In the sequel to 2010/2011’s editorial mission Orient Express Reporter, cafebabel.com is sending 40 young journalists, photographers and video makers across borders for a mutual pendulum of insight. Eight feature reports dotted across eight cities between the EU, Balkans and Turkey, as young reporters trade places and explore spaces.
Budapest: carrousel of statues, tourists and minorities
Under the threat of the IMF and the EU, Viktor Orban's government has revised some of the most controversial aspects of the new constitution, including measures of public sector cutbacks. Economic measures may be sufficient in the eyes of Brussels, but the western European media still regards Hungary as a country in 'quarantine', falling back into the dark years of communism. Even if the ghost of the dictatorship seems to only be present in the statues at Memento Park, the at-risk communities, religious minorities and LGBT people still face indifference, suspicion and disdain. Hungary then finds itself in search of a new beginning in promotion of the 'potential' of its products. However, the solution to most of this country's problems may not lie in exaggerated nationalism, but in opening up. Follow our Serbian-Bosnian-Croatian-Italian team to the foothills of the Carpathians in the first ever edition of Orient Express Reporter II - sending mainly Balkan journalists to European cities and vice versa (Image: Hanna Lerski/ Flickr)
Belgrade: upgrade, downgrade, upbeat
With unemployment at a record 24%, they’re tired of hoping for solutions to their problems from the political class, and all hands are on deck. Understandably, an estimated 30, 000 have packed their bags between 2001 and 2011, heading for more positive climes. Yet others are staying rooted and using freedom of expression as a tool to reboot the system. In wide open spaces – be they urban alternative cultural hotspots or literal playing fields - a generation of Serbians are stimulating the public debate, and lending the landscape an active, modern identity, removed from the usual clichés. Citizens have one eye on the new nationalist president Tomislav Nikolic and another on a possible future in the European Union; in all, they are optimistic about what's coming, though less knowledgeable about those who subsist on the margins of society, such as the ethnic minority Roma. Take a ringside seat for this passionate second edition of Orient Express Reporter II, which follows a Spanish-French-British-German team to Belgrade (Image: © Alpin Charbaut for 'Orient Express Reporter II' by cafebabel.com, Belgrade)
Softly softly goes the Sarajevo scene
Almost everything looks incomplete in the Bosnian capital. Sarajevo is best treated with kid gloves. Our Franco-Italian-German-Portuguese team advise it is best to start off by sitting a coffee shop and just take it all in, calmly. By dancing the night away between the traces of bomb-scarred buildings, youngsters define the order of a new day. There are traces of a gentle revolution in the Bosnian capital; its former dictators are seen as ‘soft’, and those who were forced to leave in exile during the war in the early nineties have their own fixed ideas on the future. Some are using street performance to fight the general climate of apathy and inaction in the country, whilst others are taking the internet to task from the comfort of a room indoors. It’s all calm on the Bosnian front this summer, with a cup of good coffee to hand (Image: ©doctora boop/ Caterina Borelli/ flickr)
Zagreb and EU: flow with the go
t's time to stop explaining the Croatian passive mood by repeating the long-time outdated slogan ‘Yugonostalgia’ over and over again. Against popular prejudice, young Croatians are much more similar to young EU citizens that imagined. Like the Spanish 'indignados' or the Italian 'indignati', Croatian graduates have stopped dreaming about finding an interesting and well paid job anytime soon. Aware of the realities surrounding them, the ‘subversives’ are not losing time and the capital's streets are busy with artists and protesters. In the vein of familiar Polish or French cinema artists, Croatians are proud of a long and internationally acclaimed tradition of animated film, although they are yet to actually be aware of such a treasure themselves. The Croatian capital still remains an unfairly undiscovered city, despite its proximity to the European Union, which it will inevitably join as its 28th member on 1 July 2013. It is in this exact zeitgeist that the crucial question crops up: will this Balkan country, currently inhabited by 4.3 million people, want to actually go with or against the flow imposed by the EU? (Pictured, Zagreb's 'Kino Europa', formerly 'Kino Balkan', courtesy of © Zagreb Animafest 2012)
