’s the biggest cruise ship that has ever docked in Koper. ‘Every day, new ships, new people!’ says a smil­ ing Viktor Udovic: ‘In a port, no two days are ever the same.’

The white-haired Slovene knows what he’s talking about: the 73-year-old is one of the pioneers that has made Slovenia’s only sea port into the numberone success story of the northern Adriatic – and now also one of the most impor­ t­ant ports in Europe. Udovic has never forgotten the day that was to change his life forever. On the 4th of August 1960, aged 20, he was hired as a ship dispatcher1 in the port. He was ‘delighted’, says the pensioner, reminiscing fondly. At that time, the port had just 150 employees and a warehouse: ‘Everything was done by hand: each load was carried on our shoulders. “I work for Elbow Grease Inter­national”, the packers would joke.’

Born in Trieste and raised in a nearby village, Udovic tracked the slow progress of the port with interest. Its construction in 1957 was a ‘political decision,’ he says, looking back: ‘They wanted to 1 A dispatcher is an exceptionally important person in the industry, overseeing all the steps in the work process and ensuring the seamless functioning of the operation.

Wood, fruit, sugar – all on the up It was the dissolution of the Free Terri­ tory of Trieste in 1954 that fired the starting shot for the construction of the port. The north of the independent city state created by the Allies in 1947 was assigned to Italy. The south, which was still subject to Yugoslav military rule, was then ruled from Belgrade. The end of the city state triggered several waves of emigration among the Italian minority in Istria. In order to revitalise the ­financially depleted Gulf of Piran, local dignitaries made a strong case for creating a port in Koper. Initially, their requests were met with scepticism in Belgrade and Ljubljana alike. ‘The critics said that it didn’t make any sense to build another port on the Adriatic so close to Rijeka and Trieste,’ says Udovic.

But the enthusiasm of the pro-port group won out and eventually overcame the resistance. In December 1957, the foundations were laid for the first quay: one and a half years later, the first ocean freighter, the ‘Gorica’, docked in the new port. Slovenian wood and citrus fruits from Israel were the first goods to be handled. Both contracts with Yugoslavia’s fruit importers and close partnerships with Serbia’s biggest chain of supermarkets, Centroprom, accelerated the expansion of the infrastructure.

‘Centroprom was the driving force behind our development,’ says Udovic: ‘With its help, we set up the first tank for cooking oil.’

In the early years, each ship was greeted as a new beacon of hope. Udovic still remembers how the first big freighter, carrying 12,000 tonnes of cane sugar, had to be unloaded after he started work in 1960: ‘We filled everything – down to the last shed – with sacks of sugar because we didn’t have very much warehouse space.’ Whether it was heavy sacks of rice, carbon black for manufac-

Photos: Jaka Jerasa

Anchors aweigh in the adriatic 27

Above: Goods can only be unloaded with tugboats to manoeuvre the immense LKP container ship into position.

Below: the port conquers the Mediterranean. With its second offshore terminal, the volume of passenger vehicles handled continues to increase.

turing tyres, stinking fishmeal, slippery tuna or dusty bags of cereals that tickled the throat, there were plenty of unpleasant cargoes for the packers to deal with.

As the shift foreman, Udovic was always ready to get stuck in with the physical work: ‘If we were short of a pair of hands, I would help out. There was no question about it.’

the heart and logistical artery of any port,’ explains Udovic, which is why the handling weight processed by the port skyrocketed: in 1968, it climbed to over one million tonnes for the first time, and two years later it had doubled again.

Through traffic increased sharply in the 1970s – primarily to Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary.

With the construction of new ter­mi­ nals, the port continued to extend further into the sea. ‘Some of the areas where the port is today are places where we used to go swimming as children,’ says Alojz Fabjan, sketching where the coastline used to be on a plan of the port. The economist, now aged 57, was hired by the port administration in 1977 as a member of the investments department – and would work in almost all areas of port operations in the decades to follow, from technology and planning to commerce. Today, Fabjan is the area manager for Austria and Germany. Although the port has certainly changed the face and character of his hometown, the Mediterranean ‘seaside mentality’ has stayed the same, says the man with the sea-blue eyes: as a port city, Koper

The railway – the logistical artery of the port When the first conveyors came into operation in 1963, they were not univer­ sally welcomed as labour-saving tech­ nology: ‘Some people cut clean through the conveyor belts because they were worried about losing their jobs.’ But there was plenty of work to go around: dock workers were in high demand first of all in Istria, and then all over Yugo­ slavia – especially in Bosnia. The lack of a rail connection soon turned out to put a brake on the development of the port.

Transporting the goods by truck to the station in Kozina, 31 kilometres away, was time-consuming and costly. The connection to the European rail network only came about in 1967. ‘The railway is

has remained open to the rest of the world – and to new developments.

The container terminal, which was completed in 1979, and the new ter­ minals for coal and cereals, oil and alu­ minium, enabled the port’s handling tonnage to increase to five million tonnes by the end of the 1980s. Udovic, the port’s very own authority, oversaw the management of almost every new terminal as it came along. ‘I don’t know whether the port developed alongside me, or whether I grew old alongside it,’ he says, laughing.

Full steam ahead The 1990s brought with them a decade of war but unwittingly gave Koper a fresh start as a result of the Balkan conflict.

‘We really felt the effects of the wars,’ says Udovic: ‘We lost our ex-Yugoslavian market as a result of the UN sanctions.’

Some customers were worried about their cargoes and didn’t want to leave them in Koper: ‘But we were lucky in that the port was not blockaded like Rijeka was. We were always open for business – that was our advantage.’ Since Slovenia became independent in 1991, the new

SLOVENIA – ON THE SHORES OF THE ADRIATIC

CAPITAL CITY

Gateway to the world: the port of Koper makes Slovenia an ideal transit country for goods travelling onwards to ­central Europe, turning the small country into a major hub for sea freight routes covering the entire globe.

Ljubljana Population

2.05 million

Austria Switzerland

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE Italy

Slovenian

Slovenia

Croatia

Trieste Koper Venice Bight of Piran

Piran

Euro

Rijeka

AREA Bosnia and Herzegovina

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Currency

20, 273 km 2 Form of Government

Unitary parliamentary ­constitutional republic

28 Anchors aweigh in the adriatic

government has pushed ahead with the construction of new north–south motorways in the new state – opening up new markets for Koper. Even before independence, the port was already a prominent one for Austria, central Europe and southern Germany, ­Fabjan reports: ‘It made it easier for us to acquire new customers.’ Slovenia’s accession to the EU in 2004 is also likely to increase Koper’s market potential ­further: ‘We’re now ­operating under the same conditions as

Bojan Brank, Chairman of the port, wants to ­ensure Koper maintains its growth trajectory and seeks to increase the number of containers and passenger vehicles handled.

Alojz Fabjan has been working in the port since 1977: initially as a member of the investment ­department within the port administration, and now as Area Manager for Austria and Germany.

Viktor Udovic, former dockworker, for whom the port is like a second home.

harbour basin for freighters carrying over 9,000 TEU2 should enable Koper to keep expanding, as will the construction of a second platform. The company already transports 60 % of its goods via rail, the port manager Mr Brank says, proudly: ‘Customers who want to reduce their CO2 emissions prefer ports that promote rail transport.’ However, the port cannot rest on its laurels: ‘Good results are not a given. We have to work hard to keep earning them.’

‘In the early years, each ship was greeted as a new beacon of hope.’ other ports in the EU. And thanks to our flexibility and quality, we’ve been able to attract lots of new customers to Koper.’

Since then, Koper has become the biggest import/export hub for Austria – even ahead of the northern mega-ports of Rotterdam and Hamburg. For cargo headed to the Mediterranean, or to the Persian Gulf or the Far East via the Suez Canal, the route is shortened by around 2,000 nautical miles, explains Fabjan, indicating the advantages of the Adriatic ports’ locations. In order to strengthen their position with regard to their competitors in northern Europe, the Adriatic ports have bundled their marketing ­efforts: ‘Of course, we are also in competition with one another. But our common goal is to attract some of the business from the Far East away from the northern European ports to ours.’

The port area is set to increase by one third and its handling tonnage from 18 million tonnes to 50 million over the long term. Koper seeks to remain an intermodal port but also wants to intensify its container and passenger vehicle business, says Fabjan. Bojan Brank, the head of the port management authority, sees particular potential for southern Germany. Currently, German customers only make up 2 % of the handling volume: ‘There is incredible potential there for expansion.’ The deepening of the 2 TEU is the abbreviation for ‘twenty-foot equivalent unit’, and is an internationally standardised unit for counting ISO containers; one TEU corresponds to one 20-foot ISO container.

The cranes move across the piles of freight at the container terminal as if controlled by magic. With the volume of goods processed today, the modern port is nothing like the old one, says Udovic: ‘I’m happy to have experienced the earlier era, but also to have been part of this change.’ Since his retirement, he returns to the port almost daily as a guide, which means he’s ‘always in the thick of things’, the tireless pensioner says impishly: ‘The port is like a drug – I can’t live without it.’

Thomas Roser, born in 1963, has written about Europe’s sea ports since 1994 as the Benelux correspondent for the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper, first working in the Netherlands and later in Belgium. He then worked as a Poland correspondent for the ­Vienna-based Die Presse. Since 2006, Roser has been living in Belgrade, working as a Balkans correspondent and writes for news­papers in Germany, Luxembourg, ­Aus­tria and Switzerland.

Networks within relaxed spaces Photo: Nele Martensen

Neurobiologist Gerald H端ther on the brain as a 足logistics specialist and entrepreneurial pioneer.

30 Networks within relaxed spaces

Interview: Joachim Otte

‘Pioneers’ is the motto of this issue and thus also a keyword for this conver­sa­ tion. Our predecessors at Gebrüder Weiss were pioneers in logistics, help­ ing to found the ‘Milan Messenger Ser­ vice’ in the 15th century. In a way, they helped to create a synaptic connection between Lindau and Milan. This con­ nection initiated the establish­ment of a global network of trading and trans­ portation routes that became even safer, faster and more resilient over the centuries, not to mention more ­numerous. This reminds me of the de­ velopment of the human brain, pri­ marily during childhood, and its com­

lem of the 21st century: how can we continue to grow without causing our skull to burst? The brain has a solution for the limited nature of growth processes, and it does not work by just creating more of the old stuff, ever more nerve cells, but by intensifying the connections between them. ... and children are the greatest pio­ neers when it comes to creating these networks. But how exactly are such networks formed?

