Mostly doodles / Dying from drinking water / Love grows slow / Heaven & Hell in Bali / More bubbles, less troubles / Education should be about passion / Nothing Stops Detroit / Hacking the Airbnb lifestyle / This is chess, and this is boxing / Rapid sightseeing in: Antwerp / All land on Earth is already claimed (& more)

26 December 2015 Yakuzuzu Zine #1

Whoah, an editorial! 3

Mostly doodles 4

Dying from drinking water 9

Love grows slow 12

Heaven & Hell in Bali 16

More bubbles, less troubles 21

There is no mountain high enough 24

Education should be about passion 28

Even better than cool 31

Nothing Stops Detroit 35

Hacking the Airbnb lifestyle 37

This is chess, and this is boxing 40

Playing with the Ring of Fire 42

Windsurfers’ dream town: Vasiliki 44

Rapid sightseeing in: Antwerp 48

All land on Earth is already claimed 51

Inside

Whoah, an editorial!Richard Dancsi / editor-in-chief / Yakuzuzu Zine

“Fake it till you make it”, they say, and this idea al-ways troubled me. It doesn’t feel right to fake a thing.

“Can I call myself a programmer now?” - I’ve been struggling with this one for a long time, and refused to do so for years, long after half my town was using the software I wrote. I’m also feeling shy about call-ing myself a mathematician with the degree in my pocket. And, just to finally return to the topic,

When can you call a magazine a magazine?

We created Yakuzuzu out of thin air. From the out-side of it, it’s not much more than an idea that we regularly come back to, quarter by quarter. An idea, that we keep working on when it pours and when it shines. But then, John Lennon said that “a dream you dream alone is a dream, but a dream you dream together is reality”, which, then, makes Yakuzuzu very much a reality.

And you, readers, seem to be coming back too: our last five issues have been read from thousands of cit-ies in almost hundred countries of the world. Which is just fantastic! It’s much more than the editorials team’s Mom count, even more than all the friends we have together.

The love we receive is important. We are shallow hu-man beings who strive for confirmation: we want to know that what we do at least makes sense. In case of a magazine, it’s great to know that someone is pick-ing up what we are putting down.

Together then, you readers, us keyboard-hack-ing-monkeys, we are: Yakuzuzu.

The magazine.

3

Art is either a challenge or it’s nothing: interview with illustrator Sonny Ross

This is something new: Sonny will be answering our questions only by his illustrations in this interview.

Which, naturally wouldn’t have worked out with-out interviewing him first in the very old-fashioned questions-and-answers manner. You can imagine this as: us having massively edited his actual answers into “questions”, then responding to those with his work pieces. Here you go then, a schizophrenic conversation of the self, where the questions are an-swers, and the answers: illustrations.

Hang tight. The world’s probably most appropriate illustrator-interview is coming up.

Mostly doodles

Richard Dancsi / 2015 / Issue 5

Yakuzuzu Zine

4

Yakuzuzu: Your long-time dream was to study His-tory and become a teacher, but then someone said about a doodle you did on a school table that it was pretty good. That made you feel brilliant. Was your ego really the reason you decided to pursue illustra-tion instead of history?

Yakuzuzu: 10 years on, it’s probably not the reason you stayed though. Are you still inspired by that idea of perfection that your art teachers believed was a real thing? Inspired, in a sense of telling elitist art rule makers to get fucked?

Yakuzuzu: Did you hate pretentious fine art teach-ers at school because of the way they made you hate art, or because you were: a teenager, so hating things was just going to happen regardless? Are you a game changer or a massive rule breaker?

Yakuzuzu: Those rule makers are now in your head at all times, suggesting that you should aim to be consistent in your portfolio. Does it matter?

5

Yakuzuzu: Most art directors know what they want and will direct you well, others sort of set you loose on an idea and that’s when perhaps you, as the illus-trator have more control. Who is the boss: you, or the client?

Yakuzuzu: Fame? You said you’re over it, having gotten used to a certain professional level now. Do you feel proud often these days, or are those only the ‘firsts’ that you are actually proud of? First, like the first magazine, first interview, exhibit, first book deal?

Yakuzuzu: You’ve entered an illustration to a zine in the states about 5 years ago, and you were over the moon when it arrived. How about now? If you picked up the local newspaper where you had a spot in a few weeks back, would you pull a face just because the co-lours didn’t come out right?

6

Yakuzuzu: Your upcoming book, “Duck Gets a Job” will be properly published, but you used to use other technics as well. “The Sitter” was a handmade riso-graph printed book of portraits. Are you printing at home as well?

Yakuzuzu: Let’s get back to fame for a second: peo-ple talk about you and discuss your work. Other il-lustrators would say they’re above all that and just go with the flow, and you might not actually care about fame either – but being talked about? Isn’t it very rewarding?

Yakuzuzu: You are looking for a good studio in Man-chester, one that doesn’t cost the same as rent. Work and life currently blend together then, how does it work out so far?

Yakuzuzu: You’re only like a year out of university, so you probably won’t leave illustration for a while. When you get older though, do you see yourself teaching or practicing textile design? Would you give up the ‘cool contest’ that some aspects of illus-tration smell of?

Yakuzuzu: Could you exist as a lone wolf? You talk about illustration to friends, the good and the bad. You feed off of each others projects and of course so-cial media to an extent that’s nothing more than a gauge of interest. I mean, your instagram is mostly doodles or works in progress. But in real life? Do you get out much?

7

Yakuzuzu: You went in to your degree with an idea of what illustration was, those fine-line pen draw-ings of animals, that ghastly hipster trash you’d see a lot of a few years ago. Oh my. But in second year you had a stand-in tutor for a term, Stuart Kolakovic who helped find your voice. Your degree was worth it then. Was it worth the money?

Yakuzuzu: It probably helps when you actually own prints your tutor illustrated before even knowing he would be teaching you — it’s hard to take advice from someone you think is shit. Would you tell your 18-year-old you that he has about a year of being a prick before he has to get real? Would you do any-thing differently?

Yakuzuzu: Your 6-year-old you loved drawing, I think he’d be over the moon to learn that you are an illustrator now. Would he be disappointed that you don’t draw aliens, robots, or make comics based on the Predator movies?

Yakuzuzu Zine

8

Toxic water is a reality in Third World countries, but a Viennese startup is trying to change this

After catching Cholera in Venezuela, Martin Wesian realised what a wide-spread problem clear water is. He went back to Vienna, and after a few years of re-search he founded Helioz, where they invented Wadi: a solar-powered UV-measurement device that can tell whether the water is safe to drink.

We met Martin and his right-hand Manuela Kräuter to learn more.

Yakuzuzu: Let’s start in the very begin-ning: what happened in Venezuela?

Wesian: I was travelling and working in Venezue-la for two years, where I had first-hand experience with a waterborne disease, Cholera. I was really sick. I lost fifteen kilos in ten days. But at least I was lucky to have the opportunity to receive the right medical treatment – only because I could afford it: you don’t get any medication in the hospital, you have to buy it yourself in the pharmacy, and then bring it to the doctors. Crazy! Many of the locals won’t have enough money to get hospitalized.

Dying from drinking water

Marlene Zemann / 2015 / Issue 4

This makes the prevention of waterborne diseases even more important. It was the first time that I was faced with how widespread of a problem contaminat-ed water is. Years later, already back in Vienna, I read an article about the water-cleaning process “SODIS”, developed by the Swiss Water Research Institute, Eawag. The article just hit me. I wanted to learn more about it, and design a suitable measurement device in order to help people in countries with dirty water.

I signed up for a Master’s Degree in 2007 in Industrial Engineering, my MA thesis was about this device al-ready, where the name Wadi stands for “Water Dis-infection”. I founded Helioz three years later, in 2010.

Yakuzuzu: How does this process work?

Wesian: It’s quite simple: If you fill Pet-bottles with contaminated water and expose them to sunlight over a few hours the sun’s UV-radiation will make the water safe to drink.

9

Yakuzuzu: If it is that simple, why do you even need a measurement device? Was the Swiss Water Institute not successful with its innovation?

Wesian: The problem was the lack of acceptance. People didn’t feel safe enough to use their method. The time needed to expose the bottles to the sunlight depends on the strength of the Sun and its UV-radi-ation, which then depends on the place and daytime. Therefore a fix-time design isn’t even possible: it can last 6 hours or even more until the water becomes safe to drink. Another issue is that people in Third World countries can’t always measure time, they don’t have watches or clocks around. How would they know then when the process is finished?

Yakuzuzu: Did you get any support from the university?

Wesian: I got support for the research from different institutes, but initially I financed everything from my savings. If you launch a startup in Austria, you are not at the best place to get financial help — you might have better chances in our neighbour countries or in the US. Austria´s startup scene is still behind, though on its way to improve.

Yakuzuzu: Do you have investors now? Who is actually paying for Wadi?

Kräuter: We have three different types of customers: NGOs, private companies that are using Wadi for their Corporate Responsibility statement by putting their Logo on our product, and the local distributors. We are distributing our product in over 50 countries all over the world, although we are focusing on a sub-set of countries to provide higher quality standards and fulfil their special needs.

Wesian: Yes we do have some investors. But the chal-lenge is to find someone who doesn’t only want to make money with our product. We already said no to one investor, who wanted to reduce the lifetime of the product for quick profit. That’s not our goal: we want to help people first, and making money is secondary. That’s how our world works today: people want to make quick money, and ignore social responsibility altogether. So we rejected more than 1 million euro – a lot of money!

Yakuzuzu: Can people actually buy Wadi? How much does one device cost?

Kräuter: One Wadi costs $16, but the more you buy the lower the price will get. And compared to other

10

methods, like boiling the water or using chlorine, it’s really cheap in the long run: you only need the Sun’s power to make it work. You can use one Wadi for many years.

Yakuzuzu: What are the challenges in your business?

Kräuter: As our product is a preventive one, we need to tell people about the process. We often need to trav-el to the countries where our product is sold, and do educational work on the spot. If you only put Wadi in the supermarkets people won’t buy it: they have to learn about the process and be familiar with SODIS first.

