ARE THERE ANY PALM TREES IN GROZNY?/ EXTRACITY, ANTWERP 2005
Are there any palm trees in Grozny?
In November 2004 a shopping mall called Piramit was demolished after 20 years
of illegal presence.
4000 square meters of flattened land received 35 imported Egyptian palm trees,
400 cubic meters of sand, special grass from Edirne and eventually a group
of Brazilian samba girls.
It became a candidate for a ‘beach’.
In March 2005 an insider announced that the beach wouldn’t happen, instead
there would be a nightclub.
In July 2005 another insider said Theodora, the wife of Emperor Justinian used
to swim here.
In August 2005 the 'Beach Club' opened; a beach during the day and a club at
night.
This land won’t
host anything.
It is a void.
Next-door is T.C.D.D. or Turkish State Railways Recreation Camp:
During the 70’s it was for railway workers and their families to come
and swim.
Now it is an exhausted place with a fancy entrance where nobody swims.
Since 7 years the camp has been divided.
160 Chechen refugees live in one third of it.
The neighborhood doesn’t know much about it.
A black force is boring into the void
The last door is ‘Fenerbahce Army House‘.
It is green and yellow and is only for army workers and their families.
Army houses always take the best locations in Istanbul.
In order to keep ‘the safety’ they
must be invisible against unexpected enemies, so that whole areas drop off
the map.
The insider says: ‘Everything will be safer when Istanbul becomes Bursa,
and Chechnya becomes Russia’.
And an outsider adds: ‘Planet earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do’.
2006 Fenerbahce, Istanbul.