Beautiful Playgrounds and Empty Sandpits and: Germany’s Demographic Puzzle

A playground in Dinkelsbühl (Germany).

Walk through a German town on a weekday morning and you might notice something striking: the playgrounds are pristine, imaginative, and meticulously engineered—yet often eerily quiet. Germany, like many Western European countries, faces a persistently low birthrate (around 1.3–1.5 children per woman in recent years).

Over decades, fewer births mean shrinking school classes, a tightening labor market, and mounting pressure on pension and health-care systems. With a smaller working-age population supporting a growing number of retirees, the classic social contract of “today’s workers fund tomorrow’s pensions” becomes fragile. Immigration softens the trend but does not erase it.

Ironically, the few children who are born may enjoy the best playgrounds in history. German municipalities, proud of their Spielplätze, invest in elaborate wooden climbing castles, rope pyramids, and water-sand labs that would make many theme parks envious. Safety standards are exacting, and design competitions fierce.

The result? Superb public play spaces—often half empty. It’s a gentle, almost humorous side effect of demographic change: as the child population shrinks, the investment per child soars.

Behind the quiet slides lies a serious challenge: how to sustain economic vitality, care for an aging population, and keep intergenerational solidarity alive. Germany’s situation is emblematic of much of Western Europe, where prosperity and lifestyle choices have combined to bend the population curve downward.

For now, the next time you see a state-of-the-art climbing tower standing still under a perfect blue sky, remember: it’s more than playground design. It’s a silent symbol of a continent rethinking its future.

Why Some Art Grabs Us — and Some Wait for Us to Notice

A work of Mattia Pajè, a resident of the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht (October 2025). Mattia Pajè explores how truth is constructed and manipulated in an age of post-truth narratives, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories. His work turns research and site-specific installations into layered spaces where images, ideas, and time overlap—questioning not only what we see, but how we come to believe it.

Ever stood in front of a painting and felt … nothing? And then, another time, been completely drawn in — as if the work was quietly speaking your language?

That spark we feel isn’t random. It’s the mind recognising a pattern it half-knows — something close enough to grasp, yet just beyond reach. When the familiar and the unfamiliar meet, we lean forward. That’s the space where learning, and art, begin.

Realistic art often hits that balance for many people easily. We recognise the world it shows us, so it feels natural to step inside. That’s why it can be instantly appealing: it speaks in a language we already know. Contemporary or conceptual art, on the other hand, often takes its time. Without shared references or context, it can feel distant — like a conversation we’ve walked into halfway through.

Artists and curators simply know more of those conversations. They’ve built broader frames of reference, so they see patterns and meanings that others might miss. But understanding can grow. A short explanation, a hint of context, or even a second look can turn confusion into connection.

Some works reach us immediately; others wait quietly until we’re ready to meet them halfway. That’s what makes art enduring — it doesn’t always shout for attention, but it’s always there, waiting to be seen.

Further Reading

• Reber, Schwarz & Winkielman — Processing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure

• Silvia — What Is Interesting?

• Leder & Nadal — A Model of Aesthetic Appreciation

• Loewenstein — The Psychology of Curiosity

• Marin & Leder — Berlyne Revisited

Ukranians in search of safety: Sofiia

Sofiia and her mother in The Netherlands.

I’m Sofiia, 18 years old, and I’m from Kharkiv, a city in eastern Ukraine, close to the Russian border. Until February 2022, my life was what you’d expect for a 15-year-old girl. I went to school, played sports, had friends, made plans. My world felt safe and simple — or so it seemed.

That all changed on February 24. My mother woke me up that morning and said: “Sofiia, the war has started. You’re not going to school today. We have to pack.” At first, I didn’t understand. As a kid, I even thought: no school, maybe I can stay in bed a bit longer. But then we spent days sleeping in the bathroom, between two thick walls. I heard bombs. I saw tanks passing by. We lived on a major road from Russia. Anything could happen at any moment.

My parents and I fled westward. What should have been a one-hour drive took eighteen hours. We slept in gyms, schools, and in places where strangers opened their doors to those in need. Eventually, we arrived in Chernivtsi, near the Carpathian Mountains. That’s where we made a decision that split my life in two: my mother and I would go to the Netherlands, while my father stayed behind. He couldn’t abandon his company or his employees. It broke our hearts, but there was no other option.

Through a friend of my mother’s, we ended up in Roermond. My mother didn’t speak any English, so I took on all the responsibility — documents, meetings, housing. I was fifteen, but suddenly I was no longer a child. In Ukraine, I had never been especially ambitious. But something shifted. I started school at Nt2 Mundium College in Roermond, a school for newcomers. The teachers saw me, supported me, and believed in me. They gave me confidence. I began learning Dutch, took extra courses, and became interested in marketing and international business. Things started to go well.

