- Stasi-archive in Berlin. Yeah, it is a big place full of old used-to-be-secret paper files.  Yeah, it shows how GDR was tough on its people. But, honestly, I was not really surprized seeing all these secret files the Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, shortly Stasi) of GDR opened on people who were against the communist regime in GDR. The tour guide did a great job trying to impress us with astonishing facts on how Stasi officers recruited civilian informants to spy on their close people – friends, parents, siblings or spouses. Well, such things happened often in Central Asia, especially in countries like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, where every security agencies are very developed. So I was not impressed much. But, I really liked the way Germans are preserving these documents, and even giving files’ copies to their subjects! All a person needs to do to look at their Stasi-archive file is to fill an application. Then staff of the archive, which is also a museum now (and Germans are great in creating museums out of everything!), will search for your file, and if there is one, make an appointment with you and show you your file. And most people are very keen to look at their files. Well, who does not want to read the spy reports about them?

- DPA. “Independent, reliable, up-to-the-minute. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year” – that’s how DPA describes itself. DPA is German Press Agency (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) that provides worldwide news to variety of mainstream media organizations, and is competitor of AFP, AP and Reuters. We had a nice talk with Christoph Dernbach, editor-in-chief and managing director at dpa infocom, who told that DPA often works with citizen journalists using new media tools to gather information in places, where they do not have their own reporters. Yet another proof to my thesis that citizen journalism is a great outsourcing for mainstream journalism, not a competitor, as many mainstream media representatives think.

- DW TV. Deutsche Welle TV, Germany’s own CNN and BBC, but unlike the latter two, DW TV does not rush after “breaking news”. As Fabian von der Mark, editor at the Television Directorate of DW TV, explained, DW TV tries to give elaborated news that is backed by analyses. We had a short walk around the office of DW TV, and even climbed to its roof that’s full of huge satellite dishes for transmitting news around the globe.

And of course we met Gabriel Gonzalez, project manager of the Deutsche Welle Blog Awards „BOB‘s“. Gabriel told us how BOB’s competition is organized, and what kind of requirements the jury has to blogs. Mahmoud Salem (aka SandMonkey) from Egypt told that some BOB’s jury members are very corrupted, and gave example of a jury from Egypt, who selected winners from his circle of friends.

- We also met with Eberhard Pohl, deputy political director of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany. Unlike other meetings, this one was not liked much by many bloggers. Mr Pohl is a great speaker, but it seems he is one of those politicians who speak a lot and beautiful, but say nothing, or very little. We asked different questions, but most of the answers were in “not-my-field-of-expertise” style.

These are the summary updates on the Blogger Tour 2010, where I am proudly representing Kyrgyzstan. More updates to come soon. Stay tuned!

So finally I am here, in beloved Berlin, participating in the Blogger Tour organized by the German Federal Foreign Office. The first day of the event started with a great breakfast in Park Inn hotel, where participants are staying. At the moment, we are in DEPAK – Deutsche Presseakademie – and listening to presentatnios on topic “Blogs  & Politics in Germany”.

Robin Meyer-Lucht, blogger at www.carta.info and first of four speakers on topic “Blogs  & Politics in Germany”, is speaking about their blog and the German blogosphere in general. According to him, the German blogopshere is still evolving and little commercialized, as it is much driven by “passionate authors who treasure their soap boxes” Despite this, Robin says, blogs in Germany are becoming increasingly influencial force. As far as I understood, the German blogosphere is mainly about “netpolitics”, media and copyright issues, or talking generally, it is rather about policies than politcs.

Jan Mönikes, expert for German media law and second of four speakers on topic “Blogs  & Politics in Germany”, is doing a presentation on legal framework conditions of online communication in Germany. Jan says that media laws in Germany are very complicated as media is regulated on two levels – state and federal, and there are 16 federal governments. One exception in freedom of speech in Germany – Holocaust! Holocaust denial and propagating nazi symbols is a crime in Germany, says Jan Mönikes. If you are a foreign blogger, and publicly deny Holocaust in your blog, you will be tried in absentia and declared persona non grata. This reminded me of Eynulla Fatullaev, a journalist in Azerbaijan, who was imprisioned because of his article [ru] questioning the trueness of Khojaly massacre. But, unlike in Germany, Azerbaijan does not have a such law.

