Word: ostalgia
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...Ostalgia" industry leaves people like Klaus Schroeder speechless. "People really seem to think the GDR was a big joke, which results in such crudities as a Stasi pub," says the professor of political science at Berlin's Free University. "What's gonna be next, a Gestapo Inn? It's absurd...
...attempting to escape the GDR. Still, he's nostalgic for the old East, which is why he's a regular at "Zur Firma," an East Berlin pub whose theme derives from the GDR's feared secret police organization, the Stasi. "I feel snug in this place," says Hans-Holger. "Ostalgia is better than what we have today...
...Making light of a very dark past - "Ostalgia" as the phenomenon is known - has come into vogue in Berlin recent years. Visitors to the once divided German capital can browse souvenir stores selling "authentic" GDR memorabilia; stay at the "Ostel", a hostel decorated in GDR fashion; or take a "Trabi-safari," which involves a sightseeing tour in the notoriously rickety Trabant, ubiquitous passenger car of the GDR. Just last week, former Berlin Senator for Cultural Affairs Thomas Flierl denounced as "tasteless mockery" the service that allows tourists at the old "Checkpoint Charlie" crossing between the two sides of Berlin...
...Talking to the regulars at Zur Firma, however, it's clear that one of the main sources of "Ostalgia" is the economic disappointment experienced by many former residents of the GDR that followed reunification. Unemployment in the east is high and so is resentment at the insecurity and unpredictability of life under a competitive capitalist system, and this fuels nostalgia for a state that assigned a job to every citizen and took care of basic needs...
...Championship once the contract tying racing teams to F1 expires in 2007. Ecclestone last week reportedly offered to boost the teams' share of F1's estimated $800 million annual commercial income. "He'll let them have just enough" to keep them on board, says Windsor. Expect a tight finish. Ostalgia In A Bottle Things go better with, er, Kofola? Back in the '60s, Czechoslovaks drank a copycat cola by that name, with less sugar and half the caffeine of Coca-Cola. It fizzled after communism fell and Western soft drinks became available. But in 1999, a north Moravia company relaunched...