I now work part-time in an outlet store and volunteer at the Holland Ukrainian House in Maastricht, and a volunteer social media assistant at Meet Maastricht. I’m also doing an online university degree from Ukraine while preparing for a new chapter: I’ve been accepted to Maastricht University to study International Business. The admission process wasn’t easy — I didn’t meet all the requirements, had to submit extra documents, file an appeal, and prove my motivation. But I made it!

And still… everything I’m building here, I carry with mixed feelings. My father still lives in Kharkiv. His company is still running, our old apartment is still there — as if an angel is watching over it, because several bombs have fallen nearby. He lives under constant stress. When he visits us in Roermond, he even says he misses the adrenaline of danger. “You get used to it,” he says. But I also see what it’s done to him — how his thinking has changed, how heavy it all is for him.

My mother struggles. She’s trying to learn the language, but with no clarity about whether she can stay in the Netherlands, it’s hard for her to make decisions about her life. She doesn’t know whether her future lies here or back in Ukraine. Everything is uncertain. I try to support her — as I’ve done from the beginning. But I see how hard it is for her to live in this world of insecurity, without her home, her friends, her husband, her sense of certainty.

My older sister now lives in Spain with her husband and three children. They happened to be there on holiday when the war started, so they didn’t have to flee in a panic. They’re building a new life in Valencia. My cousins are scattered across Europe. Our family has been torn apart.

I don’t know what the future holds. I’d like to stay in the Netherlands — I feel at home here. I’m learning, growing, and I want to give something back. But for now, I only make small plans. After the war, you learn that everything can change in an instant. You become flexible — maybe too flexible. I always need a plan B.

War doesn’t just change your country. It changes your mind, your heart, your family. And still, I try to look forward. Because I’ve learned to. Because I have no other choice. Because I believe that building — even in small steps — is the only way not to break.

The Cathédrale Saint-Pierre of Poitiers

The Cathédrale Saint-Pierre of Poitiers.

In the historic heart of Poitiers, where Roman roads once crossed and medieval kings held court, rises one of France’s most striking Gothic churches: the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre. Begun around 1162 under the patronage of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II of England, it reflects a turning point in architecture. Instead of the soaring spires of northern cathedrals, Poitiers offers a wide, hall-like interior—three nearly equal naves supported by massive clustered columns.

Step inside and you feel the difference immediately. The space is broad and luminous, more like an immense hall than a vertical climb toward heaven. Light spills through an exceptional set of 12th- and 13th-century stained-glass windows, among the oldest and best preserved in France. One masterpiece shows the Crucifixion flanked by detailed scenes from the lives of saints, its blues and ruby reds still glowing after eight centuries.

Music once filled this stone volume as richly as color does. The great organ, with pipes dating to the 18th century and a case adorned with delicate carvings, is among the finest in western France. Beneath it, carved choir stalls from the late Gothic period—intricate scenes of foliage, animals, and everyday life—give a surprisingly earthy counterpoint to the cathedral’s solemnity.

The building also tells of power and politics. Its foundation coincided with the Angevin empire of Henry II and Eleanor, whose marriage linked England and much of western France. Later centuries added chapels, sculptures, and restorations, but the core remains a proud witness to that rich medieval moment.

The interior of the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre

Young Bordeaux: Open, Curious, and Surprisingly Fluent in English

On an ordinary weekday in November, I found myself talking with a few students in Bordeaux. The weather was unusually warm for the season, giving the city a light, almost weightless atmosphere.

What struck me most was how effortlessly they shifted to English the moment I asked if they spoke English. They were open, curious, and happy to talk—and even happier to be photographed. Many carried actual books rather than screens, a small but refreshing reminder that reading in public is still very much alive.

They stood for portraits with an ease and confidence that surprised me. No posing culture, no hesitation—just simple human exchange. I walked away with images that feel honest, warm, and grounded in the everyday rhythm of the city. Sometimes the most ordinary moments offer the clearest glimpse of a place and its people.

Rotterdam Swim

From 2010, when Rotterdam Swim was still Rondje Noordereiland.

Each summer in Rotterdam, when the tide slows and the Maas turns mirror-smooth, a few hundred brave souls slip into its grey-green waters to swim around the island that beats at the city’s heart — the Noordereiland. What began in 2008 as a daring challenge among a dozen enthusiasts, the Rondje Noordereiland has grown into the Rotterdam Swim, a beloved open-water tradition that binds swimmers, city, and river in one living current. For many participants, it’s not about speed but about the thrill — the taste of brackish water, the slap of waves, the sight of the skyline from water level.

