Issues

New Line House: A carefully rethought modernist home in the Sydney suburbs

After the Second World War, many young families pursuing the Australian Dream of owning a detached home on a quarter-acre (1,012 sq m) block built their houses on the bushland fringing the country’s cities. By the 1960s there were countless companies capitalising on this ambition. A leader among them was Pettit + Sevitt. Established in 1961, the home-builder was prolific in Sydney’s northern suburbs, creating houses that were revolutionary at the time. It employed top architects to design compact, modular components that could be adapted to (often difficult) on-site conditions, such as uneven or sloping terrain.

“These houses were really beautifully designed,” says Sydney-based architect Eva-Marie Prineas, who founded her namesake studio in 2004. “They still have great bones but some elements feel a little flimsy now. So many have been knocked down.” Fortunately, there are some design buffs willing to commission architects, such as Prineas, to reimagine Pettit + Sevitt homes for contemporary living. 

Studio Prineas recently renovated one such residence, New Line House, in the Sydney suburb of East Ryde. Overlooking Lane Cove National Park, it was a Pettit + Sevitt Lowline model, an award-winning project home designed by architect Ken Woolley in the early 1960s. Positioned to preserve the site’s natural slope, the original single-level building was flat-roofed with Oregon-wood ceiling beams and boxy cedar windows. “When I started on the project, I didn’t want to touch anything,” says Prineas. “But the house wasn’t working in the way you need a contemporary home to function, in terms of flow, space or its connection to the garden.”

The architect’s solution was to keep the outline of the home compact – an approach at odds with the suburban-development trend of flattening blocks and prioritising large building footprints. She decided to go up, instead of out. “We knew that we had to change the plan but we tried to keep the home’s original character,” says Prineas. The roof was removed and another floor added but the original beams were carefully restored. Upstairs, four bedrooms and a sitting room can now comfortably accommodate a family and guests, while the ground level has been opened up to make room for a kitchen, a dining room and multiple sitting areas. Meanwhile, a new wine cellar and a home cinema are tucked behind the existing garage, which nestles into the hillside.

Prineas also designed and commissioned bespoke furniture and cabinetry to make the most of the home’s small footprint, including custom wardrobes in the main bedroom, shelving in the living areas, a walk-in pantry and a bathroom vanity. “Bespoke furniture will always give you more control,” she says of her decision to make custom additions to the home. “It allows you to get the right materiality and proportions for the space. And it means that you don’t have to try to fit a square peg in a round hole.”

To complement the carpentry and bespoke fit-out, Prineas carefully selected the furniture and homeware in the residence. Louis Poulsen PH5 lights hang above the tiled kitchen island and Le Corbusier-designed Lampe de Marseille Mini Nemo wall lamps illuminate the living room; around the dining-room table are Scape chairs by modernist furniture designer Grant Featherston. “I made every decision while remembering what the house was and is,” says Prineas, explaining why she chose to focus on iconic mid-century wares.

The original developer devoted plenty of attention to landscaping and the gardens. Prineas continued this, working to find ways to enhance the connection between the interior and exterior. The home now has pockets of greenery on the rooftops that can be glimpsed from the bedrooms, while a small internal courtyard breaks up the sitting rooms downstairs – a decision that has as much to do with improving cross-ventilation as with the notion of bringing the outside in. 

Limestone paving extends seamlessly from the living spaces to the patio and veranda, visually linking the indoors and outdoors. “We wanted to connect the home with the garden and the rocky outcrop that tumbles down the slope, because it’s a special part of the site,” says Prineas. “If people were doing a new subdivision now, they would take the rocks out.”

Such choices have helped to protect the legacy of Pettit + Sevitt, ensuring that the firm’s once pioneering ideas – the importance of the outdoors and natural light, and the need for quality suburban architecture – live on. “The original house was more than 50 years old,” says Prineas. “It hadn’t had a renovation and was no longer functional. Hopefully, we have been able to give the home another 50 years.”

Three solutions-focused professionals tell us how they are rethinking the way we live

Essay 1: Urbanism
Living with water
Landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom on how cities can adapt to rising sea levels.

Growing up in Bangkok in the 1980s, I loved the presence of water in my day-to-day life. With the tropical climate came flash floods during the rainy season but this was just part of living in a delta city. Then, in 2011, a severe flood overwhelmed Bangkok and what had been an occurrence you could adapt to became an unimaginable disaster. The scale of the flooding was due to climate change but also the city’s own mismanagement. Hundreds died and millions lost their homes – and much of this was avoidable. After that I asked myself, “What can I do?” 

I was a landscape architect. I had graduated a few years before and was aware of the effect that ageing infrastructure, combined with climate change, had on my city. Bangkok is home to more than 10 million people, including me, and welcomes over 20 million tourists every year – that’s a lot of people for a city only two metres above sea level. And, as was becoming increasingly clear, not only was Bangkok prone to flooding, it was sinking. 

The exponential growth of skyscrapers and an influx of inhabitants in the past 40 years has stretched the city to its limits. After 2011 most agreed that natural disasters on this scale would only become more regular and intense. Once upon a time, the farmers who had lived in the delta managed to integrate these natural cycles into their work. They would build adaptable housing raised above the ground, use natural materials and approach water as a part of their practice. 

During the early urbanisation of Bangkok, these methods were pushed aside. The mantra was: out with the old, in with the new. The new in question was based on the Western model of urbanisation. Concrete and a dense urban environment were seen as the key to a new, prosperous Thailand.

By forcing a one-size-fits-all approach on the city, we lost touch with our past. Though these new amenities provided comfort and ease to many people in Bangkok, it was also deeply at odds with the Thai climate. Concrete didn’t allow the water to drain away, unlike the porous wetlands, making roads prone to flooding. Policymakers looked to other big cities, often in Europe and the US, to manage their own disasters, forgetting how different their climates were. They built dams and irrigation canals, and tried to extract the water from the ground. These expensive projects proved ineffective in a crisis. Water, which had once been a natural part of the environment, was now a problem to be solved. Building with fear in mind – the fear of water in the public space, the fear of flooding, the fear of nature – brought us the calamity of 2011. In the making of a modern Bangkok, we had forgotten to include what was beneficial about the old ways in which we did things. Sometimes you have to look back to move forward. 

With that in mind, I changed my own designs and practice. Where I came from has been essential to the way that I approach the world. I’ve been rethinking the spaces we use in cities, especially when it comes to reintegrating greenery. What spaces, like rooftops, can be better utilised to make an urban environment like Bangkok more pleasant for the people who live there? To me, modern design means that these constructions will live in harmony with the surrounding environment for years to come. As a landscape architect I am just one part of that shift. 

Climate change is frightening. It feels like an impossible challenge and it often implies fundamentally changing the way we have progressed over the past 50 years. When looking at climate change, people often prefer to shift the blame. Everyone knows that cities are huge carbon emitters. A way to avoid the problem, and what many cities do, is to buy up carbon credits or replant trees. These solutions, beyond being outright ineffective, also avoid any kind of concrete change. Redesigning the environment, on the other hand, is more costly in the short term but becomes a way of reclaiming the problem as a solution. 

If, as a landscape architect, I can bring one stone to the edifice, making people’s lives easier and safer, that’s a huge step. I’ve detailed my own approach to water because that is where I’m from and a part of who I am. Now it’s time for other ambitious people at the frontier of the struggle against climate change to look at what problems their cities are facing. 

Too often in our globalised world we want to forget where we come from. What could be heat in Mumbai or drought in La Paz is a question of readapting rather than forcing the places to adapt to you. Pessimism is easy so look for optimism because that’s where change can happen. I hope that the next generation of policymakers, designers and landscape architects can, like me, look at the world and see solutions rather than problems. 

Essay 2: Quality of life
In praise of Warsaw
Polish journalist Mateusz Mazzini on why everyone should move to the Polish capital.

