Latest news with #Stalin-era
San Francisco Chronicle
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Book Review: ‘Hotel Ukraine' wraps up Martin Cruz Smith's detective Renko book series on a high
Arkady Renko now fumbles with his keys at the door as his Parkinson's disease gradually grows worse. The legendary Russian detective has struggled to keep his declining health a secret, but the worsening symptoms have become impossible to hide. Still, Renko is determined to crack the case of a Russian defense official mysteriously murdered in his Moscow hotel room as Russia's war on Ukraine rages. The murder takes place at the Hotel Ukraine, a well-known hotel in the heart of Moscow, one of the towering Stalin-era buildings known as the Seven Sisters. 'Hotel Ukraine' is the 11th and last installment in the popular Arkady Renko series by Martin Cruz Smith that he launched in 1981 with his blockbuster 'Gorky Park.' Books like 'Red Square,' 'Havana Bay' and 'Stalin's Ghost' followed. We don't find out until we get to the acknowledgments at the book's end to learn that Smith, like Renko, has also been concealing a Parkinson's diagnosis for years until it was clear he had to step aside. The revelation is sure to sadden Smith's loyal fans who have followed the fictional detective's career from Moscow's Cold War days to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the rise of the Russian oligarchs But the aficionados of the Renko novels will still have a gem in Smith's latest, which upholds Smith's reputation as a great craftsman of modern detective fiction with his sharply drawn, complex characters and a compelling plot. It's also a well-informed personal look at how the worsening effects of Parkinson's can affect an individual, as Renko finds he can still drive, and he can still talk on the phone, but he can't do both at the same time. When Renko's superiors discover his health problems, they place him on paid sick leave. But that doesn't stop the intrepid detective from continuing his investigation, alongside his lover, journalist Tatiana Petrovna. Renko discovers a Russian military group was involved in the killing and is being helped on the sly by Marina Makarova, a government official and former lover who he is working with on the official probe. After a somewhat slow start, the action in the novel speeds up as the story advances, and the end approaches with multiple twists and surprises. 'It is surprising to think that I have had Parkinson's for almost 30 years. For most of that time I have been remarkably well,' Smith writes in the acknowledgements. 'But this disease takes no prisoners, and now I have finished my last book. There is only one Arkady and I will miss him.'
Time of India
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Paying schoolgirls to have babies: Russia gives financial incentives for teen mothers- part of worldwide trend
Representative image (AP) Amid country's declining birthrate, several regions in Russia have started paying pregnant schoolgirls over 100,000 roubles (around £900) to give birth and raise their children, news agency PTI reported. The initiative, recently expanded to ten regions, is part of a broader demographic strategy aimed at reversing the country's declining birthrate. The scheme builds on a policy introduced in March 2025 that initially applied only to adult women. With Russia's fertility rate at just 1.41 births per woman in 2023- well below the 2.05 needed to sustain population levels- the government is now widening its approach. Public opinion is split. A survey by the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre, as reported by PTI, found 43% of Russians support the policy, while 40% oppose it. Critics argue that encouraging teenage pregnancies raises ethical concerns, while supporters view it as a necessary step to counter population decline. President Vladimir Putin has made population growth a national priority, equating it with military strength and territorial expansion. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Empieza a ganar un segundo sueldo con Mercado Libre CFD Actualidad-CL Más información Undo However, the ongoing war in Ukraine has worsened demographic challenges. An estimated 250,000 Russian soldiers have died in the conflict, and hundreds of thousands of young, educated men have fled the country to avoid conscription, many of whom could have been future fathers. Alongside financial incentives, the Russian government has ramped up moral pressure. It has reintroduced the Stalin-era motherhood medal for women with ten or more children, banned the promotion of childlessness ("child-free propaganda"), and imposed restrictions on abortions in private clinics. Public criticism has grown against women who delay or avoid motherhood in favor of education or careers. Cash, citizenship and babies: A worldwide trend Russia's demographic concerns reflect a global trend. By 2050, over 75% of countries are expected to face population decline due to low fertility