Safety boats, kayakers, and “kantjeslopers” — volunteers running along the embankments — keep watch, but the real challenge is mental: trusting the rhythm of your stroke as the city hums above you. Over the years, the swim has become a symbol of Rotterdam’s grit and love for the river that defines it.

Every edition tells the same story in a different tide — of endurance, community, and the pure joy of diving straight into the city’s bloodstream.

From 2010, when Rotterdam Swim was still Rondje Noordereiland.

The Douai Eucharistic Miracle

18th century painting of the Eucharistic miracle of Douai (1254), showing the consecrated Host rising from the priest’s hands to the monstrance and revealing a threefold vision of Christ—as Child, as the suffering Savior, and as the risen Lord—witnessed by clergy, townspeople, and angels.

On Easter Sunday 1254, in the collegiate church of Saint-Amé in Douai, something astonishing was said to have happened. As a priest distributed communion, the consecrated host slipped from his hands, rose into the air on its own, and settled on the monstrance. Those present then reported a threefold vision of Christ: first as a child (middle), then as the suffering Savior (left), and finally as the risen Lord (right).

The painting inspired by this event speaks in a language still striking today. At the center, a glowing child stands on the altar, arms open in welcome. To the left Christ is shown as the Man of Sorrows, marked by the cross and the crown of thorns; to the right He is alive again, robed in deep red and full of movement. Clergy and townspeople kneel around the altar, their faces lifted in awe, while small angels sweep across the rich red drapery above.

Whether one reads it as history, legend, or a meditation in color and light, the scene still points to the heart of the Eucharist: the mystery of a God who is present in birth, in suffering, and in new life. More than seven centuries later, the Douai painting keeps that moment of wonder alive for anyone willing to pause and look.

The Death of Meleager – A Roman Theme Recast in Medieval Stone

The Death of Meleager — marble relief carved in 11th-century Rome, reusing and reinterpreting ancient Roman motifs of the dying hero surrounded by mourners. Originally part of the Borghese Collection, later set into the façade of the Villa Borghese (1615), and now held in the Louvre Museum, Paris.

The Scene

Carved in marble in 11th-century Rome, this relief — known as The Death of Meleager — belongs to the Borghese Collection and now resides in the Louvre Museum, Paris. Though created long after antiquity, it reinterprets a classical myth that had already inspired countless Roman sarcophagi: the dying hero Meleager, surrounded by mourning women.

Meleager reclines on a couch, his body still strong but lifeless. Two women bend over him in grief — one supporting his shoulders, the other touching his face — while a third sits aside, her head veiled and her hand raised to her brow in a timeless gesture of sorrow. At the foot of the couch, a small dog waits faithfully beside a fallen helmet and shield, reminders of the hero’s warrior life. The figures are enclosed within deep niches, suggesting both an architectural setting and a tomb-like space.

The Meaning

In classical myth, Meleager’s death followed the Calydonian boar hunt and his fatal conflict with his own kin. Yet in this medieval version, the story has been transformed: no longer a mythic tragedy, but an image of human mortality. The sculptor, working in a Roman workshop of the 1000s, drew directly from ancient prototypes — perhaps even reusing a fragment of a Roman sarcophagus from the 2nd century CE — but gave it new devotional gravity.

Where ancient art emphasized heroic death, this version speaks in the visual language of compassion and lament. The gestures are quieter, the faces more introspective. The ancient Meleager becomes here a universal symbol of the dying man, surrounded by those who remain.

Reflection

Inserted into the façade of the Villa Borghese (Rome) in 1615 and later transferred to the Louvre, the relief bridges more than a millennium of art and faith. It shows how medieval artists continued to look back to Rome, not to revive its mythology, but to inherit its humanity. In this marble scene — the fallen hero, the grieving women, the silent dog — the boundaries between myth, memory, and prayer have dissolved.

Further Reading

• J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity

• C. Metzler, Sculpture in Rome, 1000–1150

• M. Greenhalgh, The Survival of Roman Antiquities in the Middle Ages

What Makes the French…French?

Walk a French morning and the country explains itself. A queue at the bakery, neighbors greeting each other, a radio debate about schools and secularism, a tricolor over the prefecture, a poster for Saturday’s march—none of it exceptional, all of it telling. France isn’t one grand essence but a choreography of daily rituals.

Start with language. French is a public craft as much as a mother tongue: teachers weigh words, TV hosts fence with phrasing, and a simple tu or vous places people at a measured distance. Labels that protect names of cheeses and wines show how vocabulary guards landscapes too. Clarity and beauty aren’t luxuries; they’re civic habits.

Then the republic—felt more than proclaimed. National curricula, competitive exams, big public services: the state is not shy about being visible. Laïcité sets the tone of shared space: religion respected, institutions neutral. Most days the rule feels like background calm; sometimes it sparks an argument about the line between expression and equality.