First of all, it’s necessary to understand that the brain is not a muscle. It is impossible to train networks because only that which is of significance to a person, only the things that really sink in, create established pathways. Successful ex­ periences are particularly important for creating these pathways because they trigger elation in the brain as neuro-

mised networks are formed – whether it’s in the brain or within a company.

They help you make good progress. The disadvantage is that these structures have been formed as a result of very ­specific conditions – and unfortunately, conditions change. Then things don’t look so rosy. This happens to lots of ­people and lots of companies: they cling to their old patterns and don’t know how to change them for the better.

The motorway becomes a one-way street.

Yes, that’s the problem. And going by everything we know today, including the field of economics and business, it’s a disadvantage when people are only able to do very few things efficiently.

So optimisation is only good if it comes with the flexibility and plasticity to maintain or expand on the ability.

‘In a way, our brain tells us how we can solve the decisive economic problem of the 21st century: how can we continue to grow without causing our skull to burst?’

plex network of pathways. It seems to me that logistics companies have a great deal in common with the brain.

I’m sure that is true. What is also true is

that the best-developed of these pathways – the neural pathways of the brain, that is – are the ones that prove to be ­successful when put to the test, the test being the ability to solve problems in our everyday lives. What start out as narrow paths and byways become the brain’s first roads when they are used frequently and efficiently – and these roads can then become motorways if they also prove particularly efficient. Having said that, our brain not only has to solve specific problems but also has to keep us alive – for as long as possible, in the best possible conditions. This requires manifold cross-linking. One complex network is much better than a few major motorways. In a way, our brain tells us how we can solve the decisive economic prob-

transmitters are released. These neurotransmitters act like fertiliser for the networks. For a child in the early stages of life, everything is exciting. Children experience this kind of elation in the brain around 50 to 100 times a day because they have discovered something else for the first time, because everything is new to them, and because everything is enchanting and exciting.

In your book Jedes Kind ist hochbegabt (Every child is gifted), you write that, in childhood, we were ‘all princes, not paupers’. But then life puts us to the test and the brain is required to be ‘effi­ cient, perfect, optimised’. Logistics ­operations also have to be fast and effi­ cient, and have to optimise their path­ ways and processes in order to be able to function properly. So how can effi­ ciency be a bad thing?

In general, it’s good when highly opti-

Exactly. That’s the trap that we are falling into at the moment: we are very efficient but also very specialised. In lots of companies, the spirit of innovation is lost in the attempt to optimise everything – even if this attempt leads to short-term successes. In order to maintain this flexi­bility and our continuing openness to new ideas and business potential, there shouldn’t be too much pressure either on an individual or on the company as a whole. When we’re ­under pressure, the best we can do is to improve our way of completing a task we are already familiar with, but this approach does not give rise to new creative solutions. Cre­ativity cannot thrive in a culture of fear; the focus should not be on next quarter’s accounts. Instead, you need ‘relaxed spaces’.

Talking of space: if we look at the his­ tory of pioneers – and here I mean

Networks within relaxed spaces 31

‘This is like a logistics operation: there are individual locations that are able to do things by themselves, but the real science is in combining all of them into one process.’

­pioneers in the geographical sense – what is clear is that most explorers of unknown territories were men.

Is there any kind of neuroscientific ­ xplanation for this? e Well, compared to women, men only

have one X chromosome, and not two.

Instead, they have a Y chromosome, a stunted version of the X chromosome.

This has a few extra functions, which primarily ensure that the ovaries that ­begin to grow in the embryo turn into testicles. As a result of the missing second X chromosome, boys are more unstable and sensitive. The result is that they search more dependent on security, on a strong footing. Even right after birth, they are already looking around the room, assessing the space – and the regions of the brain responsible for spatial awareness are ‘fertilised’ particu­ larly well. As a result, most men find it easier to reverse park later in life. ... or to sail around the world. But great explorers like Columbus or ­pi­oneers like Amundsen journey into the complete unknown, where there are absolutely no points of reference, where there is no security whatsoever.

Wouldn’t it be more plausible for a ­person who needs to feel safe to cling to his mother’s skirts?

Well, he could, but what is more decisive is the social space. It is there that boys look for footing – much more so

than girls, right from the start. And the strongest footing they can get is through their status in society. This may be why men often prefer to hold positions of power, why they take up leadership positions or work in fields such as science and technology, where there is a lot of pioneering work to be done and inventions to be discovered. This of course brings with it further recognition. This is a relatively simplistic explanation of why boys drive social processes more intensively than girls. You could also say that every society needs people who are willing to take risks and discover new areas.

This has always been made attractive to boys – the idea of becoming an officer, or an explorer like Christopher Colum-

which are controlled by the frontal lobe.

One of these competencies is the ability to plan actions and calculate their con­ sequences. This covers such things as impulse control, the toleration of frustration, the ability to empathise, and the assumption of responsibility. Through these metacognitive competencies, it is then possible to access the individual skills controlled by other parts of the brain. This is like a logistics operation: there are individual locations that are able to do things by themselves, but the real science is in combining all of them into one process. In the brain, this would take place in the frontal lobe.

As a layperson, I also think of terms such as short-term and long-term

‘If you repeatedly have the same sorts of experience in similar contexts, these networks consolidate into a meta-experience. This is what is known in psychology as a person’s “attitude”.’ bus – with the result that it is the boys who take it upon themselves to play this role as they go through life.

Another major area for forwarding companies is logistics: the prerequi­ sites, the transportation superstruc­ tures, supply, storage, fast access.

All this would correspond to the metacognitive competencies of the brain,

memory. Are they also controlled by different parts of the brain?

What’s really important to a company

and also for people is not their shortterm memory. As already mentioned, the brain experiences constant change when the emotional centres fire up.

Such experiences can be characterised by the fact that they affect us deeply but

Photo: Nele Martensen

32 Das Hirn

also have cognitive content. Both networks are activated simultaneously and become linked. If you repeatedly have the same sorts of experience in similar contexts, these networks consolidate into a meta-experience. This is what is known in psychology as a person’s ‘attitude’. This cannot be changed at will by

It depends on what you mean by neuroscience. There is still one branch of ­neuroscientific research that is looking into finding a kind of substance or technical solution to improve certain functions in the brain. This kind of research still has a long way to go. The question is whether this will enable us to achieve

‘Companies should have the courage to establish a culture that motivates employees to willingly take on their tasks independently.’ focusing on the cognitive networks via explan­ation, information or good advice. Emotional activation alone, such as reward or punishment, will not bring about that change, either. If you want to change a person’s internal attitude, there is only one option, and that is to ­offer that person the opportunity of making another, more beneficial experience – with their boss, with the company, with their partner, or whatever. If this happens, the old network is amended with a new, more effective structure.

Would you say that neuroscientific ­research is still in its pioneer stages – that is, just starting to map the brain and understand it?

what concerns most people in the 21st century – namely, putting people in a position to be able to uncover their potential. Instead of these optimisation strategies, I am more interested in the aspects that help us to understand ourselves ­better. In the past few years, we’ve really made huge progress in this regard, but now we have to put it into practice. How do we create conditions in which children can really develop their talents and gifts? How do we create a ­social world in which adults can do the same? I call this ‘applied neuroscience’. The keyword being ‘applied’ – and we have a major problem with the application, rather than the research. I also hope for a more pioneer-

ing approach from companies, too: they should have the courage to establish a relationship and work culture, as well as a leadership culture that motivates employees to willingly take on their tasks independ­ently – that is, with intrinsic moti­­vation, because the employees see themselves as part of a whole and want to do their bit towards accomplishing something that no one person could achieve alone.

Gerald Hüther, Professor of Neurobiology, heads the central office for preventa­tive ­neurobiological research at the University of Göttingen’s Psychiatric Clinic and of the In­ stitute of Public Health at the University of Mannheim/Heidelberg. Bridging neuroscientific research and practical living, Professor Hüther has written a number of books, his latest being Kommunale Intelligenz: Poten­ zialentfaltung in Städten und Gemeinden and Die Freiheit ist ein Kind der Liebe. For more on Hüther’s initiative ‘Kulturwandel in Unternehmen und Organisationen’ (Culture change in companies and organisations), please visit www.kulturwandel.org.

33

It’s all about the journey Indescribably beautiful and fearsome: Goethe crosses the Alps.

T

he news must have delighted Leonhard Spehler: in the spring of 1788, the already famous Johann Wolfgang von Goethe decided to use the Milan Messenger Service, jointly owned by the related Spehler and Weiss families, for his return journey from Italy to Lake Constance. The Milan Messenger Service was a precursor to the modern-day logistics company Gebrüder Weiss. Back in 1474, the ‘Corriere di Lindo’ had already been commissioned by the Chambers of Commerce in Lindau and Milan as a regular weekly transportation service between Lake Constance and Lombardy, taking the direct route via Chur, the Splügen Pass and Como. There were a lot of different items to transport, including money and other highly valuable goods such as silk stockings, letters and business correspondence between German and Italian merchants. People could also travel using this ‘express service’. In contrast, mass-produced goods were transported using pack mules led by farmers.

Messengers: logistics specialists, diplomats and mountain guides The four ‘Ordinari’ as they were named by the City of Milan crossed the Alps regularly – primarily as a result of the fact that Lindau was a major distribution point for commerce between the rich southern German cities and northern Italy. However, for centuries – from 1322 to 1824, in fact – it was not the citizens of Lindau who were appointed this task, but rather exclusively families from Fussach. One of the reasons for this was surely

that some of the fam­ilies from Fussach, including the Spehler and Weiss clans, had been working as carriers and sailors on Lake Constance since the Middle Ages, and therefore had the expertise required to operate on such an important route. ­After all, a messenger was a mountain guide and a diplomatic negotiator at the same time and had extensive knowledge of customs tariffs, the exchange law, and the units of weight used in different countries.

But why did Goethe choose to travel with the Milan Messenger Service? He must have come to value the increased safety o ­ ffered by a well-planned journey and, at the same time, the poet would also have been able to explore the scenery and geology of the route through the Splügen Pass in the Alps first hand and for the first time. Finally, he probably wanted to take the most direct route possible from Rome to Constance. The Milan Messenger Service always took the shortest routes between Lombardy and the Lake Constance region and were under oath to be highly punctual – even in bad weather conditions. After all, their route was also networked with other messengers’ routes – if they arrived at a distribution point too late, they might miss a handover.