Praise should never come on the basis of a single observation. Rather, the hype needs to be confirmed from an array of vantage points. Those wanting to assess the quality of life in Poland’s capital are, therefore, in luck, as Warsaw offers a multitude of perspectives. One can glance over the expanse of the city, now made up of almost two million inhabitants, from the viewing terrace of Varso Tower, a recently opened skyscraper that is also the tallest building in the EU. Standing at 230 metres high, this is a good place from which to begin one’s assessment of Warsaw’s attributes – both old and new.

Recent additions to the landscape include the Museum of Modern Art, a new footbridge over the mighty Vistula and the southward expansion of the city’s tram network. But in Warsaw, the old is never far from the surface. The Palace of Culture and Science, a Stalin-era skyscraper, remains a point of reference for everybody, while Three Crosses Square, with its neo-renaissance Saint Alexander Church at its centre, and the adjacent, boutique-filled Mokotowska Street are the fashionable heart of the city. 

Those afraid of heights can take a more down-to-earth approach. If the word on the street is that Warsaw is booming and attracting investors, tourists and expats – well, let’s walk that talk. Despite the fact that Poles are drivers to the point of addiction, and many consider their vehicle a part of the family, the city authorities have been making considerable strides in transforming Warsaw into a more pedestrian-friendly city. If you’re of a subterranean inclination, communist-era underground passages are magical labyrinths of kiosks and one-stop shops for newspapers, warm soup and doughnuts. For a city whose population swells by 12 per cent during the working week, Warsaw’s public-transport network is relatively problem-free by European standards. OK, buses do get stuck in traffic more than they probably should but trams offer an obstacle-free ride. Though it only has two lines, the metro is reliable and regular, running for 20 hours a day. The second line, crossing the Vistula, is the latest addition to the network, with three more expected to open by 2050. Tired of wondering how many trains you will have to let pass before you can squeeze onto a packed carriage every morning? Exhausted by countless turns and staircases you have to take before reaching the right platform? Well, move to Warsaw: there is no commuter drama here. The system might be relatively underdeveloped but at least it’s easy to navigate. 

Still sceptical? Let’s look at the data. According to a report by Oxford Economics, a research consultancy, in 2022, Warsaw had the highest GDP growth of any major

European city and is projected to hold this record until at least 2026. Much of this success is due to young entrepreneurs who are flocking to the city. Unexpectedly, Brexit is one of the causes of Warsaw’s international success. As Poland marks the 20th anniversary of its accession to the EU, it is reaping the rewards of what initially seemed a curse – outward migration that is now making a sharp U-turn. After joining the single market, many Varsovians feared an irreversible brain drain as thousands of young people, with little opportunity to put their talents to good use at home, left for Europe’s (mostly the UK’s) best universities. Now they are returning en masse, bringing expertise and disposable income with them. All of the major technology unicorns around the world have Polish researchers and coders driving their expansion. Come and find out why that’s the case. Or better yet, move your company here. With one of Europe’s highest average attainments in mathematics and two out of three Poles able to communicate in professional English, there is a robust workforce to make good use of. Artificial intelligence might be on everybody’s mind these days but the intelligence that underpins Warsaw’s economy is anything but artificial. 

Warsaw, in common with any thriving city, does not lack in growing pains. Housing is scarce and average prices have recently exceeded those in Madrid, Manchester, Rotterdam and Genoa. The city also struggles with air pollution, especially in winter. Some municipal investments

are late and chaotic: the tram expansion, aimed at linking the city’s southern district with the centre, is a result of the public lagging behind the private. Warsaw has been expanding rapidly in recent years but to call it an “organic development” would simply be code for a lack of official planning. Hundreds of thousands of Varsovians have a comfortable space in which to live but no ability to commute to work other than drive. A rapid population growth, especially in the suburbs, has exposed the lack of easily accessible childcare provision, with more than 2,000 of the city’s inhabitants not getting a place in pre-school in 2022.

But enough with hard data. Let’s talk about experience. What does it really feel like to live in Warsaw? As a foreign-educated, binational writer with a past that includes living in the UK, Spain and Italy, the simplest answer that I can come up with is that Warsaw feels European. Yet the Europeanness of Warsaw is radically different to that of Paris, Amsterdam or Milan – and that’s only for the better. Contrary to the Western metropolises, collapsing under the burden of outdated infrastructure and with city centres deprived of native inhabitants, Warsaw is a city that puts its people first. There is a financial argument to be made here too; this is a very affordable city by European standards. A 90-day public transport pass costs €68, compared to €778 in London, €259 in Paris and €303 in Amsterdam. Higher education is free. The overall cost of living might be rising but it is still considerably lower than in most Western European cities; indeed, Warsaw is cheaper to live in than Prague, Budapest and Bratislava, the other major urban centres in the region.

Beyond money, there is that intangible currency: excitement. Unlike other places, which attempt to capitalise on their past, Poland’s capital is betting on its future. Young people throng the streets, sipping good coffee (yes, finally) before dining in some of the most interesting restaurants in Central and Eastern Europe. Memories of a monocultural, grey and boring city are long gone. The wider metropolitan area has more than 300,000 foreign-born residents. Maybe you should consider joining them?

Warsaw has its fair share of problems but there are none that cannot be solved with better policy planning, much of which is already in the pipeline. Unlike older cities, with their solidified landscapes, here almost everything is (relatively) new and fresh so even drastic changes come at a lower price. Car-snarled city centre? The city council is planning to declare most of it car-free in the near future. Pollution? Urban grants to co-finance heating- system replacements are among the most efficient in the country. A shortage of childcare options? Warsaw is already spending more than €1.5bn a year on educational endeavours, including early education. Lack of affordable housing? This is expected to change with the incoming government; Vienna is constantly presented as a role model for the built environment. If you copy, use the best blueprint. 

Unlike Berlin, Paris and London, which increasingly resemble open-air theme parks for tourists, with economies dependent on easy money from low-skilled services and property markets dominated by short-term rentals, Warsaw invites you on a journey that will not lead to a dead end. There is much to be discovered, accomplished and invented here, and the city needs all the help that it can get to make it happen. Two years ago it opened its arms to more than 350,000 Ukrainians fleeing Putin’s invasion and many remained, having established businesses, resumed academic careers and even started families. For a city, and even a country, which had remained almost entirely ethnically homogenous since the end of the Second World War, this was a major change, indeed one that many feared. But Ukrainians, and before them Belarusians, as well as members of many other diasporas – Irish, Turks, Americans, Italians – have not only found a place that they could quickly call home but have contributed to this city becoming Europe’s hope for the future.

The people of Warsaw are no strangers to adversity. In 1944, after the Nazis destroyed almost 85 per cent of the city by setting it alight in revenge for the Warsaw Uprising, there were only 1,000 people left out of a pre-war population of 1.3 million. They survived with no shelter, food or water, only with dreams of rebuilding what had been lost. Eight decades later, Warsaw has risen from the ashes and its never-say-die attitude has become a significant part of its identity. This city rebuilt itself from nothing. If you feel like your own life needs a new spirit, look no further. 

Essay 3: Geopolitics
The future is small
Armenia’s former president Armen Sarkissian on the power of small states.

It is not yet fully understood that we are living in a world that is dramatically different from the one that we inhabited even 30 years ago. This radically changed environment has created a unique opportunity for small countries. Maybe not for every small state but for the ones that are also smart states. The idea of soft power was created by a good friend of mine, Professor Joseph Nye from the Kennedy School at Harvard. He was analysing the hard power of the US, which is its military and its economy, and its soft power, which is its values, freedom and culture. But there is another power, which is smart power. Smart power is power that is always focusing on the future, not the past – and small countries are very well equipped for that. If you look at any index of national performance, most of the top 10 states will be small. If you look at GDP per capita, a lot of small states are far ahead of the big ones. People live much better in small, smart states.

I have been prime minister and president of a small country. That size enables you to make sharp decisions. In the classical world, the most important thing had been the scale of the state: its military and economic power. But the dimension of the future is smartness – and technology. The Uae is one of the great small smart states in this respect. The world’s only artificial intelligence (AI) university is in Masdar City in Abu Dhabi.

