European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 9, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Trieste a City in transition Small boats Are moored along the Side of the grand canal running through Trieste. Trieste grew on the slopes rising from its once crowded  Verena Dobnik the associated press at the end of a death defying Road that plunges to the sea Trieste appears a dying port where Eastern Europe and the West have Loc ked spirits and exchanged cultures for a half Century. The italian City which now has a front Row seat for the bloody civil War going on in neighbouring Yugoslavia once marked the Southern tip of the Iron curtain. Throughout the cold War the Borders Between Italy and Yugoslavia were open in both directions. As a result for almost 50 years the citizens of Trieste performed a High wire act of detente with communism. That act May now be Over. These1 Days Trieste is groping for its new role on the turbulent East West stage. An italian Flag takes the Breeze in the seafront main Square of the 2,000-year-old City of some 200,000 people a number that is shrinking. The Flag blows East toward the slavic lands and North toward Austria with a furl to the South and Greece. It is from these countries that the residents of this Border port Are drawn and it is in the Many Catholic jewish protestant greek and serbian orthodox cemeteries that they Are buried. Along with Trieste s dwindling population Only a handful of ships remain in the port that once was the booming 19th-Century Gateway to the world for the Austro hungarian Empire. Many of the vessels that crowded the Harbor until the 1950s have since moved across the sea to the cheaper yugoslav ports. In return yugoslavs had for decades flooded across the Border from their consumer poor communism to buy Blue jeans laundry detergent shoes and other common things of capitalism. Most of Trieste s shopkeepers were forced to learn some slovenian or Serbo croatian two yugoslav languages to push goods. But now that business is drying up a As the unrest continues the impoverished yugoslavs Are staying Home. Since the fall of the Iron curtain the City has been looking at a new Long term role Quot that of being a link to the East of bringing out the repressed culture of the East Quot says Fulvio Bordon director of the local drama theater the Teatro Rossetti glancing through his offic e window at the Brilliant Orange covered rooftops and iridescent Adriatic sky. Another Man looking toward the transformed East is Quirino Cardarelli a Maverick roman born investor who is aggressively shaking up what he Calls this Quot marginal c Ity in the italian  he has prodded the economically stagnant City by building a City within a c Ity a a $100 million shopping Center transformed from an old austrian Beer Hall Complete with Tho first Mcdonald s in an italian mall a 2,000-car parking garage shops government offices and a school. On the Hills above the Center Are villages populated by ethnic slovenians. In recent years the residents of one Village have been protesting a decision made by the italian government in Rome their meager share of land was being eaten up by the construction of one of the Worl i s fastest nuclear accelerators. On another Hill a few Miles outside the City a pakistani born Nobel prize winning physicist leads a research Institute that trains thousands of third world scientists every year and sends them Bac k Home to work. But Trieste is not All modern Bustle. Below the laboratories As if lulled by the sea into the past is the turreted White Miramare Castle. It was built in the 1850s by the austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximillian for his wife Charlotte just before he went to his death by execution As the emperor of Mexico. The1 love1 Castle gleams Over the Northern Crescent of the Adriatic the italian and yugoslav coasts spreading East and West trom its Walls. Quot we believe in Leisure time time to read to sit in the Sun to eat to take walks. It s a Sweet death Here Quot says Bordon the theater director. That s How it was while this still genteel City was the main seaport of the Austro i hungarian Empire until after world War i. The City then joined Italy and Mussolini s fascists. But Trieste held on to its fiefdom of shipping lines insurance e companies and finance As Well As Good food and Fine Liing. Commerce bred a cultured merchant class that built opulent palaces piazzas and a four Block Long grand canal among the roman ruins and medieval churches. Quot Trieste was born suddenly populated by adventurous people who came Here to make Money. There were Many bloods but no roots Quot Bordon says. A half Century after the glory Days when Trieste served As the merchant port for the Northern Empire that adventurous mercantile spirit still is deep rooted but channelled into smaller industries and shops. And the citizens with s it me of the highest per capita Bank deposits in Italy revel in financing Lutui Stii experiments Lor the world. The Trieste based Assoc Grazioni Generali one of Europe s largest insurance companies Sells policies for multimillion Dollar commercial satellites inc luding those manufactured by . Companies. On the culinary Side the Illy Coffee factory a whose laboratories Are equipped with futuristic instruments and computers a has pushed the science of the near perfect Coffee bean to the cutting Edge of technology. The pungent smell of Coffee hangs Over the City s streets and Triestine huddle in the cafes that Grace every Piazza. Rows of cafes line the grand canal where merchants peddle shoes food and clothing mostly to yugoslav buyers. In the arts the City often reaches for familiar splendor not innovation. The highlight of the summer season still is a nostalgic festival of viennese operetta. But there is room for an Oasis of modern dance in the Odd setting of the local psychiatric Hospital where the american choreographer Grant me Daniel trains his troupe of modern dancers. For the City s natives used to the Good old Days opulence Dies hard. Many stroll in the main Seaside Square in clothes that Are Italy s finest and when the curtain goes up on opera perform am is the darkness hashes with jewels. To keep that glitter from completely disappearing trieste1 must make the Best of its situation. It is a mix of East and West past and future High tech and Low tech. It is moving from looking at the sea for its survival to scanning space to guarantee its future. If the City succeeds it will be another Victory Tor its adventurous spirit. 24 stripes Magazine january 9, 1992 a