Problems | Venice: I am not making this up

The Venice Olympics?

October 24, 2009 2 Comments

On October 2 at 6:53 PM, the news broke upon an unsuspecting city — and even some unsuspecting city councilors — that the local headmen had cooked up a new scheme: Officially proposing Venice as the site of the 2020 Summer Olympics.

I’ll pause while you adjust your screens.

Technically speaking, “Venice Olympics” wouldn’t necessarily connote the same thing as “Venetian Olympics.”

The “Venetian Olympics” would consist of any typical activity of any typical day in almost any typical week. Medals would be awarded for such events as:

the 2000-meter walk home over five bridges carrying 20 pounds of shopping in plastic bags and a six-pack of mineral water bottles during Carnival (an event which could be adjusted for difficulty according to the distance, bag weight, number and height of bridges, density of crowds, and whether you have up to three small children with you);
the vaporetto-boarding-at-6:15 PM in the rain with two runs having been skipped, leading to a phenomenal accumulation of enraged, wet, tired mammals (starting line: Piazzale Roma, finish line at Rialto, San Toma’, or San Zaccaria);
choice of one of several activities at the train station (buying a ticket at 5:45 AM; finding a bathroom at 9:30 PM; locating your departure track in the absence of any information on any notice boards, five minutes before departure), to be judged not only on speed but style;
getting from San Marco to the Lido in the fog during a transport strike;
obtaining a package from abroad via SDA, a delivery company which does everything but give correct information in a timely fashion, or deliver.

Actually, I think the “Venetian Olympics” could be a spectacular event, for those in the right frame of mind, and best of all, they could be held any day of the year, practically.

But I am only slightly jesting. The headmen, on the other hand, are completely serious. That’s because they are: Massimo Cacciari, the mayor; Giancarlo Galan, governor of the Veneto Region; Franco Manzato, regional vice-president AND councilor for Tourism; and Andrea Tomat, president of Confindustria Veneto, the regional business association. Politicians and businessmen — it’s the winning team in most Olympic efforts, I have no doubt. And as soon as Madrid lost its bid to Rio, thereby re-opening the field to a European candidate for the next go-round, Venice pounced.

But “Venice Olympics” is a loss leader. What they mean by “Venice Olympics” translates into “Olympics scattered around the Veneto region.” Everybody wants to get into the act.

The only foreseeable competitor in Italy would be Rome, which hosted the Games in 1960 (perhaps a handicap, though capital cities seem to do well). I”m not sure what card Rome will be playing in an attempt to become the national candidate, but it’s true that they wouldn’t have to face the quips that almost certainly will soon be lobbed at Venice. I can imagine the helpful suggestions for organizing the pole vault over the campanile of San Marco; synchronized swimming in the Grand Canal; the hammer throw and shot-put aimed at the taxis churning along the Giudecca Canal. Field hockey in the Piazza San Marco.

Let me not blemish the euphoria by mentioning crass numbers; clearly the visions of new everything being built all across the region has got lots of people all worked up. I merely mention, at random, that the candidacy of Madrid, which made it all the way to the finals, cost the equivalent of $55 million.

And that’s just the cost of candidacy. Once you nab the Games, the real bills start to mount up. Brazil has budgeted $14 billion to host the Games in Rio. Venice has a few handicaps, in my opinion, in that regard: It’s already the most expensive city in Italy (this ought to really lure spectators), and it has made a career of rattling its tin cup, wailing that it has no money. But… but… If there is no money for schools, monument restoration, policemen, hospitals, firemen, and so on, how can they suddenly find millions — gosh, it was right here behind the Encyclopedia Britannica all the time — and be prepared to expend billions, if they get the nod? (That was a rhetorical question.)

The notables who have spoken have been refreshingly direct about why they want the Olympics. Skipping entirely any mention, however brief, of desiring to add to the glory of Italy, or the honor of the city, or the splendor of our athletes (somebody did refer to that, I think, but I can’t see how that matters), they’ve gone right to the point.