We are already used to the idea that multinational companies are effectively virtual small states. Google is a small state. Apple is a small state. And their effect is huge: it is an open question whether the US government has more influence on Facebook or the other way around. Soon, small states such as Estonia, Denmark, Ireland, Switzerland and Singapore will be able to produce immense new technological advances. In the future, the power of technology, the power of science, is going to be dominant. It has always been difficult for small states to survive without the patronage and protection of large nations but the military power of the future will not be so dependent on size. AI will allow a small state to have a powerful military presence. You won’t need 100 million people to have an army of one million because that army can consist of drones. This is why I have been lobbying to create an organisation of small, smart states: the S20. We are past thinking that small states are just an entourage to bigger ones.

Interview: Kyriakos Mitsotakis on his hopes for Athens

Kyriakos Mitsotakis is a member of the club of political leaders who have won two elections in the same calendar year – indeed, in his case, inside five weeks. In May 2023, Mitsotakis’s centre-right New Democracy party (ND), in power since 2019, was not quite re-elected. It won the most seats in the Hellenic Parliament but fell just short of an outright majority. Mitsotakis, fancying his chances under a revised electoral system, called for another election in June 2023 and nabbed ND the majority that it needed to govern.

This apparent embrace of centrist pragmatism by Greece seemed colossally unlikely as recently as a decade ago. Greece was devastated by the European debt crisis of 2009. The national economy was reduced by a quarter. Unemployment cleared 25 per cent; nearer 60 per cent for those under 25. Perhaps 500,000 people – about one Greek in 20 – left the country. Among those who stayed, there was ready appetite for the theory that three monumental bailouts from the EU and/or the IMF, and the brutal austerity measures attached, were more part of the problem than they were of any solution.

Greece embraced populism in 2015, when two elections that year established an unlikely coalition between the left-wing Syriza party and the right-wing Independent Greeks. The results of introducing their ideas to reality were such that by 2019, Greece was willing to deliver a landslide to Mitsotakis, an establishment archetype – a Harvard Business School MBA, a former banker and consultant, and scion of a Greek political dynasty. Mitsotakis’s father, Konstantinos, was prime minister in the early 1990s; his sister, Dora Bakoyannis, foreign minister from 2006 to 2009; his nephew, Kostas Bakoyannis, mayor of Athens from 2019 to 2023.

Monocle sits down with Mitsotakis at the 2024 Munich Security Conference.

M: In February 2024 you steered the legalisation of same-sex marriage through Greece’s parliament. That was a first for an Orthodox Christian country – and not an easy win. Why now? Was it one of those things where you think in a couple of years nobody will remember why they were angry about it?
KM: I’m very happy and very privileged that as the leader of a centre-right conservative – but also progressive – party, we were the ones who brought this piece of legislation in front of parliament and got it through with a very strong majority. I’m also happy because we had the opportunity to explain to Greek society what this bill is really all about. For the first time, we actually heard from those who are deeply affected by the fact that marriage equality was not recognised in Greece. I even told my parliamentary group something that another conservative had said – that marriage, at the end of the day, is a conservative institution and I’m voting for this not in spite of being a conservative but because I’m a conservative. And I can say that the level of public debate was very mature. I think public opinion has swung in support of this legislation but we treated those who disagreed with great respect. Within my party, I never used the whip – our MPs chose freely and I’m happy that more than two thirds [of parliament] ended up supporting the bill.

On policy:

M: Did you see this as an isolated act of progress or does it fit into a broader programme of rebuilding, reconstruction – even modernisation – of Greece, versus where you were 10 or 12 years ago in the depths of the debt crisis?
KM: Oh, very much the latter. I’ve made my second term about what I call a multi-dimensional modernisation programme. This includes issues related to human rights but extends way beyond that. My goal has always been to make Greece a true European country – and why not surpass the European average in those indices where we can be a protagonist? So this is a long-term programme. We’ve had to deal with the past decade, which robbed us of a quarter of our gdp, and we are gradually catching up, though we need to accelerate the pace of growth. At the end of the day, it is about growth – but it is also about equitable growth. That’s why I focus so much on making sure that our policies are just and that the wealth we create is spread evenly. So my focus is on wages, on improving the minimum wage and improving the average wage. I’ve set very clear targets about what I want to achieve over the next four years – and we’re on track to reach those targets.

M: Were you surprised, then, when the EU parliament took a bit of a swing at Greece [in a resolution on 7 February on the rule of law and media freedom in Greece]? It’s non-binding but nonetheless very critical of backsliding on rule of law and press freedom. Greece does have the lowest ranking of any EU country in the World Press Freedom index too. Are these areas where work still needs to be done?
KM: May I be a little bit blunt? This report is a joke. It puts Greece under [some] African dictatorships in terms of press freedom. Anybody who has travelled to Greece and taken a look at our media landscape knows that we have the highest number of radio stations in Europe [per capita], a very vibrant TV scene, lots of newspapers, most of which criticise the government. I’m not saying we’re perfect but I am saying that the European Parliament report was bogus and only the result of a deeply politicised European Parliament that simply wanted to take a swing at a very strong party within the epp [European People’s Party] family.

At the end of the day, the gold standard in terms of rule-of-law classification is that annual report by the European Commission. They are the guardians of the rule of law; they pass the final judgement. And [in that] we have been improving. Yes, there are issues that we need to address. Justice needs to move faster. There are issues raised by the rule-of-law report regarding the ability of journalists to operate in Greece. We think that there is ample room for them to do their job but we will take their recommendations very seriously. But, sorry, we’re talking about a politicised report by the European Parliament that is full of accusations which are not true. It was a political act.

M: Nevertheless, was the scandal attending the bugging of phones by Greece’s intelligence service, the EYP, not something of a wake-up call? They were tapping journalists, politicians, officials, at least one bishop. Did that suggest to you that some aspects of the state had gone a bit haywire?
KM: I acknowledge that mistakes were made. And what, for example, was not mentioned in that European Parliament report was that we actually changed the law; we passed a very tight system regarding lawful surveillance. And we’ve also gone very hard in terms of making sure that any unlawful surveillance software cannot be sold or operated. Of course, it was a wake-up call, and we acknowledge the mistake. But what I cannot accept is the fact that no one is acknowledging that we’ve made progress on that front – or at least the European Parliament isn’t; the Commission has acknowledged that progress has been made. But this was not just a Greek problem – and I really don’t understand why when Spain was facing similar problems, no one was raising them, yet the finger was pointed at Greece.

Having said that, I will continue to work for a well-functioning democracy that is inclusive – and our track record supports the idea that we have made progress on that front. In elections last year, we were re-elected to power with an overwhelming majority. And I’m unapologetic about being a moderate, centrist politician. And I don’t think you would expect someone who does not define themselves as a centrist politician leading a centre-right party to legislate marriage equality. I mean, these are not the sort of things that the hard-right politicians of this world do.

On press freedom:

M: Does Greece need to take its own defence more seriously, especially at sea? For all that it’s a smallish country, it controls 21 per cent of the global merchant fleet in terms of tonnage, which is an extraordinary statistic. Greek-owned or Greek-operated ships have been attacked by the Houthis in the Red Sea. We know that one Hellenic Navy frigate has been dispatched, though we believe that it doesn’t have anti-ballistic capacity. Does Greece need to become more of a naval power commensurate with its status as a great maritime nation?
KM: First of all, let me point out that Greece is spending 3 per cent of its gdp on defence. And we have been consistently above the 2 per cent Nato threshold even during the very difficult years of the economic crisis. The reason was simple: there was never a peace dividend in Greece, as we always faced a larger, occasionally rather aggressive neighbour. We felt that we always needed a credible deterrence capability, and we will, of course, continue to do so. That is not true for many other European countries. And I think that, as Europe, we are paying the price now of under-investing consistently in our defence capabilities.

