Left is right

Today is election-day in our country. We're gonna elect members for our parliament and government for the next four years. I have to make up my mind about which party to vote for.

The election is serious stuff. That’s when we do our duty as citizens. We dress up in our best suit and tie and walk with dignity to the poll place. Not anymore. That’s the way my grandparents did it, the generation who had lived through the war, and really understood the value of democracy.

But it’s still important to vote, even though we show up in washed-out jeans and black T-shirts, to put the ballot in the brown envelope. I agree with the election analyst in radio who said: If you don’t vote, you effectively give half of your vote to the guys you don’t like.

Our political landscape Is quite different from e.g. the United States, where the options are only right wing (Democrats) and ultra-right wing (Republicans). We have a much richer fauna of political parties to choose from. We have the right-wing parties (two of them), the Christian-democrats, the social democrats, the socialist party, the left-liberal party, the environmentalists, and the communists.

Usually, but not always, I have voted for the social democrats, the Labor Party. They’ve been in the government office for eight consecutive years now, and I think they need a break. Some years in opposition would be good for them.

I support the general idea of a society of equal opportunities, free education and free health care, and just distribution of wealth and prosperity (and I’m happy to pay about 50% income tax). Therefore, I can’t really imagine voting for the right wing, or any party in their coalition.

So who should I vote for?

Maybe I should vote for the communists this time. I like some of the ideas of Marx and Engels, but experience has shown that the system doesn’t work very well in practice. Marxism doesn’t fit with human nature. I don't want to be ruled by the communists, but it’s good to have one or two of them in the parliament, as watchdogs and whistleblowers, when the bonds between right-wing politicians and Big Corp become too tight.

Yes, I think I’ve found a solution.

But wait, we have two communist parties; the China-communists and the real (Soviet) communists. Hmm … there’s still a choice I need to make.

And after all, the ballot is secret; I won’t tell what I’m actually going to vote >:)

(I took the picture last week, in the Russian ghost town Pyramiden. The Lenin statue is still there, more than 20 years after the fall of the Soviet regime. I guess nobody have bothered to remove the statue in such a remote location.)

Metropol

I'm back in Russia, in Moscow this time, fortunately. The city is alot more interesting than Murmansk. Moscow has become a metropol, like London and Paris.

This time I travel with some colleagues, which is more fun than going alone. We even got time for an evening with great food at the Pushkin Restaurant.

We stayed in Hotel Metropol, right across the street from the Bolshoy Theatre, and two minutes walk from Red Square. It's only two stops from our Moacow office with the Metro, so getting to work is quite easy too.

Hotel Metropol is a historical hotel. It was built in 1901, before the Revolution. In 1917, when the Communists government moved from St.Petersburg to Moscow, Metropol became the residence of the Central Executive Committee.

In the 1930s it once again became a hotel. It was the place where the leaders of the Soviet Republics stayed when they came to Moscow for meetings.

On the 4th floor, where I stay, there is a photo gallery of famous people who have stayed in the hotel. I recognized Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Berthold Brecht, George Bernard Shaw, Elton John, Michael Jackson and Sharon Stone. Quite a varied lot.

It's time to go to bed. Tomorrow morning is my last breakfast at Metropol, for this time. Great food, and a harpist playing live music while we're eating. That's kind of cool, isn't it?

(Above is a picture of the harpist in Hotel Metropol. She entertained us with soft music while we were eating eggs and bacon; a nice way to start the day.)