98% of the territories do not even have toilets or wa-ter taps, but every territory has different needs. We mainly collaborate with local partners, because you have to be at the place to see the reality, and to know how to deal with the situation there. You cannot just work from Vienna and sell Wadi to those countries. We have to travel a lot, get a better understanding of the life of the people in those countries to develop the best possible operation strategy.

For me that’s actually the most exciting and beautiful part of the work. Even though it’s very hard to see how people are living in those areas: they lack basic needs like food and water. If you are missing these, you will also struggle in every other part of life: having a job is difficult, education is difficult and so on. Water is like air. You can´t survive without it. Your view of life changes completely when you’re working in this cri-sis areas.

Wesian: Financing is also not the easiest part. As I mentioned before Austria is ways behind than oth-er developed countries. It’s quite a lot of work to just find the investors, who share our will to help those living in underdeveloped countries, and not just get rich.

Yakuzuzu: What are your next dreams?

Wesian: To help people living a better and healthier life with Wadi. To decrease the number of deaths in those countries in need, by making the water safe to drink. Having a small impact in this world by chang-ing something to the better – my goal and my dream.

Kräuter: Totally agreed. It makes me happy to wake up every day, go to work and to know that my work, what I am doing is meaningful. It makes me feel alive.

Yakuzuzu: Beside the water problem in the third world countries, what else would you change in our world?

Wesian: The “turbo-capitalism”. And of course like in the beauty contests: world peace!

Yakuzuzu: How do you manage to keep your balance and stay motivated?

Kräuter: It´s important to focus on the long term. Staying optimistic and not to be intent to much on the moment.

Yakuzuzu: What’s the meaning of life? Do you think about those things?

Wesian: 42! Did you read the book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?”

The guys seemed to have struggled finding a better answer.

“Finding happiness” – said one of them after a long silence, and they seemed to be happy with that.

11

Marlene’s grandparents share their secret to ever lasting love

Apps like Tinder make it easy to meet many new potential lovers, partners, friends-with-benefits, casual hook ups or however you want to call it in a short period of time. You swipe left or right, get the matches, and then... then what? You think you are in love. Only for a few minutes until another match ar-rives, an even better one! Could this ever work?

It’s way too easy, and the problem is that there are far too many possibilities, which drives you into a fear-of-missing-out spiral, when you think that someone *better* is waiting for you out there. One who ful-fils all requirements of The Dream Partner. Isn’t it again our spoilt generation, which always strives for something superior?

Most of us dream about real love, while the divorce rate is at its peak. In Western Europe every second marriage ends with a divorce. As I also experienced a rather interesting dating period and started to doubt a lot, I asked myself those questions about love and how long lasting relationships could actu-ally work. Work, in a generation which seems to be ego-centric to the extreme, and run at the fastest pace ever.

Love grows slow

Marlene Zemann / 2015 / Issue 5

Yakuzuzu Zine

12

To find out more, I talked to my grandparents who grew up during World War II. They shared it all with me: their love journey and life experiences, and how they succeeded to live a long lasting relationship full of love. True love.

They’ve met in 1945, at a grammar school’s class in Lower Austria. My grandma, Erika was a young woman at the time, sporty and attractive with curly dark hair. My grandpa, Kurt, liked her from the first sight and asked her to go one time per week to a dancing class. “Marlene, your grandpa was a hand-some, intelligent, young man. He had a lot of thick beautiful hair”, said Erika with a grin. “I was?”, re-plied Kurt shortly. They still like to tease each other, in their kind way.

They started dating, for about two years. Strictly platonic. Erika used to play tennis with a group of university students on the tennis court. “I had many admirers” - she proudly explains.

“One day there was a festive at a castle”, says Kurt, and goes on to tell that he wanted to pick Erika up with his motorbike. To his bitter disappointment however, she got picked up by car, by the tennis fellows.

“Well, I preferred cars to motorcycles”, giggles Erika. It was nearly the end of the school year, and she was about to change for another school. “Knödelakad-emie”, she says. “Dumplings academy” is a playful German word for the school where, among others, kids learn needlework and cooking. Kurt’s reaction? He wrote a farewell note in her “book of friendships”, and threw it into her room through the window.

“Viel Glück, mein Wunsch, Ein wenig Erinnerung – meine Bitte.”, reads his words Erika. (In English, “Good luck, my wish, a little memory – my request.”)

13

Another two years passed where they were in rare contact. Sometimes they met on the train by acci-dent, whenever they had the same commute to Vi-enna.

“One day in 1951, I was already a student at the Uni-versity of Vienna, when a friend of mine, Erich Fas-chingeder asked me to replace him and take Erika to the cinema. He said he won’t have the time that evening.”

“Kurt waited for me in front of the cinema, to my bitter disappointment”, added Erika with a smile. “It must have been destiny, because that evening changed it all: I fell in love with your grandpa.”

Yakuzuzu: What do you think, what are the differences between relationships in your generation and today?

Erika: In our times we took the time to get to know each other, before getting close. Relationships were based on a friendship, which means we had a long enough period to learn each others’ merits and

14

weaknesses. I think nowadays everything is happen-ing too fast and the couples do not know each other very well before they get married.

Kurt: The system was also entirely different: in our Christian culture it was very difficult to get di-vorced. People believed in general much more in the construct of marriage and family. Nowadays a patchwork-family is the norm, but I don’t think that it’s a healthy and happy way of living - especially not for the children.

Yakuzuzu: Did you also see other girls while dating Erika?

Kurt: No way! Your grandma would have fainted.

Erika: In-love, engaged, married. It was like that. Yakuzuzu: Beside the different system and faith, many say that nowadays 30s are the new 20s. I don’t know a lot of couples who

already have children or got married. It’s normal to party and travel until you’re in your 40s. What is your opinion about that?

Kurt: I can’t understand it, but I think everyone should do whatever makes them happy. We grew up during World War II, with meal-tickets to get our food. Grandma had to flee from the Czech Re-public when her family lost everything. I think to-day’s young ones in developed countries often can’t cherish their luck and all the possibilities they have. I don´t want to throw them all in the same pot, but it seems that many of them just don’t want to lose their *freedom*. Family, or even just a relationship would mean a lot of commitment and effort.

Yakuzuzu: Did you ever doubt that it won’t work out between you too? Maybe in the beginning?

Both: No! Never.

Yakuzuzu: What is most important for a fulfilling relationship?

Erika: Trust, honesty, openness and similar inter-ests.

Kurt: Agreed. Humour is also very important. The worst couples are those who are bored with each oth-er. As long as you have a small fight sometimes with a great laughter afterwards, you know that you are with the right person. The end of a relationship is when you don’t have anything to say to each other any longer. I could have never married an actress. You never know where you stand with them.

Yakuzuzu: Do you have a recipe for a good, long-lasting relationship?

Erika: Never go to bed with a fight. We gave each oth-er that promise and we are living up to it. It’s import-ant to be able to speak about everything. You cannot connect with another person when he is closed up to you.

Kurt: Couples nowadays make the mistake that they don’t take the time to get to know each other well. Take things slow. You also have to be aware of it won’t be easy all the time. You need to put in the effort, and not throw in the towel.

Erika: Everyone shows his best side in the begin-ning, but everyone has their weaknesses and you get to know those sooner or later. I’m a very tidy person, grandpa is the opposite. Another thing I was strug-

gling with was that Kurt loved to hike while I hated to hobble since I was a child. You have to think about whether you can live with those disagreements or not. I accepted them, and everyone else will have to make their compromises too. No one is perfect.

Yakuzuzu: Do you believe in love at first sight?

Kurt: Love grows slow. The movies display the ro-mantic image of love, but that’s is not real. You can’t fall in love at first sight: that’s attraction at most.

Kurt and Erika are going to have their diamond wedding anniversary: they are together for almost 60 years. “We were lucky. Not everyone finds a part-ner with whom they can be happy with.”

Did you ever doubt real love? I think it’s a matter of wanting it and believing in it. If you don’t believe that your business could work, well, then it won´t work. My grandparents never doubted and they both wanted to have a family. If you want to find real love, never stop believing! And if you are lucky enough to have already found it: keep it!

Yakuzuzu Zine

15

The lush island from the Bounty advert is very, very lush

I can still hear the sound of the mouse-sized cockroach crawling towards the bed, stretching its wings. Yes, wings! The trop-ical ones are the biggest cockroaches in size and they are able to fly.

I bet when you hear someone talking about the In-donesian island Bali, the first thing that pops into your head is the tropical paradise on Earth: coconut shakes, exotic food and crazy waves to surf. Or the movie “Eat, pray, love” if you are less fortunate. You imagine the peaceful happiness most successfully captured by the Bounty adverts of the 90s. But seri-ously, who wouldn’t want to visit Bali?

I am among the lucky ones, as I’ve been to the island recently. However, my journey started a little bit different...

It was already dark when we landed in Bali after a long flight from Melbourne. Once we left Denpas-ar’s air-conditioned airport, we felt that the evening air was incredibly humid and filled with all sorts of night time noises we haven’t heard before.

We joined one of the local taxi guys standing in a huge line of drivers holding name plates, and got in his car. He took us through remote, winding roads. It was our first glimpse of the crazy local traffic.

The accommodation was also full of surprises. Having our own gecko in our room wasn’t listed among the amenities on Airbnb. (Ok, not really a gecko, more like a meter-long lizard.) But the reptile seemed like a pleasant roommate compared to our night time visitors.

After the initial shock I have to say that this was THE holiday of my life.

The next morning our hosts were waiting for us with the most amazing breakfast, including the Balinese coffee called ‘kopi’, omelettes and fresh juicy local fruits. They shared their top secret, insider’s guide of the things you absolutely have to see, do and/or eat when you’re in Bali.

Heaven & Hell in Bali

Barbara Szirmai / 2015 / Issue 2

Yakuzuzu Zine

16

Bali’s beach todo list

Are you traveling to Bali for the picture-perfect beaches?

Then try the fishing village Jimbaran for swimming and playful waves first. In the evenings they serve delicious freshly grilled seafood dinner, which you can eat right on the shores while the sun sets before your eyes. It’s mind-blowing beauty, no wonder that many 5-star resorts are also located in this area.