Now, you’re right to point out that the Greek merchant fleet is a global powerhouse. And that is why we never shied away from our responsibility to protect freedom of navigation and why we will be having a presence – a ship will sail very soon, fully equipped with all the necessary technology to protect itself, and it will go to the Red Sea. And we are also the ones assuming control of the European operation Aspides, meaning “shields”, which works in conjunction with Operation Prosperity Guardian in the Red Sea.

Now in terms of strengthening our navy, we have a rather capable navy but we’re also investing heavily in terms of upgrading our naval capabilities. The first of the three ultra-modern frigates we ordered from France will be arriving. It’s already at sea; it will be part of the Greek navy next year. And, of course, we’re looking at the future of naval deterrence, including unmanned ships and submarines. So what we want to do is to make sure that, as a big spender on defence, we also develop our own technological capabilities. But this isn’t just relevant for Greece; it’s also relevant for Europe. I fully agree with the comments made by [European Commission president] Ursula von der Leyen that we will need to spend more on defence. But we also need to be smarter about when we spend on defence. There is still very little joint procurement, there is still a colossal fragmentation of the defence industry in Europe and, regardless of what happens in the US, the Ukraine war should have been – and is, to a certain extent – a wake-up call, from the big projects such as air defence to the mundane issues of producing enough shells for artillery, which many people didn’t think necessary but proves to be indispensable in a prolonged ground war.

On defence:

M: There is, of course, a frequently volatile region immediately to Greece’s north. Would it not contribute to the security of the Balkans if Kosovo felt surer of its place in the world? And would Greek recognition of Kosovo’s independence not help with that?
KM: We have been proponents of the European path of the Western Balkans since what we call the Thessaloniki Declaration back in 2003. So it has been 21 years. And since then we have not made as much progress as we would like. But the Ukraine war has brought the issue of European enlargement again to the forefront. Now, we’ve been very, very clear in terms of trying to facilitate the dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade. And we’ve also been very frank with both. I’ve been frank – I was recently visiting President Vucic [of Serbia], I saw Albin Kurti [prime minister of Kosovo] and I have very good relations with them. Both need to take a step back at some point and stop pointing fingers at each other if we want to make some real progress. But Greece’s position for the foreseeable future is not going to change.

M: You were talking earlier about what you’ve been able to accomplish as a nominally centre-right politician. Against the backdrop of what has been tried in Greece and elsewhere in Europe since the economic crisis, many countries have wondered how to tackle populism, which does tend to peak at moments of crisis, often insisting that there are simple solutions to complex problems. But however often the populists are proved wrong, they never quite die out. Is any part of your programme exportable? Is there a cure for populism?
KM: I don’t think there is a general template for combating populism – and all political systems have their own peculiarities and their own electoral laws. In our case, we’ve been able to form a single-party government, whereas in other countries coalitions are a necessity. But maybe I have a few thoughts to share on this topic. At the end of the day, you need to understand that the grievances that fuel the populist response are real grievances, whether they have to do with income inequality or with people feeling lost in a globalised world.

M: Do you think they’re always real grievances, though? Aren’t some populist eruptions animated largely by fantasies?
KM: Even if that is the case, grievances related to income inequality are very real – just look at the numbers. At the end of the day, it is usually about the economy. There are people who feel that they have been left behind. I mean, look at farmers – we’ve had farmers protesting in Greece. It’s very easy if you’re living in a big city to say, “Who are these guys with their tractors showing up on our streets if we give them so much support?” But I think that’s a simplistic question. When we looked at the problem in detail, we realised that we needed to do something – for example, about the electricity prices that farmers pay. And we found a solution to give them a better electricity price. Because if they are not competitive, and if they stopped doing what they do, this would create huge consequences, not just for the safety of our food supplies, but also for regional cohesion. 

I would say that quite a few of the grievances are real. I’m not talking about the conspiracy theories but there is something there that needs to be acknowledged. And, you know, there has been enough finger-pointing by the Davos – or Munich Security Conference – elites at those people. And that never works. That attitude of [dismissing people as] “deplorables”, for lack of a better word, is a complete catastrophe.

When it comes to real solutions, what we have done, I call it “the new triangulation”. Be clearly pro-growth, reasonably lower taxes while maintaining fiscal discipline, attract investments, simplify the business environment, create jobs. So a liberal approach on the economy that puts a lot of faith in private entrepreneurship and what I call a “responsible patriotism” approach when it comes to issues of foreign policy. So we were tough with Turkey, we increased the deterrence posture and we managed the migration problem reasonably well. I think this caters well to the more conservative aspect but we can also be rather progressive when it comes to social policy – raising the minimum wage beyond what many people expected, coming up with strategies for those who are less privileged and doing marriage equality. 

Now, all of that opens up new possibilities for a moderate centre-right party but we [the New Democracy party] have also had another advantage. Greece actually elected the populists to power. It was a strange alliance of hard-left and hard-right populists, and it was a disaster. People still remember that. But when you’re in your second term, you don’t compete with who was in power five years ago; you have to solve real problems. You have to be honest, you have to acknowledge your mistakes but you still have to deliver. And we are delivering, especially when it comes to the economy. If you do all that, people will give you the benefit of the doubt. In our case, they voted for us again.

On populism:

M: Greece’s economy is recovering but how hamstrung are you still by a shortage of workers? You’ve pushed through legislation that will regularise 30,000 unregistered labourers, but how short is Greece of the workforce it needs?
KM: Well, who would have thought that you would be asking me this question five years ago, when we had unemployment that was about 20 per cent? Our unemployment is now about 9 per cent, which is better but it still needs to be addressed, in the same way that we’re now beginning to have a housing problem because property prices are going up. In our case, we have issues in agriculture and we have issues in construction. Occasionally, we have issues in services but the tourism sector is good at finding labour.

So what we’re offering is: in exchange for a policy that actually protects the borders and does not outsource to smugglers the decision regarding who will come into the European Union, we wanted to open legal pathways to migration. So bilateral deals with various countries – for example Egypt, India and Vietnam – that will bring in labour through legal pathways in an organised manner. Also, we want to start offering more tailor-made visas for those who would like to come to Greece. And what we saw during the coronavirus pandemic was that the digital nomads – [some of] the people who read Monocle – actually found the idea of setting up shop and working in Greece very interesting, because at the end of the day it is also about quality of life. Greece offers a pretty good proposition when it comes to attracting these kinds of people.

M: Is there something here in terms of tackling populism as well? Populism is very often tied to some sort of paranoia about immigration – do you think that the problem there is not so much that people fear or dislike immigration but that they’re worried about the appearance of disorder, the idea that there’s no programme, nobody in charge?
KM: I think you’re right. But Greece has been in various respects a success story when it comes to integration. Look at, for example, the Albanians who came to Greece in the 1990s. They have second-generation children who were born in Greece; they are Greek citizens, they go to Greek schools; they consider themselves Greek. I would say that it’s a success story overall. And even now – yes, Greece was a relatively homogeneous society, but you learn from people who are different. Probably the best basketball player in the world, Giannis Antetokounmpo, is a Greek of Nigerian origin. He doesn’t look like a traditional Greek but he is Greek at heart and plays for the national team. But you don’t have to be a basketball star for Greece to treat you well.

So the question is, how do you expand this attitude towards those people who want to live in Greece and consider Greece their home – and for those who come to Greece and obtain asylum in Greece. They are welcomed – and they should be welcomed in Greece, because we also have real needs in terms of our labour market. And we are a society, also, of people who have emigrated. So we know something about what it means and how painful it is to leave home in search of a better future. I think we can find the right balance.

For more insights from the Munich Security Conference, plus Monocle’s take on global affairs and diplomacy, listen to our weekly podcast ‘The Foreign Desk‘. Or listen to Monocle Radio.

The business agenda: Manufacturing cranes in the US, Colombia’s hospitality scene and the business of Tracht

Manufacturing – USA
Tall orders

While the security of global shipping routes has preoccupied governments around the world in recent months, the US has also swung its attention to another fixture of its maritime infrastructure: cargo cranes at its ports.