“Promoting and organizing the Games of 2020 would permit the city and the entire metropolitan area represented by the triangle of Venice, Padua and Treviso (italics mine) to accelerate the numerous improvement and renewal projects which for years have filled the agendas of the institutions of the territory,” said Mayor Cacciari.

“Venezia 2020 represents a strategic project for the development of the infrastructure of the entire Region,” said Dr. Galan. For the record, the entire Region covers about 7,000 square miles.

“Our businesses realize that having the Olympic Games in Venice in 2020 could act as a catalyst for a series of ‘virtuous’ processes in the economic field and help the consumer regain confidence,” said President Tomat.

But don’t break out the Prosecco just yet. First of all, Rome isn’t going to shrink from the fight — au contraire. This was the home of the gladiators, after all; also, the mayor of Rome belongs to the right wing of the political spectrum, while the mayor of Venice is from the left. They’re used to fighting. So, like every war, this brewing conflict has a long history and many undetected combatants.

And a few cautious voices — important voices — have sounded their notes of warning amid the chorus of praise for this audacious notion.

If you cross your eyes just a little, the big picture comes into better focus.

“Extremely important economic guarantees are going to be needed,” commented the head of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI), the group which will adjudicate which city carries Italy’s banner into the final selection. Not a very heartening public statement, though unusually honest. They were polite enough not to refer to the recently (finally) completed Ponte della Costituzione (“the Calatrava Bridge”), which required 11 years, many lawsuits and an impressive cost overrun (final cost: $18 million compared to the $10 million quoted in the winning bid), to span 265 feet of the Grand Canal. But an Olympic Stadium ought to be a lot simpler.

“It would undoubtedly be a great opportunity for the entire Veneto [there we go again] to furnish itself with facilities adequate to such an event which would then remain at the disposition of local groups….It would require an enormous investment with the complete participation of the government as well as the industial sector,” remarked Renzo Di Antonio, president of the Olympic Committee’s Veneto division.

“As a Venetian I couldn’t be anything other than happy at this proposal,” said Andrea Cipressa, fencing gold medalist and vice-president of the national fencing association. “Naturally, on the real feasibility of the project I feel some understandable doubts….There are many, many things to take into consideration and the first impact of the proposal is mainly emotional, romantic. But then you have to start taking reality into account as well as the many problems which are always connected with Venice.”

But perhaps he has failed to grasp the magnitude of the marvels which the Olympics would bestow on the Region (excuse me: ENTIRE Region], especially right around Venice, innovations which have already been discussed for quite a while in the government:

“I believe that Tessera” (the village near the airport) “has all the necessary potential,” said Laura Fincato, councilor for Urban Planning. “We are discussing an area which would have a multilateral potential — an area of recreation including a new building for the Casino, a stadium, a concert hall and an structure for all sorts of sports. In this area there is also the airport and the [future] passage of the high-speed railway [the TAV Corridor 5 which will connect Kiev to Lisbon, passing through northern Italy]. If we then add a forest of 105 hectares [260 acres], it seems to me that we have all the right conditions.” A forest?? Now that’s something that’s really been missing from the urban fabric. We don’t have enough firemen — we don’t even have a breakdown lane on the Liberty Bridge. But a forest by the airport? Why didn’t anybody think of that before?

The mayor of the nearby beach resort of Jesolo is already jumping up and down and waving his hand: “We could hold the windsurf and beach volley competitions,” is his contribution to the discussion.

Paradoxically, though, the rowing competitions would be impossible to hold in the lagoon, due to the tidal currents. Sailing in the Adriatic ought to work, but rowing would have to be somewhere else. That’s going to be a little tricky for the public relations work. Maybe they could dig the rowing basin in the forest by the airport.

Probably the only thing the campanile of San Marco hasn't seen since 1514 is a Summer Olympics.