If you’re up for the less playful waves, join pro surf-ers in South Kuta, at the equally beautiful Balangan beach. An extra bonus point for the ladies: if you fancy hot Australian surfer dudes with the appro-priate size of muscles, that’s your place to be!

Padang Padang is a gorgeous sandy beach right at the bottom of a cliff and is almost fully covered by water in high tide. After squeezing your way through the claustrophobic stairway in the belly of the rocks, you’ll find a once hidden gem. (Since the characters played by Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem fell in love at the same spot in the “Eat, pray, love” movie, it’s not so hidden anymore.)

If you still didn’t have enough of the turquoise shores, go to Gili Trawangan, or simply Gili T. It ac-tually belongs to another Bali-like island, Lombok, but there are many overnight tours to take from Bali.

Urban Bali

Bali has areas which, especially in the last 10 years, became easier to handle for the very-very Western tourists as well. Ubud is the centre of the island with the most attractions of this kind: there are art exhi-bitions, fashion shops, restaurants – and even Star-bucks opened their cafes here. With geckos climb-ing on the roof, of course.

This all doesn’t mean that Ubud is a boring place to visit. You can wander around the rice fields, or drink Kopi Luwak – which is a coffee as exotic as a coffee can get: made of a quite little rodent’s poo.

Spiritual journey

Just imagine: you wake up on this beautiful island, in the middle of the jungle or next to the ocean. You

18

open the door to the summer breeze, and start the day with meditating. Yeah? If you’re into yoga and mindfulness, this is the place to be to find yourself.

Bali is also the island of “gods” and the “thousand temples”. As a proof, you can see flowers in banana leaf baskets all over the walkways and doorsteps. Those are the locals’ offerings for their gods.

The locals seem to be very much in touch with their spiritual side. Our taxi driver says, there are more temples than inhabitants in Bali. It is a tough choice to decide which ones are worth a visit. I would guess whichever comes first will be a good choice, but my suggestion is Uluwatu with its astonishing pan-orama to the open seas. Don’t miss it, especially if you’re a friend of monkeys.

Once you’re on the island, you simply have to have a traditional Balinese massage. Avoid the spas of the luxury hotels, which can cost a fortune, and try the independent boutique spas in the less touristy areas instead. I spent the most relaxing 60 minutes of my life at a small massage place in a remote part of Ubud, where I could hear the sound of the neigh-bors’ roosters cock-a-doodle-doo (yep, even that wasn’t a turn-off).

You’ll find that Balinese people are considerably happier than the tourists visiting the island. You can actually recognize who is here only for a couple of days and who has chosen Bali as a lifestyle.

For the hungry

Food in general is legendary. This island is a true paradise offering all what one can want: fresh fruits and vegetables, rice and fresh sea food of all sorts. Not to mention the amazing juices made of these fruits just fallen off the trees.

Whatever you like, you will find it within your bud-get. For the super-low-budget backpackers there are fantastic local markets, and street food does exists even where there are no streets at all. For a more sophisticated experience, there are plenty of good restaurants offering the traditional Balinese dishes. Wherever you end up eating, Nasi Goreng (the In-donesian fried rice dish) will be found in all restau-rants, and is an absolute must-eat.

And once again, don’t try to leave the island with-out going to Jimbaran beach. There’s plenty of fresh grilled sea food under that cloud of smoke, just be-fore sunset.

Getting around

Everybody is riding scooters in Bali, without excep-tion. Scooters are the usual family vehicles as well, so it’s not at all surprising to see babies or small chil-dren sitting between their mom and dad. Just as they are a lot more easy-going than Western fellows in most areas of life, Balinese people seem to have low-er sensitivity for danger.

19

It’s easy to rent a scooter, you can get one for about $3 a day. Petrol basically grows on trees. Right, not on trees, but there is a “petrol station” almost every corner, where locals are selling fuel in water bottles. (That doesn’t do too good for the petrol of course, but the actual, real petrol stations are less common to see.)

If you haven’t ridden a scooter ever before, this is not the place to learn. Especially if you don’t have an international driver’s license, in which case you might end up on the roadside, trying to talk a police-man out of putting you in jail for the night.

Forget walking though! There are no sidewalks and the remote roads, distances and the hot, humid weather are your enemies.

So if you are not an experienced scooter guy and don’t have a death wish, using taxi is recommended. You can get around with your own driver in a decent car for a reasonable price (around $60 per day) – no limits on distance and everything included.

Startup life in Bali

If the only thing what’s keeping you from packing your things and booking a one-way flight to Bali is the fact that you don’t want to leave your awesome company and creative startup community behind, don’t hesitate anymore.

Some geniuses have already created a cool co-work-ing space for local and visiting creatives, techies and entrepreneurs. Just search for Hubud, the hub locat-ed in the city of Ubud, and watch their video intro-duction for a serious case of office-envy (as they so eloquently put it).

Photos by: Ildikó Takács, Barbara Szirmai

Yakuzuzu Zine

20

Building a sustainable business by pursuing your childhood passion

“Do one thing, but do it well”, creatives and entrepre-neurs claim. Patricia Szczeniowska and her father live up to that by creating one of the greatest bubble soap formulas in Europe. Meet Pet & Pat Seifenbla-sen, as Patrycja speaks about her passion of building up a small and sustainable business.

Children have gathered around us, and even grown-up strollers stop to watch the miracle happen. Patry-cja moves the two connected wooden sticks high in the air, and slowly diverges them. This is the moment when we turn all excited and the children’s eyes get sparkling: a gigantic round bubble gets released, and this wonderful unique shape flies off with the soft wind to find its way through the summer air.

“This is beautiful”, people whisper and follow the bubble with colourful reflections of the blue sky. Some elder women walk by and freeze as they see the huge shape moving about in the air. They stare at us astonished, with their mouth open, which thens fades into a warm smile.

It seems that we all connect to these unique shapes.

They have the power to bring us back to our childhood.

Watching the bubble myself, I am wondering: Will it pop? Bubbles always do at some point. It’s their natural path and purpose. Our younger audience wishes that the masterpiece would live forever, their eyes tell me. Then it happens. Our bubble literally vanishes into the thin summer air. What will be the shape and the color of the next soap bubble? Nobody knows yet for sure. Let’s give it a try and see for my-self!

It’s a sunny day in mid-July. We are at one of the most historical and open fields of Berlin, in Tempel-hof. This 300 hectare area used to be an airport serv-ing the US Army during Berlin Airlift back in 1948, when an airplane landed here every other minute. Today, it’s an open field where locals skate, kite, and in general, enjoy their freedom. I am here to meet Patricia Szczeniowska – not for a historical tour but to make bubbles!

“When you look through a bubble, your perspective changes: like a mirror, one very moment changes and flies through the world”-- Peter Szczeniowski

More bubbles, less troubles

Flavio Loetscher / 2015 / Issue 2

21

It was also her father Peter who got inspired by Cali-fornian bubble-star Gary Thomas on a Polish street art festival back in 1990. That day, Gary got invit-ed to join the family dinner, and he told the story about how he quit his academic career to earn a liv-ing with bubble shows. The dinner then turned out to be a three-days workshop: Gary and Peter became friends and toured downtown together to show the world the beauty of bubbles.

Patricia’s father was eager to learn everything about soap formulas. Shortly after the Californian artist’s departure, Peter started to decipher the secret for-mula. Soon he convinced a researcher at a chemical institute to help him out. It cost him a fortune to do so, but the investment was worth it.

More than a decade later, Patricia decided to take foot in a different city. A place, where artist go to get inspired: the vibrant city of Berlin. She was looking to perfect the soap formula, and performed bubble arts on the streets to pay her rent. When she ran out of soap, Patricia had to turn to a bigger soap produc-er for help – and three weeks later she found herself in a bubble bottle universe with more than 600 li-tres of non-sellable testers that were just perfect for her purpose. What seemed to be a ridiculously naive idea in the first place soon fruited and Patri-cia opened up her business Pet & Pat Seifenblasen: www.peter-pat-seifenblasen.de

Once they created the secret formula, they opened their online shop for artists, and of course, for chil-

dren and their parents. Patricia explains that the greatest bubble performing artists use Pet & Pat Seifenblasen, thanks to their durability and flexibil-ity. In 2011, they almost beat the world record with a seven meter big bubble!

“You start with manufacturing the soap itself, using the right water. Not any kind of course – it’s the soft water containing low quantities of lime scale that

22

make the best bubbles”, Patricia shares a little of their secret. “There are infinite different shapes and color spectrums one can create with these bubbles. Of course, you need the right material too!” Patricia experimented a lot with different sticks and robes to create unique shapes.

The father-daughter’s mission is to create the most flexible, durable and greatest soap formula on this planet. And they seem to succeed: the profession-al bubble community stands behind their passion driven business, but more importantly: thousands of children enjoy their products with a wonderful smile every day.

It’s not always easy to sustain a passion like this, ex-plains Patricia. There are many copycat soap makers and money driven businessmen who apply their concept. Nevertheless, after seven years in the busi-ness Patricia is still very fond of bubbles, and con-stantly improves her secret formula — to get many people involved with the beauty of bubble shapes and forms. With support of her father Peter, the team Szczeniowski continues to take people on a col-orful journey back to childhood.

More bubbles, less troubles they say.

Yakuzuzu Zine

23

Laura on photography, art, and the American dream from Prague

“I used to be like little Lisa Simpson.” -- says Laura Kovanska in the beginning of this interview about what she was like for a kid. We then touch on pho-tography, the need of self-expression, and what it feels like to be an artist in Eastern Europe.

Yakuzuzu: Tell us a bit about you as a kid: how did you grow up? How did you stum-ble upon photography?

Laura: Photography comes from the deepest core of my personality. I’m quite an introverted person and always had geek hobbies. Having been an A+ nerd and bookworm, I’ve been visiting after-school classes: graphic design, writing, gymnastics, and I’ve been playing saxophone. I was a lonely kiddo, a for-eigner in my own country.

I used to be like little Lisa Simpson.

