The Truth About Legalising Drugs
Three years after decriminalisation, Prague is slowly but surely replacing Amsterdam as the mecca of Europe’s drug scene. “Cannabis has become somewhat of a complimentary item for a lot of tourists,” says Karolina Korvasova, a part-time guide. “Dumplings, beer, marijuana – this seems to be the young man’s tourist diet here in Prague.” In January [...]
The Vienna Philharmonic: An Orchestra, a ring and a past
In January, the buzz echoed across the globe: The Vienna Philharmonic, one of the world’s most renowned orchestras, had finally opened its archives to a team of historians. By the second week of March, a few days before the 75th anniversary of Austria’s Anschluss with Nazi Germany, the website of the Philharmonic was updated with [...]
A Dark Past at the Academy of Sciences
As the 75th anniversary of the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by Germany on 12 March 1938, looms, the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) will open its first-ever exhibition honouring those members of the Academy forced to flee Austria after the Nazis seized power. Titled The Academy of Sciences in Vienna, 1938-1945 and organised by [...]
EU vs. Facebook: Fighting for the Right to be Forgotten
Like most of us, Max Schrems is careful about his online persona: “At the beginning I was like: ‘no pictures’,” said the 25-year-old student who has become a prominent figure in an on-going privacy rights dispute with the social networking platform Facebook. Since he founded “Europe-v-Facebook”, the campaign has become a precedent in the European [...]
Training at the Spanische Hofreitschule
At the back of the Hofburg Palace in central Vienna, amid cafés, shops, banks and law offices, the smell of fresh hay floats over the air from the Stallburg, stands the winter home of the Lipizzaner horses. Here the white stallions train and perform for their devoted crowds, week in, week out, earning upwards of [...]
U.S. Election: A Nation Divided
“Americans are like the stock market,” U.S. policy expert Heinz Gärtner chuckled, “if something happens, they react very quickly.” With the continent engaged in its own economic and financial convulsions, many Euro-pundits forecast an Obama victory. However, as we saw in 2000 and 2004, Americans can be unpredictable voters. A senior researcher at the Austrian [...]
The Last Romantic Yearning
Austria and New Zealand, two countries on opposite ends of the world, don’t seem to have much in common. But the lives and work of five Austrians give insight into a little-known fruitful cultural relationship that has endured over two centuries. One of the most scenic rail routes is located on New Zealand’s South Island. [...]
Being Austrian
“To be honest, I think Austrians are quite lazy. Lazy and unfriendly,” said Clemens L., lounging on the Donauinsel on a mid-week holiday afternoon. “At the same time they always believe that they are oh-so-great, which they are not.” Born in Tyrol, the 21-year-old student’s judgment about his fellow citizens can be construed as harsh. [...]
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?
At 6:00 the Swiss mountain hamlet of Jeizinen is still cloaked under a blanket of morning fog, wisps rising from the steeply pitched roofs and concealing all movement in the Alpine meadows above the village. It’s “wolf-weather” according to the locals, an opportunity for the carnivores back in Switzerland, after a decade’s long hiatus, to [...]