You taste the country in its timing. Lunch is part of the day’s architecture; markets return like a heartbeat; “terroir” ties flavor to place and patience. Even so, France is modern to the bone: TGVs stitch distances, hypermarkets and click-and-collect keep families on schedule. Big principles—liberty, equality, fraternity—share a house with big conveniences, and they argue over dinner.

Public disagreement isn’t a crisis here; it’s a civic sport. People strike, march, write op-eds. Café talk can sound like a seminar, and essays remain a popular way to think in public. Form matters too: a letter begins “Madame, Monsieur,” a meeting ends “Bien à vous.” Style isn’t pretense; it’s a language of respect.

Beneath it all hum a few live tensions: universal citizenship vs. visible group identities; Paris’s pull vs. the pride of the periphery; secular neutrality vs. personal expression; terroir vs. global brands; a protective state vs. entrepreneurial zest. None is settled—and that’s the point. To “read” France, watch where routine meets principle: the school gate at 8:30, the roundabout lined with chain stores, the market at noon. In those ordinary theaters, the country becomes legible—practical, argumentative, elegant, and stubbornly itself.

Ukrainians in search of safety: Svitlana and family

Svitlana with her husband and son in The Netherlands.

My name is Svitlana. I’m 40 years old, married, and the mother of a four-year-old son. Until February 2022, I lived a quiet and happy life in Chornobaivka, a village in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine. I owned my own nail studio, had worked as a manicure and pedicure specialist for seventeen years, and held a master’s degree in management. After my maternity leave, I dreamed of working in government. My husband and I were building our future: a beautiful, light-filled home for our family, full of plans and hope.

But everything changed on February 24, 2022.

That morning, the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. In the first few days, we didn’t understand how serious it was. My son was almost one year old – his birthday is on March 1. We decided to move in with my parents, as their house seemed safer than our fifth-floor apartment. But the violence reached us there too. We heard bombs, saw helicopters flying low overhead. Our house was hit by a rocket. The windows shattered. We had to flee to the basement, where we lived for three months.

That’s when the Russian occupation of our region began. It became a blockade. There was almost no food, no diapers, no baby formula. My parents and I ate only once a day, so my son would have enough. We slaughtered chickens, geese, and ducks. One neighbor found a small piece of turkey in her freezer – I cried with gratitude that I could give it to my child.

After three months, I knew we had to flee. I knew people who had tried and died, their cars hitting landmines. I was terrified. But staying might be even more dangerous. My husband was already in Europe and kept asking if I could come with our son. We tried to leave the occupied zone eleven times. Ten times we were stopped – there were no safe corridors, no green routes, no guarantees. On the eleventh try, we made it. When I saw the Ukrainian flag waving again after three months, I cried. The pain and fear of that time are still with me.

We stayed in the free part of Ukraine for another month. I arranged passports, saw doctors, took care of everything. Then we traveled via Moldova to Amsterdam, where my husband was waiting for us. Since July 2022, we’ve lived in Roermond. The municipality helped us – with food, diapers, a small bed. The kindness of the people here touched me deeply.

In the beginning, it was hard. I didn’t speak the language, didn’t know anyone. Everything was new, and I fell into a depression. But people helped us – with their hands, with pictures, with gestures. I started learning English, and now I’m waiting to start a Dutch language course. My husband has a permanent job at an outlet in Roermond, and our son goes to school. He’s doing well.

In the meantime, I do volunteer work at the Ukrainian school “Kryla” in Maastricht and sing in “Ptaha,” a choir of Ukrainian women. We sing, share our stories, and show that Ukrainian women are strong.

My parents still live in Ukraine. So does my brother. I miss them. I send gifts, try to help. Ukraine is and always will be my home. But here in the Netherlands, I feel safe. We want to stay here, build a life, rent a house in or near Roermond. My greatest dream is peace. No more war. No more sirens, bombs, or fear. I believe in a future with blue skies – for my son, for Ukraine, and for the whole world.

Robert the Magnificent and His Vow to the Sea

Robert the Magnificent of Normandy portrayed on the Genealogical Chronicle of the English Kings.

In the early 11th century, Normandy was still a young duchy—rich, restless, and ruled by a man whose life reads like a Norse saga. Robert I of Normandy (c. 1000 – 1035), remembered as Robert the Magnificent, was the son of Duke Richard II and the father of William the Conqueror.

Though only in his late twenties when he took the ducal mantle in 1027, Robert quickly earned a reputation for daring and spectacle. He kept the feudal barons in line, encouraged trade along the Channel coast, and cultivated ties with the great abbeys that dotted Normandy. Yet his most enduring story began not in a council chamber but on the open sea.