My family moved from the eastern part of Slova-kia to the western part of the country Moravia, but the countries separated and we ended up being the Slovakian people in the Czech Republic. This made us strangers in our own home. I didn’t speak Czech at all at the beginning, so the kids at school weren’t nice to me. After a few years time I won the Czech language schools challenge, and my teacher forbid me to say I’m from Slovakia.

Yakuzuzu: Did you always want to be a photographer?

Laura: I was a very nice girl, fulfilling my parent’s expectations. I wanted to be an astronaut, a po-lice detective, an archeologist or a judge. It has all changed when I started university. I wanted to go my own way. I met new friends in a new, friendly en-vironment, and I had a new hobby: taking pictures.

There is no mountain high enough

Richard Dancsi / 2015 / Issue 5

24

It was a great activity for an introverted person, be-cause photography provides enough alone-time in the dark room, with scanning, retouching and post-ing. I’ve not only found the activity I loved, I was also able to show what I know and how I feel, although, I didn’t expect any sort of photo career. It came very slowly and naturally during the next decade, with a lot of added hard work. This all made me feel very satisfied and happy.

Yakuzuzu: Which project are you the most proud of?

Laura: I love my work I did for Lenka Chrobokova fashion designer. She has re-designed the tradition-al folklore dresses, turning bohemian into a futur-istic silk design collection. It was inspired by an old traditional called the Ride of the Kings.

The Ride of the Kings is a unique Moravian-Slovaki-an tradition in the Czech Republic which is includ-ed in the Unesco intangible cultural heritage list. I decided to make the photoshoot during this event. Being an Unesco protected event, it’s been quite a challenge to arrange this, but as I used to say, there is no mountain high enough.

The shooting was tough as well, because of the su-per-hot weather: the model got sick, and there were thousands people around. To make things even more difficult, I also decided for a medium-format cam-era and color film -- the “old but gold” technique.

The picture from this shooting received a great award: it was selected for picture of the day in Vogue Italia. I was happy as a small girl, and it has kicked my photo career to the top. I was hugely satisfied with this project, because for the very first time, the hard work was perfectly worth it.

Yakuzuzu: What is “art” for you?

Laura: My life is completely filled with pictures. As far as I can see my pictures are storytelling: I like to consider myself as a writer of stories instead of an artist. I love stories, both fake or real ones. We are here to live, love and share our stories, that’s what life is about for me. Sometimes the pictures are not the greatest or the most grandiose, but a story be-hind is so strong and is talking to people so much, that it’s making me to stop and think. That’s exactly what I want to reach with my works.

I love to create stories, to speak to people via my pic-tures. Sometimes it helps me to deal with my inner feelings and worlds, and sometimes I just want to share the love and beauty with people around.

Yakuzuzu: Have you ever tried giving up photography?

Laura: I had a serious sport injury that forced me to take a 2-years break from photography. I took a job at a big international company: a good manager po-

25

26

sition in an animal food production factory. I had a nice car, nice title and the responsibility to run two factories - but I felt every single day as if I was slowly dying, because my dream was to do photography for living, and during my entire life.

Yakuzuzu: Are you a lone wolf, or do you have a group of people to work together with?

Laura: In the very beginning it was all about doing everything alone. I was a lonely-loner in my lonely way, but the more work I’ve done the more people were coming to offer their talents: hair stylists, de-signers, models. The shootings turned bigger and bigger every time. It takes a lot of work to make ev-erything all perfect and amazing. And I want it all.

Yakuzuzu: Do you think being in East-ern-Europe is helping you or is it a hur-dle?

Laura: There is no paradise on Earth, being in East-ern Europe is also tough and definitely a hurdle. I lived in the United States twice for longer periods,

so I can compare living here and in US. We live the same life when it comes to the materials, but the mentality is different. In the US it’s success, victory, the winners that’s celebrated.

Here, success is a dirty word, and any kind of success is punished on various levels. We tend to be all the same, every single thing that’s different is some-thing bad. We tend to be standardized, trying not to be a black sheep. Success is something out of line. We are “forced” to share the same values, the same dress, stay in the same line. We don’t celebrate di-versity, genders, different skin colors, non-main-stream fashion.

I don’t know if it is a weird and creepy heritage of communism or is for any another reason. We are simply not so open-minded as we could be. I want to change this and I hope that there are way more young people like me, trying to open our minds and promote the beauty of being different. I don’t wish to have been born some place else, I just wish for my own place to improve. Life is hard everywhere on the Earth, it is up to us to change it, or at least to try.

Yakuzuzu Zine

Yakuzuzu: Would your 6-year-old-self be happy to learn who you became?

Laura: My 6-years old me wont be definitely hap-py, it wanted to be an astronaut of course! Flying to the universe and back, at least my fantasy let me go anywhere I wanted to be. My 6-years-self would defi-nitely recommend me to be Batman.

As an adult I feel like to be still 6-years old some-times. And sometimes I feel like that 6-years-old me was way more wise than I am now. Becoming an adult made me feel a little like I’ve stopped to under-stand the world, so I try to keep my inner child alive. Maybe it’s a way to avoid becoming crazy.

My inner child keeps me stay warm-hearted, kind, open-minded. I’m trying to find the best in people, hope for better days, create new stuff and have a lit-tle bit of fun in my life -- my brain shouldn’t be the only chief of my personality, even if I’m a very ratio-nal and pessimistic person.

Yakuzuzu: What would you advise to your 18-years-old self?

Laura: I would recommend to my 18-years-old self not to be so pessimistic during my teens and early twenties. I know I was super-sarcastic and unhappy 24-7. We live just once, so let’s not waste our life en-ergy on negativity. It took me a lot of time to realize that happiness comes only from your very own.

27

Interview with Ramiro Murguia, the founder of Latinomics

“People here in Vienna think I am rich. My parents think I am poor, because not owning a house in Mexico means that I am a poor guy. As for me, being rich means I can do what I want to do. So for me, I am rich.”

Ramiro Murguia, born in Mexico, founded the non-profit organisation Latinomics, which helps Latin Americans getting better education or gain-ing work experience abroad through social pro-grammes. As an example, their Global Internship Programme links talented students with startups around the globe, allowing them to gain their first professional experience.

The headquarters of Latinomics is located in Vien-na’s 3rd district, in a co-working office. I see young people chilling with their laptops in a small cafeteria on the ground floor on a Thursday evening, at 7 pm. I am surrounded by motley pieces of furniture and artwork while inspirational quotes are painted all over the walls in the stairway. It feels like a cosy flat-share of creative students.

Ramiro is walking barefoot up and down, talking loud on his iPhone when I enter his office. “Holaaa Marlena, que bonito verte! Wait one moment my colleague will bring you a coffee and then we can start. But we might have to sit outside on the small sofa in the corridor, because a friend will need my office for a team meeting later.”

While I am waiting for Ramiro in the lounge, I see other young creatives passing by and saying friend-ly hellos. After a while, Ramiro joins me and starts to share the story of Latinomics.

“We are a young worldwide non-profit organisation, which I started in 2010. The idea was to create a blog for a »new« vision of the economics in Latin America. In the beginning I was blogging once or twice a week about my own ideas, how to change the economic situation there. It was both criticising and finding new solutions. I always compared my theories with personal stories so that people could understand my ideas better.” – starts Ramiro. “I could hardly believe that after only a few months I had close to 5000 followers. Therefore, still within the blog, I started

Education should be about passion

Marlene Zemann / 2014 / Issue 1

Yakuzuzu Zine

28

to create social educational programmes for Latin America. In a few years, my small blog turned out to be a worldwide organisation, already having a great impact on the lives of millions of people.”

Yakuzuzu: How did you finance the proj-ect?

“I started out with my savings, and my partner, Ro-berto Arrucha, also contributed a lot. Nowadays the programmes are founded by our stakeholders.”

Yakuzuzu: When did you decide to start Latinomics?

RAM: “I was 23 years old when I started travelling alone in the world. I have been to over 35 countries and saw a lot of differences between the economies of Europe and Latin America. I come from Mexico City, from a poor family. The people there still be-lieve that education is not necessary or important, but for me it always was. During my travels I discov-ered other ways of life, and got inspired by the places and things I have seen and the people I have met.

However, the actual turning point came later. I was already working for 3 and half years for the Unit-ed Nations, when I realised that I wanted to create my own business instead. I can work with assholes, you will find them everywhere — but I cannot work with people who have a very short vision. It kills my soul. I just did not feel good there anymore, because I could not think different in that working environ-

ment. Decisions are largely influenced by politics and come from top to bottom. So if you are in a low-er position, no one will realise your ideas, no matter how much of a genius you are. I felt limited, so I had to get out of that system and try something differ-ent. I knew that I would have to give up the »high standard« I got used to, like the big flat and the good salary. But how much does money count when your daily life makes you unhappy?”

Yakuzuzu: You have your main office of in Vienna. How come?

RAM: “Because of love.” (Smiling.) “I have met an Austrian girl in Argentina, and we fell in love. I ap-plied for an MBA programme in Vienna, and that’s where the journey started, although unfortunately we broke up since. And the decision for the office’s location is just strategy; our programmes have nothing to do with Vienna. Just imagine we would have the main office in Bratislava or Vietnam?! People trust our organisation more because we have our main office in a city like Vienna. They think, »Wooow an office in Vienna, it must be an success-ful organisation!« (Laughing.) »But we do actually also have offices in Mexico, Vietnam and Kairo, where the programmes are managed.«”

Yakuzuzu: What are the challenges in your business?

RAM: “Money, money, money… As we are a non-prof-it, we have a very limited budget and that makes our

29

business quite tough. Beside the financial problem, we are doing things that no one has done before. For example, with the “Future Maker Programme”, we want to give Latin Americans the chance to work for non-profits around the globe. Since no one has done this before, we cannot use existing concepts or learn from our competitors. Another challenge is that we have to convince our stakeholders to believe in our complex concepts, and it’s even harder to find the right people to work with.”

Yakuzuzu: Did you ever want to give up?

RAM: “Three times per day!” (Laughing.) “No, hon-estly, it happens to me two times a month. These times are often hard, because I still have to motivate my team. But since I am a hyperactive, proactive and creative person, I think I will always have an inner creed, which is pushing me forward.”