‘One does not travel in order to arrive; but for the sake of travel itself.’

Goethe spent two very interesting years in Italy. He travelled a lot at first – to Naples, Sicily and Palermo – and then lived in Rome for over a year. Finally, the time came for him to move back to Weimar. In 1755, Goethe had accepted Grand Duke Carl August’s invitation to come to Weimar and had stayed there. He had served the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach since then and it was time for him to resume his duties.

It can’t have been an easy decision for him to make as he had to turn his back on the country or, more specifically, the city in which he felt ‘unreservedly happy for the first time’ – the country where ‘the lemon trees bloom’1. But no matter how sad the 1 Through the character of Mignon in Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, Goethe ­depicts his longing for Italy. This is the character to whom he ascribes the song featuring the ­question ‘Know’st thou the land where lemon trees do bloom?’.

Map of Switzerland drawn by Aegidio Tschudo with the route followed by the Milan Messenger Service. Route: Milan–Constance; means of transport: coach; kilometres: 300; duration: 5½ days; kilometres per day: 54; costs: 122 guilders all inclusive, 12 bronze coins in tips; year: 1788.

approaching farewell may have seemed to the 38-year-old, his journey back was to stay true to his own saying: ‘One does not travel in order to arrive; but for the sake of travel itself.’ Before him was a five-and-a-half-day coach journey covering a distance of around 300 kilometres, equating to over 54 kilometres on average per day – quite a pace in those days, especially on Alpine terrain. On top of all of this, the route the Milan Messenger Service was to take – via the Splügen Pass and through the Via Mala – made it not only the fastest path, but also the most dangerous. Behind the fitting name of Via Mala, which simply means ‘bad path’, was the most serious obstacle in the journey: a gorge plummeting to depths of up to 300 metres.

The Messenger Service would set out from Milan every Wednesday from the ‘Osteria di Tre Re’, the company’s preferred inn. Goethe was also bound to this itinerary. On Wednesday the 28th May of 1788, it was time to depart and the convoy set off towards Fussach. The trek through Lombardy to Como, where the goods were loaded onto a ship, took seven hours. Now they were faced with a 20- to 24-hour voyage across Lake Como with stops in Cadenabbia and Domaso to deliver parcels. Finally back on dry land, the Messenger Service travelled by coach from Novate through the delightful Mera valley to Chiavenna. This trading town was a major transit point in the journey, which made it even more important to arrive punctually on Friday morning. The Milan Messenger

‘The messengers would set out from Milan every Wednesday from the “Osteria di Tre Re”, the company’s preferred inn.’

Service had its own branch in Chiavenna, where they met those travelling in the opposite direction. This meant that correspond­ence could be replied to and passed on without delay. They also had their own postman there to deliver post to their business clients straight away.

Due to his love for geology, Goethe must have really looked forward to the next part of the journey, which would take him through outstandingly beautiful Alpine terrain, the rocks of which he hoped to study. He had even bought a geologist’s ham­ mer had especially for this purpose in Milan. ‘I will tap away at the rocks to banish the bitterness of death,’ he wrote shortly before his departure. On his return journey, the poet neglected to jot down his musings – he may well have lacked the time and ­opportunity.

It’s all about the journey 35

Goethe crossed the Via Mala 31 May 1788, which inspired him to make this pen-and-ink sketch.

‘The path across the Splügen is indescribably beautiful, while the Via Mala is the most fearsome rocky pass.’

Campodolcino marked the end of the next leg of the journey.

This small town was completely dependent on the people passing through it, and the convoy stayed overnight here before attempting the first dangerous leg of the journey through the Cardinello gorge to the Splügen Pass on the Saturday. The extremely avalanche-prone route winds its way up the steep mountainside in hairpin bends, and had been terraced as a result of the steep gradient, which made it hard to pass, particu­ larly in adverse weather conditions. It was a 2,113 metre ascent to the Splügen Pass. As soon as the toll has been paid to use the road through the pass and the Via Mala, the next difficult leg of the journey through the Via Mala awaited, one of the key points on the travellers’ journey. Clinging to the vertical cliff face, its narrow bridges and paths meant that humans and animals alike needed to have a head for heights in order to traverse the dangerous passage in safety. The dangerous Via Mala impressed Goethe to such an extent that he put pen to paper and sketched it, as he did with many of the impressive scenes he experienced on his journey. Many a traveller was enthralled by this place, the gullet of the Rhine: ‘The path across the Splügen is indescribably beautiful, while the Via

Mala is the most fearsome rocky pass in all of Switzerland.

One becomes all the more anxious, as the rock, a soft clay shale, is continually washed away by the spring meltwater, revealing the roots of weather-beaten spruces that make the route even more dangerous,’ Marianne von Willemer wrote to Goethe when she and her husband followed in the footsteps of her poet friend 40 years later in 1829. At least she was able to make most of the journey in her carriage, whereas ­Goethe had to take the route through the upper pass via ­Rongellen in order to avoid the lower part of the gorge, known as the ‘Lost Hole’, which was only made passable for traffic in 1823. ­Goethe remembered crossing the Alps via the Splügen Pass even decades later. After receiving the letters from Marianne von Willemer, he wrote, ‘I have amongst my papers a fairly accurate sketch of the Via Mala and a rather more detailed one of a cliff face in Hell’s Valley.’

Goethe sketched the subsequent stretch around Nolla, which was also geologically interesting, in pen and ink. Arriving in Thusis, most of his difficult journey was behind him.

After staying overnight, the journey continued on a relatively safe route via Reichenau, where the Vorderrhein and Hinterrhein tributaries converge, to Chur. After delivering post and goods to a major trading point north of the Alps and picking up new items, they continued on their way through Liechtenstein to Feldkirch. When the weather was good, the journey con­tinued here directly to Fussach, and the Milan Messenger Service would arrive here by Monday evening at the latest.

Goethe’s journey with the Milan Messenger Service came to an end on the 2nd of June 1788. The Messenger Service continued its journey by boat from Fussach to Lindau, where the German Imperial Postal Service was already waiting for its letters and parcels. The poet, however, travelled via Constance so that he could visit the factory owner’s wife Bärbel Schultheß, a ‘dear friend’ of his. Goethe’s travelling companion and secre­ tary Philipp Christoph Kayser (the musician who set Goethe’s ‘Singspiele’ to music) saw to the payment of the Milan Messen­ ger Service, which received 122 guilders and a tip of 12 bronze coins. Everything seems to have been included in this price – or at least according to the entries in Kayser’s ledger, which only contained en­tries for tips and the barber after Chiavenna but none for food or accommodation. Goethe’s notebook also contained a few words indicating that the had found the Milan Messenger Service satisfactory: during his journey, Goethe recorded the name of his trusty guide, ‘­ Spehler/Leonhard’.

Isabel Rehmer

36 Family

For little

Pioneers Build your own aeroplane and win great prizes!

You will need: Thick cardboard A wooden rod (50 cm) Five paper clips A wooden bead with hole Green card Yellow and blue craft paper A small ball of cotton wool The tube from a kitchen roll Thin line (such as fishing line)

How to enter: Send us a photo of your aeroplane via email to redaktion@gw-atlas.com before 31/12 /2013 or send a postcard with your address and ‘Atlas-Gewinnspiel’ to: Gebrüder Weiss GmbH Attn: Redaktion Atlas Bundesstrasse 110 6923 Lauterach Austria We have the following prizes to give away: 1 × LEGO City cargo plane 1 × LEGO Technic platform trailer 1 × LEGO Friends large horse-riding centre Winners will be notified in writing either by post or by email. Employees of Gebrüder Weiss Gesellschaft m. b.H and their relatives are excluded from entering the competition. The judges’ decision is final. Prizes may not be exchanged for cash.

Family 37

Instructions

››

First, cut two circles of green card to cover both ends of the kitchen roll tube. Make incisions all around the edges of the circles. Then cut a hole in the kitchen roll tube for the cockpit. Using the template, cut the wings out of thick cardboard, the propeller and tail unit out of green card, the windscreen on the cockpit out of blue craft paper and the flower out of yellow craft paper. Cut the cotton wool ball in half. Paint or colour in all of parts.

››

Make holes in the fuselage and wings, using the tem­ plate to show where the holes in the wings are to go.

It is important to make sure that there is an equal amount of space between the holes in the fuselage as on the wings.

››

Now glue the circles onto the ends of the fuselage. ­Thread a length of fishing line through the four paper clips. Use the fishing line to connect the wings with the fuselage. Poke both ends of the fishing line through a hole in the fuselage so that the paper clip sits on the inside. Thread the end of the fishing line through the hole in the wing and tie both ends together so that you can hang your model up.

››

Now glue the tail and cockpit in place. Glue the flower to the propeller and affix both to the front of the plane.

Finally, glue half of the cotton wool ball to the front of the propeller.

››

Thread pieces of fishing line each measuring about one metre long through each of the other holes in the wings and tie to each end of the wooden rod. Now you need another piece of fishing line to hang your plane up. To do this, tie both ends of the fishing line to the wooden rod. It is important that your aeroplane hangs straight when still.

››

Now make a small hole through the base of your aeroplane and thread a piece of fishing line through the wooden bead. Both ends of the fishing line must now be passed through the hole in the bottom of the plane.

Attach a paper clip to them and tie them together. To start your aeroplane, all you have to do is pull this string.

Hole for linking with­ ­fuselage

Hole for hanging up

Please photocopy onto an A4 sheet of paper Cut two wings out of thick cardboard

Cut tail unit out of green card

Cut out of yellow craft paper

Cut tail unit out of green card

Hole for hanging up

Hole for linking with­ ­fuselage

Cut propeller out of green card

The floating boulevard

Bridges connect, bring whole worlds 足together or are little worlds of their own. The Galata Bridge does a bit of all these things.

39

On the following pages: the Galata Bridge – scenes from 25 May 2013, a peaceful Sunday evening.

text: Ulli Kulke Photos: Rainer Groothuis

I

t’s only a ten-minute walk across the 500 metres of the Galata Bridge.

