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The Russians are coming (back)

May 2007 Posted in Inside Europe

Some 150 years ago Baden-Baden was the venue of choice for the cream of Russian society. Today, the eastern influence is back in town. Dan Hayes reports

You hear a lot of Russian in Baden-Baden – on the cobbled streets, in the bars and restaurants, in the famous thermal baths. You hear quite a bit of French, too, and some English, but it is the Russian that you really notice.

The Russians have a long-standing relationship with this spa town in the Black Forest, just 16km from the French border. In the mid 19th century the summer season would see as many as 5,000 Russian visitors here, joining a local population that at the time probably numbered no more itself.

Several tsars were regulars, making the month-long trip from St Petersburg to visit a resort where they could take the therapeutic waters, visit the races, engage in a little political intrigue and gamble at the casino. They were joined here by assorted aristocrats, bankers, courtesans and about every top-ranking Russian author of the day – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Turgenev all visited Baden-Baden at one stage or other.

Renate Effern wants to emphasise the importance of this cultural link. A former journalist who reported from what was then the Soviet Union, Effern now combines the roles of tourist guide, secretary of the local Turgenev Society and general expert on all things Russian. The last part of this troika of responsibilities has led to her meeting private jets at the nearby airport prior to taking their Gucci- and Prada-adorned occupants on a tour of the town, discussing local history with Ludmila Putin (wife of Vladimir) and becoming the unofficial fixer for Boris Yeltsin’s film crew.

‘That was in 1997, and it marked the beginning of the boom in Russian visitors to Baden-Baden,’ she says. ‘It was the first time people in Russia had seen the town on TV and then they wanted to come here themselves.’ The visit was also not without incident, she adds, as Yeltsin and his entourage arrived at the town’s Russian church to discover its doors firmly locked. The priest, a Serb of the western branch of the Orthodox faith, was not at home to greet visitors from the eastern branch that day.

Just as the princes and aristocrats used to take their leisure here, now a new generation of wealthy Russians has bought up property in the town, spending undisclosed but considerable sums renovating 19th-century villas that were originally built for their countrymen. By the 1990s many of these properties were in need of restoration, as Baden-Baden witnessed a decline in its fortunes linked to the economic dip that followed German reunification, and Russian money has helped fuel a boom.

It has also brought eager gamblers to the casino and the racetrack at nearby Iffezheim, as well as hotel guests, patients for the many private clinics in the region and legions of shoppers.

With that come associations of mafia money and a lingering perception that Russian visitors are more interested in conspicuous consumption than re-forging many cultural links. Recently, when asked what he liked most about the town, one visiting plutocrat thought for a moment before replying: ‘I can walk around here without my bodyguards.’ Effern wants to redress the balance. This summer the Turgenev Society will open an office in the centre of town, providing visitors with all they could need to know about literary and cultural heritage and the related sights to see. ‘We want it to be all about culture,’ she says. ‘We want to prove that the Russians aren’t just about money and show people that if it hadn’t been for literature there wouldn’t be the links between Baden-Baden and Russia.

‘In Soviet times the only way people could travel was by reading books, so the parents and grandparents of the current generations knew Baden-Baden through the writings of people like Turgenev and Leo Tolstoy. That feeling still endures. Lots of the visitors I meet already feel as though they know the town before they even get here. It makes my job easy – people love the place before they’ve even seen it.’

Almost everybody certainly knows of the casino. It was probably here, in 1863, that Dostoyevsky found the inspiration for his novel The Gambler. After the book was published he returned to Baden-Baden with his new wife and the express ambition of getting rich. In the casino’s rather understated wooden-panelled lobby, you can see the chips he is said to have used. You can also look at the rake with which a croupier may have separated novelist and hopes.

If you really want to get inside the mind of the gambler, you can even follow the route he would have taken back to the flat he was renting in town – and the place where his wife was waiting – no doubt rehearsing in his mind the reasons that he had not hit the jackpot. The attractive building is now called the Dostoyevsky Haus and is adorned with a bust of the writer, looking suitably pensive – perhaps even a trifle crestfallen.

‘I think they should put up a statue of his wife here,’ says Effern. ‘She was the one who sat there waiting for him. And without her he probably wouldn’t have written much of his later work – she ended up becoming his general manager.’ Sadly, not in time to stop him losing a pile of cash at the casino.