rates. In response, many governments have adopted pronatalist policies. In the US, President Donald Trump has proposed paying women $5,000 to have a baby, part of a broader push to encourage larger families, supported by figures like Elon Musk. Hungary offers tax breaks and subsidised mortgages to families with three or more children. Poland provides families with 500 złoty (£101) per child for the second child onwards. However, the effectiveness of such policies has been mixed. In Poland, for example, higher-income women are less likely to respond to financial incentives due to concerns over career setbacks. Spain, taking a different approach, has addressed population decline by easing pathways to citizenship for migrants, especially from Latin American countries. Favoring the 'desirable' and shaping society through the womb Critics argue that many pronatalist policies are shaped more by ideology than economics. Governments often aim to encourage births among groups they deem 'desirable,' based on race, religion, or socio-economic status, reported PTI. Hungary's benefits are limited to heterosexual, high-income couples, while Spain has favored Spanish-speaking Catholic migrants over African applicants. Globally, these efforts frequently involve attempts to influence women's personal choices. While framed as economic necessity, many of these policies carry deeper political agendas—seeking to mold future populations by encouraging childbirth among selected groups and imposing constraints on women's reproductive freedom.
Local Germany
03-06-2025
- Business
- Local Germany
German town offers free accommodation in bid to attract residents
Eisenhüttenstadt in Brandenburg, on the Polish border, will offer a free furnished flat for two weeks in September to applicants interested in trying life in the town. The town's authorities said the scheme was aimed at attracting skilled workers, former residents who have moved away and self-employed workers looking for a change of scenery. Those selected will be offered city tours to 'give them a real feeling' for the town, as well as introduced to local job prospects and internships. Before they leave, they will asked to write a 'love letter to Eisenhüttenstadt' in which they share their impressions of their stay. Those interested can apply until early July. The population of Eisenhüttenstadt has dropped by over half since German reunification in 1990. Like many areas of eastern Germany, it has suffered from depopulation as young people move because of a lack of job opportunities and prospects. The modern town was founded by East German authorities as a socialist model city after the end of WWII alongside a massive steel mill, the town's largest industry. It was known as Stalinstadt between 1953 and 1961. Advertisement The city is considered one of the preeminent examples of socialist architecture in Germany. Its town combines Stalin-era neoclassicism and more modern Plattenbau blocks of flats. After reunification, the steel mill was privatised, causing thousands of employees to lose their jobs. Today, the steelworks has been modernised and employs about 2,500 people.
Washington Post
30-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
A play about the 2017 Charlottesville rally, and a rock musical with the devil
Do you associate the Devil only with evil? Think again. In the savory new musical 'Professor Woland's Black Magic Rock Show' the archfiend leaves justice in his wake. The Spooky Action Theater production is one of several current shows that ponder polarized extremes: Peace and violence. Inclusive and exclusionary visions of America. Cosmic yins and yangs. 'Professor Woland' adapts 'The Master and Margarita,' Mikhail Bulgakov's Stalin-era novel about the Devil and his retinue wreaking havoc in Soviet Moscow. The musical's creators, including book writers Jesse Rasmussen and Elizabeth Dinkova (the latter directs), shrewdly reimagine the tale's demonic characters as louche but charismatic rock musicians performing in a dive bar. Strutting around a cabaret stage, the Satan-esque Woland (Fran Tapia, radiating shady bravado) introduces us to a mortal Moscow writer, the Master (Camilo Linares), whom authorities have forcibly disappeared after they perceived his Pontius Pilate-themed novel to be subversive. His lover, Margarita (Jordyn Taylor), is in agony until Woland's team recruits her to host a consequential diabolical ball. Dinkova and her colleagues made some savvy choices in condensing Bulgakov's epic masterpiece, preserving its wicked humor and elegiac sadness, while necessarily sacrificing much anti-Stalinist satire. The musical's plot twists and numerous characters may dizzy audiences new to the tale, and the Master-Margarita love affair, which is not the most interesting part of Bulgakov's novel, gets too much focus. But the prog rock score, an intoxicating weave of haunting hooks and propulsive verses, composed by Michael Pemberton, who wrote the lyrics with Andrea Pemberton, is an excellent