Yakuzuzu: What is your strategy for fighting the weak moments?

RAM: “I like watching motivational videos. You can find a lot of those podcasts on Youtube. My favour-ite example is “Mateusz M“. In general, I am always trying to surround myself with people who are try-ing different things, and who inspire me. Also, I learned to isolate myself from the real world. I do not like to watch the news on TV, because I do not want to infect my ideas with bad news.”

“I am not sure whether I am happy or not. I do not ask myself such questions.”

Yakuzuzu: What is your recipe for find-ing happiness? Do you have any advice?

RAM: “Personally, what makes me happy at the mo-ment is that every day is unique and different in my office. I am happy that I can work with people from different countries and cultures. It makes me feel alive when I see that I can help to improve people’s lives. And of course, my social environment is very important to me. As I am living far from my fami-ly I enjoy talking to them as much as possible on the Internet, and every winter I have to go back to my roots for a couple of weeks. I have one personal ad-vice to everyone: travel travel, travel, it makes you so much richer!”

Yakuzuzu: If you could change something in this world what would it be?

RAM: “Definitely the educational system! It does not fit to the reality we have now. We cannot create »box brains« anymore, it’s too old fashioned. Our educational system comes from the industrial rev-olution, when you studied something, then you got a job in the same field. Today the world works in a different way, so we need to change the education! It should be related to passion. That is the key fac-tor we are using on in our new social programme for universities: we try to figure out the profile of stu-dents, then use this to create them a better degree programme.”

Yakuzuzu: Would your 6-year-old-self be happy about you now?

RAM: “Haha, well I remember that I wanted to be a firefighter! But yes, I think the little guy would be satisfied with me, because every day I am do-ing what I believe in, and try to give the best I can. Also, I think that happiness is not a constant state, it is more about the satisfaction, that I am trying to reach in my life. I am not competing with anyone. I do not believe either in failure or success. However, right now, I am not sure whether I am happy or not. I do not ask myself such questions.”

30

What does a surf instructor do, when he can’t be a surf instructor any longer?

The worst fear of all professional athletes is that once they have to stop doing the sport they love and live for. For a surfer, surfing is more than just an activity: it’s a lifestyle. It’s life.

I’ve met Colin for the first time in Rhodes, Greece a few years ago. He was the experienced, passionate surf instructor, while I was the secretary in the same windsurf school. He was the kind of young guy that all the girls fall in love with. Tall, with curly brown hair and a cute French accent. And of course, the typical surfer clothes: sunglasses, board shorts and a hoody. The lot.

I was a beginner windsurfer, and this was my first experience with the surfer scene. I arrived on the is-land with nothing but prejudices about surfer boys. You know, just to mention one:

“they have it all too easy”

I was quite surprised to learn that Colin is different. Somehow he just didn’t think he was cool. Almost seven years have passed since we have first met and we are still friends, at least pen pals, thanks to Face-

book and Skype. We didn’t have the chance to meet in person since: Colin had to leave Rhodes mid-sea-son because of severe health problems.

In our interview, Colin tells us about his journey. About the day when he received the bad news from his doctor, and the path to find his new passion: to travel through France in his van, and write beautiful stories about extreme sports and athletes.

My Skype is ringing and I’m excited. So many years have passed by, but now it seems like it was just a few months ago that we have been on Rhodes. He didn’t change much. Maybe seems a little more relaxed now. And happier too. Delighting to see.

“Since I was a kid, I’ve been windsurfing.” – Colin be-gins – “I grew up in a kind of »nomadic family«: we were moving from one place to the other in France. But like most people, one day my parents decided to settle down. They bought a house in the French Alps, in the place they loved the most.”

So what can a 18 years old boy do when his ambi-tions don’t meet his parents’? “I wanted to go full time windsurfing, so I quit school and moved to the

Even better than cool

Marlene Zemann / 2015 / Issue 2

Yakuzuzu Zine

31

Coast. I was 18 when I got my windsurf instructor li-cense, and from that point, I was travelling through Europe, teaching windsurf and wake boarding in different schools.”

“I had so much fun these days, as you would imag-ine! I was completely free, spending my days with parties and windsurfing… you know, I was young, I didn’t care about anything. I just wanted to have as much fun as possible! In that time I thought that´s the perfect life, wasting all my money in parties and alcohol. I spent four years like that until the disaster happened.” – He takes a deep breath and continues a lot slower. His eyes are telling me that it’s still hard to talk about what happened to him.

“Doctors diagnosed a rare disease in my back. It was in 2008, I remember every painful day of that year. This disease is called Spondyloarthritis. I had so much pain, that I couldn’t even move for a couple of months.”

“In the hospital I was told that I could never ever surf in my life again. I just wanted to hang myself.”

“After some time I felt better again and I thought I was ok again. So I started the season in Rhodes work-

ing as a windsurf instructor. But after two months in, the pain returned. I had to quit and go back to France to my parents’ house. This time was even worse, because all my plans collapsed and I strug-gled with finding a new one. I knew I had to change everything and find a way to be happy with another lifestyle.”

Yakuzuzu: Is there a cure?

COLIN: No. It´s a chronic disease which you have to deal with until a scientist somewhere finds a treat-ment. For now it doesn’t look like that’s anytime soon though… I get an injection every week and I have to maintain a healthy lifestyle – so no parties and no alcohol. I am still windsurfing, but not as cra-zy as I used to. Just from time to time, when my back feels strong enough to do it. I learned to accept it and I started another passion of mine: writing stories.

Since I was a kid I loved reading books and writing, so I moved to Caen to write for a surf shop blog. I wrote about new surf-equipment and made each post to be a small poetic story. I gained more and more follow-ers with time, so thought it would be a good idea to start my own online magazine one day.

32

Always writing about the same things, this job be-came quite boring after a while, and my brain felt like shrinking — so I moved on and I travelled a cou-ple of months through New Zealand. The best trip of my life! When I returned to France, I started work-ing on my blog, “So rad le mag”.

Yakuzuzu: What is this blog about?

COLIN: I am writing about extreme sports. Or more like, I write about the crazy people who are doing those. Most of them are windsurfers, surfers, wake boarders, skaters, free skiers or snowboarders. In the summer season I travel along the coast and in the winter I´m moving to the Alps to catch some good stories there.

I want to show the people the vibe of the extreme sports as it was in the old days. Today everything seems to be about fashion, the business and making money. I think that is killing the soul of these sports. I am writing about the stories, the people, the amaz-ing freedom which hits you when you ride a wave with your surfboard.

I don´t tell stories about competitions either, be-cause I want people to feel the passion and not the business. Today it really feels like it’s a show busi-ness. Magazines are writing about who is the best or who is wearing the fanciest clothes. So Rad is differ-ent. It’s about fun and passion, even you don´t have the best moves on your board or you are not wearing the latest shorts.

Yakuzuzu: What does “So Rad” mean?

COLIN: Do you know the Ninja Turtles? They always said “So Rad!”. It means, “even better than cool”.

Yakuzuzu: What’s your biggest challenge now?

COLIN: The most challenging thing is to find a good story. I don’t want to write just to keep on posting. In the beginning I was quite shy to speak to the people, but now I got used to it. Also I do not like to spend lots of time behind my laptop. But it´s ok as long as I can travel. That´s my “golden life”. I do not spend a lot of money, because I don´t have it.

Quite often I sleep on the beach. Sometimes it can be tough when you are really hungry and you real-ise that you have not enough money left for the next days. That happened to me a few times. On one surf event I just ate apples every day, because I ran out of money and that’s what they gave away for free.

Yakuzuzu: So you are not earning money with your blog?

COLIN: I don’t. Although I became rather well known in the sports scene in France, and this way I appear as a speaker on some events. I also write for other magazines. But from time to time I have to go back to my base, my parents’ house to have some nice food again. My dream is that one day my mag-azine becomes so well known that I can live from it.

Yakuzuzu: How does your average day look like?

COLIN: I don’t have a routine. Every day is a new day. I do check my mails regularly and I often go for in-terviews and I am driving a lot around with my car. I go to new places nearly every week. I like that I meet so many people, but in the meanwhile I am also pret-ty alone. In one way it sucks but on the other hand it´s cool. But of course, sometimes I just wish there would be someone who is close, beyond my parents and friends.

Right now I don´t want to change anything though. I want to continue as long as possible with that kind of lifestyle. For the future my dream is that I have

Yakuzuzu Zine

33

that much success with my mag that I could afford external writers and I could just go where I want, be-ing totally free without caring about money.

Maybe then I would also settle down one day, per-haps in New Zealand. I still don´t know if I am real-ly the person for settling down. I grew up like this, moving from one place to another. I want to see more all the time.

Yakuzuzu: What makes you wake up ev-ery day?

COLIN: For now the cat of my sister, crying “Meow, meow”. But in general, when I am hungry or when I just want to wake up to see how the day is like. Is it sunny or cloudy?

Yakuzuzu: What is your receipt of find-ing happiness? Do you have any advices?

COLIN: Don´t do what you don´t like to do, that’s it. If you do what you don´t like you won´t be happy. Sometimes you have to work for it. You have to give it time to find what you really want to do. Some peo-ple seem like they don´t want to find it, that´s sad. You have to realise that sometimes you cannot catch it in the time you want to reach it.

Yakuzuzu: If you could change something in this world what would it be?

COLIN: If I could change on thing, then I would cure my disease. In general there is just one thing, peace in the world (laughing). It sounds so cliche, but yeah that´s it. Imagine turning on the radio and not hear-ing all this awful things which are going on in the world!

And there is another small thing that I would change: I would change my beard, so that it would grow everywhere.

Yakuzuzu: Would your 6-year-old-self be happy about you now?

COLIN: I think he would be surprised, as I was al-ways reading as a kid - I think he would be quite hap-py though, as I have always had the same dream: to travel and do cool stuff which I love.

Yakuzuzu Zine

34

Chris visits Motor City: can it be as bad as people say?

