Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
- Christopher Howse:A Pilgrim in Spain.
If you've arrived here because of an interest in Galicia or Pontevedra, see my web page here. Garish but informative.
Spain
- In writing yesterday about the widespread municipal corruption around traffic control measures, I forgot to say that, of the more than 40 folk arrested, 8 were police chiefs.
- Had problems with the Spanish version of Wikipedia? Here's the reason.
Life in Spain
- There are more that 30,000(!) sole-traders (autonomas) here in Galicia who are paying more in social security taxes than they get in revenue. This is because, after an initial discount period, the state takes a fixed monthly payment of c. €300. It astonishes me that so many (desperate?) young folk take the self-employment route. Their government hardly incentivises them. And, of course, many of them fail.
- Talking of (un)employment . . . Here's something on the migrants that Spain takes in.
- And here's how to make gazpacho. Normally, I can't bear it, as I can't be in the same room as a cucumber, but this recipe seems to do without it. Must give it a try.
Russia
- See below for a jaundiced – but valid? - view of Putin's 'successful' World Cup, courtesy of Garry Kasparov.
The UK
- Well, it's B (for Brexit) Day for the British cabinet. According to one observer: Brexiteers are horrified as Theresa May finally reveals her hand ahead of today's explosive Chequers summit [of her Cabinet]. This is because she will reveal plans to put a very soft Brexit to the EU. In reality, one that's likely to be rejected by the latter, even if the Cabinet approves it. With or without resignations. An utter mess, in other words. Another observer has commented that Mrs May might well succeed in getting her plans supported by her Cabinet but destroy the Conservative Party in the process. Interesting times. All bets must be off.
Galicia/Pontevedra
- The new (but 'authentic') coastal camino out of Pontevedra has seen 4,700 'pilgrims' so far this year, double last year's total. The traditional route northwards via Caldas de Réis and Padrón has seen numbers soar by 18%, to 27,000 for the first 6 months of the year. In contrast, the Ruta de Plata is only 3% up and the Camino de Invierno 12%. So, we're well on the way to the 100,000 'pilgrims' passing through Pontevedra in the 'Holy Year' of 2021.
Finally . . .
- A yacht from Colombia was boarded near the Azores this week. There were 1,500 kilos of cocaine on it. It was flying the Dutch flag but none of the crew were Dutch. Or even Colombian or Spanish. Guess where it was heading . . .
© David Colin Davies, Pontevedra: 5.7.18
THE ARTICLE
‘If Putin gains credibility because of the World Cup, it will be bad for Russians’
Garry Kasparov, the vehement anti-Putin campaigner, tells Matt Dickinson that the World Cup has exposed how the president’s regime can turn the forces of racism and hooliganism on and off, like a tap
This may well be the best of modern World Cups. It might also be “a well-organised charade whose roots go back to Berlin 1936”. That was not Boris Johnson putting his undiplomatic foot in it again but Garry Kasparov, the chess grandmaster and vehement anti-Putin campaigner who has been watching this World Cup, Russia’s progress and the broader wave of positive publicity with his head in his hands.
Can it ever be just a football tournament, compelling matches in an uplifting atmosphere? Should we care when we see Gianni Infantino, president of Fifa, chortle along as Vladimir Putin kicks a penalty on Red Square in the company of Iker Casillas, Ronaldo plus selected youths from Children’s Home No 1 in Krasnoyarsk in a happy-clappy scene on prime-time news?
Care we must, Kasparov has told The Times, and about much more than whether Belgium beat Brazil. “Dictators are well-versed in turning sports events into soft power that they inevitably use to support hard power,” he says, insistent that our own foreign secretary should not have been shouted down for his analogy with Hitler’s Olympics.
“The football, here, has been Putin’s friend,” Tunku Varadarajan, a contributing editor at Politico, wrote in a blog, and who would argue? It is a sentence to chill the Russian president’s critics, even if they do have bigger concerns.
This is not just about the unexpected progress of the host team, with the Kremlin describing the celebratory scenes following victory over Spain as reminiscent of May 1945 when Nazi Germany was defeated.
For the good of Russian people? For wider gains of internationalism and tolerance? For Kasparov, this is the nightmare of Putin basking in an aura of success, just as he had feared.
Before the tournament in a piece for ESPN, Kasparov had challenged the media travelling to Russia to dig beyond Messi’s form, and Ronaldo’s free-kick routine. “The bold should . . . peek behind the curtain and report truthfully on the dire conditions,” he wrote.