If it sometimes takes a bit longer, maybe even a whole day, it’s because the bridge makes you pause for a moment.

This pause is not prompted by the bridge’s panoramic views, but by its character as a neighbourhood of its own, or at least as a promenade. It could be compared with the esplanades of other metropol­ itan harbours, such as Beirut, Marseille or Havana, and it has all the trimmings: there are fishermen crowded up close in their own pecking order, traders and hawkers, con artists, shoe shiners, fortune tellers, money changers both rep­ utable and disreputable, bartenders, ­waiters – and their respective customers, reading the paper, chatting, haggling, laughing, marvelling, all spread across two storeys. The upper deck is for the bustle of commerce and transit on foot, by car or by tram. The lower deck is for the unhurried life, for dawdling, a coffee, a sofa, a salad, a nargile pipe. Fishermen cluster wherever the fish are within rod distance.

Some authors have written books about all of Istanbul and its inhabitants after spending weeks only on this bridge.

Many of them are well worth reading, one example being Geert Mak’s The Bridge: A Journey between Orient and Occident. This principle works not only because of the colourful characters populating the bridge, but also because the Galata Bridge lives and breathes the spirit unique to a city straddling East and

West – despite the fact that the bridge does not even join Europe with Asia.

The Turkish poet and playwright Nâzım Hikmet once compared the ­Ga­lata Bridge with the ‘slender body of a little bird’ connecting its two outstretched wings, the two shores of the Golden Horn. It is the city’s artery and ‘life on both sides would end if it were cut’. Hikmet was writing about the current bridge’s predecessor, de­ molished in 1992, but his words ring true for all of the structures on this site.

Leonardo’s vision The Golden Horn crossing was a challenge very much to the taste of Leonardo da Vinci. In 1502, far away in Florence, the brilliant Renaissance engineer and visionary heard that Sultan Bayezid II wanted to build a prodigious bridge in Constantinople. It would span the 500metre-wide Bosporus inlet that bisected the capital of his Ottoman Empire, ­already an expanding and prosperous world power. It was actually only 50 years earlier, in 1453, that the sultans had taken the city. Their conquest fol-

tain arrogance and perhaps not entirely seriously, he declared, ‘I will build it as an arch, so high that nobody will be willing to cross it because of its height.’

Leonardo planned a single, unsupported span of 240 metres. The high arch was intended to allow ‘a ship under full sail’ to pass underneath. This would not even be possible for today’s bridge.

Leonardo’s plans did not convince the Sultan, or perhaps the letter never even reached him. Instead, Bayezid invited another renowned Florentine to be his architect: Michelangelo Buonarroti.

But Michelangelo had religious reservations, fearing he would be forced to convert to Islam while in Constantinople.

Moreover, the Pope had already threatened excommunication if he offered his services to the Sultan. Nothing came of the plan, and the bridge remained ­unbuilt. The two halves of the city, radically different in social, religious and economic terms, remained separated.

On the south-western shore, the Sultan in his palace remained in his world of mosques, Levantine bazaars and harems.

On the opposite side, half a kilometre

‘I will build it as an arch, so high that nobody will be willing to cross it because of its height.’ lowed a lengthy siege of the town, then home to the last remaining cluster of Byzantines, a solitary Occidental island in a Muslim world. Alongside Constantinople, the name Istanbul was now ­established, at first only referring to the part of the city south-west of the Golden Horn.

Leonardo made an audacious sketch for his bridge and sent it to Bayezid in 1503. The accompanying letter, only ­rediscovered in Istanbul in 1952, read, ‘I, your faithful servant, understand that it has been your intention to erect a bridge from Galata to Istanbul, but that this has not been done because there were no experts available.’ With a cer-

away, was the other world: the settlements of the Europeans with their Christian churches, the consulates of mercantile republics and European kingdoms and empires, the counting houses of their merchants. Even after Christian Constantinople fell, they dominated the cityscape on the steeply rising north-eastern shore.

Nightlife and modernity The involvement of creative giants such as Leonardo and Michelangelo testifies to the importance of this place. In the seventh century BCE, a Greek colony was built on the south-eastern bank and named Byzantion. Under Constantine,

40 The Floating Boulevard

the first emperor to convert to Chris­ tianity, Byzantion became the capital of the Roman Empire – hence the name Constantinople. The city soon burgeoned and settlement spread to the other side of the Golden Horn. The new district’s inhabitants were mainly Greeks at first, but in the Middle Ages also ­Ve­n­etians and Genoese, and later British, French, Dutch and other Europeans, along with the city’s Jewish community.

Even today, the mighty brick citadel known as the Galata Tower testifies to this international past. The name ‘Galata’, denoting the area around the northeastern bridgehead, recalls the fact that, even before the Greeks and Romans, people from the West had settled in the midst of this Levantine world: the Celtic Galatians or Gauls. The district as a whole, however, is called Pera, meaning ‘the other side’.

When they conquered Constantin­ ople, the Ottomans had no objection to the continued presence of Christian communities. Although a rapid exodus of Christians began in 1453, twenty-five years later more than half of the city’s houses were once again inhabited by non-Muslims. Apart from a ban on ringing church bells, they enjoyed all kinds of religious freedoms, especially in Ga­ lata. As late as 1886, a census of the whole city counted 444,000 Christians – 60,000 more than the total Muslim popu­ lation. In fact, geographically speaking both banks of the Golden Horn – the old city on the south-west and Pera or Galata in the north-east – belong to the European continent; Asia only begins on the other side of the Bosporus, to the east. But the two European banks have formed their own East–West divide, with Asian society taking root on the one side and European society on the other.

On one bank is traditional Istanbul; on the other Western modernity, where the very first gas lamps (later electric lighting) illuminated the streets when darkness fell over old Istanbul at sunset.

Nightlife, uncovered heads, alcohol – that was Galata. From the other side of the water, some glorified and yearned for it; others demonised it as the gates of hell. Geert Mak quotes a well-worn saying: ‘When a man goes to Pera, every­one knows what he is looking for.’

The Versailles of Istanbul It is no coincidence that the construction of the first Galata Bridge, almost three and a half centuries after Leonardo’s flights of imagination, formed part of a Muslim potentate’s plans to leave his ­traditional, Muslim half of the city and move to the modernity of the European quarter. Sultan Abdülmecid (1823–1861) lived in Topkapı Palace near the former cathedral Hagia Sophia, which had been converted into a mosque after the Turkish conquest in 1453. But finding the palace too cramped, too old, too oriental, the young Sultan decided to move to

a new building, Dolmabahçe Palace, which he ordered to be built in Pera at the Bosporus water’s edge.

It was the middle of the 19th century and the Ottoman elite had long been turning towards western Europe. The Crimean War (1853–1856), uniting the Ottomans with the French and British against the Russians, gave military ex-

‘West’, across the water to Galata. At the suggestion of his mother, he asked for a route to join the two halves of the city.

That way, he wouldn’t have to ‘burn the bridges’ connecting him to his past.

Work on the new palace took 13 years, from 1843 to 1856, but the bridge was to be a quicker affair, built of timber on floating pontoons. Construction began

‘Nightlife, uncovered heads, alcohol – that was Galata.’ pression to this new cultural orientation. Dolmabahçe Palace would give it styl­istic expression. The palace has been ­described as a miniature Versailles. ­Abdülmecid wanted to move to the

in 1845 and was completed the same year. Before long, it was impossible to imagine life without the new crossing.

Its traffic volume exceeded even the wildest of expectations, and in 1863 it

had to be replaced by a wider, more ­stable structure, still made of wood. In 1875, this in turn was replaced by the first iron bridge, again built on the pontoon principle.

A bridge that divides By this time, it was becoming clear that the Galata Bridge did not just connect.

It also divided, separating Pera into an inner part and an outer one that looked towards the Bosporus. Abdülmecid seems to have been well aware of this.

With great foresight, he had his little Versailles built in the outer part, on the shores of the Bosporus, otherwise the bridge would have cut him off from the wider world. It had not proved possible to build a high arch allowing ships to

sail freely in and out of the Golden Horn, as Leonardo had planned. The bridge blocked the route for all large vessels (and still does so today, apart from the few night-time hours when it is opened) – cutting off the Golden Horn.

Accordingly, in the century and a half since Dolmabahçe Palace was built, the palace side open to the Bosporus has been the one chosen for many other magnificent buildings, whether private mansions, grand hotels or showy villas.

In the other direction, right after the bridge, the Golden Horn shoreline down­ scales into fish stalls, small shops and noisy coastal roads.

From the days of Abdülmecid’s first bridge until 1930, all those crossing the bridge, even pedestrians, had to pay a

toll. This often gave rise to tensions, with squabbles and fist fights at the entry points. Yet, in a way, perhaps the levy was justified, since by crossing this particular bridge you were changing hemisphere, just like crossing the Atlantic from the Old World to the New. The Ita­l­ ian writer Edmondo de Amicis, whose book Constantinople was one of the late 19th-century’s best-known accounts of the city, wrote that the Golden Horn was really an ocean: ‘European news reaches Galata and Pera, and at once it is in every­ one’s mouth, circulates rapidly, fresh, minute, and accurate’, while in ‘Stambul’, on the other side, ‘it is heard only like some vague, faraway echo’. Again and again, travel writers noted the darkness of old Istanbul after nightfall, while

the streets of Pera were brightly and invitingly lit until the early morning. The Galata Bridge may have moved merchandise, money and people from one side to the other, but as for East and West – at closer quarters here than anywhere else in the world – it can’t be said to have brought them together.

The turn of the 20th century revolutionised transport, powered by electricity, steam and petrol. Even if the Ottoman Empire as a whole was in decline and Europe was beginning to call Turkey the ‘sick man on the Bosporus’, a dynamic city like Istanbul was bound to join the trend. Plans were drawn up to increase traffic capacity by constructing a replacement bridge. This time there would be multiple lanes for motor traffic

The Floating Boulevard 43

and even one for tram tracks. This fourth incarnation of the Galata Bridge was the first to be designed with two decks.

