Spoiled Russians. A New Belle Époque?

New York Times ^ | November 3, 2003 | RICHARD BERNSTEIN

[OESY]

BADEN-BADEN, Germany — Who was the man hanging around the roulette table in the casino in this historic hot-springs resort? He had a black shirt, tie and jacket over black jeans and a two-day stubble, like some of his companions. He looked like a member of the Russian mafia.

Or, he might have been a Russian pediatrician escaping his family for a few days, or one of Moscow's new tycoons, or a tycoon's bodyguard. Anyway, he was speaking Russian with his friends, and therefore exemplified a new trend in Baden-Baden, whose image seems inconsistent with anything new.

After the better part of a century — since before the revolution — the Russians are back in Baden-Baden. In the 19th century, the Russian rich and famous brought this city global fame. It was here, in this narrow valley of neo-classical mansions and supposedly curative waters, that Dostoyevsky lost the money he got from pawning his wife's wedding jewelry, recounting the experience in his novel "The Gambler." Tolstoy used to come here. Turgenev carried on his not-very-secret affair with the Spanish diva Pauline Viardot in his mansion on a hill above town.

"There were other resorts in Europe where the czars and aristocrats went," said Renate Effern, a German historian who has written several books on the Russians in Baden-Baden, "but only Baden-Baden had czars, aristocrats, and writers."

Baden-Baden became fashionable with the European smart set in the 18th century when the Czarina Elizabeth, who came from Baden-Baden, used to vacation here with a huge entourage. After that, Ms. Effern said, Baden-Baden became the best-known German city in Russia and unofficially seemed part of Russia itself.

It seems only natural, therefore, that Russians who have money would want to come here again, and, in the past couple of years, they have been coming in large numbers, staying in the stately hotels or buying villas. Their return to the scene they once helped make famous is a sign of Russia's post-Soviet return to the world, even of the shriveling away of boundaries that divided East and West during the cold war.

Some people here have worried that what they see as a takeover of the town threatens Baden-Baden's staid image as Europe's most elegant hot-springs resort — that the Russians will bring with them a nouveau riche — or perhaps an organized-crime — sort of vulgarity. A couple of years ago, the German press gave a lot of coverage to a Russian mafia convention supposedly held at a luxurious hilltop resort outside of town.

"They talk about the mafia so often, but who knows?" said Ms. Effern, who gives tours here to many Russian visitors. "Anyway, the things you hear about the Russians in southern France, about ordering everything on the menu and eating only a little bit of it, or carrying suitcases full of cash, we don't have any of that." With no extensive night life, she added, "it's not the kind of place those people want to come."

Efforts to interview visiting Russians were unavailing, Baden-Baden being the sort of place where people come to shun the spotlight. In this respect, it is something like it was in the 19th century, when the kings and queens who stayed at Brenner's Hotel, the town's most famous, did not give interviews. In recent years Queen Silvia of Sweden has stayed at Brenner's. So have Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, whose trips were top secret.

"He told us he's on vacation and he doesn't want anybody to be informed about it, not even the German government," Thomas Kleber, manager of Brenner's, said of Mr. Mubarak's visits.

Aside from the Russians, Baden-Baden has — and has not — changed. This was once the place where, as one American of German ancestry who came here as a child remembers, rich, elderly women were seen accompanied by well-behaved younger men. Now the super rich of the Middle East come for sybaritic holidays, occupying whole floors of luxury hotels, paying extra so they can have the spas to themselves at night.

During the twice-a-year horse racing weeks, helicopters take the princes and sheiks and their entourages from the lawn behind Brenner's to the racetrack and back, which might fit the definition of vulgar display, given that it is three miles distant.

"Some guests use Baden-Baden like a court," said Rüdiger Beermann, press relations manager of the very impressive five-year-old Festspielhaus, Baden-Baden's Festival Theater. "The place in this sense is unique in Europe. On the one hand there's this operetta life, and on the other hand, with the hot springs and clean air and everything, it's a very healthy life."

For all the talk here of the returned Russians and the occasional Persian Gulf state entourage, the statistics show that Baden-Baden is still mostly an American destination. The Russians, in second place, are not far behind (Middle Eastern guests are a distant 13th, according to the local tourist bureau).

The hotels are happy about this — "They are an excellent clientele," Mr. Kleber said — and at least some observers of the scene maintain that there is something both dignified and touching in the nostalgia that brings the Russians here.

"I see Russians carrying Turgenev's novel `Smoke,' which is set in Baden-Baden, looking for the villa where he lived," said Mr. Beermann, who lives in an apartment next to the former Turgenev villa. "There is a German fear of the Russian mafia, some stories about them, but the people I've seen are culture-loving, literature-loving people who seem to be on their once-in-a-lifetime trips to Baden-Baden."

[OESY]

An interesting perspective on a famous casino and spa resort town, though it's hard to believe the French wouldn't outnumber American and Russian tourists, if only for their proximity.

[Erasmus]

[oilfieldtrash]

Go to Cyprus and Crete and see all the Russians you find. Especially Cyprus where the rich Russians bank and launder money.

I am glad for them. I remember seeing a bunch in Prague in 1985 in those old soviet style coats, fur hats, overweight with dyed blond hair. They have come a long way.