One commentator, Tiziano Graziottin, sees the big picture this way: “However you look at it, there are many obstacles on the horizon to overcome; the ‘tripartisan’ group put into play by Cacciari, Galan and Manzato… looks at Venice as the figurehead of an entire Veneto system, using the icon of the most beautiful city in the world to fascinate world public opinion while aiming at developing the potential of an entire macro-region… Venice is the star that drives photographers crazy but the Olympic ‘film’ succeeds only if all the actors play their part under the highest-quality direction…. The good thing about this idea is the concept behind it, and it’s a key concept for ‘internal use’: To make clear to a public opinion frequently divided into provincial (in every sense) rivalries that Venice and the Veneto can and must march together.” For those numbed by the endless bickering between Dr. Cacciari (center-left) and Dr. Galan (center-right), this is a revolution. “Bipartisan” isn’t a word you hear used very much; in Italian, it’s a knobby little word (bipartitico) which doesn’t really have a home in anyone’s vocabulary. I think it must sleep in the political garage.

A closing note — more like a shot across the bow — from the ever-contrarian lawyer, Francesco Mario D’Elia, who has organized four (4) referendums with the aim of separating Venice from Mestre, all of which failed, but not by so much. He has now organized a committee called “No to the Venice 2020 Olympics.”

“To propose Venice for the Olympics,” he stated, “is merely an operation involving the image, in order to exploit the fame of the city without giving anything in return…. Therefore we say ‘Enough’ to those who exploit the name of Venice, a city which has no need of the Olympics.”

So he has wasted no time in writing to the governor of the Region of Sicily saying that there’s a small group in Venice ready to support their candidacy for the Olympics, presumably at Palermo. “The Palermo Olympics.” That sounds even stranger than The Venice Olympics.

In all, a fairly audacious gamble, which will require betting millions of somebody’s money to play a hand which may not turn out to be as strong as its holder might imagine. Venice isn’t in the habit of competing, really — people come here anyway, whether you invite them or not. As a historic, artistic and even touristic city, who would it compete against? So having to think as a global competitor for anything is going to be a short sharp shock to a few people here. Especially when they come up against other potential candidates such as Cape Town and Mumbai and St. Petersburg.

But that’s the point of gambling — you’re ready to take a chance. Perhaps it will turn out that this whole Venice Olympics business is going to be less like a game of poker or mah-jongg and more like a long and unfathomably expensive session of “Risk.”

Problems

Oh let’s just all go on strike, about everything

October 22, 2009 No Comments

I know we all — or most of us — are all tangled up in the world’s problems, but while you’re thinking about everything that’s going wrong on either side of your front door, spare a thought for Italy.

Tomorrow, October 23, there is going to be a national strike. By which I don’t mean that the nation itself is going to strike — however one would manage that — but the nation will be dramatically affected by a very big general strike organized and imposed by three large unions for a batch of different reasons. The strike was announced on August 4, so if you haven’t come up with an alternate plan for the day, it’s not their fault.

Tomorrow there are no pachyderms scheduled to either arrive or depart, since all the pachyderm-wranglers in the Port of Venice will be on strike. Six will be arriving or departing the day after, though; four the following day, and three the day after that. Impressive strike.

Their stated grievance is that the government has not dealt with their requests on a number of issues. They are against workers being fired (not a theoretical concern, in the current economic situation) — in fact, they want the government to block firings — and they are also against reducing the penalties for those who cause fatal accidents, or severe injury or illness, in the workplace. They’re in favor of reducing the work-week, increasing raises and pensions, establishing a minimum wage, attaching cost-of-living increases to pay scales, and making workplaces, schools, and transport safer. Could anyone disagree with any of this? It would be like quibbling over the Ten Commandments, or the Boy Scout Oath.

The categories which will be affected by the strike are:

Public administration (no problem there, as only five people seem to ever be working in the country at any given time, and then mostly unintentionally); the whole day. Convenient, it being a Friday.
Schools and universities. Professors and students jubilant, parents not so much.
One can only hope and presume that at least one of these ambulances will be in service tomorrow.