The sultan signed a contract with a French construction company, but in 1908 the Young Turk rebels brought him down, and they supported the German Empire – not France – in the growing rivalry be-

growing throngs of European visitors, at a time when the Middle East was coming so much closer in cultural, political and military terms. The crossing nostalgically recalled an era when the Orient Express brought travellers to the city and the Baghdad Railway took them onwards, out into the desert. It was in those

‘The bridge arose stable and strong, but its massive concrete took some getting used to.’ tween the European powers. The Germans themselves – Bismarck’s intricately crafted alliances having lapsed – were seeking closer relations with the Ottomans, their future allies in the First World War. The commission was finally awarded to the southern German com­ pany Maschinenfabrik Augsburg Nürnberg (MAN).

From Orient Express to Baghdad ­Railway The bridge completed by MAN in 1912, another pontoon structure, entered the history books as the Galata Bridge. In its early years, it was eagerly welcomed as an expression of modernity. With its 42-metre width, three separate traffic lanes, gen­erous walkways, central tramway and bright illumination all night long, it exuded expansiveness. Istanbul had arrived in Europe. Or at least it had on the upper deck, where motorised transport throbbed. Down on the lower deck, the Orient was still the Orient, with its aura of the great, unfathomable bazaar, its tearooms and hookah bars. ­Istanbul had got itself a boulevard – with a funfair ­atmosphere created by artists, jugglers, quacks and any number of other heroes. Decades later, people still remembered Uzun Ömer, ‘tall Ömer’ the lottery-ticket seller, well over seven feet tall; or the seal known as Yaşar, performing its tricks on a little stage.

Towards the end of its 80-year life­ span, the bridge’s fin-de-siècle atmosphere also won Istanbul the hearts of the

days that the bridge was discovered by poets, songwriters and other literary ­talents. It supplied the newspapers with at least one story a day, digging deep into real life with accidents, suicides and murders, and became a setting for detective novels.

This was the bridge that had lasted the longest, the most stable one so far.

Yet the pontoon principle keeps even the hardiest of construction in constant ­motion, nudging and lifting and dipping it to the rhythm of the waves and tides.

The engineers from Istanbul’s building control raised the alarm, concerned that the beloved bridge might no longer be able to withstand the demands of modern traffic.

Fishermen were the first to return The new bridge was constructed right next to the old one, again by a German company, Thyssen. This time it was built on piles and hovered just above the ­water, for the sake of the Golden Horn’s aquatic environment – the old pontoons had sealed off the inlet, preventing the free inflow of fresh water. The bridge arose stable and strong, but its massive concrete took some getting used to. It did not capture any hearts – at least not at first. Inexorably, the time drew near for Istanbul to say goodbye to the old bridge. In the spring of 1992, the new structure was complete and the old one could disappear.

Since then, the new bridge has borne its heavy responsibility alone – respon­

sibility not only for traffic, but also for the soul, for the melancholy of the Istanbullus. This isn’t easy, for the 80 years of the old pontoon bridge cast a long shadow, and the new Galata Bridge lacks pati­ na in comparison. It wasn’t ­until 2002 that the bars, restaurants and shops on the lower deck were all open for business, by which time the bridge had really come alive. The Fishermen had long since returned. It now looks as though the new bridge will have much more time at its disposal than its four transient predecessors – but it’s going to need that time if it wants to match their popularity.

One thing is for sure: it still has the noble task of connecting East and West.

This can be sensed by anyone who crosses it and loses themselves in the alleyways at its ends, whether on this side or the other.

Ulli Kulke, born in 1952, ­co-founded the tageszeitung and mare magazine and has worked for Natur. He is a ­reporter and author for Welt and Welt am Sonntag. He contributes to many publications including SZ-Magazin, stern, and National Geograph­ ic, and has been on the pre-jury of the Henri Nannen Prize since 1999. He lives in Berlin with his wife and two children.

Every man is a piece of the continent Everyone wants to live a free and self-determined life.

But what does independence really mean? How does it manifest itself ? And how can it be maintained?

45

Despite a rather unpromising start, DPD ­Austria, in which Gebrüder Weiss holds shares, has become Austria’s market leader in the B2B parcel segment.

F

ree at last! Almost everybody is surely familiar with the feeling of finally getting a glimpse of the glittering sea after hours of driving, or that moment when the mountain hut finally appears in the middle of the wilderness – when city dwellers can finally forget all about work and enjoy feeling their spirits rise. Finally not having your peaceful slumber interrupted by an alarm clock – without office hours, meetings, timetables or business trips, they feel independent and relaxed. This is how millions of Europeans imagine their summer holidays. What for many people seems to work out with relative ease whilst on holiday turns out to be more of a challenge in their everyday lives – one that people and companies have to face, day in, day out. After all, everyone wants to live a free and self-determined life. But what does independence even mean? How does it manifest itself and how can you recognise it?

What can we do to achieve, cherish and maintain our own independence?

Without independence, no pioneering The struggle for independence is not a new phenomenon: there have always been people who went one step further to work towards freedom. Where would we be today if pioneers such as Ferdinand Magellan and Francis Drake hadn’t circumnavigated the Earth in the 16th century to prove once and for all that the world was round? What if it had not been for unconventional thinkers such as ­Galileo Galilei, who weathered intense

criticism as a result of his assertions that the earth was not the centre of the universe but that the sun was? Over the centuries, there have been many such contrarians, who have continued to think and act in spite of widely held views, freeing their minds from existing laws and rules. As such, the drive for ­independence has ­always been an ­el­ementary aspect of a pioneering mentality. Freedom has to be fought for.

Freedom in action People have always fought for their freedom, whether it was of an economic or national nature. In the late 17th century, for example, the Milan Messenger Service, Gebrüder Weiss’s predecessor, fought for its independence from the imperial Thurn und Taxis pos­tal service.

The Messenger Service’s constant struggle for recognition of its independence was ultimately successful: the state postal service used any means possible to deny all independent messenger ser­ vices in the south of Germany their commercial existence – only the Milan Messenger Service was able to get through this, following decades of legal disputes.

On a much larger scale, Thomas ­Jefferson fought for the independence of a whole country. With his 1776 preamble to the King of Great Britain, Jefferson laid the foundations for the independence of one of the richest and most pow­ erful nations on earth today: the United States of America. British rule of the 13 colonies had allegedly hindered trade, encouraged corruption in the ­colonies’

administration, jeopardised the dispensation of justice and en­dangered the ­po­litical process – reason enough to throw down the gauntlet at London, thought Jefferson, who ­declared the USA independent in the midst of a bloody war. Under international law, sover­ eignty is defined as the fundamental ­in­dependence of a state from any other state(s) which, as such, is self-determined in questions pertaining to its own organisation. To this day, people around the world continue to fight for their independence and the right to determine their own destinies. The United Nations will grant any nation independence – in theory, at least.

Together towards independence Where the independence of one limits the independence of another, problems can result, which are often expressed as conflict situations. In an age in which people and societies are becoming increasingly globally integrated, the old idea of a completely independent state has met its limits. More and more countries are relinquishing parts of their sovereign­ty to supranational organisations such as the European Union, the United Nations or the World Bank. Together, states can often achieve more than in the isolation of an absolute ­stru­ggle for independence. The more intensively countries cooperate on an international level, the lower their level of independence – but also the lower the danger of having to resort to violence in conflict situations. The EU, as a union

46 A piece of the continent

of independent states and economies, was established in line with this very credo following the horrors of the Second World War. ‘No man is an island.’

The struggle for absolute independence can become a problem from a social point of view if self-determination is carried out as isolation. Healthy coexistence is only possible if people have the opportunity to play a part in social processes. Whether the issue is one of state sovereignty or social cohesion, the following applies: ‘No man is an island, / Entire of itself, / Every man is a piece of the continent, / a part of the main.’ John Donne, an English poet, who pondered the metaphysical aspects of existence in the 17th century, truly understood the matter of human freedom. Today, complete independence is almost impos­ sible – whether it’s as a result of social networks on the Internet such as Facebook, Twitter or XING, or of economic interdependence on the global market.

And yet, it is still an fundamental value, not just in terms of national sovereignty but also in terms of economic relevance. Every entrepreneur strives, in spite of r­ estrictive directives, to make a profit and establish a corporate culture

­ ermits people to take the initiative p and promotes personal development.

Above all in an international, modern transport and logistics group, inde­ pendence certainly does not mean being left to your own devices – it ­implies that people can rely on one ­an­other. In these times of internation­ally interdependent economies, com­panies cannot afford to do without p ­ art­nerships. As a network, partners can benefit from one another’s e ­ xpertise with regard to the ­mentality, customs and regulations of other ­coun­tries.

Partners and pioneers Now for an example from recent Gebrüder Weiss history of how a pioneering spirit can be united with a collective struggle for independence. The GWP (Gebrüder Weiss Parcel Service) celebrates its 25-year anniversary this year in association with the DPD. Back in 1988, very few people believed that it was possible to make money from transporting parcels. Even until the 1970s, the transportation of parcels in Europe largely ­remained the domain of state postal services, which held the monop­oly. It was the penetration of the Euro­pean market

by American companies that finally challenged several medium-sized trans-

‘There are always two sides to independence – one side with the desire for independence, and the other with the power to grant it.’ that enables each individual member to achieve his full potential. Entrepreneurs also strive to invest in long-term vision rather than having to react to short-term exchange rate fluctuations.

The basis for this can take the form of a family-run business – as in the case of Gebrüder Weiss. If the company’s values evolve over a period of many years and are passed down through the generations, this increases the mutual trust between employees and the company. The result is a working environment that

port and logistics companies in Germany to come together to establish the Deutscher ­Paketdienst (DPD) in 1978.

Following these events, Heidi und Paul Senger-Weiss, alongside other Austrian transport and logistics companies, decided to try the same ­approach in Austria. As a joint venture between Gebrüder Weiss, Lagermax, Schachinger and DPD, a comprehensive parcel service was launched in Austria, delivering 730 parcels per day. Today, DPD stands for ‘Dynamic Parcel Distribution’ and is

operated by Gebrüder Weiss, Lagermax and Schachin­ger, delivering around 38.2 million parcels per year.

It takes two Independence also means being the master of your own destiny. The more successfully a department operates within a company, the more customers it acquires and the more turnover it ­generates, the more likely it is that headquarters will allow that department free rein. The reverse – that a department will be more likely to prove success if it is able to act in an independent and flexible way – is also true. Allowing somebody to act independently also has a great deal to do with trust. This ­applies not only to businesses but also to private relationships – for example, p ­ arent-child relationships. When young adults grad­ ually move away from their families and their home turf, they will only achieve the freedom they desire over the long term if they can provide for their own food, a roof over their head and anything else they need to lead an adult life.