Instead, there has been a flow of gushing pieces about what a pleasure it has been — which largely it has and not just for journalists on expenses but England supporters from Volgograd to Kaliningrad. “Such a shame about all the pre-tournament horror stories that unnecessarily put people off,” one told me, typical of the feedback.
Sting would be delighted to find out that the Russians do love their children, and that the taxi drivers are as friendly as, no doubt, they would be in Leeds or Birmingham if there were gatherings of Peruvians and Colombians making merry and spending money.
Russia has aped every tournament I have been to in that the streets have never been more safe, the police never more visible, the street cleaners never more busy or the stray dogs and homeless more scared. A country on impeccable behaviour, showing its best face.
A delight for those passing through but further proof to Kasparov of “a Potemkin nation”. If you missed that particular history lesson, it involves the story of Empress Catherine II and the fake village built by Grigory Potemkin, her lover, for her journey to Crimea in 1787. Potemkin erected pretend settlements along the banks of the Dnieper River to be taken down and rebuilt further along the route, a regime’s false construct.
As a modern take, Kasparov cites the racism and hooliganism which were such a pre-tournament preoccupation. The World Cup, he says, has exposed how the Putin regime can turn these forces on and off, like a tap. “It shows that these ‘uncontrollable hooligans’ are in fact quite easily controlled, as the Russian opposition has pointed out for years,” Kasparov says.
“The violent Russian fans in France for Euro 2016 were disavowed by the Kremlin, but clearly were told to shut up and keep quiet in Russia — and they have. There are no rogue elements in a dictatorship as seasoned as Putin’s, and these guys do as they’re told. When their violence resumes in a few weeks it will also be because they’ve been told it’s OK.”
As for Fifa, Kasparov says that he is well versed in the double standards of sports bodies from his competitive chess days. “They allow dictators to use their organisations and events to whitewash their brutal regimes, but if anyone complains they say ‘stick to sports.’ ”
Should we? For all Kasparov’s anger, does any of this detract (never mind distract) from a compelling tournament? From England’s pleasing progress, or from the brilliance of Edinson Cavani and Kylian Mbappé?
Media still reports the wider Russian issues, including the nerve agent attack that now appears to have left an innocent British couple fighting for their lives through accidental exposure to novichok.
From his home in New York, Kasparov, who has said that he would come back to Russia if only he could be sure that he would get out again, has watched the World Cup “trying to be agnostic, but it’s impossible for me to separate the games from the politics, as much as I would like to. I support good football over bad politics, and that means supporting Croatia over Russia”.
Split loyalties are understandable for a man born into the old Soviet Union who now has Croatian citizenship as well as Russian — but he must surely expect the people here to celebrate unreservedly if Stanislav Cherchesov’s underdogs pull off another shock? A happy day for Russians even if Putin is clapping along in the stands?
“There is no comfortable middle ground with dictatorships,” he says. “If Putin gains credibility and potential challenges to his power are diminished because of the World Cup, that is bad for Russians no matter what PR comes out of it.
“When the World Cup is over, Russia will still be a dictatorship. Putin will still be hacking Western elections, murdering dissidents, committing mass slaughter in Syria, and invading Ukraine.”
With that, he insists that it is “a World Cup trophy carved from fool’s gold”; a Potemkin tournament in which we are not seeing Russia as it is but an £11 billion facade.
Garry Kasparov, the vehement anti-Putin campaigner, tells Matt Dickinson that the World Cup has exposed how the president’s regime can turn the forces of racism and hooliganism on and off, like a tap
This may well be the best of modern World Cups. It might also be “a well-organised charade whose roots go back to Berlin 1936”. That was not Boris Johnson putting his undiplomatic foot in it again but Garry Kasparov, the chess grandmaster and vehement anti-Putin campaigner who has been watching this World Cup, Russia’s progress and the broader wave of positive publicity with his head in his hands.
Can it ever be just a football tournament, compelling matches in an uplifting atmosphere? Should we care when we see Gianni Infantino, president of Fifa, chortle along as Vladimir Putin kicks a penalty on Red Square in the company of Iker Casillas, Ronaldo plus selected youths from Children’s Home No 1 in Krasnoyarsk in a happy-clappy scene on prime-time news?
