The Trans-Siberian Pipeline is still one of the main arteries of natural gas from Siberia to Western Europe. It was therefore inevitable that this pipeline of interdependence in Europe with Russia would be at times a source of grave concern.
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/4944
For example, this very January 2009, 25 years after the completion of the Trans-Siberian Pipeline to France, a new threat to the peaceful coexistence between Eastern and Western Europe would arise after a series of tit-for-tat gas pipeline shutdowns in Russia and the Ukraine had seen gas stoppages taking place on both the Russian side of the border, in neighboring Ukraine, and on through southeastern and western Europe.
http://forcechange.com/tag/russia-ukraine-gas-dispute/
Back in 1984 though, the Mennonite farmer for whom I was an Intermenno , Georg Ernst in Rhineland Palatinate, would soon be generously reimbursed by the state of Germany and regional governments. Nonetheless, it is always sad when one has to stand by and watch three years of hard labor plowed up in the name of progress (of a pipeline).
http://www.erdbeerlandernst.de/
In fact, 1984 eventually saw the natural gas begin to flow from East to West—right through our strawberry field to France .
Personally, I have an enduring image of the Trans-Siberian pipe-laying workers stopping for a few hours to pick strawberries in our humble field near Mittelbrunn village.
This memory has remained with me for decades.
[Naturally, I had to recall this whole episode again and again this winter as Europe discovered again that overdependence on the Russian bear for energy may not be in the best interest of her citizens.]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6243573.stm
As these rugged looking Trans-Siberian pipeline-layers chewed down on buckets of strawberries, I recall that they stated over and over: “Schade auf den Erdbeeren.”
That means in English: “Too bad for those strawberries”.
These same strong-looking construction workers repeated this over and over. “Too bad for those strawberries”.
Then a few minutes later these very same workers of heavy machinery took buckets and baskets and picked a few more strawberries, i.e. before plowing through the foliage a few moments later. [Some might call that collateral damage to progress for peace and interdepence or globalization.]
“Too bad for those strawberries”—perhaps --but historical events were happening across Europe in the 1980s, and as each year went by, more tolerance was showing up on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
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