In the streets.

Melbourne had the gangland wars, something which is apparently being glamourised to the extent of a ‘blockbuster’ television show that shall remain unnamed. It’s not unnamed because I support the Victorian ban, but because I remember dining in that restaurant a couple of weeks before one of the last shootings, and driving past the occasional funeral of a gangland member and taking quiet note of the expensive cars, the sharp suits–and the throngs of police officers supervising the event. It seems strange that it is suddenly being turned into some ‘hot’ television show, if only because it was a reality for so long–even as an observer. While I am curious about its origins, I’m not sure if I would ever want to succumb to the celebrity and watch the show; there is the question of fictionalisation, for one, and for another, wondering if consumerism implies tacit support.

Prague is full of layers and histories. On the gangland war front, it has something a little deeper, a little more sinister: something involving the Caucasian, Armenian and Chechen mafias. On Saturday afternoon there was a shooting on Pařížská street, [details: Lidové noviny (Czech); iDNES.cz (Czech, with photograph from ČTK)] One of the main details of the press coverage is the focus that the victims were Russian-speaking–which can mean any part of the former Soviet Union, but it seems like the kind of ‘label’ that I remember from frequent multicultural clashes back in the good old western suburbs of Melbourne.

Prague has meant a daily, almost permanent reliance on Czech and sometimes German in my day to day existence, although it is very obvious that I’m not from Central Europe and am often spoken to (and ripped off, until they realise I can speak Czech) in English. And it’s understandable, given the region’s past history under Soviet control, that the Russian language would be viewed with suspicion. (It also makes me wonder if I should hide that Russian original of Anna Karenina that I have on my shelves next to the French, English and Czech … or I ought to have mentioned in a public blog at all). As an outsider, the ‘label’ is interesting. ‘Russian-speaking’ casts aspersions on an entire regional bloc, as well as references history and current political and criminal activities–a similar label I used to see substituted in the Australian press would be ‘of ethnic appearance’ after it was deemed too inflammatory to label suspected criminals with a specific national tag.

There are things you pick up on the streets that you just don’t find in textbooks or even cultural classes–the kinds of things that would be too politically incorrect or sensitive to raise. What exactly this particular intercultural war is about, I don’t know yet, but I do want to understand more about it. As a linguist I really quite enjoy the Russian language–indeed, for my ‘International Year of Languages’ project it is one of those that I am scrubbing up on (as well as several others), but it does make Prague and several other former Warsaw Pact regions sensitive regions to try and speak it in.

Also, can anyone give me any details or background on the mafia in Trieste? Apparently I shocked my mother by the fact that I love it there (and as an architecture/history/cultural melting pot buff, it is another place I can’t resist: a port town, a former holding of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a place where it is natural to hear Italian or Slovenian or German …)