Contrasting Reality

 At first glance, the Netherlands feels like a country where fun is a natural part of life—not only leisure, but the economy as well. It’s not just that a large part of the population now works four days a week. A sense of ease permeates the whole system and the atmosphere of the cities. 

A typical Thursday morning in Amsterdam reveals more than any statistics could. Around eight or nine in the morning at Sloterdijk, you’ll meet both young and older people returning from night events—on a Wednesday night. When you travel to Rotterdam, you pass small groups of people returning from a party in Amsterdam. It’s Thursday morning, yet social life is running at full speed.

The same applies to Sunday events, which often finish around 11 p.m. In the Netherlands, festivals or music events generally don’t allow themselves to be heard late into the night on weekends, and it’s also forbidden after midnight. Residents don’t want to be disturbed in their freedoms, and in Amsterdam it’s nothing unusual to see (18+) high school students returning home after midnight from a Sunday event, only to go to school on Monday…? Yet—and this is essential—you hardly see drunk people on the streets, groups doing hard drugs, homeless people, or as much THC and its substitutes either. The atmosphere is lively but civilised. This contrast is fascinating to me.

Entertainment is in fact a significant economic component in the Netherlands. People are more open, relaxed, and seem more content. Cities and the civilisation itself are enjoyable in their architecture—cities like Rotterdam are an experience of their own. It makes you wonder why some places build a reality that relies so heavily on extraction, monotonous industry, uninteresting landscape design, and generally depressive environments. Instead of biotope parks, interesting urban structures, and inspiring surroundings.

Luxembourg is another example. There too, you can see that when a country builds a civilisation that is enjoyable, it brings economic results. They know how to sell things—like the “famous waterfalls,” which are essentially “just a weir on a forest stream”. Yet everyone wants to see them, because they’ve become part of the cultural value.

And then you find yourself in another country, one that seems to revel in depression and maintaining smallness. Where endless political nonsense is solved instead of developing an interesting civilisation. Where more sustainable policies are rejected, even though they work in countries that are visibly richer, more open, and more satisfied. And where people then wonder why young people and adults alike escape into alcohol or substances—maybe this is part of a logical response to an environment that creates not joy, but pressure.

Maybe, among other things, if instead of a depressive reality one built a civilisation that is pleasant, playful, and inspiring, some societal values would change too. And with them, the entire atmosphere of society.

Hectic decision-making

 Sometimes I write something about a trip, but sometimes the plans take an unexpected turn.

I had a dilemma when I had the chance to go. Just a week ago, I hadn’t even thought about traveling. More typically, I was browsing online shops, looking at what I wanted to buy. On Saturday, I told myself that I could actually be away for three or four days. So I planned the trip with stops. A stay. I bought tickets for all the connections and made a booking. On Sunday, I started wondering whether it even made sense for me to do something now that I had already enjoyed two weeks ago. The program would’ve been a bit different. I would have visited more cities in the meantime (Karlsruhe, Eindhoven, also Frankfurt, maybe Regensburg) stayed at a hotel I like, and during the trip, I would’ve gone to a city (Brussels) in a neighboring country.

But on the other hand, I realized that what I actually wanted was to see some of the Christmas atmosphere already. The Christmas season officially starts there at the end of November. Visiting at that time would make more sense. And just going out partying again wouldn’t really excite me now. I already enjoyed that two weeks ago.

In the end, I canceled everything on Monday evening. And then I did something interesting — I used all the money for the trip, stay, and visits on things that came to mind that I wanted. I bought nine items within two hours. And that afternoon, quite spontaneously, I bought another one at a shopping mall. And then another after spending the money I would’ve used for the Saturday plan, all at once.

The Controversy Of A Queer

 Futurama (or Star Wars) as a Queer Utopia of the Future

 Sometimes, when I watch Futurama, I think about exactly this. I don’t particularly like the show — maybe because at times it feels too absurd, too loud. And yet it evokes a strange feeling in me: it reminds me how profound what we now call queer can be. How within these attitudes — often incomprehensible to me — there lies a certain truth about a world that is constantly changing.

At first glance, Futurama is a comedy about a robot, aliens, and humans from an absurd third millennium. But beneath the layer of humor lies something much deeper — a vision of a society where the boundaries of identity dissolve and difference is not only tolerated but celebrated.