Conversely, parents have to be able to entrust their children with enough personal responsibility to allow them to lead independent lives. After all, there are always two sides to independence – one side with the desire for independence, the other with the power to grant it. Not just on the beach or in an Alpine hut.

Isabel Rehmer

47

Half-deaf and heat-resistant Harald Martenstein on ants, the stock market and intuition or what it takes to be a pioneer.

Illustration: Lars Hammer

P

ioneers are those people who enter unknown territory.

Great scientists, explorers and inventors. Settlers travelling through unknown country. Businessmen launching new products. So, what does it take to be a pioneer?

Pioneers don’t care if they are unpopular or are thought to be mad. If they are successful they will be famous in the end.

But until that happens, they will have been told a thousand times that they are nutcases, dreamers or even her­etics. That’s why pioneers egos have to be heat-resistant; they need a bit of Helmut Schmidt in them. In the business of being a pioneer, a touch of autism and a spot of arrogance are probably quite helpful, too. The pioneer does not listen to advice, even if it seems sound. They just go on doing their own thing, like Jürgen Klinsman did when he was the coach of Bayern München.

Pioneers don’t care if people laugh at them. Until the end of the last German Emperor’s reign, people made fun of Graf Zeppelin, the inventor of the airship. The first airships crashed on a regular basis. In the streets, children shouted ‘Graf Zeppelin, Graf Zeppelin, another airship in the bin’. All in all, the airship did not, in fact, fulfil the inventor’s hopes. But Graf Zeppelin was indeed a pioneer. Another person who doesn’t seem to mind when people laugh at him is Lothar Matthäus.

But he was a good footballer.

Most pioneers fail. For every Einstein and every Marie Curie, there are plenty of scientists whose bold theories could not be proven in the end. And nobody remembers all the entrepreneurs whose innovative products resulted in ugly bankruptcies. Hippolyte Bayard was a civil servant at the Ministry of Finance and was the inventor of photography. In 1839, as he tried to patent his invention, he was told that a man named Daguerre had just beaten him to it. In reply, Bayard made a photo that showed himself as a corpse in water. The text accompanying the photo was ‘The man in this picture drowned himself out of grief.’ At the very least, Hippolyte Bayard is known today as the man who made the first fake photograph.

From the 1920s on, the Munich architect Herman Sörgel, a pacifist, fought to realise the idea of a European Union and to partially drain the Mediterranean Sea. This would have created the new continent ‘Atlantropa’. The idea was popular from time to time and when we read Sörgel’s texts today, they sound relatively plausible. Without the nuisance of the Mediterranean Sea, there would be fewer problems supplying ­Europe with energy. An interesting man, forgotten today. The stone that the pioneer rolls up the mountain, rolls back down – just like it did for Sisyphus.

Most people are not pioneers, because they lack that rare mixture of the self-confidence of Helmut Schmidt, the halfdeafness of Jürgen Klinsman and the resistance to frustration of Lothar Matthäus – not to mention the creativity of Albert Einstein, of which pioneers need at least a minimum dose.

I wonder if I have ever in my life done anything worthy of being called pioneer. As a zoologist, I tried to breed ants in a jam jar. I wanted the ants as pets. I was ten years old. In eco-

‘Pioneers don’t care if people laugh at them.’ nomics, my field of study was the stock market. I wanted to prove that you could earn money with shares without having the least know­ledge of them. Allegedly chimpanzees make profit by just buying at random. If people could do that, there would never be another crisis. As an entrepreneur, I have had several stalls at flea markets in the hope of making a profit.

Others have done all of these things before me. And yet I failed every time.

Harald Martenstein writes the column ‘Martenstein’ in the ZEITmagazin and is an editor for the Berlin ­Tagesspiegel newspaper. This multiple award-winning jour­nalist, whose accolades include the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize and the Theodor Wolff Prize, has pub­lished a number of books, including Romantische Nächte im Zoo and Ansichten eines Hausschweins. Freuet Euch, Bernhard kommt bald! will be published this autumn.

The Marco Polo of Lustenau, Austria – Walter Schneider on living, working and exploring in Asia.

* Chinese: ‘They called me “Egg Man”, white skin with a yellow heart!’

The Marco Polo of Lustenau 51

The enormous Mong Kok market is situated in the Hong Kong district of the same name.

With a population density of over 130,000 inhabitants per square kilometre, it is one of the most densely populated places on earth.

‘If I hadn’t retired, I would have gone back out there after a year.’

your life as a man of the world?

Yes, in 1974 I took over the export depart­ ment in Lustenau1 and was in charge of air and sea freight. From there, I built up the market around Nigeria. Back then, the most popular export was embroidered items, especially produced for the African market. At the time, hundreds of Nigerians and people from other West African countries visited Lustenau every week and had their designs made by suppliers there. Each one of them had their own design, and the finished goods were flown back over there afterwards.

How did that work exactly?

From 1978 onwards, a Boeing 747 left Paris every week for Cotonou, the eco­ nomic capital of Benin, which shares a border with Nigeria. Back then, we even

worked together with other Lustenaubased transport and logistics companies because we could not cope with the volume on our own. We handled around 100 tonnes per week, 70 tonnes of which were em­broidered items; the rest other fabrics from all over Europe. We loaded the fabric onto pallets in Lustenau and labelled them all. The goods arrived with us on Wednesday, and they had to get there by Sunday. This meant that the goods had to be loaded in Lustenau from Wednesday afternoon until ­Wednesday night, with us sometimes working until 3 a.m. Then the goods were driven to Paris, where they were palletised, loaded onto the plane and flown to Africa.

How did African people come to cher­ ish embroidered items from Lustenau, of all places?

Shipments of embroidered items to Af­rica began in around 1970, after the Nigerian Civil War2. Lustenau-based manufacturers travelled all over the world for business and realised that African people loved embroidery. In Nigeria, this kind of embroidery has even become a kind of national dress.

What does it look like?

It is a kind of scarf, around 1.20 metres wide and six metres long, which is worn wound around the body. It is available with either brightly coloured or white embroidery, depending on who is going to wear it. There are various tribes in Ni­geria: in the south, they prefer to wear colourful embroidery, while in the north, they prefer plain white. People in Sen­ egal also like to wear white. The designs are developed especially with each country in mind.

This unusual export business to Africa

1 Lustenau is a small town in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg.

In the 20th century, it became a major hub for the Vorarlberg embroidery industry.

2 The Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970) was a war of secession ­ between Nigeria und the region of Biafra, which Nigeria ultimately won.

Interview: Frank Haas

Mr Schneider, alongside Paul SengerWeiss, you are Gebrüder Weiss’s ­pioneer on the Chinese market. But China was far from your first stint abroad for the company. You previously played a major role in building up our business in Africa as a network coor­­di­ nator. Was that the beginning of

really shows the pioneering spirit of the manufacturers.

Yes, I think it does. They travelled a lot around Africa after the Second World War. Before Nigeria, Sudan was an enormous market, then came South Africa and Zambia, but the major market was in Nigeria. The Lustenau em­ broidery manufacturers were very business-savvy and worldly and got to know these markets before other entrepreneurs did. They were already doing business with Venezuela when others were still only active elsewhere in Europe (at a push). I remember that Venezuela was a huge market for those products back in 1968.

It’s an incredible story that embroidery from Lustenau of all places should ­enjoy such exceptional sales in Africa.

How is the turnover situation now?

It’s true, it is an incredible story, and it’s still going on today, although things have slowed down a little now. Until 1988/89, we’re really talking unbeliev­ able amounts of exports. But then the market collapsed. Many African countries experienced devaluations in their currencies and this resulted in a huge de­ cline in the embroidered goods trade.

Now, only exclusive fabrics are exported from here, with the bulk of them coming from India and China.

Let’s take China as our cue to talk about your second major assignment abroad. You also played a central role in establishing and developing our partner network in the Far East. What were your early days in Shanghai like?

I visited Beijing and Shanghai for the first time in April 1990 with Paul SengerWeiss, where we hammered out some contracts. I wasn’t so interested in that –

52 The Marco Polo of Lustenau

Above: The Asian metropolis of Hong Kong is hardly a paradise for cyclists but the city still teems with bicycles; below: in 2012, 1,087 highspeed trains were in operation across Asia.

Walter Schneider Networker, cosmopolitan and a major name in the Gebrüder Weiss air and sea freight ­division. He started his career in the summer of 1964 in Lustenau, Austria. Before moving to Shanghai in 2003, he worked in various man­agerial positions in the air and sea freight ­division. After taking over as the re­ gional manager for China, he dealt with new tasks in the ­Gebrüder Weiss headquarters in Lauterach until he retired. Walter Schneider is married and has three grown-up children (two daughters and a son).

1948

Born in the Year of the Pig

1964

Started training in the logistics industry in the Gebrüder Weiss air and sea freight division 1974 – 80

Built up business in Africa

1990

First trip to China with Paul Senger-Weiss

1991

Moved to the headquarters in Lauterach, built up partner network in the Far East 1992

Opened the first Chinese Gebrüder Weiss office in Shanghai 2003

Moved to Shanghai, country manager for China 2009

Returned to Austria, continued working at the Gebrüder Weiss headquarters

more in how Chinese people work­ed. I saw the incredible quantities that Chinese transport and logistics companies shipped to Europe via Hong Kong. Of course, that was big business for the Hong Kongbased logistics companies. I thought about whether there was another way of doing things – ideally, we wanted the Chinese logistics companies to ship their goods directly to ports in Europe. To organise this, I needed someone to help me, and I found Yongquan Chen. There was a dinner with his company so that I could get him to join our team, where I had to prove my drinking abilities. The next day I met Chen in the hotel lobby.

He said I had passed the test, and that he would come and work for me.

Was that the start of the company’s ­success story in China?

Yes – since then, we’ve managed to per­ suade an increasing number of transport and logistics companies all over China to ship their goods directly to Europe – for example, to our port office in Hamburg.

In 1992, Yongquan Chen assisted us in opening our first office in Shanghai, a two-man operation. After two or three years, we were bundling our own goods, we established more and more branch offices and launched our air freight business. We received our full licence to operate in China in 2004.