Public health (nurses, orderlies, ambulance drivers, perhaps even doctors); so far, no guarantee of minimum services has been given. Something will be cobbled together at the last minute, it always is.
Firemen. Those actively scheduled to be on call at airports and elsewhere will strike only from 10 – 2 PM. Not bad, unless your fire starts during those four hours. Office people: Out all day.
Airlines: No planes flying between 12 and 4 PM. Sorry about that connection.
Ports: from 8 AM Friday – 8 AM Saturday. Office people: Out all day. Absolutely no ferries connecting small islands to the mainland or to each other for 24 hours. Deal with it. Read a book. Call your mom.
Trains: There is conflicting information here. One report says that personnel assigned to actively working with the trains will strike from 11 – 3 PM (office people: out, naturally). On the other hand, the railway company says that normal service will be maintained, but considering what “normal” tends to mean in an ordinary week, it’s hard to say if the effect of a strike will even be noticed. Or if service will appear to have improved during the strike.
And above all, PUBLIC TRANSPORT. Venice is one place where lack of buses makes a major dent in your day. Here’s what life will look like here from midnight Thursday to midnight Friday:

Transport will be cut to the very bone, which means that there will be hardly any vaporettos except during the morning and evening rush hours. Which means that if you have to get to the train station (except between 11-3) with your luggage, you’ll be walking or taking a dazzlingly expensive taxi. Need to get to the airport? Dazzlingly expensive taxi, but remember, don’t bother going between 12 – 4.

Despite the shortage of services, there will be no slowdown in the delivery of goods. On the morning of the Last Judgment there will be tattooed men all over Venice loading up their handtrucks. — Despite the shortage of services, there will be no slowdown in the delivery of goods. On the morning of Judgment Day there will still be tattooed men all over Venice loading up their handtrucks.

For those of us staying on home territory, anyone wanting to go to or from the Lido from anywhere will be waiting a lo-o-o-o-o-ong time for a vaporetto to appear (or taking a dazzlingly expensive taxi). On the mainland, the fact of buses going on strike can be somewhat mitigated by car-pooling. In Venice, you don’t see anyone in their personal motorboat carrying friends or stranded people around.

In Rome, though, to help deal with the masses of protesters, the trains and subways will strike only between 8 PM and midnight. Am I the only person who finds this odd?

In the absence of any specific notice, one presumes that the mail will go through.

The forecast for tomorrow is also for fog. Fun. Though I suppose if there aren’t any vaporettos or ferries, it doesn’t make much difference.

It’s true that in Venice you can reach almost anywhere fairly conveniently (if you’re not in a huge rush) on foot. Unless you’re a shaky little old person on two canes, say, trying to get to the hospital for your knee X-ray which you scheduled six months ago, or a tourist with lots of bags. No vaporettos is not amusing.

Naturally I’m totally in favor of everything the unions want, and don’t want, and so on. But there isn’t any union that I know of which would muster its troops to demand changes that would make life any easier for me.

So I’m going to protest on my own. After all, in the middle of everyone else, who’ll notice? I’ll just stand next to some disaffected welder and let fly.

So here’s what I’m against: Unscrupulous people deliberately doing cruel and ignorant things to other people; anything that costs more than $1.50; dog-owners who let their dogs poop wherever they want and don’t clean up; kids who scream, and their parents who either make them scream or don’t make them stop; chocolate-chip cookies with more than 20 calories. The people upstairs who throw their cigarette butts on the street in front of our door, and the unstable person who leaves his/her bag of garbage at the corner of our apartment.

A bag will just appear, deposited by an unseen hand. Wrong place, and always the wrong time. A neighbor tells me this has been going on for years but nobody's able to say who the culprit is. This just shows you how life has changed since the Old Days, back when the neighbors knew what color your underwear was even before you put it on.

