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To commemorate the Smithsonian Presents Travels with Rick Steves magazine — now on sale online, and at newsstands nationwide — Rick is blogging about the 20 top destinations featured in that issue. One of those destinations is the German spa resort of Baden-Baden.
Germany’s spa town of Baden-Baden is a fun and relaxing place to splash around in a thermal bath. But, as with many resort towns, a more substantial history bubbles just beneath the surface. And, in the case of Baden-Baden, that history still has ripples today.
After the czars banned gambling, many Russians flocked to Baden-Baden, creating their own little Russian enclaves. (Many lost their fortunes, borrowed a pistol, and did themselves in on the so-called “Alley of Sighs.”) While the Russian expat community dwindled for a while, in recent years (after the end of communism), ultra-wealthy Russians have sought out safe property investments all over Europe…and Baden-Baden has re-emerged as a favorite destination. Russians have bought up property here like crazy. You’ll see Russian on multilingual signs around town. On my last visit, the lady who ran the launderette spoke German and Russian…but no English.
This is worrying to locals. The mayor — saying his town must either take action or let itself become essentially Russian-owned — recently declared that Russians were no longer allowed to purchase Baden-Baden real estate.
With immigration a persistent and complex issue in the USA, it’s good to remember that we’re not the only nation struggling with how to handle the realities of race, class distinctions, foreign investment, and use of government services. I see the same challenges all over Europe.
A vast suburb of Tallinn, Estonia, is filled with Russians. They were planted there during Soviet rule, and — although Estonia is now its own independent nation — they still refuse to embrace the local language, Estonian. They live as a separate, Russian-speaking community within Tallinn.
Norwegians — who pride themselves on not being racist — are upset with unemployed Pakistanis living in their country who, they say, don’t share the Norwegian work ethic, but take advantage of the luxurious Norwegian welfare state. I sense that Norwegians don’t know how to discuss this issue comfortably.
I was just in Gibraltar, and the buzz there was about a $20 million mosque built with money from the Middle East for the humble local community of 900 Muslims workers.
Just as people with less money go to work in wealthy lands, people with more money turn their vacation and retirement funds into maximum joy and comfort in cheaper places. I have a friend who’s a retired postman living very comfortably on his meager pension in southern Portugal. A Venetian friend of mine is excited about her new holiday home in Tunisia. No crowds, great beaches, very cheap — she said Tunisia is all the rage among Italians. Belgians have staked out their enclave in Spain’s Costa del Sol — just one more community where the stray Spaniard complains that some eateries don’t offer menus in Spanish. Americans are buying fixer-uppers in droves in rural Italy. And they’re doing it with the encouragement of a government that appreciates the economic boost these romantic Frances Mayes-wannabes bring to regions that need expat newcomers to keep from withering.
There are immigration issues everywhere you travel. Second-generation Turkish Germans can honestly say “Ich bin ein Berliner.” Construction work throughout France would slow to a trickle without Polish builders. While many are now careful to refer to Gypsies as “Roma,” there’s still not enough money to build a Holocaust memorial in Berlin to this group, which suffered a genocide that was comparable, in many ways, to what happened to the Jews.
Like the Swiss are afraid of minarets, the French are afraid of women with covered heads, and America is afraid of a leaky southern border, a lot of anxiety is driving current legislation in all these countries. In Europe, as in the USA, it’s hard to talk about immigration and race issues for fear of offending people. But one thing is clear: Race and immigration concerns are not unique to any one country, and they are here to stay.
While travel may not give us answers, it does give us perspective and a clear sense that we will all ultimately live together…whether we like it or not. The other day, a frightened white woman asked me to sign a petition, saying, “We’ll soon be in the minority.” As a traveler, I know “we” already are in the minority on this planet…and that’s fine with me.
Rick, It was interesting to read your comments on Baden-Baden, as I just visited there a few weeks ago (with the help of your Guidebook of course). I also had a short visit with the Lord Mayor (at one of your recommended restaurants), but didn’t discuss the topic of immigrant real estate purchases. I have a few comments regarding my travel experiences there (and the listings in your Guidebook), but I’ll send those to your office in a more “private” form. Hopefully the Freidrichsbad Baths are open again? They appeared to be closed a few weeks ago, with scaffolding all over the outside, welders working at the side door (near the fountain) and the front door secured with plywood and a Padlock. Perhaps I’ll get to experience the Baths on a future visit (I was probablyg too busy getting photographs this time anyway). Always enjoy reading your Blog!