Was China the bigger adventure, com­ pared to Africa?

Yes! Back in 1990, China was very differ­ ent. There were only very few cars on the roads, but millions of bicycles. There were no privately owned restaurants and you could only stay in special five-star hotels for foreigners. A train journey from Nanjing, which takes two hours today, took around seven hours back then.

People also stared at me as if I came from an­other planet. It was pretty unusual to see a westerner in the smaller cities, especially inland, although there were some in Shanghai.

You decided to move to China in 2003, aged 55. What was your motivation?

I saw how China was just growing and

growing. In the beginning, I just travelled there frequently. But it’s hard to track developments closely when you don’t live there. When you’re on the ground, it’s easier to manage things and intervene if something doesn’t go to plan.

How difficult was it then for you to move back to Austria permanently in 2009?

It was very difficult but it had to come to an end. If I hadn’t retired, I would have gone back out there after a year. Lots of expats have had enough after five or six years in China, come back for a year, then realise they can’t stand it here, and go back again. I’ve seen that happen with a lot of people I know. There are expats who spend their whole lives travel­­ ling from country to country – they live in one place for five years, then come home for a year, and then they’re off again. Very few of them come back for good.

Why was it so hard for you to leave China? What made a particular im­ pression on you?

Chinese people are very welcoming to foreigners. We’re not really used to that here. I don’t think we’re particularly welcoming, to be honest. But Chinese people really are. They do test you, but once you’ve passed the test, they are exceptionally loyal to you as employees.

I was always impressed by that. That’s why my wife and I lived in China for six years – it was one of the best times in my life, a very successful period and a great experience.

You often hear strange tales about the food in China. Would you confirm them?

In the beginning, people sometimes tried to trick me into eating dog or snake. When I realised what was going on, I told them in no uncertain terms that I didn’t want to eat it and then it never happened again. When you know what’s what, eating out in China is in­ credible. Chinese food as we know it in Europe and the food that Chinese

54 The Marco Polo of Lustenau

Above: Monsieur Joseph, the Gebrüder Weiss agent at Cotonou airport (Benin), in front of a Gebrüder Weiss poster from the 1970s; below: Walter Schneider watching pallets being unloaded in Cotonou in the early 1980s; right: the name Hong Kong means ­‘fragrant harbour’. The port itself has been called Victoria Harbour since 1843, when Hong Kong became a British colony.

people actually eat are two completely different things. Shanghai made excep­ tional progress in this regard in 2000, and it’s now as international and multicultural as any western European city.

There are lots of European restaur­ants and supermarkets there as well.

There are also huge differences in terms of geography. China is about 114 times bigger than Austria. To what extent did your work there change your views with regard to mobility and transport?

The staggering vastness of the country changed my views. Where you’d trans-

port one container in Austria, there would be one hundred containers in China. The quantities that are trans­ port­ed there are just astounding. But it’s normal there and it gets to the point where you are no longer daunted by the size of an operation. The perception of size is simply different. But you can only really understand it if you experience it for yourself.

Does the same apply for the distances that these goods have to travel?

When you’ve lived and worked in China, distances and size are no longer a prob­ lem. Your outlook changes with ex­peri­

ence. It’s a shame that I was so old by the time my ideas matured! I would have liked to have gone there when I was younger and stayed a few more years.

I had a great time in China. There, if you lose a customer, it’s a shame, but you can easily find two more to replace them.

That’s not the case here because nothing seems to be growing any more, and there are very few new companies. In China, a lot of companies are moving towards the interior. Once you’ve seen Chongqing you know what a big city looks like. It has 29 million inhabitants and is completely different to anything we know in Europe.

Is mobility valued differently in China?

Chinese people are not particularly mo­bile. Asking a Chinese person to move within China almost never works out.

Europeans are much more mobile.

Why do you think that is? Does it have to do with family structures being stronger in Asia?

Yes, families do stay together there much more often. They get together at the weekend and play mah-jong at home.

I asked a Chinese person to move to Shanghai once, but it was practically impossible to get him to do so – despite the fact that Chinese people cannot say no. If Chinese people don’t see any way out of it, they will simply hand in their notice rather than say that they do not want to move away. You never find out the real reasons for this kind of resignation, they just state ‘personal reasons’.

I’ve known several people to leave but never found out the reasons why. That’s something we Europeans find hard to understand.

There is a saying that ‘in China, a lie is always preferable if it maintains ­harmony’. Is it this that we find hard to ­understand?

Chinese people don’t want anyone to lose face. They prefer to make something up so that everyone stays happy. If you

56 The Marco Polo of Lustenau

live there for a while and get to know the local customs, you learn when you need to stop being so persistent. The best you can do is to try to find out from others what the real reason is. The person in question will never tell you, but someone else might at some point.

Can this approach sometimes have ad­ vantages? Or, to put it differently: what aspects of Chinese culture did you inte­ grate into your own life?

I also did what was necessary to maintain harmony. A lot of times, a question would be answered with ‘maybe so, maybe not’, leaving the other person to choose

the answer that suits them best. They called me ‘egg man’ – white skin with a yellow heart – because I had already adopted some of their customs. When this happens the other way around, a Chinese person is referred to as a ‘banana man’ – yellow skin with a white heart.

What can Austrian people learn from the Chinese – apart from the language?

Discipline. In China, people just get things done. Employees are very loyal and handle projects exactly as they should be handled. You don’t have to check their work. In Austria, people suddenly forget things or don’t do them.

The Chinese success story is based on the absolute service mentality of the country’s employees. If something has to be done by a certain time, it is done – even if someone is on holiday.

What about the other way round?

In what ways are Austrians and Euro­ peans perhaps ahead of Asians?

We are maybe a bit more creative – not everyone, but some are. And I think we’re more curious and want to develop.

Where do you think this comes from?

The Chinese were thwarted in their creativity for years as a result of com­ munist ideology, in particular those from the mainland. People from Hong Kong and Taiwan have always been more creative thinkers. China will surely make enormous progress on the global markets once again when the main­ landers have finally done away with their old, restrictive ideas. That’s sure to happen at some point.

As a European, you’re a good example of curiosity and the courage to explore new cultures. What do pioneers need above all else?

They have to have a sense of adventure.

I was never able to ask anyone for help and so when something went wrong, I was the one left looking silly. But I still took the challenge because it was excit­ ing. Crazy really, but there you have it.

Last year, I spent three months in Vietnam helping build up the business there, and I’d do it again in a flash. A young employee just needs someone to help them out in the first few weeks so that they can gain their confidence, and then they’re handed the reins. In Vietnam, I gave our young area manager the goahead, and that was enough – he knew how I would have approached things and thus trusts his own decisions.

You never needed a coach. Why not?

Above: at the 20-year anniversary celebrations of our China office with Jan Skovgaard, Head of Weiss-­Röhlig Hong Kong; below: Walter Schneider with the team in Qingdao; right: the harbour is the centre of urban Hong Kong and a popular viewpoint and attraction of the city.

The Marco Polo of Lustenau 57

What is necessary in order to main­ tain your pioneering spirit?

I suffered two defeats. I travelled to Ni­ geria twice to try to establish the agent network there. It didn’t work out either time. Some colleagues even asked me if I was just enjoying living off expenses

let myself lose sight of the target, no matter what was going on around me.

I simply had the feeling that it had to work out eventually. In the end, Africa was a success, and so was China. Other people are different and need someone to shield them when things get

‘The Chinese were thwarted in their creativity for years as a result of communist ideology, in particular those from the mainland.’ there, which was a real slap in the face.

The third time, it worked out but it re­quired a lot of investment. It was a similar story in China. After my first trip there, nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. When I went there again, I was also asked if I was just travelling there for fun. I’ve always dealt with setbacks by thinking that, at some point, it has to work out. That was my strength. I never

tough until they have a breakthrough and know that it will all work out.

China has been a major success story for Gebrüder Weiss, but it’s also a country in a phase of constant change.

How will Gebrüder Weiss manage to maintain its position there beyond its status of pioneer?

By focusing on new markets and send­ ing young people to these new markets

to manage them. There are people who talk business, and there are people who do business – I look for people who do business. I prefer someone who occa­ sionally likes to go for a drink but oversees the arrival of deliveries over someone who writes lengthy emails full of fantastic vision. Today, I wouldn’t hesi­tate to send someone to Burma – a country with a population of 70 to 80 million people and an incredible amount of raw ma­terials. The Chinese should go there be­cause Burma has a lot of business deal­ings with China. I would send a Chinese person and perhaps a European – someone for the Chinese market and someone for the European market.

There are still plenty of countries where we can – and should – expand. Gebrüder Weiss is well on its way to being a global player. The only thing for us to do is to continue along the path that the company has followed so far.

58 Orange NEtwork

BY FOOT

BY BICYCLE

The Briton Graham Hughes proved that it is entirely possible to travel the world without using a plane – he travelled all of the sovereign nations in the world in 1,426 days.

105 days, one hour and 45 minutes – this is how long it would take to cycle around the world.

This is the time recorded in the Guinness Book of Records.

Czech Republic An eastern European hub: in April 2013, a high-tech handling centre, 10,000 square metres in size, began operations in Jeneč near Prague.

Together with the new premises in Jablonec nad Nisou, direct de­liv­ eries can be made from there by land, air freight or sea freight through­out Europe, with the centre spe­cial­ ising in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Turkey.

Brazil As the location of the 2014 World Cup, the 2016 Olympics and as one of the fastest growing newly indus­trialised nations on earth, Brazil is booming. Gebrüder Weiss connects one of the Latin America’s major ports, Santos, with one of Asia’s most flourishing regions, Shanghai, every week.

Switzerland Gebrüder Weiss is continuing to expand its Swiss network. The new air and sea office in Berne, our tenth centre in Switzerland, has been in operation since May 2013.

The national air freight and sea freight business is controlled from the terminal at Zurich airport.

hungary Gebrüder Weiss opened its first office in Budapest back in 1990.

With its latest addition in Györ, it now has five branches in operation in Hungary. Despite being active in the country for over 20 years, there are still plenty of new things to learn – for example, following the introduction of the electronic distance-based road toll system in July 2013.

Orange Network 59

BY Truck

BY SHIP

The fastest truck in the world boasts 2,000 h. p. and can reach speeds of over 250 kph – ­ al­though, admittedly, it has been built spe­cifi­­cally for the purpose of setting records.