Istanbul: a cosmopolis of free thinking, despite itself
Commentary on political and social life in Turkey’s ‘European capital’ is thriving. For this special edition of ‘Orient Express Reporter II’, a Belgian-Italian-German-French-British team of writers and photographers have found it to be by turns green, sporty, social, artistic and online. The century-old tradition of the satirical comic book industry is matched by that most modern social innovation, the internet. Over three decades, Istanbul’s population has tripled. Almost half of these 13.5 million are under 25: no wonder that this is a city where the founder of twitter is simply referred to as ‘Jack’. Turkey’s former ambassador to the EU has pronounced the EU dream as ‘dead’, although its 75 million people might be able to travel visa-free to the EU by 2014. So Turkey will stay put: drowning in the muted sound of its imprisoned investigative journalists, protesting students and self-censored media - according to the worldwide press freedom index, Turkey ranks 148th in the world. ‘Insulting the Turkish state’ is enshrined in the penal code of the mildly islamist justice and development party, who have been in power for ten years. Istanbul, the European capital of sport in 2012, defends itself from this eternal donnybrook of intimidation: her sportswomen, social entrepreneurs and green politicians are part of the new amalgam of artists of old who now define this strong-spirited city (Image of street art in Beyoglu, Istanbul © Jens Wiesner)
Balkan eye on Berlin, 23 years after fall of wall
The fall of the wall which divided the German capital, literally, happened on 9 November 1989. On 9 November 2012, an-ever gentrified Berlin finds its wealth in its Turkish community, hipsters and a thriving ‘east’. The numerous buildings which were left empty in this formerly communist part of the capital attracted younger and poorer residents, as well as artistic organisations and nightlife spots. It’s also become a hub for activism and social change, some combating the rise in investments and development, others integrating into their neighbourhoods, bringing tasty smells of their own gastronomic styles with them. Transition was never going to be a simple thing, but it’s brought its own brand of new Berliner with it. A Turkish-Croatian-Serbian-French team go on the ground for ‘Orient Express Reporter II’ this autumn (Image: © Luka Knezevic Strika for 'Orient Express Reporter II', Berlin 2012/ lukaknezevicstrika.com/ belgraderaw.com)
Balkan eye on Brussels: no opportunity no cry
Word is that the capital of the European Union institutions is not a very easy city to live in. Most members of the elite class are there strictly for business only (members of European parliament or MEPs from Lithuania, the UK and Ireland only spend 81% of their time in the city), whilst other skilled young home-grown talents are only thinking of leaving. The crisis affects Brussels by form of ‘brain drain’; in 2010 28, 000 young graduates left the country, 70% more than the year before. It’s not only job opportunities which affect Belgians and the expats living there, but also the living standards. In a country which suffers the sixth highest rape statistics in the world (according to the UN office for drugs and crime), young women are speaking out about their negative experiences with male passersby in the very streets of the Belgian capital. A Turkish-Bosnian-Serbian-Italian team go on the ground for the penultimate edition of ‘Orient Express Reporter II’ (Image: (cc) vainsang/ Flickr)
Balkan eye on Rome: waiting for God, oh
Tourists scramble and throw coins over their shoulders into the Trevi fountain, wishing to come back. Yet crowds of disappointed young locals, accused of being 'choosy' by their ministers, are trying to find an escape from the country. Young students are furious at the 4.7% of GDP which is spent on education, a figure almost two times less than Mongolia and as much as Zimbabwe spends on this sector. That, with further cuts to come. The new generation is looking for ways of development outside of Italy via the erasmus student exchange programme. They are willing themselves to discover the multiculturalism of other countries, although exotic Italy features unequal scores of Balkan women. As the country recovers from the highly mediatised image of woman, they escape the faux-Japanese restaurants where you can happily eat your sushi directly off a woman’s body. Our photographer esteems that 300 metres is the average length of the line stretching around and across St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican. If those who expect changes in the education system, representation of ethnic minorities and women's equality were to join the queue, it would probably be neverending