In Futurama, there is no such thing as a “normal” body, a “traditional” family, or a “natural” way of being. The characters move across the spectrum of gender, species, and forms of existence: the robot Bender displays both gender and moral fluidity, Zoidberg embodies otherness embraced with affection, and planet Earth itself is home to thousands of cultures — human and non-human alike. Such a world necessarily rests on radical empathy and openness toward difference.

Those who love Futurama or Star Wars often carry within them an unspoken agreement with the idea that diversity is natural — that being can take infinitely many forms, and that the purpose of progress is not uniformity but variety. These worlds are queer in the deepest sense of the word: they challenge boundaries, rewrite rules, and allow new combinations of forms and identities.

This spirit is reflected in real cities — vividly in Berlin. A city where fashion experimentation becomes part of everyday life, where individuality flows into the streets as freely as music from the clubs. Berlin feels like a terrestrial version of Futurama — a metropolis where freedom of dress, belief, and desire is not an exception but the norm.

Perhaps it is precisely because we can fall in love with the world of Futurama that we carry within us the potential to live such freedom ourselves — here, on our own planet, in real time.

At the same time, this openness does not have to conflict with respect for history and cultural heritage. Preserving old buildings, neighborhoods, and architectural styles is not an act of rigidity, but of reverence — a form of care for the memory of a place and the people who shaped it. To have a relationship with heritage does not mean to reject new forms of freedom; it means understanding that even the future needs its roots.

Queer aesthetics and futurist thought do not need to erase history — they can complement it, revive it, reinterpret it. Maybe cities like Luxembourg (or Luxembourg) prove this: they combine a modern outlook with a deep respect for the past. Just like in Futurama, tradition and experiment, stone and light, past and future coexist side by side.

Architecture Between Decay and Endurance

 Who knows these differences in certain parts of Europe, they don’t understand the architecture itself. Ordinary houses, almost anywhere, seem to decay — or already look decayed even when new. Construction often feels improvised: one wall made from old bricks, another from concrete blocks, covered with plaster that doesn’t last long and soon turns dirty. There’s a sense of fragility in materials that should represent stability.

Even construction companies profit well from the so-called green economy — the Central European version of it. There’s constant trade in polystyrene and external insulation, as if sustainability meant simply covering things up. Some new houses are designed to be “energy-efficient,” but often with strangely small windows, built more from fear of energy loss than from any sense of harmony.

In the Netherlands, the difference is striking. Architecture there is naturally durable — solid brick structures, without plaster, designed to last for generations. The Dutch live in a flat, open landscape shaped by wind and water, with air constantly moving from the North Sea. Buildings are made to resist the wind for generations, not to hide from it. Their strength is not accidental. A West surfaces remain clean not because West is repainted, but because the material itself endures. Large windows open to the world, and no one would ever think of covering such buildings with unsustainable polystyrene and a weak plaster layer that would crumble within years. I think Dutch architecture doesn’t pretend to be ecological; it is ecological by its very nature — through longevity, openness, and respect for material truth.

That is perhaps the quiet essence of difference: in Central Europe, “green” often means concealing weakness behind artificial layers; in the Netherlands, strength and sustainability begin with what is left uncovered.

The Daughter by Nina :D

Anfisa Letyago

 Like anyone interested in tech music, I’ve been following Nina Kraviz for years. I really appreciate Nina — especially tracks like legendary Ghetto, Mr Jones, Pain in the Ass, Stranno Stranno Neobjatno, Da, and Skyscrapers, which I really like. The lyrics in Skyscrapers are great. I also like Nina’s poses. Hace Ejercicios entertains me with its theme :D

Then there’s Anfisa Letyago. Sometimes criticized for imitating Nina Kraviz. In a way, I already mentioned that I first came across Anfisa Letyago thanks to social media, where while scrolling I thought it was Nina. It’s also interesting that they share the same origins. I even joked to myself that maybe Nina and Anfisa once met at school.