A Storm, a Vow, and Three Chapels

Legend tells that Robert was caught in a violent storm while crossing the Channel. As waves threatened to swallow his ship, he prayed to the Virgin Mary, promising that if he survived he would build three chapels of gratitude along Normandy’s coast. He reached land safely, and the vow became action:

1. La Délivrande, near Caen – Today a celebrated Marian shrine (Basilique Notre-Dame de la Délivrande), it grew from a humble chapel into one of Normandy’s oldest continuous pilgrimage sites.

2. Notre-Dame de Grâce, Honfleur – Perched high above the Seine estuary, this chapel became a sailors’ sanctuary. Generations of fishermen and explorers—from cod fishermen bound for Newfoundland to long-distance captains of the Age of Discovery—left ex-votos (model ships, plaques, and prayers) in thanks for safe voyages.

3. Notre-Dame de Salut, Fécamp – Built on a windswept cliff, this chapel doubled as a beacon for shipping. Even when religious wars ravaged it and its roof collapsed, the faithful of Fécamp rebuilt and returned. To this day departing vessels salute the site with three blasts of their horn, asking for “good wind and a safe return.”

Together these three sanctuaries stitched a spiritual safety net along Normandy’s maritime frontier—a chain of devotion and seamanship that long outlasted the duke who inspired them.

A Duke Larger than Life

Robert’s life ended as dramatically as it began. In 1035, during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he died suddenly—likely of illness—at Nicaea on the return journey. His young illegitimate son, William, would grow up to become William the Conqueror, reshaping European history.

Yet Robert’s own legacy is more than dynastic. His votive chapels stand as monuments to a ruler who linked faith and the sea, transforming a desperate prayer in a storm into three centuries-old beacons that still guide sailors and pilgrims alike.

Notre-Dame de Salut, Fécamp.

Further Reading

• David Bates, Normandy Before 1066

• Elisabeth van Houts, The Normans in Europe

The Expulsion of Paradise at the Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel (France)

Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise, mid-16th century, Abbey church of Mont-Saint-Michel, France.

Inside the abbey of Mont Saint-Michel, a mid-16th-century Caen-stone relief compresses the drama of Genesis 3 from the Bible into a single, charged scene. At the right side rises a tree full of apples. Coiled around its trunk clings a devilish figure, part human, part serpent, its horned head leaning toward Eve as one clawed hand offers the forbidden fruit. Adam stands close, torn between resistance and desire.

To the right, the consequence unfolds with striking force. A powerful angel strides forward, wings spread and sword raised, driving the pair out of the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve shrink under the heavenly command: shoulders bent, arms crossed over their bare bodies, faces averted from the paradise they can no longer enter.

Carved during the French Renaissance, when sculptors combined late-Gothic sharpness with new attention to anatomy and movement, the relief captures in one sweep the temptation, judgment, and expulsion that mark the beginning of human history. More than five centuries on, the stone still brims with the urgency of that first exile.

Chavoncourt – Echoes of a Forgotten War

If you drive through Chavoncourt on a November afternoon, you would never suspect that this quiet village once stood at the violent crossroads of Europe. Today, it is a place of modest houses and fields stretching down to the slow waters of the Saône. But in the seventeenth century, during the Thirty Years’ War, Chavoncourt was a fortress-village, and its people endured fire, famine, and exile.

Back then, Franche-Comté was not yet French but Habsburg territory. That meant it lay directly in the path of armies—Spanish, Imperial, French, and Swedish—marching and counter-marching across the continent. The Saône valley was a lifeline and a danger: a supply route coveted by all sides. Chavoncourt, with its small castle and mills, became a target.

The chronicles of Vesoul and Gray record the devastation. Villages were stripped of grain, livestock driven away, churches burned. In 1636, when French troops stormed into the region, locals fled into forests and caves. Oral tradition in Chavoncourt tells of families hiding for weeks near the riverbanks, children silenced with bread crusts, while smoke rose from the rooftops of their homes.

The war left deep scars. Whole lineages disappeared, decimated by hunger and plague. By the 1650s, when peace returned, the castle was a ruin and the village only half-inhabited. Fields once fertile were overgrown, and the Saône carried not only barges but stories of ghost villages along its banks.

Yet the community rebuilt. The stones of the fortress were reused in barns and houses; orchards were replanted. What remains today is a village that bears little trace of its ordeal, except in the name—Chavoncourt—and in the silence of its November streets. To the casual passerby it seems timeless, but for those who listen closely, the past still whispers through its fields and the slow current of the river.

Further Reading

• Peter H. Wilson, Europe’s Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War (Penguin, 2009)

• Jean-Marie Cauchies, La Franche-Comté sous les Habsbourg (Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté, 1994)

• Geoffrey Parker, Global Crisis: War, Climate Change & Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century (Yale University Press, 2013)

Fiere Margriet of Leuven – A Saint of Courage and Legend

Statue of Fiere Margriet inside St. Peter’s Church (Leuven).

