Sunday, April 28, 2019

The Szczecin Underside




Reading over past entries while pondering what I might write about today, it seems that I may have given the inaccurate impression that this is an orderly society populated with only law-abiding folks.

That statement is true, for the most part. As yet I have no reason to fear for my safety here; unless someone wants to ask me something, people generally leave me alone no matter what time of the day or night I stroll around.

Recently, on a warm day, an elderly lady outside the nearby shopping center asked me to open a bottle of juice for her. I was oddly touched.

This town was not always so safe; at least certain parts of it. By all accounts, there was organized crime here and thugs would protect their ‘territory’ at all costs. Fortunately, those days are reportedly long gone and people can travel to just about any corner of this city and live to tell about it.

Yet, there are signs... signs that all is not right, here.

Sirens: police sirens bleat and blare with startling frequency. My sojourn in the states notwithstanding, I had gotten used to not hearing sirens in China.

I had also gotten used to seeing emergency vehicles, lights flashing, hopelessly stuck in traffic because the cars blocking the road had literally nowhere to go to get out of the way. Here, people will drive onto the curb to make way for those priority vehicles

But they do so carefully, unlike Chinese drivers who seemed to think the sidewalk was just another traffic lane!

Broken glass: while quite common to see empty bottles standing on sidewalks and ledges at tram stops, there is also a fair amount of smashed glass bottles to watch out for.

Is it because warmer weather is here and more people are lingering out of doors? Is it because I am becoming more aware of my surroundings? Maybe it is because I am now riding a bike around town; seeing more of what there is to see than I could from a tram or bus window.

Whatever the reason, or even if it is a combination of reasons, there seems to be much more broken glass than there was in my first few months here.

This is especially concerning because of dogs. Pet owners must carefully scan their path and steer their pet away from a potentially nasty cut on their paws.

Graffiti

In the article summarizing our trip to Gdansk, I had commented on the amount of graffiti there, making a comparison to the quality and amount found there versus here, in Szczecin.

The topic of graffiti has surfaced again, thanks both to an article about a judge in Virginia meting out an unusual punishment to graffiti writers who had defaced an historic building and whether a piece of street art could be an original Banksy.

You might know that Banksy is the UK’s massively talented street artist who nevertheless is treading on the wrong side of the law and thus, conceals his identity.

Here, we have no Banksy. Here, we have what seems to be barely talented (if talented at all!) vandals who will appropriate any surface to make their mark or tag, in the language of graffiti writing.


There seems to be neither rhyme, reason or sense behind these doodlings. To my critical eye, they do not even seem artistic!
























It doesn’t seem to matter whether the buildings are historic – in the heart of the city, or tucked away in some neighborhood not likely to be seen by
many.











This unfortunate store – a Społem, if you must know,  got it from both sides. 
It is in a quiet neighborhood and seems to suffer particular insult. Please note the recently painted building next door, in the second picture; not even its fresh color prevented it’s attack from the vandal’s spray can!

























These ‘artists’ are not even particularly daring; they don’t go to ‘heaven’ to make their mark, their modus operandi is sheer convenience and opportunity.

Heaven’, in the lexicon of graffiti writers, is a dangerous spot in which to practice one’s art, such as an overpass or rooftop.





Not all graffiti lurks in alleyways.
This instance happens to face
a busy thoroughfare – on a building nearly 100 years old.













At least this writer took his time and used two colors.
There might be potential for art at his hand, but not by those who subsequently tagged it.

Note: ‘tagging’ can also mean signing your work.

You may ‘tag’ a rival artist’s work, as King Robbo and Banksy often do.
















What is all of this graffiti about? One could hardly call it artistic expression but it is certainly an expression of something.

Unrest? Unease? Is it mere boredom that drives these vandals?



This shot, captured near my house, seems to indicate a particular rivalry is afoot... a gang rivalry?

Internet searches yielded nothing about ZŁO or DZC but SPZ could be taken to mean Spetsnaz, indicating Russian Special Forces. Of course, that might not be what is represented here.

However, one thing is clear: there is an obvious struggle for dominance going on and at least one side proclaims itself to be a vandal.

So... maybe not all is as well as it seems, here...

No comments:

Post a Comment