A 2023 newspaper report alleged that US officials were concerned that technology woven into the cranes that lift containers from ship to shore might be harvesting data on the US’s maritime economy. The majority of these contraptions are manufactured in China: Shanghai-based firm ZPMC makes 70 to 80 per cent of the world’s cargo cranes. The claims have been refuted but in February the US government announced a $20bn (€18.4bn) investment in its port infrastructure, with a focus on reviving its largely dormant crane-manufacturing sector.

The return of US crane production is set to take shape over the next five years, meaning that domestic manufacturing will do much of the heavy lifting in a sector of the US economy that currently generates $5.4trn (€5trn) every year. 

Audio – Austria
Sound effects

Professional-grade audio equipment has long ceased to be the preserve of radio journalists and sound engineers, and established audio hardware companies are investing heavily in versatile and easy-to-use microphones and recorders.

One of them, Austrian Audio, emerged as a reaction to off-shoring. In 2017, when AKG – Austria’s celebrated maker of microphones and headphones – was acquired by South Korean giant Samsung and closed its facilities in Vienna, a group of its engineers stayed behind and set up on their own. “We wanted to create something new but respectful of our heritage,” says Austrian Audio’s Perry Damiri.

Though it caters to entry-level creators, its biggest sellers are expensive microphones used in the world’s best recording studios and concert halls.

Transport – Canada & USA
Spark and ride

For school students across North America, there is one sound every morning that makes the heart either sink or sing: the trundling arrival of a bright yellow school bus. But a quiet overhaul to one of North America’s most recognisable forms of transport is under way at a new manufacturing plant built and operated by Blue Bird, the firm that debuted the famous buses in the 1920s.

The facility, in the US state of Georgia, opened a year ago to cater to the soaring demand from school districts across the US and Canada for electric buses, rather than diesel. The plant has the capacity to produce almost 5,000 buses a year.

School buses are well-suited to electrification. Fixed routes make them ideal for range-limited EVs and the periods outside the school run give plenty of charging time. They also ensure cleaner air for children, which has encouraged education authorities to start electrifying fleets. By 2032 it’s estimated that almost half of school buses will be electric, which will make the school run less arduous – for the environment, at least.

Publishing – Ibiza
Creative outlet

When Sonja van der Hagen settled in Ibiza after a career at German furniture firm Dedon, she was excited to discover a rich community of artists, artisans and architects, yet many were struggling to be seen and heard. So her new book, Made in Ibiza: a Journey into the Creative Heart of the White Island, lands like a celebratory lifeline. On an island where superclubs and summer crowds cast shadows, she hopes her compendium of Balearic creativity will inspire more people to buy local. 

How much did your perception of Ibiza change while researching the book?
Everyone knows the “party island” cliché but it was reassuring to discover an almost-invisible creative community and delve into thousands of years of history. But we had to dig for information, highlighting how little these layers are available. More needs to be done to honour the island’s artistic spirit.

How can you encourage island visitors to ‘give back’?
I wanted to connect people to the quality of island products by showing the integrity of the people behind them. I enlisted journalists to get to the heart of their stories, some of which stretch back generations. All contribute to Ibiza’s identity.

What advice do you have for others hoping to find the right publisher for their own book project?
Be ready: have a good concept; make the presentation shine; be prepared to adapt. Most importantly, find a publisher that understands your vision and shares your passion.

The Entrepreneurs
Laura Kramer on…
Pure shores

Nestled on Tierra Bomba Island, a breezy boat ride away from Cartagena, Blue Apple Beach isn’t your run-of-the-mill retreat. As the first island resort worldwide to earn B Corp status, it’s aiming to be a game-changer in Colombia’s hospitality scene.

Founder Portia Hart (pictured) didn’t set out to save the planet when she opened the doors in 2016. “I just wanted to start a company that sold rosé on the beach with good music and nice food,” she tells Monocle.  Originally from the UK, Hart followed the sun to the south of France where she worked for almost a decade before finding her way to the Caribbean coast of Colombia. “I wanted to live somewhere where there was a sense of optimism.”

Hart, whose mother is from Trinidad and Tobago, immediately felt a sense of belonging. “Everybody looked like they could be my cousin. For once it wasn’t hard to buy makeup or to find a hairdresser,” she says. “The country was coming out of a dark time and everyone was enthusiastic and starting businesses with no money.”

Today, Blue Apple Beach has 11 bedrooms and the hotel is a love letter to Hart’s years in the Côte d’Azur, with its beach club, Mediterranean-Caribbean fusion restaurant and a DJ who spins European and Latin house tunes.

Hart has three other ventures, including a non-profit focused on job creation through waste management and glass recycling. At the heart of it all is a commitment to creating vibrant businesses that play a role in the neighbourhood. “A huge part of being a sustainable business is the human side,” she says. “It can be something that improves the quality of life in the community.”

For more inspiring business stories, tune in to ‘The Entrepreneurs‘ at monocle.com/radio

Fashion – Austria
Back on tracht

The biannual Fesch traditional costume trade fair is held in Salzburg and attracts about 200 brands and 1,500 shop buyers – all of which are focused on what is now a growing market for long-established Alpine and Tracht dress (think lederhosen, dirndls and some seriously good hats).

What started as a village uniform that was sported by 16th-century peasants across Bavaria, Austria and South Tyrol has been elevated to a focus of fashion shows, premium shops and bespoke fittings. It’s also an industry that to this day supports a world of impeccable craftsmanship and a network of family-owned ateliers.

And as the ceremonial costume has ceased to be a symbol of political affiliation, today’s Trachten have found function as an urban alter-ego. “On the streets of Munich, it’s not unusual to see Bavarian jackets on dress-down Fridays,” says Sebastian Haufellner, head of buying at longstanding Bavarian department store Lodenfrey. It’s all a joyful way of holding on to a sense of identity.

A Bangkok food emporium’s recipe for success

Gourmet Market’s flagship in Bangkok is a giant food emporium found inside the city’s premier shopping mall, Siam Paragon. Every morning, staff form a line at the end of each aisle to greet the first customers of the day with a cheerful sawadee. This sizeable welcoming party makes food shopping feel like a royal visit. A repeat performance after lunch involves dancing to music.

“An exceptional customer experience is crucial to food retail because there are so many options,” says Ploychompu Umpujh, who heads up Gourmet Market’s 17 branches and the rest of the food department at The Mall Group, one of Bangkok’s leading mall operators. “We have to consistently improve and think beyond what the customer wants.”

Supermarket shopping might have been boiled down to an exact science in many parts of the world but in Thailand the pie charts and schematics come with five-star service and lashings of entertainment. At Gourmet Market, a handful of floor staff are trained to guide customers through fresh produce and groceries, giving ordinary items the star treatment usually associated with fine wine and premium cuts of meat. Then there’s the “you hunt, we cook” scheme, with chefs on hand to whip up a recipe for customers using ingredients sourced from the supermarket.

“Food appreciation is in our DNA,” says Umpujh, before rattling through a shopping list of supporting reasons. These include Thailand’s diverse cuisine and cooking styles, a service mindset, the dominance of agricultural exports and the central role of food in daily life. “Have you eaten?” is a popular way of saying hello. And the likely response is, “Yes, I have but I’m starting to get peckish.”

Beyond the fun and frivolity, putting food on Thai plates is big business. The department that Umpujh leads contributes the largest slice of the Mall Group’s overall revenue and Gourmet Market plans to double in size in five years, primarily via shop expansions. It’s fair to say that Bangkok’s premium supermarkets are home to some of the freshest concepts in food retail.

Read next: The Monocle City Guide to Bangkok, featuring the very best hotels, restaurants and retail spots in the Thai capital

Refueling in midair: A multinational aerial combat training designed to simulate the ‘chaos of combat’

In April 2024 writer Christopher Lord and photographer Jason Koxvold joined a refuelling exercise with the UK and US air forces in the skies over Las Vegas. A mid-flight refuel requires precise manoeuvring thousands of metres up in the air and there is very little room for error. In light of the recent US military KC-135 aerial refuelling tanker crash in Iraq, which killed all six crew members, we are publishing this story to give readers insight into the delicate process.