Care we must, Kasparov has told The Times, and about much more than whether Belgium beat Brazil. “Dictators are well-versed in turning sports events into soft power that they inevitably use to support hard power,” he says, insistent that our own foreign secretary should not have been shouted down for his analogy with Hitler’s Olympics.
“The football, here, has been Putin’s friend,” Tunku Varadarajan, a contributing editor at Politico, wrote in a blog, and who would argue? It is a sentence to chill the Russian president’s critics, even if they do have bigger concerns.
This is not just about the unexpected progress of the host team, with the Kremlin describing the celebratory scenes following victory over Spain as reminiscent of May 1945 when Nazi Germany was defeated.
For the good of Russian people? For wider gains of internationalism and tolerance? For Kasparov, this is the nightmare of Putin basking in an aura of success, just as he had feared.
Before the tournament in a piece for ESPN, Kasparov had challenged the media travelling to Russia to dig beyond Messi’s form, and Ronaldo’s free-kick routine. “The bold should . . . peek behind the curtain and report truthfully on the dire conditions,” he wrote.
Instead, there has been a flow of gushing pieces about what a pleasure it has been — which largely it has and not just for journalists on expenses but England supporters from Volgograd to Kaliningrad. “Such a shame about all the pre-tournament horror stories that unnecessarily put people off,” one told me, typical of the feedback.
Sting would be delighted to find out that the Russians do love their children, and that the taxi drivers are as friendly as, no doubt, they would be in Leeds or Birmingham if there were gatherings of Peruvians and Colombians making merry and spending money.
Russia has aped every tournament I have been to in that the streets have never been more safe, the police never more visible, the street cleaners never more busy or the stray dogs and homeless more scared. A country on impeccable behaviour, showing its best face.
A delight for those passing through but further proof to Kasparov of “a Potemkin nation”. If you missed that particular history lesson, it involves the story of Empress Catherine II and the fake village built by Grigory Potemkin, her lover, for her journey to Crimea in 1787. Potemkin erected pretend settlements along the banks of the Dnieper River to be taken down and rebuilt further along the route, a regime’s false construct.
As a modern take, Kasparov cites the racism and hooliganism which were such a pre-tournament preoccupation. The World Cup, he says, has exposed how the Putin regime can turn these forces on and off, like a tap. “It shows that these ‘uncontrollable hooligans’ are in fact quite easily controlled, as the Russian opposition has pointed out for years,” Kasparov says.
“The violent Russian fans in France for Euro 2016 were disavowed by the Kremlin, but clearly were told to shut up and keep quiet in Russia — and they have. There are no rogue elements in a dictatorship as seasoned as Putin’s, and these guys do as they’re told. When their violence resumes in a few weeks it will also be because they’ve been told it’s OK.”
As for Fifa, Kasparov says that he is well versed in the double standards of sports bodies from his competitive chess days. “They allow dictators to use their organisations and events to whitewash their brutal regimes, but if anyone complains they say ‘stick to sports.’ ”
Should we? For all Kasparov’s anger, does any of this detract (never mind distract) from a compelling tournament? From England’s pleasing progress, or from the brilliance of Edinson Cavani and Kylian Mbappé?
Media still reports the wider Russian issues, including the nerve agent attack that now appears to have left an innocent British couple fighting for their lives through accidental exposure to novichok.
From his home in New York, Kasparov, who has said that he would come back to Russia if only he could be sure that he would get out again, has watched the World Cup “trying to be agnostic, but it’s impossible for me to separate the games from the politics, as much as I would like to. I support good football over bad politics, and that means supporting Croatia over Russia”.
Split loyalties are understandable for a man born into the old Soviet Union who now has Croatian citizenship as well as Russian — but he must surely expect the people here to celebrate unreservedly if Stanislav Cherchesov’s underdogs pull off another shock? A happy day for Russians even if Putin is clapping along in the stands?
“There is no comfortable middle ground with dictatorships,” he says. “If Putin gains credibility and potential challenges to his power are diminished because of the World Cup, that is bad for Russians no matter what PR comes out of it.
“When the World Cup is over, Russia will still be a dictatorship. Putin will still be hacking Western elections, murdering dissidents, committing mass slaughter in Syria, and invading Ukraine.”
With that, he insists that it is “a World Cup trophy carved from fool’s gold”; a Potemkin tournament in which we are not seeing Russia as it is but an £11 billion facade.
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