An average of 350 murders per year, over 100,000 abandoned buildings, high unemployment rates, extreme crime rates and several bankruptcies – the things you hear about Detroit are usually nothing good. And if you look at the hard facts, there isn’t really any reason to set foot in this city.

But it can’t possibly be as bad as everyone says. I think.

It’s early evening by the time we drive along the city highway. In the distance, you can see Michigan Cen-tral Station. A huge neoclassical building, once the tallest train station in the world. In 1988, the last train departed for Chicago. Since then, the land-marked building has been abandoned to decay. It might be the clearest symbol for many things in this city. For the many different legacies of a golden era. For the standard-setting and innovative Detroit, most of which, these days, lies fallow. Or for the many employees of the automobile industry, which today seem condemned to the bitter fate of futility.

Detroit, laid out for more than 1.8 million people, is now inhabited by fewer than 700,000. That means

a demographic decline of about 60 percent. And you can feel that. In huge shopping centers, where thousands of people should be bustling, you find a few employees, here and there a businessman, and a handful of beggars. The downtown is similar. Detroit has an impressive city center with unique buildings, covering many different architectural styles. It must have been wonderful to stroll here in the years when the city was in its blooming period. But now?

Freaking empty.

Vacancies and decay wherever you look. Entire sky-scrapers – empty! In the middle of the city center of an American metropolis. Yes, it takes a while to believe it. For a few minutes, we see no other foot traffic than the beggars at the large intersections. At red lights, drivers are forced to stop. That way, the beggars could process the line car by car in the hope of getting a few coins. Pedestrians they follow for hundreds of meters. An experience that we made plenty of times, too. It shows what existential pover-ty seems to reign in this city.

Nothing Stops Detroit

Chris Dabiri / 2014 / Issue 3

35

Some of the world’s most famous cars were built in Detroit

Detroit is plainly the car city – simply “Motor City”. The world’s most famous classics from General Mo-tors, Chrysler and Ford were built here. Today, the city has lost the glance of a Ford Mustang or a Cor-vette. But despite that, it’s still the automobile that gives the cityscape its (admittedly weak) life. It is one of the last noticeable signs that Detroit is no true ghost town.

I had heard a lot about Detroit before I came here. Lots of facts, stories and reasons why it was a shit idea to travel here. Would it all come true? Well, at least not all of them, because it seems that there are real options in this city as it has plenty of opportuni-ties due to good infrastructure, low rents and and a bunch of people trying to make a change.

[One of the very well known projects in Detroit is the so called “Heidelberg Project”. In it, the facades of empty houses are lovingly decorated and embel-lished. But even here the same game is still at play: About half of the houses of this project have been burned down and destroyed in the last months. Caused by arson.

“Nothing stops Detroit”, they say.

The words of my taxi driver are still in my head: “You know, there are a lot of clever, creative people in Detroit. A lot of startups are trying it. But there are at least as many idiots here. If you want to make a difference, you don’t just need money, time and patience, you also need a strong will”.

And that is also my impression: There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of projects and attempts to make the city attractive again. But it will probably take many years to conquer the strong stigma of the city. Vandalism, poverty and violence are too much of ev-eryday events in Detroit. It’s clearly everywhere. Yet there’s hope: Again and again, I hear that the people of Detroit are known for their resilience. I think it must be true, since anyone who’s still here after de-cades of decline can’t be shocked by anything any-more, right?

Later, I read that renovations on the old Michigan Central Station are beginning. Date of completion? Vague. But I want to look at it again in a couple of years. Things will change, I am convinced.

The story continues! Occupied houses and taxi drivers, read on on Chris’ brand new blog:www.thetravelstories.com/whats-left-of-detroit

Camila and Paulo about opportunity, life and balance

They seem to have hacked it, life. Camila and Paulo live in one of Europe’s oldest cities, get to surf in the Atlantic Ocean in the mornings, and are constantly sur-rounded by creative people. They run a guesthouse and countless side projects: opened a restaurant, working as interior designers or vintage photographers. And they don’t seem to be running out of en-ergy anytime soon.

Watching Camila and Paulo, as they look at each other after every question, completing the other one’s sentences, I tend to believe that the energy and inspiration is somewhere within.

“We have met in Portugal; that was the time when I left Australia after living there for a good three years. Paulo was a waiter in the restaurant where Mariana, our friend in common was cooking.” – says Camila. “And only six month later we got married.” Well, I guess if you know, then you know – and this marriage seems to be one of those that are indeed happy-ever-after: Camila and Paulo are together for over three years now.

About their guesthouse, Paulo explains that it all started with an empty room in his flat share a few years back. “We had four rooms but were only liv-ing in three. One day I’ve put out an advert for the 4th room, and it turned out to be a nice way to make some extra money. So when the other two guys left the apartment, I rented out their room as well – and realised: I’m making more money with Airbnb than in the restaurant!”

When they opened Pensão Rosinha, the art gallery and bread-and-breakfast in Lisbon, they already had an idea how to gather guests: on the Internet. And though Pensão Rosinha is being found most-ly through Airbnb, it’s not a usual Airbnb spot. As soon as people enter the flat for the second time even, they announce themselves loud-and-proud, go to the living room or the kitchen and listen to music, chat, read – everyone seems to feel at home right away.

Lisbon’s quirky atmosphere contributes a whole lot to the experience for sure. With crazy clubs, fresh sea food and narrow stairways between the ancient buildings, the *San Francisco of Europe* is one of the best cities to spend a weekend full of fun. Or a lifetime full of – well, life.

Hacking the Airbnb lifestyle

Richard Dancsi / 2014 / Issue 1

Yakuzuzu Zine

37

“The good thing with Lisbon is that it’s pretty much tourist season all year”

Or maybe it’s all about being good hosts. Camila and Paulo are certainly doing something right. They decorated the house with a great taste, host dinners every now and then, when they cook for everyone in the guesthouse. They also invented the Supper Club, Mary and Rose. Two of their friends, Mariana Car-doso and Mariana Sousa joined Camila and Paulo as hosts. After the success of the Supper Club, the four friends opened their own restaurant, Fumeiro de Santa Catarina. “We couldn’t just handle so many projects all at once” says Paulo about why himself and Camila are only guests now in the restaurant.

“You always need time for the new projects.” – con-tinues Paulo, and explains how a childhood friend of his, Nuno is looking after the guests in Pensão Ros-inha most of the time now. “Nuno was living for 7 years in the Netherlands, and when he moved back, he was staying with us for in the guesthouse for a few weeks. We had a lot of talks and he turned out to be working with us now.” – says Camila. “It’s great, be-cause now we have more time to do other things.”

Other projects they have indeed. They say that if you like football, you don’t need to be a player: you can be a coach, produce equipment, or just open a website for football fans. In a very similar manner,

Camila and Paulo seem to be very much into great food and arts – and so they started an interior design business. As their first official project as decorators, they renewed the restaurant Atalho Real.

“We are really proud of the artists we work with.” – says Camila. “Before we started working on Atalho Real, we went to a shop to look for furniture. We fell in love with a few pieces and it turned out that it’s all from the same designer.” The shop was nice enough to introduce them to each other, and it became a fruitful relationship. Just look at the photos of the new Atalho Real.

38

And if that’s not enough work, Paulo explains an-other project they are excited about now: vintage photography. Their most recent purchase is a 110 years old camera lens which they plan to put into daily use soon: they would go about on Lisbon’s streets and take photos of people, using this ancient technology. It’s like a cool Polaroid camera: once the picture is taken, Paulo would work with the chemi-cals within the machine and soon give the photo to the customers. “The good thing with Lisbon is that it’s pretty much tourist season all year. So you get to try all these ideas right away, there’s no need to wait.”

So would the 6-year old Camila and Paulo happy about their now-selves? That’s a definite yes. “Of course! We are doing something creative, and we contribute something nice to the world every day.” — says Paulo. Camila agrees, and adds, laughing “It wasn’t so much so five years ago though”. For sure, we need those party years to really find out what we want.

As for the future, Camila and Paulo seems to just play by ear: starting any creative project they can come up with, while trying to maintain a healthy work-life-balance. Pensão Rosinha is always evolv-

Yakuzuzu Zine

39

ing as well: now there are two floors, with the first floor being rented out only for bigger, 10-15 person groups. “We saw a big demand from groups of those sizes, but there is almost no place they could go to.” – says Paulo about why they started this idea. “It’s also good for the business: we don’t need to fill the house every day, because weekends alone could pay our bills.”

It looks like Camila and Paulo are quite happy with-in the world right now. There are only a few things they would change. “We just watched the movie ‘Cowspiracy’. We were shocked.” – starts Paulo and Camila joins in: “It opened our eyes, how we really treat animals. One cow, one day, is being fed 150 litres of water and extreme amounts of soy. Just to create 300 grams of meat, we are using unbelievable resources.”

So, as it seems, the menu in the restaurant might as well change a bit. For all the other projects of Cami-la and Paulo’s I can only guess – but I’m sure that whatever new ventures they will start up: it will be creative, sustainable, and at least a bit fun. Let’s keep an eye on them.

(Photos: Flavio Loetscher, Paulo Cardoso.)

Quest to find the smartest tough man alive

Two people face each other in the box ring, full of muscles and full of tension. Sweat is rolling down on one guy’s face and blood on the other’s, as they are: hunching over a chess board.

The two opponents have noise-cancelling head-phones on to filter out the classical music we hear, and I wonder how much a headphone can do about the blood rush in the head. Because one of the guys does not look great. And he has about one minute left to win this game by chess mate, before the fight music returns, and his opponent begins throwing uppercuts to his head.

This is the wonderful sport of chess boxing.

The rules are fairly straight forward: two people fight each other in eleven alternating rounds of chess and boxing. Starting with four minutes of chess, there are a maximum of six chess and five box rounds. The result is decided when an opponent is either deemed incapable to continue in the ring, or when the game ends on the board by chess mate.

We are watching the guy with the bleeding head, moving the rooks around in the 7th round, and in-deed, he is very close to win the game. Just about a few moves in fact. But then the bell rings, loud Prod-igy fills up the room and the two opponents stand up to get their gloves on. You can touch the tension: the situation on the chess board leaves the big guy with only one chance now, to knock his opponent out in the next round. Or, at least, knock the plans out of his head, together maybe with all the knowledge about how the rooks are meant to move about.