We’re onboard an Airbus A330, cruising at 20,000 feet above the Las Vegas Strip. With its rows of economy seats and in-flight entertainment in the armrests, the plane resembles a typical commercial aircraft; in reality, however, it’s a flying petrol pump with 137,500 litres of jet fuel sloshing around in its fuselage. At the controls are pilots from the UK’s Royal Air Force (RAF), who are monitoring the radio for incoming squadrons of US and UK fighter jets. These will fly in and refuel from the tanker in mid-air, before moving on to a simulated aerial battle over the desert. The refuelling is part of a training mission called Exercise Red Flag, and mirrors the US-UK operations that have been taking place in Yemen since the start of the year as the two nations co-operate to target Houthi positions.

“Aerial refuelling used to be done with just a grap­pling hook and a hose,” says Wing Commander Paul Summers, squadron leader on the RAF Voyager air tanker. The process has remained fairly analogue: a probe with a nozzle at the end emerges from the wing of the Voyager and waggles about in the wind. From about 1km behind us, a squadron of US Marines in F-35S comes into view. They line up in formation, matching the speed of the tanker so that, aside from barely perceptible tremors caused by turbulence, they appear perfectly still. Then one of the aircraft drifts closer and lines up to connect to the probe.

“Joining a tanker is a fine art,” Flight Lieutenant Simon Tofrik tells Monocle. The RAF pilot has hooked up his Eurofighter Typhoon in mid-air on missions out of Cyprus. There is no autopilot to do the job for the airmen. “You have to ensure that you’re not using too much fuel chasing down the tanker,” he says. “The trick is not to look at the nozzle.”

Though it’s a delicate manoeuvre, aerial refuelling is often crucial. Most bombers and fighter jets carry only a few hours’ worth of fuel, limiting how far they can fly. In an era of fast-moving theatres of combat emerging around the world – and with not enough naval aircraft carriers to send to all of them – the tankers pick up the slack, allowing planes to travel across large distances into the heart of battle. Monocle has been invited to observe a day of joint operations by the US, UK and Australian air forces as part of Exercise Red Flag. It’s a show of unity by three allies linked by the Aukus defence pact but also an opportunity for their respective militaries to practise working together in conditions that simulate what one aerial commander calls “the chaos of combat”.

Exercise Red Flag has been held every year since the end of the Vietnam War at Nellis Air Force Base, just north of Las Vegas. It was started after strategists at the Pentagon realised that novice pilots were flying into battle inexperienced and performing dismally in air-to-air combat. Aside from the occasional whoosh of a passing jet, most of the gamblers and croupiers working the casino tables below are oblivious to the deft military exercises happening overhead.

This year’s exercise involves a series of aerial battles between a friendly blue team and an enemy red team. On the runway at Nellis are rows of aircraft painted in the black and icy-blue colours of Chinese and Russian forces. These are flown by US pilots briefed on how the air forces of these “near-peer competitors” – nations of comparable military might – tend to operate in combat. In addition to airborne operations, the 2024 exercise is also about better integrating how the three allies support each other logistically, from mid-air tankering to retooling aircraft on the ground. The F-35S and ageing B-2 stealth bombers lined up for take-off on the runway still pack a formidable punch but it is becoming increasingly likely that the potential conflicts of the future will be fought and won on the strength of logistics and integration.

An often-heard phrase among US military strategists is the “tyranny of distance”, which refers to the challenge of getting units and supplies across the Pacific in the event of, say, a surprise attack by China on Taiwan. It’s 10,000km from Los Angeles to Taipei and the vastness of this oceanic theatre is provoking a fundamental shift in military thinking after 20 years in which the US and its allies built and commanded their forces from impregnable bases across the Middle East. Such fortresses simply won’t make sense on small Pacific islands that are surrounded by ocean. “If we built everything up in one location, we would be vulnerable,” says Colonel Eric Winterbottom, the US commander of Exercise Red Flag, who we meet at the flight line at Nellis as, one after the other, RAF Typhoons erupt into takeoff. “We need to be able to move around rapidly. It’s a change of mindset and how we conduct our logistics.”

The future, says Winterbottom, requires a more dispersed network of tiny outposts, where aircraft are launched and maintained across multiple locations. There must also be a nimbler attitude to getting equipment and people around, with the job shared among allies. Agile Combat Employment, as the strategy is called, underpins Exercise Red Flag.

“It’s about learning how our allies operate – and learning to understand their accents as well,” says Australian Flight Lieutenant Dan Armstrong. The F-35 pilot is waiting for his plane, which is emblazoned with the kangaroo insignia of the Royal Australian Airforce, to be readied for flight. “There were the same problems operating in the Pacific during the Second World War. There’s a lot of water and not many runways so there’s a long logistical tail wherever you go.” The plane’s flight engineer, Harrison Littrich, tells Monocle that his job in the field is as much about ensuring supply chains for parts and maintenance as keeping the planes aloft.

To maintain a footprint in the Pacific, the US has been deploying equipment and troops among allies, from northern Australia to South Korea, and is hacking away jungle on long-mothballed runways. Tinian, an airbase in the Mariana Islands and a US territory, which last saw action during the Second World War, is expected to reopen by the end of the year. Unlike in previous conflicts, US forces cannot rely on unfettered access to Pacific Island nations, many of which are now being courted by Beijing as it seeks to secure its own access.

Brad Martin, head of supply chains in defence at the Rand Corporation, argues that the US couldn’t effectively manage a conflict in the Pacific without being able to sustain the fight from American soil. This, he says, is weakening its military deterrence. “You need the ability to move things around faster than the enemy can figure out where you’re going,” says Martin.

From the window of the RAF Voyager, we watch a formation of British Typhoons finish up at the pump, then peel elegantly away into the clouds. Commander Summers says that with theatres emerging in the Middle East and the Pacific, there is a growing need for more tankers in the air and the RAF has started to train retired commercial pilots for the job. “If you want to project air power, then you need tankers,” says Summers. “As the saying goes among our US allies, ‘Nobody kicks ass without tanker gas.’”

Unarmed and dangerous: Evaluating the effectiveness of Hybrid COE

Hybrid warfare is a 21st-century security buzzword. It describes the use of both conventional and unconventional methods to inflict damage on your opponent, and can involve anything from cyberattacks and election interference to the use of non-state actors in combat or the sabotage of critical infrastructure.

“We in the West did not take these threats seriously at first, which is why we are on the defensive,” Teija Tiilikainen, director of the Helsinki-based European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid COE), tells Monocle. “We were caught off-guard.” Hybrid COE, which describes itself as a “do tank”, is an autonomous organisation founded in 2017 with a remit to provide expertise and training to its 35 participating states – essentially all the EU and Nato member states with the exception of Albania – to help them counter hybrid threats.

But what does “counter” mean in this context? If hybrid warfare is an extension of conventional warfare, shouldn’t the West respond to these attacks with ones of its own? For example, why hasn’t the West launched a cyberattack against Russia as a response to those it has suffered at the hands of the country and its proxies? “The West has a disadvantage because we want to uphold a rules-based international order and the rule of law but our opponents are not bound by the same rules,” says Tiilikainen.

In other words, if the West wanted to fight fire with fire, it would have to renounce its core values, which is exactly what its opponents, such as Russia and China, want. But if it can’t strike back, how can it ever win the war? Indeed, it looks a lot like Hybrid COE is simply putting out fires instead of preventing them. For example, election interference has been an issue since at least the 2016 US presidential poll and yet, eight years and nearly two election cycles later, it is still a major threat to democracy. And there is probably more disinformation being spread by state- sponsored actors today than there was then.

Hybrid COE argues that victory in hybrid warfare does not look like normal victory. “We cannot fully stop cyberattacks or attacks on critical infrastructure such as gas pipelines and data cables,” says Tiilikainen. “But we can stop them from destabilising our societies by improving our resilience.” This is exactly what Hybrid COE’s 41 experts from 16 different countries do – study what exploitable weaknesses its participating states have and then work out how to make sure that they stop being weaknesses. This can involve sponsored initiatives such as educating populations to recognise fake news, like Finland does as part of its national curriculum, as well as promoting backup energy sources or advocating for a more agile legislative process to stop the weaponisation of migration. “It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” says Tiilikainen. “The enemy, just like us, is always looking for new vulnerabilities.”