Blogs in Germany are considered to be mass media! However, as the laws on laws media properly work, it is not as frightening as in Central Asia countries, where laws do not protect media from the authoriarian governments.

But, as Mönikes says, the legal status of bloggers in Germany is still inclear. There is a debate going on whether or not bloggers must be considered as journalists or not. There is strong argument that good-quality bloggers should be given a status of journalist. There are two sides of it: good side is that as “online-media-journalists”, bloggers possess all rights conferred upon the press in Germany. The bad side is that all journalists must respect the “press codex” – a collenction of non-official rules for professional journalism. This includes regulations regarding accurate research and coverage.

Two other presentators were Jens Berger from www.spiegelfechter.de and Mathias Spelkamp from www.immateriblog.de, who talked about their blogging experiences and the difference between citizen journalism and classical journalism in Germany.

The day ended with a great dinner at restaurant Barist, where for some odd reasons we were discussing (a.) Chinese hymens* (!), aka “artificial hymen”, that someone actually could buy in Egypt (!) but unfortunately could never see (!) it in use,  (b.) what it feels like being married, though the married bloggers did not give any strong arguments for the advantages of marriage, (c.) how Uzbek and Azeri languages are very close to each other, and why some Turkish people are getting rid of some arabic words in Turkish, and last but not least, (d.) our plans for tomorrow and the ways to get Nigar drunk as it is her birthday tomorrow!

* It is a thin sheet of plastic that goes inside the woman’s vaginal canal and contains a little pocket of blood like material which ruptures upon impact and proclaims the user to be a virgin. It costs 15$. Though, it is not yet popular in societies, where pramarital sex is banned.

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Despite the bad weather, which is a usual case for St Petersburg, and the fact that I could not access the famous Amber Room, the trip turned out to be very interesting.

Really tired, and not in a mood for writing about my impressions of the Catherine’s palace and park… Well, here are some photos, judge yourself

So today, I suddenly came across one of these bridges, when I was taking photos of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ (Спасс на крови). The bridge is called Maliy Konyusheniy most, and it is a “must place” for newlyweds to come and put a lock on the bars of the bridge railing, and throw the key to river Moyka, on which the bridge lies. Its believed that lock put on the bridge strengthens the bond between newlyweds, and keys thrown to the river symbolizes that they do not want anyone or anything to break the bond. Ah yes – there is another “ritual” at this bridge: a groom lifts his bride and crosses the bridge several times. As many times a groom crosses the bridge, as long the marriage lasts. Fortunately, the bridge is not that long, just 33 meters.

Here are some photos:

Second, I am in St Petersburg of Russia at the moment. Or how locals call it – in Piter. Enjoying its long and beautiful “white nights“, and of course, raising of bridges across the Neva river. Plus, I have some jobs here to do – final assignments at my job. I am staying at a friend’s place not far from the center of the city. However, here, the term center and “not far” have very vague meanings, cuz, first, Piter has several centers, and second, in order to get to the “old city” from my place  it takes at least 30 minutes of riding in metro. Not far, huh?

Third, before coming to St Petersburg, I was in France, in its beautiful cities like Paris and Le Mans. Well, to tell that I fell in love with France is to tell nothing. Its old cities with stone-laid streets, museums full of history (the Louvre Museum just amazed me, its like they put the whole world’s heritage in there), parks also with rich history, and of course the Eiffel Tower… I bet everyone, who is interested in history, music, and arts, falls in love with France. Moreover, the famous French cuisine – fua gra, tartar, croissant and bagets…  It was like a dream, especially Paris, a city of lights. Several years ago, I could not even think of traveling there, not even in my wildest dreams. Even now, it seems like it was a long, at the same time very short, and very interesting dream.

And I am going back to Bishkek in a week. Really miss home, family and friends. Can’t wait to meet them and give all these souveniers from France and Russia that have already taken a good part of my luggage.