Basically what the problem is, the west in general is so afraid of being labeled racist that they won’t protect what their anscestors worked hard to build. Our countries weren’t always prosperous welfare states with cradle to grave support nets (or even the less cushy “dingy mattress” support system of the USA).. they became that through a lot of hard work. I don’t personally feel that we have any obligation to share that with some one else.. especially when that some one else isn’t interested in being part of the culture that worked hard to make those things possible.. they simply want the improvements with minimal investment. Whenever it’s immigration from a 2nd or 3rd/4th world country to a 1st world country it’s always a bad thing in my opinion.. And I’m not afraid to say it. I think it’s a shame that France and Switzerland are the only countries in Europe who are willing to do anything about the Islamification problem.. meanwhile Scotland turns a terrorist loose in order to get cheap oil.. not that that’s any better than any number of things the USA has done.. I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again.. My anscestors have been in Europe for time unimaginable.. yet I’m not allowed to move there without a PHD or a fat bank account. I don’t visit Europe to see Mosques and Africans, I visit Europe to reconnect with my history, not with people trying to steal it..
Quote “The mayor — saying his town must either take action or let itself become essentially Russian-owned — recently declared that Russians were no longer allowed to purchase Baden-Baden real estate” Unquote My comment: Living in Baden-Baden and knowing the mayor I can only comment that this is simply not true. Sure East Europeans have purchased villas and condos but not the whole town. There are no ghettos and nobody leaves the neighbourhood only because ‘the Russians’ are coming (like in many US cities and towns where black people buy real estate)
I know at least in California, it isn’t a case of buying up the city and mansions. It is a case of working here and sending your money home to another country and then we the tax payers paying for medical care and your children going to school and ect ect. California is in a free fall (for many reasons). It isn’t closing the boarders and not wanting the help with farmers and manual labor. It is paying your way and stopping the drug traffic from Canada to Mexico.
Rick, were you purposely quoting JFK or did you really mean to say the correct phrase, “Ich bin Berliner?” I doubt 2nd generation Turkish Germans would refer to themselves as jelly-filled doughnuts. :-)
On a different note, people always gripe about immigrants sending their money back to their native country as if the immigrants aren’t spending anything in THIS country. I would say the odds are good that the majority of their earnings are spent here and only a fraction are sent to their native land–a time-honored tradition practiced by every immigrant group that has ever landed on our shores. Heck, my Grandmother, on the death of her husband, sent money to distant relatives in Switzerland as a bequest from my Grandfather to assist them in re-thatching the roof of their farmhouse. My Grandfather was a 3rd generation American of Swiss descent and the relative in common with those cousins came to the US in the late 1800’s!
I’m a second and third generation of immigrants from Europe and am grateful that my ancestors had the opportunity to legally enter the country from Nazi-run Germany, assimilate, and become successful Americans while burdening nobody else. All during the Great Depression, to boot. I do have a problem with immigrants or anyone else with questionable integrity and milking the system and enjoying access to public funds while making a less-than-significant effort to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps and “make it” like my relatives did. Being a minority as a caucasian does not bother me, but seeing legal institutions openly circumvented to get a piece of the pie really does.
And I’m not afraid to say it. Posted by: anonymous – Jul 13, 2010 7:02 PM I am rarely afraid to say things anonymously either.
My grandparents came to this country from Italy, by legal means. I am only second generation American. My grandmothers worked in the woolen mills in Lawrence, Ma and my one grandfather was a taylor and my other one opened a grocery store. Point being that they came here to make a life support their large family and pay their taxes. It isn’t that we don’t want to continue this melting pot. That is America, but you can see the down fall of trying to support all these people. Italians weren’t overly welcomed here either, but it was important for them to live in America so they worked hard and were productive.