Resilience is important but it is not enough. Western societies are based on openness and freedom, and so will always be susceptible to those looking to exploit these things. The West needs a credible deterrent against hybrid operations. “Western countries need to learn to put a price tag on these acts,” says Tiilikainen. “That means responding with sanctions as well as naming and shaming.” It is doubtful, however, that naming and shaming, or sanctions for that matter, will prevent hybrid attacks. The West needs a firmer response. There is talk within Nato of making it clear that a hybrid attack will trigger the alliance’s collective defence clause, Article 5, which is currently reserved for armed attacks. But it is unclear what this would mean in practice. Perhaps the alliance wants it to remain ambiguous. Either way, there will come a time when it must act. Hybrid warfare has changed the nature of conflict – it’s time the West moved from the defensive to the offensive.

How Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are laying down tracks for the future with the BTK railway

A queue of trucks stretches from the Cildir-Aktas border crossing into the green mountains. This almost permanent bottleneck is a symptom of disputes that have left Cildir-Aktas as one of the few overland portals for goods travelling into the Caucasus. Wedged between Turkey, Russia and Iran, the region covers an area that is smaller than Sweden and sits at the heart of the old Silk Road. Yet today it is difficult to traverse by land. On one side of Cildir-Aktas is Turkey and on the other, where the modern road suddenly turns into pitted track, is Georgia. The trucks groan around corners and dodge potholes as they crank into gear.

The three Caucasian countries – Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan – were once part of the Soviet Union and have often forged fraught relations with each other since it collapsed. Armenia and Azerbaijan have long been embroiled in a territorial conflict and there’s no way to travel directly between them. Turkey, a staunch ally of the latter, closed its land border with Armenia in solidarity. To travel from Turkey to Armenia, you have to pass through Cildir-Aktas and head 25km inside Georgia, before doglegging south across the border. Since 2022, EU sanctions over the war in Ukraine have put extra pressure on the crossing: it is now also one of the few land routes through which goods can travel by land to Russia.

In clear view of the border gate, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway line cuts a parallel path. The line, which was first touted by Ankara in 1993, links Kars in eastern Turkey to Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, and then to Azerbaijan’s, Baku, making a wide loop north to bypass Armenia. It opened for cargo in 2017 and is part of a route that can bring goods from China into the EU in 12 days.

In 2018, Azerbaijan Railways announced that a passenger train would begin service on the route. The first stretch, heading east from Kars to Tbilisi, passes through mountains and winds around lakes and provincial towns. From Tbilisi, the line turns southeast to Baku; a 12-hour sleeper train will deliver you to its grand 19th-century station at 08.00. In May 2019, Turkish and Azerbaijani national railways announced that the journey from Ankara to Baku would take about 40 hours and cost between €50 and €120.

But when Monocle set out to travel on the BTK, we discovered that we could not. Newly built stations are listed on booking sites but no service times appear. Online, enthusiasts ask when the trains will come. We eventually discovered that the only way to make the trip by public transport involved a long bus ride, a stop-off in Batumi on Georgia’s Black Sea coast (120km in the wrong direction), a train to Tbilisi and an expensive one-hour flight to Baku. No part of the passenger line from Kars to Tbilisi is working and Azerbaijan hasn’t opened its land borders since 2020. So we journeyed by foot, car, train and plane – a trip that took three days and served as a stark lesson on the region’s shifting relations.

Stop one
Akhalkalaki, Georgia

Our train crosses the border from Turkey into Georgia and stops for passport control at Akhalkalaki, an ethnic Armenian enclave. The Russian army was the biggest employer here until 2007, when it closed its base amid worsening relations between Moscow and Tbilisi. Many jobs went with it and today the town’s poorest residents occupy decrepit former military housing. Of the three Caucasus nations, Armenia has maintained the closest ties with Russia. Many in Akhalkalaki have Armenian passports alongside their Georgian ones so that they can work in Russia and send back remittances. But recent events in another Armenian enclave 300km from Akhalkalaki have shifted the regional power balance.

Last September, Azerbaijan seized full control of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, displacing some 120,000 ethnic Armenians. Russia, the guarantor of a ceasefire in the territory, had given tacit approval to Baku. Armenia has turned against Vladimir Putin as a result and, in October, voted to recognise the International Criminal Court. Russia’s president, who has been indicted for war crimes in Ukraine, now risks arrest if he steps foot in Armenia. The sentiment has rippled out to Akhalkalaki.

“Russia is weak now,” says Rima Gharibyan, director of the Javakheti Information Centre, a local news site. “Attitudes in Armenia are changing. People don’t like Russian politics but they are economically dependent on the country. If Moscow decides that we’re not a friendly country, it could expel Armenian workers, like it did to Georgians in 2008.”

The BTK was supposed to bring Akhalkalaki an economic boost. Its international station, a curved structure designed by German architect Jürgen Mayer, was completed in 2018 but never opened. Work on the line was beset with delays and locals employed on the project protested after they were not paid for months. Businesses in Akhalkalaki still can’t receive deliveries from the station, even though the cargo line is working. Instead, they have to collect them from Tbilisi, 180km away.

Some believe that the passenger trains will never come. “We have asked Georgian Railway about them but no one knows,” says Gharibyan. “Georgia doesn’t feel that it owns this project – it’s between Turkey and Azerbaijan. We just happen to be in the middle.”

Stop Two
Tbilisi, Georgia

There is, at least, a new road from Akhalkalaki to Tbilisi. It opened in 2010 and runs alongside the BTK, cutting through mountains where shepherds herd sheep over the tracks. This journey took almost all day on the old roads; now it can be completed in three hours. By lunchtime, Monocle is in Tbilisi. Georgia’s capital is the cultural heart of the Caucasus: a hub for digital nomads, a hipster food destination and a refuge for Russians escaping Putin’s mobilisation. The Georgian government estimates that there are about 112,000 Russians in the country but Tbilisi’s streets are daubed with anti-Russian graffiti. It’s the most visible sign of the growing disconnect between the country’s people and its political elite.

We meet former public defender Nino Lomjaria in Stamba, a Soviet-era printworks that now houses a luxury hotel, gallery, restaurant and co-working space. Young creatives, including some Russians, sip coffee in the central courtyard. But the urban vibe belies Georgia’s worrying trajectory. “The situation is changing so rapidly,” says Lomjaria. “A year ago, I wouldn’t have imagined that we would be in this situation, even in my nightmares.” She stepped down from her state position in December 2022. Georgia, once the Caucasian nation moving westwards fastest, has taken an anti-democratic turn since 2018.

Its pro-Russian ruling party, Georgian Dream, has declined to join sanctions on Moscow. Even as Georgia moves through the process of joining the EU, its government is throwing stumbling blocks in its own path. The party hopes to cling to power in October’s general elections by claiming that Nato and the EU are trying to drag Georgia into Ukraine’s war.

“The fear of war is effective because it’s a recent trauma,” says Dachi Imedadze, a member of the Shame Movement, a pro-European youth organisation founded in 2019. “According to the government’s propaganda, it is the peacekeeper and the opposition is trying to provoke war with Russia.” In 2021 the Shame Movement’s then offices were attacked by a right-wing mob. Its new base, in a block of flats in the Tbilisi Hills, is decorated with anti-Putin paraphernalia: posters and stickers declaring, “Never back to the USSR”.

But relations between Tbilisi and Moscow have warmed over the past year. The Kremlin has lifted its ban on direct flights to and from Georgia and a Russian cruise ship recently docked in Batumi. Last year thousands of Georgians demonstrated against a proposed law that would have allowed the government to crack down on ngos and journalists that it accused of being “foreign agents” (almost identical legislation was passed in Russia in December 2022). Though the bill was dropped, many fear that the government will try again.

