La Habana – Old Lady of the Caribbean

In the course of the years colonial occupants as well as visitors gave the city of La Habana a couple of names. They called it “the dirty beauty” or “Paris of the Tropics” and also “The old Lady” is a common moniker for the capital of Cuba. With architectural highlights as well as lots of music, rum and cigars Vieja, the historic old town of Havana every day anew gives proof why it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site… Read More

Cuba Calling, a Pay Phone Photo Story

Nowadays Cuba has plenty of things in common with post-communist Berlin, the Berlin shortly after the wall fell down. It won’t take much time until the appearance of Havana or Trinidad will change thoroughly as big money flocks onto the island in the Caribbean implicating massive changes. One of the mirrors reflecting such a change are the countless pay phones.… Read More

Cuba between Rum, Revolution and Reforms

Rum and tobacco are more than only Cuba’s most important commercial goods. Both things are a mirror of the country’s policy and its major conflict that is resulting from the clash of two ideologies as Socialism faces the upcoming Neoliberalism. Cuba changes. Cuba opens up. Cuba discovers the world of money.… Read More

Kolmanskop Ghost Town – Diamond Fever in the Namib Desert

Against the background of the imperial endeavours of Great Britain and France, Germany’s colonial adventures started late. One of those liaisons, that even today sparks a yern to see distant places, is German South-West Africa, nowadays Namibia, where at the turn of the century diamonds got found. The story of that boom tells Kolmanskop; the once richest settlement of Africa existed only to wring the gem stones from the desert but is now an abandoned ghost town being reconquered by the sand of the Namib… Read More

Lüderitz – Germany at the Edge of Namib Desert

A city in the middle of nowhere, being surrounded by millions of tons of desert sand and directly at the shore of the Atlantic. A city that braving the elements preserves the architectonic heritage of the Wilhelmine era and standing for world-class oysters. All that is Lüderitz, located at the ocean on Namibia’s west coast… Read More

Singapore – Interface of Southeast Asia

Singapore sits at the seam of Southeast Asian mainland and the island world of Indonesia. With 5.5 million people living on ~700km² it is not only one of the smallest but also most densely populated city states in the world. Since ever the metropolis was a point of commerce, known to Arabs, Indians, Chinese and of course Malayans.… Read More

Auschwitz – Humans’ darkest Side

January 27th, 1945, that is 71 years ago, the Red Army liberated the camp complex of Auschwitz. Since then the name of that South Polish town stands representatively for the biggest atrocities of mankind and for the ugliest side of war… Read More

East Germany’s Soviet Heritage – Soviet eyrie Sperenberg

“Heather of the Mark, Sand of the Mark” – that is what Brandenburg State’s anthem is all about and to the south of Berlin, in Sperenberg you can find plenty of it as meanwhile nature took over from once deployed Soviet airmen. Being built by GDR for its big brother and comrade in arms, the Russians used the airfield until 1994.… Read More