Now, that is motivation.

Chess boxing sounds like a joke but it isn’t one. The punches do hurt, the pain is real as is the humili-ation after a bad move and loosing the queen. But, just like in real life, a good strategy can even out the chances. The geek kid who never cared for the phys-ical education class has the chance to outsmart the bully on the chess board. And the bully, by all means, can beat all the smart out of the smarty pants.

This is chess, and this is boxingRichard Dancsi / 2014 / Issue 1

40

This is the perfect combination of power and brain, manly and nerdy. It is also amazing to see what sorts of backgrounds the players come from. There are riot cops, sailors, professional boxers who had some-one in their family teaching them the ins-and-outs of chess. And there are folks who happened to grow bigger than average, taking their kickboxing hobby very seriously during high school and university, while maintaining their brain capacities.

And the bully, by all means, can beat all the smart out of the smarty pants.

It is the perfect sport then for most men to watch, and as it is, the arena is packed mostly with men, slightly on the nerd side. I am indeed, together with friends who are managing tech teams (although, as I am told, there are women among the players as well). And what a perfect origin story for a sport like this as well: it has been invented in a comic book. Enki Bilal is a Serbian cartoonist legend. In his hardcov-er book, “Alexander Nikopol — Gesamtausgabe” he tells a story of an utopia from the year 2034, where violence reaches high levels in a post-apocalyp-tic society. People play ice hockey with steel pock and blade-sticks. In Enki’s comics, boxing is set on a chess board ground, and in the end of the match the winner gets to hammer his opponent with the queen.

This is of course no fun sport to do yet. The Dutch artist, Iepe Rubingh was the one who organised the first real chess boxing event in 2003, and in fact, he was the one who came up with the rules for an actual sport. And what a fantastic one! The well engineered rules make the game: whenever someone has an ad-vantage on the chess board, it is almost sure that he is going to have a disadvantage in the ring. This cre-ates fantastic dynamics for the game, and an envi-ronment where motivations and strategies change with the wind. The chess board is projected onto a big screen so that the audience can follow the game. Then, while the fight music is setting the mood, peo-ple warm up and start shouting for the players. The best sport to watch really.

It is still early in the life of chess boxing, but there are a few clubs already all around the world. Rubingh said before in an interview that he wants to solve the

world’s politics via chess boxing, for example, hold-ing a match between an Israeli and a Palestinian guy, where the winner gets to decide what happens to Is-rael. Well, I am not so sure if that was a good idea. Rubingh also says chess boxing could be an olympic sport. That, I couldn’t support more.

(Photos: Chess Boxing Global.)

Yakuzuzu Zine

41

Painted light brings Sydney’s Sculptures by the Sea alive

The coastal walk along Sydney’s Bondi to Tamara-ma beaches showcases over 50 works of internation-al artists, weaved conspicuously across the iconic beach shoreline. This surreal playground of weird, wonderful, beautiful and oddball goes by the name of Sculptures By the Sea – an open-air exhibition, which has been luring Sydney-siders and guests out as the summer returns for the last 19 years.

This year, I decided to explore the sculptures in a different light – painted light, to be exact – at a light painting photography workshop run by Jo Langtry and Jay Evans. Just before sundown, Jo, Jay and a team of very, very dedicated photographers gath-ered at Tamarama equipped with cameras, tripods, light saber-esque torches and some steel wool and egg beaters (will explain that one later). And snacks (I get hungry).

I was a novice on all accounts – I hadn’t yet seen the sculptures in the daylight, and I’d never been light painting before. It was quite a strange experience lugging around my equipment in pitch black, not really quite sure what I was pointing my camera at, and not really sure what to make of Jo and Jay as they moved around the sculptures with their light sabres and torches in the cool night air. I whispered to one of the other photographers, “I wonder what people think we’re doing right now.” He replied, “Yeah, photographers are kind of weird.”

Weird – and beautifully so. As soon as I clicked my shutter closed I saw just how beautiful that weird was. Jo and Jay were artful, strategic and generous. They had mapped the course, selected artworks and light painting techniques that brought the sculp-tures alive, even at night, deserted by the crowds.

Playing with the Ring of Fire

Claire Benito / 2015 / Issue 4

42

When a shot wasn’t quite right, they experimented with different equipment, different settings, differ-ent ‘dances’ of light.

My favourite technique was what I like to call the Ring of Fire, and Jo and Jay saved it for the very end of the shoot with the more ‘epic’ sculptures. Essen-tially you tie an egg beater to a rope, stuff the egg beater with steel wool, light the steel wool and swing

it around your head. It sounds like something Mac-Gyver made up and I was happy to be part of it. It’s always a pleasure to stroll around the sculptures in the daylight, but thanks to Jo and Jay I got to expe-rience a new perspective of the artworks, ignited at night.

Photos by the author.Follow Claire on Twitter: @clairebenito_

43

A gift from Greek God of the Wind, Aeolus

Typical Greek airport awaits the tourists on the is-land Lefkada. To reach the small terminal building, you have to cross the runway on a tiny foot path. Inside, there is just one baggage carousel, one toilet with no toilet paper, and a few wooden benches. The upside: it’s quite hard to get lost there.

Outside, an abundance of taxis. I caught one and it drove me one hour south to the small village Vasi-liki, where I would spend my summer working for a windsurf school.

I was told before that Lefkada is one of the greenest and most beautiful islands of Greece. Looking out of the window of the cab I started to understand why people fancy the island. I like to call it the “Tuscany of Greece”: a hilly landscape with earth-coloured Mediterranean houses, high diversity of plants, amazing beaches and the turquoise sea.

Aeolus, the god of wind in Greek mythology, offers the best gift for us: one of the best freestyle windsurf spots of the world.

Choose your wind

Never-ever tried windsurfing before? The fever is definitely going to hit you in Vasiliki. The spot is mostly known by freestyle cracks, because of its nice flat water and strong wind in the afternoon.

In the summer months, from June till September, you can be sure to catch a lot of windy days. One of the best features of this island is, that it’s a great place for both beginners and experienced surfers.

The typical day in Vasiliki starts with a light on-shore wind in the mornings – perfect for beginners – and after lunch, around 3 or 4pm, the wind blows side-shore around 4-7 bft. (That’s a lot of wind! Read more on the Beaufort scale.)

Before the turning point there is a strange short lull. During this time the air feels extremely hot and tense. The flags are suddenly turning and changing direction, and then you know that the natural forces came to life. It is so funny to watch all the surf ad-dicts getting nervous and running to prepare their boards and sails.

Windsurfers’ dream town: Vasiliki

Marlene Zemann / 2015 / Issue 3

Yakuzuzu Zine

44

My favourite time on the water has always between 6-9pm, when most riders have already left for din-ner. The water is as smooth as glass, but there are still enough gusts to catch. After surfing, but still in wetsuits and so a bit freezing, we used to have a few drinks in the surf club. Great days… great team spirit!

Be careful in the evening though, when the sun dis-appears behind the mountain: wind can suddenly drop this time, and you might need to be rescued.

Schools

There are five different windsurfing schools and one sailing school right on the beach. Most of them are English clubs, but there is also a German and a Greek one. The German school, “Human Sports” is a family place where a lot of Italians, Germans and Austrians like to spend their holiday. If you prefer more action and a lot of wild parties you should definitely stay at “Club Vass”, the biggest club of the spot. If you are a boat or catamaran sailer you are in the best hands at the sailing club “Wild Wind”.

Underwater or up in the hills

Besides water sports, Vasiliki is also great for moun-tain biking, because of its hills. Even some of the surf schools offer organised bike trips, but you are also free to just rent a bike and discover the beautiful island on your own. The best time to start a trip is in the early mornings, around 6am, because later the heat can make you suffer.

The bay is not best for swimming, because of the many windsurfers and the stones on the beach. Bet-ter to do a day trip to Agiofili, Porto Katsiki or Mylos Beach. You can reach those by boat or car, and can find beautiful sandy beaches with turquoise water.

Hungry? Thirsty?

Vasiliki is a rather small, but very charming place with its beautiful harbour, many cafes and restau-rants. You can find some of the best restaurants and coffee shops along the harbour. My favourite one is Jomil’s Cafe, which you can find nearby the boats that arrange trips to Agiofili. Katherina, the Greek owner, makes you the best frappe while you relax on the cosy furniture. I used to go there on my free mornings to enjoy the calm, sleepy village.

For breakfast, you should try the chocolate crois-sants or other delicacies from the bakery shops. You have to eat fresh fish at the restaurant “Ocean’s”, where they also serve typical Greek starters. Yum-my! If you prefer pizza and Italian food in general,

46

go to “Miramare”, which is located on the square. Ten minutes by car, in the small village Kontarena, the great and cheap tavern “The Old Plane Tree” is definitely worth a try. They serve huge plates of tra-ditional Greek food, so you won’t return home hun-gry. On the other side of the bay at “Ponti”, you can find great seafood, for example at “Vasiliki wave”. For a drink after dinner go to “155”, where you will find nice chill-out atmosphere and amazing cock-tails.

Ride the Rave

Saturday night in Vasiliki, 1 am, and the town vi-brates. All party people, mostly riders meet at Zeus Bar, the one and only club of Vasiliki. There is no need for more options, because the parties there are definitely crazy enough. People dance on the bar top all night long, with UV colours painted all over their face.

It’s very British, but they know how to rock the night. I had one of my best parties in my life there. It’s so different than a night out in my hometown, Vien-na. Maybe it’s the heat. Or the sea directly beside the club. Or just the surfers’ vibe in the air, everybody still being high on adrenaline after a day out on the sea. Hard to describe the feeling, you probably just have to go there!