Also: I’m against unprofessional, obtuse, malicious, devious behavior of any sort by anyone at any time; cheating and lying. Incompetence. Hypocrisy. My list could go on but I’ll stop here.

Here’s what I’m for: Kids that laugh, dogs that don’t poop, lots of money paid for hard work done well, and music of almost any type except that car-crash-torture-dungeon-hand-grenade music, whatever it’s called. A pat on the head/back/cheek for any and no reason — the person receiving it will know what it’s for.

I’m off to prepare my placard now. Will report back from the barricades or whenever it gets dark and I have to come home.

Lions never go on strike, never protest, never make demands or stipulate deadlines or set conditions. They just stay at their post, being kingly.

History, Problems, Tourism, Venetian-ness

Crybabies?

September 1, 2009 1 Comment

It seems like Venice is always under some kind of cloud, even if only figuratively speaking.

The daily cri di coeur (that would make a great newspaper name) comes via the Gazzettino from Paolo Lanapoppi, a Venetian and former president of an association called Pax in Aqua, about which much more some other time.

Lanapoppi felt compelled to write to the Gazzettino, even as the wind whistled through the windmills toward which he was spurring his horse, so to speak, to take issue with the latest jab which mayor Massimo Cacciari had made to the few remaining morons who insist on living in his city and dare to criticize its administration.

A day or so earlier, Mr. Cacciari had brushed aside a discouraging word from some constituent with the brusque observation that Venetians are “piangnoni” (crybabies, kvetchers, whiners) and Mr. Lanapoppi sees it quite differently. I’m translating his missive here not because I want to spoil your day, as I know you have problems of your own to think about, but because it summarizes very eloquently some basic points which deserve to be criticized here, and why.

Venetians are crybabies? Who has governed the city since 1993? We need a new governing class (August 27, 2009)

It seems incredible. As the number of residents continues to fall and the city is clogging up with vacation rooms for rent, trash in the shop windows, tourist launches, day-trippers, the mayor is declaring that the city needs to free itself from the monoculture of tourism. He even goes so far as to say that Venetians have to stop being crybabies.

But who governed the city from 1993 to 2000? Cacciari. And from 2000 to 2005? Paolo Costa, elected with the support of Cacciari. And from 2005 till today? Cacciari again, naturally.

It isn't always like this. But there's nothing stopping it, either.

So who is supposed to be battling the monoculture of tourism? The opposition? Or the elderly in their nursing homes? Or we members of a thousand organizations which fight every day to have a little space in the newspapers to denounce an unsustainable situation, and that find ourselves at thousands of conferences and round tables being snubbed by the administrators?

So to the damage they’re now adding mockery: we’re being accused of being snivelers. Instead, there’s Cacciari fighting the tourism monoculture, inaugurating new museums as if they were for the 60,000 residents, who inaugurates new piers as if they were nursery schools for the Venetians, who sets up a brand-new dock for the tourist launches in the Riva dei Sette Martiri, who ignores and lets languish an area of tremendous potential like the waterfront in Marghera, who has not succeeded in many years to create even one great center for research or for work, who goes to the Biennale and the Film Festival to do “culture,” who sells the facades of the palaces under restoration for publicity.

One sees the desire to get out of the tourism monoculture, one sees it clearly. All you have to do is look at what the Cacciari government is doing.

Then, on the same day, the vice-mayor, Michele Vianello, comes out with an incredible quip: To put an end to the motondoso in the Bacino of San Marco, what we need is a single authority. That he would have the courage to say so after five years of the commissioner (N.B.: against motondoso, as well as mayor) Costa would be amazing if it weren’t offensive to the intelligence of his listeners. Because there’s something else that is needed: What’s needed are people in power who have the capacity and the will to make changes. Venice — and notable people such as Riccardo Calimani, Francesco Giavazzi, Gherardo Ortalli, have said it unanimously and in public — has not been capable of producing a class of governors worthy of its history and its potential.