Round the corner, Effern shows off the hotel where Gogol stayed when he visited in 1836, marked with a plaque bearing the Baden and Russian flags. The writer famously embraced the cause of the serfs – virtually slave labourers who provided the manpower behind the fortunes that allowed the higher echelons of Russian society to spend their summers living it up in Baden-Baden – so one wonders what he made of what he saw. ‘He definitely didn’t believe many people came to Baden-Baden because they were ill,’ says Effern. ‘He wrote that from what he saw, people were just here to have a good time.’

Those same Russians were described in less than flattering detail by the author with the closest links to the town: Turgenev. He lived here, in a palatial house to the west of town, from 1864 to 1871, and, immortalised in bronze he now gazes out to the exclusive Brenner’s hotel.

‘He wrote his novel Smoke here – all about the Russian community,’ says Effern. ‘So little has changed that you can still walk around the town with the book and find most of the places he mentions. He describes the relationship between those Russians, like himself, who thought the country had to strengthen its ties with western Europe and others, like Dostoyevsky, who believed its future lay east. But he didn’t seem keen on either group – and then he was surprised when people didn’t like his novel.’

You may not see that many classic works of fiction being clutched in earnest hands, but Baden-Baden is reinventing itself as a cultural destination for more than just fans of Russian literature. In 1998 the town saw the opening of the 2,500-capacity Festspielhaus, the largest concert hall in Germany and the second largest in Europe. While controversial when it was first mooted, it is now helping to define a more European role for the town, with visitors coming
from nearby countries such as France, Switzerland and beyond.

Also providing a cultural highpoint is the Museum Frieder Burda. Designed by American architect Richard Meier to house the collection of Baden-Baden resident Burda, it provides a gleaming white contrast to the greenery that surrounds it. ‘About half our visitors come here primarily to see the art and about half come primarily to see the building,’ says Horst Koppelstätter, director of communications at the museum. ‘What they like about it is the way it makes such good use of light, while the idea of merging nature and art – what’s outside and what’s inside – was very important to Meier.’

Burda himself is a frequent visitor, he adds, coming over to see whichever part of his 700-plus-piece collection is on show at the time. Foreign visitor numbers, meanwhile, are on the increase, with the gallery proving an attraction for European Union employees based in Strasbourg, some 40km distant.

So what about those Russians – are they making tracks to this avant-garde venue? Koppelstätter smiles. ‘Last year we had a Marc Chagall exhibition that was very successful and contained several works from Russia, but it didn’t really attract Russian visitors,’ he says. ‘Maybe it’s a question of shopping today, culture tomorrow.’

BADEN-BADEN FACTS

WHERE TO GO

CASINO
Kaiserallee 1 www.casino-baden-baden.de Europe’s oldest casino is furbished much like a French palace in plush reds and golds. Minimum bet is €2 ($2.70), maximum in €10,000.

CARACALLA THERME
Römerplatz 1 www.caracalla.de The baths, built near the remains of a Roman original, offer a range of pools, steam rooms and saunas that make use of Baden-Baden’s world-famous healing waters.

BADEN-BADEN INTERNATIONAL HORSE RACES
Internationaler Club Lichtentaler Allee 8 www.baden-galopp.com There are two racing events at Baden-Baden during the summer: the Spring Festival from 12 to 20 May and the Great Festival Week from 25 August to 2 September.

MUSEUM FRIEDER BURDA
Lichentaler Allee 8b www.museum-friederburda.de Built in 2004, the museum runs regular exhibitions showcasing classical modern and contemporary art. Admission is €8.

WHERE TO EAT

RESTAURANT KURHAUS
Kaiserallee 1 www.kurhausrestaurant.de This Baden-Baden institution, in the same building as the casino, includes many local dishes, such as fish and game from the Black Forest, on the menu. The daily three-course lunch is €20.

LEO’S
Luisenstrasse 8-10 www.leos-baden-baden.de Baden-Baden can seem quiet at night, but that may be because anybody who is anybody is partying at Leo’s. The bar/bistro prides itself on being Bill Clinton’s favourite place in town.

WHERE TO STAY

DORINT SOFITEL MAISON MESSMER
Werderstrasse 1 www.dorintresorts.de

BRENNER’S PARK HOTEL & SPA
Schillerstrasse 4-6 www.oetkerhotels.com

GETTING THERE

Baden-Baden has its own airport, Baden-Airpark. There is also a rail link from the city to Frankfurt Airport, which takes one hour and 20 minutes. www.badenairpark.de www.bahn.de www.lufthansa.de



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