In the heart of Leuven, Belgium, the story of Margaretha van Leuven—lovingly called Fiere Margriet, “Proud Margaret”—has never stopped stirring hearts. Her life, and the miracle that followed her death, are woven into the city’s streets and churches.

The Tale of a Brave Young Woman

According to tradition, Margaretha was a devout young woman in the late Middle Ages. On her way home one evening she was attacked by robbers near the river Dijle. Rather than flee, she stood firm—fiere, proud and fearless—protecting her virtue and faith. Tragically she was killed and thrown into the river.

The current carried her lifeless body downstream until, as legend has it, the waters stilled of their own accord. Citizens, drawn by a mysterious light, recovered her body and laid her to rest with honor. Her steadfast courage and the miraculous calm of the river transformed her from victim into symbol: of dignity, bravery, and divine grace.

Canonization and Official Veneration

The veneration that sprang up around Margaretha’s grave grew steadily, drawing pilgrims and inspiring countless accounts of intercession. Recognizing the depth and persistence of this devotion, the Church eventually formally canonized Fiere Margriet, confirming her as a saint of the universal Church. Her name entered the liturgical calendar, and her Leuven shrine became an officially sanctioned place of pilgrimage. This canonization not only affirmed the miracle of her death and the virtues of her life, but also secured her enduring place among the saints who exemplify courage and purity.

A City’s Enduring Devotion

Leuven quickly embraced Fiere Margriet as a local saint. A chapel was built on the site where her body was found, and pilgrims came to seek her intercession for protection and courage. Her feast day has long been a moment of local pride and remembrance.

Inside St. Peter’s Church, a serene statue of Fiere Margriet keeps watch, while a beautifully crafted reliquary shrine preserves her relics. These twin focal points—sculpture and shrine—invite visitors to contemplate a young woman whose faith and defiance turned tragedy into timeless inspiration.

Legacy of Light

Fiere Margriet’s story continues to resonate in Leuven’s cultural memory. Streets and squares bear her name; processions and quiet prayers keep her legend alive. She embodies the strength to remain steadfast when confronted with violence and injustice—a message as powerful today as it was centuries ago.

The reliquary of Fiere Margriet in Leuven’s St. Peter’s Church.

Fernand Léger’s The Acrobat and His Partner — Circus of Modern Life

Fernand Léger, The Acrobat and His Partner (1948), seen at Tate Modern (London).

Painted in 1948, The Acrobat and His Partner distills Fernand Léger’s belief that art should mirror the vitality of everyday life. After years of exile in the United States during World War II, Léger returned to a Europe rebuilding itself. He sought imagery that spoke to collective renewal, and the circus—public, risky, joyfully democratic—became one of his most powerful metaphors.

The canvas is alive with cylindrical bodies and radiant color, a late development of Léger’s signature “tubism,” where figures and machines share the same sculptural energy. The acrobat stretches in a tense arc while his partner steadies a ladder, emblematic of movement and balance; around them geometric shapes pulse like urban neon.

Léger had long admired mass entertainment—from factory workers to city streets—and, as a committed leftist, he saw in the circus a universal stage for human resilience. The performers are monumental, not glamorous: they stand for ordinary people rebuilding lives after war, proving that heroism lies as much in daily labor and cooperation as in spectacle.

By merging avant-garde form with popular subject, Léger fulfilled his aim to make modern art accessible and socially meaningful. The Acrobat and His Partner is more than a circus scene; it is a vibrant emblem of post-war hope and of art’s power to turn collective struggle into enduring beauty.

Overreach: Inside the Delusion: What “Overreach” Reveals About Putin’s War

Matthews, Owen. Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin’s War Against Ukraine (2023). - Image by amazon.com.

I recently came across Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin’s War Against Ukraine by Owen Matthews — a book that reads with the fluency of frontline reporting and the authority of someone who has seen Russia from the inside. Matthews, a veteran Moscow correspondent, writes with speed and confidence, stitching together intelligence leaks, diplomatic whispers, and battlefield accounts into a sharp, coherent narrative.

At its best, Overreach captures the extraordinary convergence of misjudgments that led to the invasion: a leader sealed off from reality, an army unready for the war it was told to win in three days, and a West too entangled in its own cynicism to believe the warnings. Matthews reconstructs the atmosphere inside the Kremlin with the precision of a journalist who has cultivated his sources well. His portrait of Putin is chilling — not the omnipotent schemer of Western caricature, but an aging ruler trapped in his own mythology, convinced that history is waiting for his final act.

