Youth: Open the door

Internet is a miracle, so i was not too much surprised that Russians voted Internet to be the most important invention of XX century... at the moment i am sitting in the little restaurant in the middle of remote Lithuanian town and using wireless Internet sharing my emotions of the given moment. cool, isn't?

last week i spent with a nice bunch of youngsters from Baltic and Eastern European countries talking about Innovative ways for youth cooperation. Indeed it is important to strengthen our ties with our counterparts across the state borders and to build bigger, broader and YOUNGER Europe.

as one of the "touchable" outcomes, Web log http://youthcooperation.blogspot.com was created to channel future cooperation of our organizations and all of you are welcome to visit and join us!

Youth: Open the door. The door is open - now your time to enter!

Pool of Trainers' meeting

Pool of Trainers near the Pool of green stuff :)
hey hey hey!

Temples for the tourists [by Umberto Eco]

I've read in the papers and on the Internet that someone is going to build, at a price of well over a billion dollars, an archaeological park called Megale Hellas, complete with a fake but wholly intact temple made of concrete clad in travertine marble, at Albanella, a small Italian township 10 miles from the temples at the ancient Greek colony of Paestum and 40 miles from the temple at Velia.

Those who object to this idea point out that there is a genuine temple dedicated to Demeter dating from the fourth or fifth century B.C only a few miles away.

Supporters of the scheme imagine an influx of tourists greater than that drawn by the real temples - all slightly ruined, to tell the truth. They must be thinking of the reconstruction of the city of Venice in Las Vegas or of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee, and maybe even the various Disneylands. The cultural value of these tourist attractions is open to criticism, but no one can say that they don't bring in people (and cash).

I understand the reactions of those scandalized by the idea, and I'm sorry to add to their dismay by stating that we should all be very much in favor of such enterprises. These schemes are a good way to safeguard Italy's artistic heritage.

There was a time when important historical and cultural sites were visited only by aristocratic travelers making the Grand Tour or exploring Italy. Those people thought it was just fine that the churches and palazzi were falling to bits, or that great paintings lay abandoned in damp sacristies.

Then came "bourgeois" tourism, which was still an elite affair but involved hundreds of thousands of cultivated and sensitive travelers. In order to satisfy their requirements both locations and artworks were restored, and this new form of tourism brought economic benefits to many towns and cities.

With the advent of mass tourism, some important sites increased their income, but at the cost of ugliness and vandalism. They became dumps for discarded soda cans and plastic bags, and were marred by ranks of stalls selling fake artifacts to souvenir hunters. Ancient, labyrinthine streets were made intolerable by noisy, sweaty crowds. As for the works of art, the very breath of the millions of tourists damages them. The feet of certain statues of saints have been worn smooth by the constant handling of the faithful, and not even the Pyramids can withstand the daily shuffling of visiting feet much longer.

What are we to do? Deny the masses access to art, thus flying in the face of all democratic ideals? Discourage visitors - as already happens with Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" in Milan, to which limited numbers are admitted?

We should exploit the natural tendencies of mass tourism - which is another way of saying that there are some who probably find Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas more Roman than the Coliseum.

Just think how many people will be more satisfied by the fake temple at Albanella, all in one piece, shining and splendid, than by the real thing that has struggled to survive in nearby Paestum. Let the crowds in search of easy satisfaction be directed to Albanella, leaving Paestum to those who know why they want to see it and who won't litter.

It would be so useful to have an Uffiziland on the outskirts of Florence, with perfect reproductions of the items in the real Uffizi Gallery on display, maybe even with their colors touched up a little, the way funeral parlors add makeup to the lips of the deceased.

Given that crowds gather in front of Florence's Palazzo Vecchio to admire a "David" that isn't the original (but they don't know this, or don't care), why shouldn't they go to Uffiziland? And if there were fewer mouths emitting noxious fumes in the vicinity of Botticelli's "Primavera," this would help with efforts to preserve it.

Don't tell me that my proposal is "class-driven" in the sense that it would represent an attempt to separate the troglodytes from people with refined artistic sensibilities. True, it might, but each person would decide to which category he or she belongs by choice and not by social decree. Similar choices are made by millions of people - including those who consider themselves aesthetes and connoisseurs - when they tune in to trash TV shows.

Come to think of it, unlike the proletariat of Marxian memory, the new proletarians of art wouldn't even know they were such and would feel fortunate to have visited the shiniest, newest temple of them all.