Some dates you shouldn’t miss

Every Tuesday: live music at Wild Wind, Afterpar-ty at Zeus Bar;Every Thursday: Cocktail night at Wild Wind;Every Friday: Club Vass BBQ. Get some hot sausages served by half naked Surfer Boys, Afterparty at Zeus Bar;Every Saturday: Zeus Bar, or Tunnel, a Greek bar

47

Yakuzuzu Zine

Sleeping time

There are several rooms or studios to rent, and a small camp side directly at the beach. If you prefer more luxury, you can rent a villa up in the hills. Some of the cheapest apartments are not to be found on the internet – the best is probably to arrive without a booking, and find a place by asking around. Make sure to book in advance for August though, the peek month in Vasiliki.

Year after year

After spending my first season in Vasiliki, I thought of trying another spot the next summer – but some-how this island seemed to have caught me and many of my friends whom I’ve met there. After spending four seasons on the island, I still come back for holi-days. It’s a little like coming home.

Thanks to the amazing pictures to GlobalShots!Photos by Jay Haysey

Is it worth leaving the train station with only one hour to kill?

You have to change trains in Antwerp and have 60 minutes before catching connec-tions. Will you hang around the station, or use the time to discover the city? This article is for the ones who chose the lat-ter.

Get off the train in Antwerp, and chances are that you don’t even know which country you are in. Did you set foot in the Netherlands? Are you in Belgium, or Germany? Do you remember crossing the French border?

(A wonderful game for long train rides: guess which countries Dutch-sounding cities are located in. Go ahead and try to place Eindhoven, Maastricht and Ghent. How many points do you have?)

Antwerp is in Belgium, and is actually the second largest Belgian city after Brussels. It’s also the capi-tal of the province Flanders, which makes it a rather Dutch town.

Chocolate- and brewery-heaven, that is. Fried chips with Samurai sauce, here we come.

Route options

Once you’re off the train, you are immediately fac-ing a tough decision. Antwerp’s central station (or the “Rail Road Cathedral” for it being an amazing building), is just a few minutes walk from the city centre, but you only have time for one of these three things to do.

Go to the Zoo. Upside is that it’s right at the rear exit of central station, downside is that it’s a zoo — not a nice thing to keep wild animals in cages, and even worse: your friends won’t know whether you are in Antwerp or any other place on Earth.

You can also just play by ear and walk around the inner city for an hour. You’ll see the Market Square and the cathedral, together with the awesome-look-ing, 16th-century “Guildhouses”. It does make a pretty nice walk, especially during wintertime when the Christmas market is open.

With a slightly higher pace you can reach the St. Anna Tunnel, one of the oldest and longest tun-

Rapid sightseeing in: Antwerp

Richard Dancsi / 2015 / Issue 5

48

Yakuzuzu Zine

nels in Europe. It connects the two banks of River Scheldt, so you get to walk over 500 metres in a tight space, constructed in the 1930s, under a massive riv-er. How cool is that.

Antwerp checklist

To understand Antwerp a bit, we have to go back in time, to about the 16th century. The city was one of the most important financial centres of the world, traders from all over Europe and Asia sold and bought their goods here — just until the Spanish messed it all up and the banker-trader-capital role shifted towards Amsterdam.

You can actually feel a bit of Amsterdam with the international districts, trendy bars and shops, but without the many bridges, tiny canals or weed. It’s neither as well preserved as other medieval cities like Bruges or Ghent, although that perhaps makes it more fun: there are some cool jazz bars and con-temporary fashion shops around.

One thing that survived the centuries is the dia-mond district, or Diamantkwartier, where you can

probably find good deals if you happen to be on the market for gems. It’s said to be the largest diamond centre in the world today, with about 84% of the world’s rough diamonds passed through the district. Just to put the numbers into perspective: there are over 4000 of shops or merchants in a city with a pop-ulation of about 500.000 people.

It’s a rather rich city then with pretty houses, and even Europe’s first skyscraper was built here. The 26-storey (95 metres) Boerentoren is so Art Deco that it could easily be in New York or Chicago.

Many of the buildings have an interesting history as well. As an example, the City Hall is told to be a repli-ca by many sources – which is actually kind-of true: only 10 years after it was finished, it burned down to the ground. Only to be rebuilt three years later, in 1579.

Let’s not get lost in the details though: mind you, you have only one hour to go. Many of the buildings have been turned into museums, so just collect the leaflets when you get near. You will have plenty of time read those on the next train ride.

49

The route to cover

You decided for going to the St. Anna Tunnel? Very wise choice! Pretty buildings are a dime a dozen, the claustrophobic tube-shaped tunnel run is a unique experience of a lifetime.

Don’t worry though: we have a route for you, where you can have a glimpse of the medieval parts, see the tunnel, and even buy diamonds – pretty much com-pleting everything from our checklist.

(If you are travelling with a big bag, you might ac-tually want to leave it at the station now. Medieval town. Cobblestones.)

As you leave the station, go towards the cathe-dral-looking tower, with the big “Antwerpen” sign on it. Exit the building; if you see the big Media Markt sign (or can connect to their wifi) you are at the right corner. Move along “De Keyserlei”, the high street with shops like Zara and Forever 21. Ig-nore all of those, and move towards the KBC Tower. (Remember? That’s Europe’s first skyscraper.)

Take a photo and walk further down the street. It now is called Schoenmarkt, just to change to Groenplaats two streets later, which then turns into Reyndersstraat in another two corners. Maybe you shouldn’t try to memorise street names at all. It’s a medieval city after all – just follow the map and you should see the St Anna tunnel’s entrance: a tiny, art-deco power-station-looking thing, with a 1930’s elevator in it.

Take the wooden escalators, go downstairs and take photos of the old-fashioned warning signs. Enjoy

the view for a second, then leave the tunnel and walk towards the river bank. That means turning left now – only losers walk the same way back.

Walk towards the fortress Het Steen, which is also a replica: Charles V. rebuilt it in 1520. Not even worth a close look therefore, and you probably also have to hurry now, so just turn right a few corners before, at a small street called “Suikerrui”. Follow this until you reach Grote Markt, the main square of the old town, and take some photos of Antwerp City Hall (behind you), the cathedral (the tall building in the front), while buying some trinkets on the market.

Pass the church, and take any street that seems to go straight. Walk as long as you see Central Station again, and get ready to take your train. But before: the diamond district starts just at the station’s rear exit.

Why don’t you buy a nice little something for your-self, to make the memories of this trip last forever?

- - -

Read more from this series on the blog:Rapid sightseeing in: PragueRapid sightseeing in: Amsterdam

50

Seasteading Institute wants to build floating cities and use them to test out new government ideas

In one of those startup-hostels in San Francisco, where young folks from all over the world build their businesses during the day and have drinks with heat-ed discussions during the night, I’ve bumped into an older guy. Grey hair, jeans and ironed shirt, and very serious look as he was talking about his current proj-ect: trying to purchase a former research-ship, that can be used to accommodate some 20 startups off-shore San Francisco.

Mooring startup-ships around the Valley is not a new idea: many international entrepreneurs would actually be interested in living just a few kilometres outside San Francisco — close enough to the city to get in anytime for an important meeting, but far enough to be on international waters, where no visa is needed.

The Seasteading Institute and its floating cities are on a whole new level though. They try to combine principles of both seasteading and startup cities,

and trying to negotiate with coastal nations for sub-stantial political independence.

It would be easy to disregard the floating cities as yet another unviable utopia, but the Seasteading Institute has some prestigious DNA: it was found-ed by activist, software engineer and political eco-nomic theorist Patri Friedman, grandson of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, and PayPal co-founder, first Facebook investor and philanthropist Peter Thiel.

“At The Seasteading Institute, we believe that ex-periments are the source of all progress. To find something better, you have to try something new,” said Patri Friedman, Chairman of the Board at the institute. “Currently, it is very difficult to exper-iment with alternative social systems on a small scale. Countries are so enormous that it is hard for an individual to make much difference. The world needs a place where those who wish to experiment

All land on Earth is already claimed

Richard Dancsi / 2015 / Issue 5

51

with building new societies can go to test out their ideas. All land on Earth is already claimed, making the oceans humanity’s next frontier.”

Just like a startup testing out new ideas while creat-ing their product, the institute would create these floating cities sort of for testing out new ideas for government. The most successful can then inspire change in governments around the world.

After making his first donation to the Seasteading Institute in 2008, Peter Thiel said, “Decades from now, those looking back at the start of the century will understand that Seasteading was an obvious step towards encouraging the development of more efficient, practical public sector models around the world. We’re at a fascinating juncture. The nature of government is about to change at a very fundamen-tal level.”

The cities are designed according to the needs of over a thousand potential residents. “The first city would be built on a network of 11 rectangular and five-sided platforms so the city could be rearranged according to its inhabitants’ needs like a floating jig-saw” — explained Joe Quirk, spokesman for the proj-ect. The nautical engineers and biologists plan to

build the floating islands to host aquaculture farms, floating healthcare, medical research islands, and sustainable energy powerhouses.

“The cost of living on the ocean must be low enough, and the business opportunities promising enough, that there is an economic incentive for people to live on seasteads,” said Randolph Hencken, Executive Director of the Seasteading Institute. “Currently, the high cost of open-ocean engineering serves as a large barrier to entry, and hinders entrepreneurship in international waters. This has led us to look for cost-reducing solutions within the territorial waters of a host nation, while still remaining dedicated to the goal of obtaining political autonomy for govern-mental experiments.”

When asked why the world needs seasteading, Joe Quirk said, “For centuries, brilliant people have been generating ideas for how to live together. These ideas can’t be tried out while 193 governments hold monopoly control over 7 billion captive citizens. We think thousands of pioneers are ready to become the founders of their own micro-nations. Politically, if we stop fighting, and start creating, we’ll discover the miraculous solutions we’re not imagining now.”

52

Yakuzuzu Zine

Independent Magazine

Editor in Chief:Richard Dancsi

Contributors:Marlene ZemannRichard DancsiFlavio LoetscherBarbara SzirmaiPéter SkolákChris DabiriClaire BenitoShanika de SousaIldikó TakácsJay Haysey

Contact:www.yakuzuzu.cominfo@yakuzuzu.comtwitter.com/@yakuzuzu

Proudly published by Bunt Ltd of London

2015

Yakuzuzu

(c) 2015 Yakuzuzu / www.yakuzuzu.com