But this clarity comes at a price. Matthews’ narrative occasionally slides into neatness — a story too elegantly told for a conflict that remains chaotic, contradictory, and unresolved. The reader rarely encounters the moral murk, the grey zones of complicity and fatigue that define real war. Ordinary Russians appear mostly as footnotes to elite decision-making, and Ukraine’s agency, while acknowledged, is often framed as reaction rather than initiative. The analysis sometimes echoes the Western policy consensus more than it interrogates it.

Still, Overreach succeeds on its own terms: it’s a readable, intelligent account of how hubris, fear, and historical delusion collided in 2022. Matthews’ talent lies in connecting personalities to consequences, and his prose hums with restrained anger — the tone of someone who knows too well that none of this had to happen.

If the book has a lesson, it’s this: wars are rarely born of strategy alone, but of misread intentions and unchecked pride. Overreach reminds us that power, once convinced of its own inevitability, is already in decline.

Matthews, Owen. Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin’s War Against Ukraine (2023).

Russia, The Eternal Return of Suppression: 2022 and Beyond - The Great Break

The events of February 24, 2022, marked the most dramatic rupture between Russia and the West since the Cold War. In the early hours of the morning, Russian forces launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine from multiple directions — pushing south from Belarus toward Kyiv, east from Russia into the Donbas, and north from Crimea into the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The Kremlin framed it as a “special military operation,” but its scale and ambition made clear it was a war to redraw borders and reshape Europe’s security architecture.

The Failed Blitzkrieg
Moscow’s plan for a lightning strike — seizing Kyiv within days, decapitating Ukraine’s leadership, and installing a pro-Russian government — collapsed in the face of fierce and determined resistance. Ukrainian forces, bolstered by volunteers and armed with Western-supplied anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, halted the advance. The battles for Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Mykolaiv became early symbols of defiance. By April, Russian troops withdrew from the north, leaving behind evidence of atrocities in towns like Bucha, and concentrated their efforts on the eastern front.

A War of Attrition
With the initial gamble failed, the conflict shifted into a grinding war of attrition. Artillery duels, long-range missile strikes, and the increasing use of drones became defining features of the battlefield. The siege and destruction of Mariupol shocked the world, as tens of thousands of civilians endured bombardment, shortages of food and water, and forced evacuations. Millions of Ukrainians fled abroad, creating the largest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War. Meanwhile, Western sanctions hit Russia hard, freezing assets, severing banking connections, and limiting access to critical technologies — though high global energy prices kept Moscow’s war machine funded.

The Expanding Battlefield
By 2023 and 2024, the war’s intensity did not diminish. Both sides adapted technologically: Ukraine integrated Western air defenses and precision-guided munitions, while Russia ramped up drone and missile production with the help of Iran and North Korea. The Black Sea became another contested arena, with Ukraine striking Russian naval assets and supply lines to Crimea. Fighting spread to previously quieter sectors, and both armies dug deeper into fortified positions reminiscent of the First World War.

Global Realignment
Russia’s isolation from the West drove it into a tighter embrace with China, India, Iran, and North Korea, forming a loose but significant network of states willing to trade, share technology, and counterbalance Western influence. NATO, far from fractured, expanded to include Finland, with Sweden on the way — a strategic setback for Moscow. The European Union accelerated its energy diversification, ending decades of dependence on Russian gas. The war shattered the assumptions that had underpinned Europe’s post–Cold War order, reviving large-scale military spending and long-term security planning.

Shifting Political Currents
Across Europe and beyond, the war reshaped politics. Governments faced pressure over rising energy prices and defense budgets. Populist movements sought to exploit divisions over aid to Ukraine, while others rallied around the need to defend democratic states from authoritarian aggression. In Russia, dissent was met with harsh repression, new laws criminalized criticism of the war, and thousands of political opponents, journalists, and activists fled abroad.

An Uncertain Future
By 2025, the frontlines had shifted only marginally. Neither side could deliver a decisive blow. Ukraine remained steadfast in its goal of restoring its 1991 borders, while Russia showed no sign of relinquishing occupied territories. The costs — measured in lives lost, economies strained, and trust shattered — promised to shape the region for decades to come. Whether the conflict ends in a negotiated settlement, a frozen front, or continued escalation remains one of the central geopolitical questions of the 21st century.

Further Reading:

• Luke Harding – Invasion (2022)

• Serhii Plokhy – The Gates of Europe (2015)

• Mark Galeotti – Putin’s Wars (2022)

• Lawrence Freedman – Command (2022)

Freedom: America and Europe’s Two Stories

“Freedom” is one of those words that carries enormous weight but slips through your fingers as soon as you try to pin it down. It means one thing in the United States and another in Europe, and both versions are born out of very different histories. When Americans and Europeans talk about freedom, they often think they mean the same thing—until they realize they don’t.