In September, Lomjaria launched a civil society platform, Georgia’s European Orbit, hoping to work outside party politics to keep Georgia on its westward path. “This year’s elections are a referendum on Europe or Russia,” she says. “My fear is that if we don’t get EU status, we might stay in the Russian orbit.”

Stop Three
Baku, Azerbaijan

Our flight from Tbilisi lands at Baku Airport’s domestic terminal. Here the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is inescapable. The boulevards into the city are lined with flags. In a park between the Caspian Sea and a shopping centre, Armenian military hardware seized from the conflict is on display: burnt-out tanks and ancient howitzers, all Soviet-made. Baku’s victory expanded its reach and won it clout in its neighbourhood and beyond. Until recently, Armenia enjoyed the support of both Iran and Russia but the totality of its defeat has shifted the realpolitikal equation in the Caucasus.

In Baku’s Synagogue of Ashkenazi Jews, a haven of books, domes and velvet in the ever-developing city centre, Rabbi Shneor Segal reflects on his adopted country’s unique foreign policy. Segal, an Israeli, came here 13 years ago. Azerbaijan is one of the few Muslim nations to maintain warm relations with Israel, a friendship based on trade and security co-operation (Israeli weapons helped Baku win in Nagorno-Karabakh). Azerbaijan’s Jewish community numbers about 25,000 people. “In Baku, you can see a visitor from Israel next to one from Iran,” says Segal.

Azerbaijan has practical aims for Nagorno-Karabakh. The newly won area provides the country with a far more direct route from Baku to the border with Turkey that is half the length of the BTK’s loop. Baku has started building a railway and a road leading westwards to Nakhchivan, an exclave of Azerbaijan next to Turkey. But a 40km-strip of Armenian territory blocks the route, a barrier known as the Zangezur corridor. Baku is in negotiations with Tehran to skirt south into Iran and sidestep the stretch.

Officials in Baku insist that this new railway will not render the BTK obsolete. Instead, it will add to a growing network that reflects the region’s evolving connections. In May 2023, Russia and Iran signed a deal to build a railway from Astara, on the Iranian-Azerbaijani border, to Rasht, on the Persian Gulf. It will be part of a route that will eventually stretch from St Petersburg to Mumbai, crossing both Armenia and Azerbaijan on the way.

Further south, there are plans to restore the old line from Mosul in Iraq to Gaziantep in Turkey. If the BTK ever begins service, it will add to the Caucasus’s growing importance as a link between Europe and Asia, and between Russia, Turkey and Iran. These relationships have the potential to define the future of the region and the world. Many leaders, especially those in the West, will be hoping that these planned railways hit the buffers.

An Italian town is reviving its heritage through an ancestral festival

It is mid-afternoon in the southern Italian mountain town of Satriano di Lucania when the forest begins, unmistakably, to walk. More than 100 trees are advancing through the narrow streets and every one is obscured by a teepee made from ivy vines, leaving visible only human arms and feet – a primitive disguise bonding people and nature that’s known in this town as the rumita, or “hermit”.

An ancestral tradition dating back to at least medieval times, the figure of the rumita is said to have emerged from a solitary lair in the wilderness, disguised by ivy leaves, to visit homes and receive food or small change in return for a blessing. Today, thanks to a new generation’s efforts, the rumita festival has evolved. Tree people still roam the streets every last Sunday of the carnival season but they’re now followed by a boisterous afternoon march of an entire copse of trees, with hundreds on hand to watch the arboreal ambulation.

In Italy, and especially in southern regions such as Basilicata, small towns have been haemorrhaging their younger residents for more than a century, as they emigrated to big cities or abroad in search of opportunity. Quirks and traditions that celebrate the identities of rural communities have been abandoned or forgotten. But Satriano, with just one pizzeria and about 2,000 inhabitants, is bringing back its tradition to help foster a sense of community and connect with the area’s roots.

Though the rumita’s origins have been lost to time, the revised format of the walking forest celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. The idea was hatched by a group of friends whose creative vision has helped to make Satriano a buoyant carnival destination. The new format features 131 people in tree costumes marching to represent the 131 municipalities of Basilicata. The idea of sustainability is central to proceedings and so is the use of biodegradable and recycled materials in the costumes and the event’s trappings.

“I’m a custodian of traditions, like everyone here,” says Rocco Perrone, motioning to an extended group of friends, musicians and performers beside the procession. Perrone has made his love of Satriano a political pursuit, running for mayor at the age of 30 and, since 2019, serving as councillor for “traditions and the sense of community”.

For the walking forest, revellers and Perrone’s pals play accordions and tambourines; others wear bear costumes in fake fur. Some are dressed as woodland sprites and pour red wine into the mouths of tree people through their foliage. They sing raucous folk songs and wave leafy sceptres in the air – occasionally brushing them on a doorway or a child’s head to bestow good fortune.

“When the day comes that our group of friends is no longer leading this carnival, someone from the next generation will step up,” says Perrone. “We’ve created an example for young people here and for other towns to follow. We’re imagining a future for centuries-old traditions – and the town we love.”

Mathieu Lehanneur on the art of crafting the torch for the 2024 Olympics

When French designer Mathieu Lehanneur learned that he had been selected to design the torch and flame-bearing cauldron for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, he was overjoyed. “Then my second reaction was fear,” he tells Monocle. “It’s quite rare to design an object that will be seen by four, maybe five, billion people. So I did the only thing that I knew I could do: I got to work.”

The designer is celebrated for imbuing his work with a sense of whimsy, weaving engineering, technology and function with art, craft and aesthetics. Lehanneur has been busy. He was named designer of the year at Paris-based design fair Maison & Objet in January after opening La Factory, his studio-workshop in Ivry-sur-Seine, last year.

In April, 2,000 copies of his torch will be used to relay the Olympic flame from Greece, the birthplace of the Olympic Games, to the heart of the French capital. En route, his design will pass through the hands of more than 10,000 people over the course of three months. “Once it begins its journey, the torch won’t be mine any more,” he says. “It will belong to the world.”

Naturally, every torch is made in France from recycled steel, in partnership with Luxembourg-based manufacturer ArcelorMittal. “The briefing from the Paris 2024 committee about the design of the torch was almost empty beyond the dimensions and weight,” says Lehanneur. “I thought about the value of equality, which is symbolised in the design by the symmetry of the torch. Of course, it’s a reference to the French motto, ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’, but also to the parity between the Paralympic and Olympic Games, between female athletes and male athletes.” As part of this vision, Lehanneur asked the Olympic and Paralympic committees whether it was possible for both events to share a single design for the first time. In a testament to the designer’s conviction, they agreed.

Next, Lehanneur looked not to postcard monuments such as the Eiffel Tower or Arc de Triomphe for design cues but to the river Seine as an emblem of the French capital. (The Seine will also be the aqueous stage of the Games’ opening ceremony.) To illustrate this contextual clue, Lehanneur added a series of ripples that appear to reverberate upwards from the base of the torch.

“I only realised the power of the Olympic torch after designing it,” says Lehanneur. “When I show it to people, athletes and non-athletes, you can see how deeply moving it is as a symbol. They ask whether they can touch it as though it holds magical power.” On the night of the opening ceremony, Lehanneur’s cauldron, which will hold the Olympic flame throughout the Games, will be revealed. Until that moment, its design is being kept like a state secret. 

As we face war from Ukraine to Gaza, the deployment of national symbolism and the value of pomp and circumstance is a thorny issue for some. What did Lehanneur make of this political and social climate when designing an object intended to stoke national pride? “It’s beautiful to be proud of cultural differences,” he says. “The far-right has appropriated this concept to an extreme but national identity doesn’t belong to the political right or left. It’s time to reclaim it, without implying that one nationality is better than another, without putting up barriers around ourselves, because it makes life more interesting to meet each other. I wasn’t thinking on a national level but I am glad I focused on the notion of equality, because, as a Frenchman, I feel the need to defend this value.”