To Brian and Judy (and others): I’m really not sure what you mean when you refer to “trying to support all these people” or “milking the system.” If you’re talking about the US’s largest immigrant group–Mexicans, legal or not–the ones I know work at least as hard as anyone…including your Italian ancestors. (I think we tend to romanticize our immigrant ancestors–I do, too–but in reality, are today’s produce-pickers really that much different from yesterday’s factory workers?) Do you really see a lot of unemployed Mexicans lying around doing nothing? (I think you’re mistaking them for the stubborn laid-off blue-collar workers and the aimless recent college grads…but that’s another conversation.) I don’t see immigrants leeching off our our system, aside perhaps from those who are forced to seek emergency medical care in this rare industrialized country that charges top-dollar for it. If someone’s goal is to “milk the system,” America is the last place they want to come–they should head for socialistic northern Europe. Thanks to our country’s irrational big-government paranoia, there’s increasingly little to “milk” around here these days.
Ostensibly, the French don’t want women to wear burqua’s, habibs etc because it subordinates women. But the French are concerned about women with covered heads and bodies because they may or may not be women – and they may be carrying explosives. With 6,000,000 Muslims out of a total French population of 64,000,000, it’s not unreasonable for residents to seek to protect themselves. Unfortunately, many French Islamists are not seeking to assimilate. They seek a Muslim country within a country. And depending upon how various scholars (and opportunists) interpret the Koran, violence in the pusuit of Islam is not a sin.
Reality Check, the big difference is legality. I know it doesn’t mean much to many currently but it does make every other act you carry out in this country either legal or illegal. When your first act in a new country is an act that is against that and your home country’s law then what value is anything that follows? I do agree the Mexicans that I personally know do work at least as much and as well as anyone else, also my Latino friends do not have much to say about illegals that I could write here. They are more anti-illegals than most of us crackers. As to “increasingly little to milk” from this nation these days, have you heard of the STIMULUS PLAN !?! There remains about 50% to be milked. And how is “Bob” any more identifying than “anonymous”?
KenK — The complaints I was responding to had nothing to do with illegality; it was the notion that immigrants are milking our social system. While illegal immigration is an important issue (which deserves its own discussion), the idea that immigrants–illegal or not–are a drain on our way of life is preposterous. b — What troubles me about your posting is your unchallenged assumption that Islam is equated with violence. The vast, vast majority of practicing Muslims are every bit as nonviolent as practicing Christians. Sure, some Muslim nutjobs (like Osama bin Landen) blow up buildings. But so do some nutjob Christians (like Timothy McVeigh). If a French person doesn’t like Muslims, they should just say so; to hide behind a misguided fear of violence is cowardly and offensive. It’s just as easy to conceal weapons or bombs under a black trench coat as a burqua…should we outlaw those, too? And by the way, if violence in the pursuit of Christianity is a sin, how do you explain the Crusades, the Inquisition, etc., etc.? Increasingly, I understand why Rick is so keen to educate people about Islam. So many people just don’t get it.
Quite astute KenK, but then again I am not the one contradicting myself by asserting that I am not afraid to say something and then signing my post “anonymously”. I am terrified and that is why I am using a pseudonym.
This post is excellent for the brave and thoughtful ways in which Rick discusses important and difficult issues surrounding ethnicity, immigration, and welfare. The previous post on Vienna was excellent in its rich descriptions of tourist ready experiences. Rick’s posts often are either positive tourism boosting or negative social problems discussions. A balance of both in most posts would be best I think.
And I’m not afraid to say it. Sure, “Anonymous”, keep selling, I’m not buying. You might not think your’re rascist, but I’d beg to differ. There are more Black, Brown, Yellow and Orange people in the world than Caucasians, and we are everywhere. Learn to deal with it; Planet Earth doesn’t exist merely as your personal country club.
We have a great set of laws for this country that are ignored by the POLICE, Politicians and the PEOPLE. So once all 3 get on the same page you may see a slight change in the illegal’s coming/going through our southern border. 1. Police – Every town has an illegal labor corner, they do nothing about it. 2. Politicians – They want their votes if they become citizens, they do nothing about it. 3. The People who are citizens continue to employ the illegals when there is a perfectly good US Citizen who is more than willing to do the job. We are moving in the right direction is some states but is it too late?
Germany’s spa town of Baden-Baden is a fun and relaxing place to splash around in a thermal bath. But, as with many resort towns, a more substantial history bubbles just beneath the surface. And, in the case of Baden-Baden, that history still has ripples today. this is true.if u find more information visit my site http://www.remarkablevacations.net