The American Story of Freedom

In the United States, freedom is rooted in the frontier, the revolution against the British crown, and the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. It is highly individualistic: the right to speak one’s mind, to bear arms, to be left alone by government interference. In political debates, “freedom” is often shorthand for personal autonomy—the liberty to make choices, even risky ones, without too much collective oversight.

That’s why Americans can be suspicious of government welfare programs or public health mandates. To them, freedom often means not being told what to do. Even taxes, seatbelt laws, or universal healthcare can trigger fears of government “control.” The American myth of the self-reliant individual, carving out a life on the frontier, still runs strong.

The European Story of Freedom

In Europe, freedom carries a different legacy. The continent has seen centuries of monarchies, aristocracies, world wars, fascism, and communist regimes. Out of this history came another interpretation: freedom through security and solidarity.

Freedom here doesn’t only mean being left alone; it also means having access to healthcare, education, and housing. A person who cannot afford to see a doctor or send a child to school is not truly free in the European sense. That’s why welfare states are not seen as obstacles to liberty but as enablers of it.

In European political culture, “freedom” often has a collective dimension. It is about building a society in which people can live without fear of destitution, so they can pursue their ambitions and express themselves without anxiety.

When These Freedoms Collide

The American visitor in Europe may see bureaucracy and taxes as suffocating. The European visitor in the U.S. may see poverty, medical bankruptcy, and lack of social safety nets as limiting true freedom. Each side is puzzled by the other:

• How can “freedom” mean refusing a national health system in the U.S.?

• How can “freedom” mean paying high taxes and following strict labor rules in Europe?

The truth is, both models are incomplete without the other. A society that values only individual liberty risks leaving its most vulnerable behind. A society that values only collective protection risks drowning in regulation.

Why This Matters

In a globalized world, Americans and Europeans are bound to work together—but they will keep clashing over this word. Perhaps the deeper lesson is that freedom has never been a one-size-fits-all idea. It is always shaped by history, geography, and culture.

The United States tells a story of freedom as independence from authority. Europe tells a story of freedom as independence from fear. Both are powerful stories. Both are worth listening to.

Street Wisdom from Worms: Socrates on Alcohol and Donkeys

Der Winzerbrunnen, 1983, by Gustav Nonnenmacher (Worms, Germany).

In downtown Worms you might come across a statue bearing the inscription: “Die sich nur der Trinksucht hingeben sind Esel, sagt Sokrates.” (In English: “Those who give themselves only to drunkenness are donkeys, says Socrates.”)

The message is as brisk as a Rhineland winter. A life reduced to alcohol is a life misused. The donkey—patient yet stubborn—embodies the very opposite of the reason and moderation Socrates championed.

It is an ancient Greek ideal recast as street wisdom, perfectly at home in a wine-loving city that also prizes learning and debate. In short: let reason, not drink, hold the reins.

Rotterdam my City — De Bijenkorf (Rotterdam, The Netherlands)

A nighttime view of one of the entrances to De Bijenkorf in Rotterdam.

The story of De Bijenkorf — literally, The Beehive — began in 1870, when Simon Philip Goudsmit opened a small haberdashery on Amsterdam’s Nieuwendijk. It was a modest shop selling ribbons and sewing supplies, but it quickly grew into a department store that would come to define Dutch urban elegance. After Goudsmit’s death, his widow and family expanded the business, adding more departments and transforming it into a place where shopping itself became an experience.

Over the following decades, De Bijenkorf became a national institution — a symbol of craftsmanship, design and cosmopolitan style. Its stores were not just retail spaces, but architectural landmarks. In Rotterdam, the postwar store was designed by Marcel Breuer, one of the great modernists of the twentieth century. The branch in The Hague, built in 1926 by Piet Kramer, remains a showpiece of the Amsterdam School style, its façade full of rhythm and sculptural detail.

The company’s history also mirrors the country’s struggles and recoveries. During the Second World War, the Jewish-founded firm was seized by the occupying authorities; many employees suffered persecution. After liberation, the rightful owners rebuilt, and De Bijenkorf resumed its place at the heart of Dutch life — now as a symbol of resilience as much as refinement.

Today, De Bijenkorf is part of the international Selfridges Group, yet it retains its distinctly Dutch character. Its flagship store still stands proudly on Amsterdam’s Dam Square, while other branches serve major cities like Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Eindhoven, Amstelveen and Maastricht. Inside, the polished marble floors, designer brands and carefully staged displays continue to blend commerce with culture.

From a tiny haberdashery to a national emblem of luxury, De Bijenkorf has been buzzing for over 150 years — a beehive where history, design and daily life meet under one elegant roof.