match for Woland's anarchic energy. It helps that most actors double as musicians. Bassist Danny Santiago nails the rascally fallen angel Azazello, while ace guitarist Oliver Dyer, cellist Jeremy Allen Crawford and music director Marika Countouris vividly channel additional demons, and flutist Stephen Russell Murray sings beautifully as a crazed poet. Luis Garcia's projections are vital to capturing a phantasmagoric world. The musical's final song, 'Time to Go (Moscow Goodbye),' does reach too overtly for political relevance. By contrast, such relevance is essential to Priyanka Shetty's '#Charlottesville,' a methodical, sometimes stirring solo play recalling the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in the college town. Now in a world premiere run at the Keegan Theatre in partnership with Voices Festival Productions, the play draws on interviews with more than a hundred Charlottesville-area residents, plus court transcripts and news reports. Directed by Yury Urnov, Shetty does a reasonable job calibrating diction and mannerisms as she channels people who witnessed, or were affected by, the 2017 events: A sweetly callow student. A seething local musician. And, most movingly, the desolate mother of Heather D. Heyer, who died when an avowed neo-Nazi rammed his car through a crowd. Other moments chillingly summon alt-right voices, sometimes through Shetty's mimicry and sometimes with video of white supremacists and their memes. (Dylan Uremovitch designed the projections and lighting.) Interwoven with Shetty's own experiences as a University of Virginia graduate student, and unfurling on Matthew J. Keenan's cracked-marble-like set, which evokes national ideals, '#Charlottesville' asks whether Unite the Right was an aberration or a strand in long-term American bigotry. A more abstract confrontation between civilization and savagery drives German author Rebekka Kricheldorf's blunt-force satire 'Testosterone,' running in Neil Blackadder's English translation in an ExPats Theatre production. The 2012 fable tells of smug doctors Solveig and Ingo (Amberrain Andrews and Elgin Martin), who live in a walled, moated community, initially safe from a violent dystopia. But when their well-intentioned plan to help a sex worker change profession irks a crime boss (Bruce Alan Rauscher, all jovial menace), only Ingo's amoral and hyper-macho brother Raul (a swaggering Gary DuBreuil) can help. As Raul boasts about his kills, weight-lifts with furniture and flaunts his victims' mutilated body parts, the play explores how primal urges like aggression and sexual desire might make a mockery of society's rules of behavior. Director Karin Rosnizeck's production boasts effective touches, like baroquely grim news footage (Jonathan Dahm Robertson is scenic/projections designer), but scenes can be stiff, and the play's Grand Guignol swerves will not appeal to everyone. Still, the concepts here, as in the other two shows, are a reminder that theater can offer bracing ideas that help us navigate reality. Professor Woland's Black Magic Rock Show, through April 13 at the Universalist National Memorial Church in Washington. About 2 hours including intermission. #Charlottesville, through April 13 at the Keegan Theatre in Washington. About 70 minutes, no intermission. Testosterone, through April 6 at Atlas Performing Arts Center in Washington. About 90 minutes, no intermission.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why we shouldn't let lower fertility rates fuel pronatalist policies
Buried in the Donald Trump administration's recent avalanche of executive orders in the United States was a starkly revealing provision: A Department of Transportation order requiring projects to prioritize federal highway and transit funding to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average. Those with declining birth and marriage rates could face funding cuts. In my work as a planetary health researcher, I understand the complex dynamics between reproductive rights, population dynamics and environmental sustainability. This new executive order has me worried. Accounting for demographic trends is indeed fundamental when planning for a country's infrastructure and transportation needs. But this executive order has nothing to do with sound infrastructure planning. Rather, it reflects the Trump administration's ideological shift towards mainstreaming 'pronatalist' policies across sectors far beyond reproductive rights and healthcare. Pronatalism is a political ideology that seeks to increase birth rates with policies that encourage people to have more children. Pronatalism can be motivated by cultural, religious, geopolitical or economic imperatives. Pronatalist policies can manifest in many ways. These could range from soft measures (such as stigmatizing those who choose not to have children) to hard measures (such as restricting access to contraception. The shift towards pronatalist policy is not unique to the United States. Worldwide, governments are reacting to