In 2012 a new record was set when the first ever solar-powered ship accomplished the feat. This catamaran with 38,000 solar cells took 584 days, 23 hours and 31 minutes to complete the journey.

Croatia In July 2013, Croatia was the 28th country to join the European Union.

Gebrüder Weiss also looks set to benefit from the expansion of the European domestic market from its location in Zagreb. The country can now also be used more effec­­­t­ive­ly as a bridge to the other Balkan states.

Vietnam Vietnam’s economy shows annual growth of around 8 %. The Gebrüder Weiss branch in Vietnam, which opened in 2012, will be joined by two further offices in 2013. Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi will enable us to cover the two biggest economic regions of this booming country, which has a strong emphasis on production.

China Gebrüder Weiss currently has 17 locations in China, with 340 em­ ployees responsible for a turnover of 120 million euros. Thanks to the economic and political development of the country, turnover has increased by a factor of 30 over the past ten years – reason enough to celebrate our 20-year anniversary in Shanghai in style.

Germany The ‘orange network’ is becoming better connected: after having taken over two transport and logistics companies in southern Germany, one of the most powerful financial regions in Ger­many, Gebrüder Weiss has now acquired a further two locations, along with their broad customer pool and excep­ tional employees.

60

61

Here and on the following pages: joie de vivre and the good life – scenes from the Viennese Naschmarkt food market.

Mrs Gruber makes a splash How I lost my heart to the Viennese Naschmarkt food market.

Text: Bettina Baltschev Photos: Harald Eisenberger

I

lost my heart to Mrs Gruber’s stand in Vienna. I only wanted to buy some fish for our evening meal and a friend of a friend told me I had to go to Mrs Gruber’s, since she had the best fish around. So there we were at her stand on a sunny Saturday afternoon, with the Naschmarkt full of well-heeled types. While my friend was still looking to see which fish was the best on show, my gaze fell upon a ­yellowing poster above the stand, upon which was written: Hella Gruber 1942 – 2010. Under­neath was the image of a mature woman, looking into the camera with a clear gaze.

This was followed by a few lines about her life, half of which was spent right here at the Naschmarkt. She was also known as ‘Der blaue Blitz vom Naschmarkt’ (the blue thunderbolt of the Naschmarkt) due to her habit of careering around ­Vienna on her bicycle dressed in a blue coat.

The person selling us the fish – my chef de cuisine finally decides it has to be the halibut – must be Wolfgang, her son.

He has to be. Wolfgang is the silent type and his expression gives nothing away as he wraps our fish in thick paper and ­places it in a bag – it’s almost as if he’d never heard of the renowned Viennese charm. It seems he has not inherited the pithy sayings attributed to his mother on the yellowing poster either. Yet he must surely have some tales to tell. That is predecessors, mainly confident women, occupied this spot from 1876 and that the fish used to be brought in from Italy but now comes from all four corners of the globe – from Marocco to Norway, Greenland to South Africa. They say that fresh fish and other creatures of the sea are delivered to the Gruber stand every 48 hours. In light of the fact that Austria is not exactly close to the coast – and Vienna certainly isn’t – this seems like no mean feat. But when we taste the delicious hali-

but in the evening, served with buttery parsley potatoes, it’s easy to believe that it’s true. Served of course with a glass of Veltliner wine and a toast to the lively spirit of Mrs Gruber in her fish heaven. After all, she found a way into my heart at the Naschmarkt.

The Viennese, the tourists and goods from around the world The Naschmarkt does feel a little foreign at first: the question is where to start in this little village of commerce and comings and goings, right in the centre of Vienna. If you approach it from Karlsplatz, the Opera House or Secession Hall, the first impression is one of disappointment. The Nordsee fast-food fish restaurant? We’ve got one of those at home. Sushi – are we in Berlin? But, as is often the case, first impressions can be misleading and, between attempts to appeal to popular tastes, the

‘You just need to follow your nose and see where the crowds are biggest.’ real gems are to be found a little further inside the market. You just need to follow your nose and see where the crowds are biggest. You should definitely arrive hungry and thirsty because a lot of the stands have turned into local haunts for many people here – and they’re often open until late in the evening, serving up as much Viennese, Mediterranean or Asian food as you could want. But, since you’re here, why not enjoy a plate of goulash in the ‘Gasthaus zur Eisernen Zeit’, the oldest building on the square, known as ‘Beisl’ to locals, where you ­always seem to come across a face that you think you might recognise from tele­

62 the naschmarkt

vision. And if German people don’t like outing themselves as tourists, they’ve sadly got no other option at the Naschmarkt.

German women can try as they like to adopt the Viennese style, but they’ll never quite manage it. And ­Austrian jackets in hunting green with original buckhorn buttons only really look right on a certain kind of Viennese gentleman. These kinds of people can be spotted out and about on Saturdays, where they do their utmost to avoid the tawdriness of the rest of the world by enjoying their champagne and oysters.

To the left and right of the Naschmarkt, cars race down the busy Wienzeile streets as if there were no tomorrow. So, while enjoying a Viennese coffee and slice of cake outside ‘Kurkonditorei Oberlaa’, you may well ask yourself, ‘How does everything even get here?’ The oysters and goulash, the fish, ­flowers, nuts, preserved fruits – the coffee, the sea salt, the oil, the apples and tomatoes? I decide that it must be the night that

‘I decide that it must be the night that is turned into day at the Naschmarkt.’ is turned into day at the Naschmarkt and that dozens of lorries must ­deliver everything that the people here polish off, consume and buy to take away. In fact, it would be easy to test the theory by just getting up at 5 a. m. if one wasn’t such an incredible lazybones in the morning – and completely unsuited to life as a market trader. So I decide to leave this part of my research

be and content myself with trusting in the mysteries that connect continents with continents, seas with cities and ports with markets.

Whatever your heart desires This market allegedly covers an area of over two hectares, making it the largest in Vienna – and thus in all of Austria.

There are said to be 123 stands, all nestling up against one another, fixed stands painted green with their wares extending far into the thoroughfares. It’s particularly difficult not to follow your nose to the spice stands, where it is hard to resist the urge to buy a kilo of cardamom or a pound of Cayenne pepper to take home with you – enough to last you for years. Having said that, it is also true that some of the vegetable and spice stalls look surprisingly similar – and many of the calls with which vendors try to entice you to their wares are not all that original. It’s nice to imagine that this was not always so. Maybe 150 years ago, or perhaps even just 50 years ago, when Mrs Gruber was still alive. Then, the traders would have called out phrases that no one outside Vienna would have been able to understand, with plenty of abbreviated dialectal words. Even outside Vienna, people may well have not understood them since the much-loved and much-reviled tourism industry is much more recent than the Naschmarkt, where markets have been held since 1780 – even without dozens of lorries in the night, and presumably not selling modern hits such as ­organic soap, chilli-flavoured chocolate or singing bowls. But these are

the naschmarkt 63

all features of the modern market and who really wants to turn back the clock? A walk around the Naschmarkt is like ­taking a little trip around the world – and why not? Scarves from India? Who wouldn’t want one?! Salt from Peru? Yes please! Turkish fruits? Sweet and delicious! After all, the name ‘Naschmarkt’ itself was probably derived from these very same sorts of exotic treats that couldn’t be found elsewhere.

It’s easy to wonder whether globalisation is a destructive force for a market like this one, and whether originality and regional produce suffer from such a mixed range of wares. Many ­locals have been grumbling about this for years and look for other markets in the city that are lesser known, less­romanticised and less overcrowded. Despite all this, the Naschmarkt is an institution that is a fixed part of any city tour1 and one that is frequented by a surprising number of Viennese resi­ dents, who stand or sit around and either smile or scowl at the world that they have inherited, depending on their mood.

On Saturdays, the fixed stands are joined by a flea market a bit further back, near Kettenbrückengasse. This is the place to buy crystal bowls in which to store the fruit bought from the Naschmarkt, or vinyl records to provide a suitable musical ­accompaniment to your Wiener schnitzel in the evening. A rousing chorus from cabaret meister Georg Kreisler, perhaps, or something more low-key from crooner Peter Alexander?

You wonder whether they themselves visited the Nasch­ markt at one point or another. It’s almost certain, I would think.

1 Address: 6th municipal district, Wienzeile between Kettenbrücke and Getreidemarkt; market open Mondays to Fridays from 6 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. and Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.; food stalls open Mondays to Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Only one mystery remained at the end of my visit – one that couldn’t even be solved by my friend’s friend. The ancient toilet block in the centre of the market has two entrances with surprisingly modern labels – ‘Women’ above one door, and ‘Men’ above the other. One might imagine ‘Ladies’ and ‘Gents’ to be more befitting of the era, but perhaps we are selling them short in their efforts to establish equal rights? It’s a final puzzle presented by the Naschmarkt for me to ponder. Maybe Mrs Gruber would have known why, but unfortunately she’s no longer around to ask – except as the face on the poster above her stand of fresh fish. When I go back to Vienna, I’ll be sure to go and say hello to her.

Bettina Baltschev, born in 1973, studied cultural ­studies, journalism and philosophy. She works for German radio and writes the occasional book. After growing up in Thuringia, she now lives in Saxony but has been spending plenty of time in Austria in ­recent years after falling in love.

Illustration: Lars Hammer

The next ATLAS: Future

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Best wishes!

O

nce upon a time, it was almost impossible to imagine how the world would change and that things held to be eternal truths could turn out to be neither eternal nor true. It was a happy time – because what could be nicer than going through life with just a few incontrovertible beliefs? But it was also a rather boring time – because what could be worse than already knowing the answers to all of life’s questions?

In those times, whether you wanted to send a postcard or letter, a parcel or a package, from one person to another or from one company to another, there was only one thing for it: only the post office could do the job – sometimes efficiently, sometimes not so efficiently – depending entirely on the country or region, known as the postal district.

But then, one day there came from a distant land something known as UPS! And, lo and behold, others outside the postal service were able to thrive by providing freight from one company to another – and a new answer to an old question was born. The world had become a faster-moving place – something that many companies and countries have now come to benefit from …

Today, 25 years after being founded, DPD Austria delivers more than 38,000,000 parcels a year.

4 ATLAS

With news from various regions, columns,   interviews, plenty of pictures and the desire to get the world in motion.