It has been, at the most, a springboard for launching people who are seeking national notoriety; meanwhile, the city is crumbling under the suction of the propellors (another reference to motondoso) and is being transformed by the pressure of 20 million voracious grasshoppers (tourists) a year. As for the future, one hears predictions of 40 million in another 20 years. We’re already preparing the hotels of the future Tessera City (the village near the airport) and the under-lagoon subway to facilitate their arrival.

Nice way to get out of the monoculture of tourism.

img_5218-clouds-6-comp — But you can still see why people want to come here.

Problems, Tourism

“Besieged”: tourism update

August 27, 2009 3 Comments

I know it might seem that this subject just won’t go away, even if, as Mark Twain said about something else, you take a stick and hit it on the snout. But as it’s one of the central subjects of existence here, there is no escape.

I was interested to see the headline in the Gazzettino two days ago, “Venice doesn’t know how to keep its tourists.” This is intriguing, considering that much of the criticism hurled at tourism here seems to have to do with wanting the tourists to go away.

Just in case, though, that my recent disquisition on tourism might have seemed like the lonely ravings of a solitary misfit, a recent study by the Confindustria Venezia, a business consortium, which looked at Venice, Rome and Florence, has shown not only the brevity of the average stay (2.47 nights), but that tourists rarely return to Venice. And they say outright that, as I mentioned the other day, the city lacks a tourism strategy.

“The central point,” said Elisabetta Fogarin, president of Confindustria Venezia Turismo, “is that Venice needs a policy of Destination Management. It needs to be relaunched at the international level, to make it an icon and a glamour destination again, where the visitor and traveler can live an experience that can’t be repeated somewhere else.”

Glamour is the grail of tourism here, the notion that quality can be made to replace quantity in the economic equation. I’d suggest that this dream is something like wanting all trains to be like the Orient Express, including the Venice-Pordenone local. Which I would totally endorse, except that there are too many people who just need to get home from work to make that even imaginable.

The statistic of 2.47 nights here is, according to the study, a sign that Venice is drastically under-realizing its potential; in any case, it’s not indicative of “culture tourism” (for which one needs more time, clearly. Anybody who has entered the Uffizi Galleryin Florence with the intention of seeing it all knows that about five months is probably a more reasonable time frame for visiting some cultural monuments here.) And 2.47 nights is just another way of saying “not quality tourists.” Bearing in mind that to reach an average, you must have many people who are staying less time (and at least some who are staying longer, true.) But mostly tourists just hit and run.

I think somebody has already recognized this and decided to play to Venice’s currently somewhat battered image. A new campaign promoting the city’s museums shows two scenes: One is a detail of the huddled masses in the Piazza San Marco, next to a shot of the magnificent Scala d’Oro in the Doge’s Palace, a ceremonial staircase dwarfing two lorn humans. The slogan in Italian translates as, “If you stay outside, you can’t say you’ve seen Venice.” Which I like better than the way they translated it, snappy as it may be.

So to really see Venice, you have to get away from Venice? Well, I guess that’s as good an approach to crowd management as another. It just seems slightly regrettable that instead of promoting this monument for the wonder of the world that it is, this angle is more like “Want to get away from all those uncouth boors outside? Flee into our gorgeous past, which is deserted,” which actually sounds pretty good unless you know that this means you’re going to have to pay 13 euros ($18) to walk through endless non-air-conditioned rooms and look at a million paintings that all look alike. Or so it might seem if your primary motivation for entering was merely because it isn’t Out There.

I happen to worship the Doge’s Palace and consider it a given that if you don’t spend several hours here, you can’t have the tiniest notion of the greatness, brilliance and sheer power of the Venetian Republic. Without which, your visit to Venice is just a pointless trek through a flyblown postcard.

It’s just too bad to tell people they should see the museums because there aren’t any of those awful tourists there. But I guess if you have no tourism strategy, you’ll try all kinds of things.