demographic shifts with alarm, introducing measures to incentivize childbirth. However, these measures fail to acknowledge that the global population is actually still increasing. For example, Poland and South Korea both offer cash transfers for babies. Russia revived the Stalin-era 'Mother Heroine' award for women who have 10 children in less than 10 years. China has replaced its anti-natalist 'one-child policy' with an aggressive pronatalist regime — clamping down on vasectomies and tracking menstrual cycles. Until recently, high infant and child mortality rates meant having many children was essential for maintaining stable populations. But advances in healthcare, sanitation and living standards have significantly reduced mortality rates. This has caused a decline in fertility rates which has reshaped the role of reproduction in modern societies. Yet many countries view this demographic shift with concern. These fears are largely rooted in cultural, economic and political motivations — fuelling a rise in pronatalist policies globally. But population policies that prioritize demographic targets over reproductive autonomy — a person's power to make their own reproductive choices — have repeatedly led to devastating consequences. For example, until 1989, Romania's communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu enforced strict pronatalist policies. Abortions were banned, contraception was restricted and women were subjected to invasive pregnancy surveillance. Those without children faced punitive taxation. These measures led to a surge in unsafe abortions, high maternal mortality, overcrowded orphanages and lasting social trauma. Pronatalist policies also seem to go against what most people want. Across cultures and religions, people overwhelmingly seek to control their fertility when given the choice. Research also shows that when women have access to education and contraception, they tend to choose smaller families. Alarmist narratives about falling fertility rates distract from a more personal reality as well: that half of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended. Pronatalist policies thus appear to go against the advancement of reproductive autonomy. Pronatalist narratives also undermine efforts to reduce humanity's impact on the environment. Population size and growth are both major drivers of environmental degradation and climate change. Embracing the lower fertility rates we're seeing could help drive transformative changes needed to ease pressure on natural resources, shrink greenhouse gas emissions and ensure a more sustainable future. The world's population is expected to grow by an additional two billion people in the coming decades. But we don't actually know how many people the planet can sustainably support. Its carrying capacity is not a fixed measure. It's contingent upon technological advancements, consumption patterns, economic structures and the ever-evolving interactions between humans and the environment. Some ecological economists have even calculated that in order for everyone to have a reasonable standard of living, a truly sustainable global population would be around around 3.2 billion people. Although these estimates are far from certain, what's clear is that a smaller global population would improve our chances to restore balance. The fear of population decline and push for pronatalist policies obscures the critical fact that we have yet to address the consequences of the rapid population growth we've experienced since the 1950s. Environmental degradation and climate change have both been driven in large part by this rapid growth. A major argument pronatalists use is that a shrinking population will lead to economic decline. This reasoning is outdated — rooted in economic models that assume perpetual growth and ignore ever-pressing planetary boundaries. While it's clear that an ageing society presents challenges, lower birth rates don't necessarily mean lower living standards. On the contrary, a smaller population can be conducive to labour productivity and fairer wealth distribution. The past two centuries of explosive economic and population growth were an anomaly in human history. The idea that we must endlessly expand is a modern fiction — not a historical norm. We're now entering 'the age of depopulation' — a period characterized by lower fertility levels, and, in time, population decline. We must prepare and embrace this shift instead of trying to reverse it. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organisation bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Céline Delacroix, L'Université d'Ottawa/University of Ottawa Read more: Trad wives hearken back to an imagined past of white Christian womanhood Demography and reproductive rights are environmental issues: Insights from sub-Saharan Africa Fiction about abortion confronts the complicated history of gender, sexuality and women's rights Céline Delacroix is a Senior Fellow with the Population Institute (USA).