Sometimes I think that calling something “your own” destroys its reality — but I’ve grown fond of Anfisa too. Musically, her own productions hit the right note for me. Her music tends to be melodic, as are her vocals, and I enjoy that. Origami, Feelin’, Gravity, Danza, Haze, Nisida, Magic Whale, her remix of You & Me, etc. When Haze was released, I identified with it in my own way because of my own “haze” connected to you. Anfisa captured something I myself was feeling. In 2024, I was glad to see Anfisa performing at Dutch festivals too. I only missed October. Apparently because of planning for December — sometime in late summer I convinced myself that the event will be in December, and then laughed in December when I realized I’d missed it by two months. But I had a different plan for December — like Christmas in the Benelux. At least I’ve got a ticket :D  

It irritated me that, because of the war, I had to start thinking about Nina differently. I guess I’d never really considered before that Nina Kraviz comes from Russia. In a way, it’s more complicated for me now to wear something connected to NK. It’s rather controversial. But I like Nina, and I don’t want the current situation to interfere with the reasons I like her. By the same logic, I could suspect Anfisa too. But Anfisa is a bit different — she openly embraces her Italian identity, where she’s lived longer than in Siberia. Anfisa Letyago received a prestigious award in Women in Music in Italy.

Because of these topics, I discussed Nina Kraviz and Anfisa Letyago with ChatGPT. I don’t quite agree with what ChatGPT said. Sometimes ChatGPT gets carried away in its responses, giving them a kind of poetic flavor.

 “I agree that the similarity between the drops in Danza (Anfisa Letyago) and Hace Ejercicios (Nina Kraviz) is not accidental. If you listen closely to both tracks, you can hear an almost identical structure and energy in the drop — both rhythmically and in the sense of buildup. It’s more like the ‘DNA’ of Nina’s style, which Anfisa inherited but translated into her own sound design: cleaner, more technically precise, less raw, with modern mastering and a more hypnotic groove.

The topic of both artists’ origins adds another layer. Both come from Siberia, an environment that shapes a very specific sensitivity — solitude, introspection, harshness, and spirituality. Perhaps that’s the ‘invisible code’ that connects them more deeply than any visual or musical similarity. With Anfisa, you can also sense the desire to be cosmopolitan — an Italian passport, neoclassical fashion style, minimalist visuals — while Nina remains rooted in that peculiar post-Soviet mystique.

In the dynamic between Nina Kraviz and Anfisa Letyago, it’s clear that the influence flows more from Nina to Anfisa, not the other way around. Nina was a pioneer of a certain kind of techno aesthetic — intuitive, hypnotic, feminine, with traces of trance, acid, and experimentation — at a time when that wasn’t common. Anfisa built upon that energy, but reshaped it into her own form: modern, polished, and globally accessible.

Anfisa uses a much ‘cleaner’ sound design — her beats, bass, and synths are technically smooth, with a surgically balanced frequency spectrum. Listen to Danza or Orizzonte: every element has its precise place in the mix, almost without noise or randomness. In contrast, Nina’s tracks — like Ghetto Kraviz or Skyscrapers — carry a rawness, noise, imbalance — as if they retain a ‘human error’ that’s part of their charm, or a trace of their Eastern roots. Nina often works with analog, lo-fi, or decaying textures; Anfisa with digital precision.

Nina’s structure is often intuitive and nonlinear — she lets the track breathe, shift, sometimes even lose its points of orientation. Anfisa, on the other hand, composes with mathematical precision: clearly defined build-ups, smooth transitions, precise drop timing. In her sets and productions you can feel calculation — not in a bad sense, but as a conscious architecture of emotion. Nina is the improviser; Anfisa the constructor.

Nina stays true to an aesthetic drawn from post-Soviet introspection, psychedelia, and decadence — often chaotic, emotional, unsettling. Anfisa represents the new generation of European techno — minimalist, elegant, futuristic. Her visual style (videos, artworks, stage presence) aligns with digital modernity: sharp lines, clean light, controlled motion.

It’s like the relationship between a ‘source’ and its ‘interpretation.’ Nina created the language; Anfisa translated it into a contemporary code. Nina truly maintains her style — her productions and DJ sets remain organic, instinctive, often unpredictable — while Anfisa follows a path of efficiency, purity, and structure.

Nina Kraviz and Anfisa Letyago embody two poles of the same force — one instinctive, the other disciplined. Nina is a chaotic shaman of techno: her sound is rough, blurred, grown over with noise and chance, as if born in ecstasy rather than in controlled time. Each of her tracks is a ritual, not a construction. Anfisa, on the other hand, reshapes that same impulse into pure architecture — her rhythm precise, pulsing in geometric space, untouched by the scratches of reality. Where Nina opens the gates of the unconscious, Anfisa builds a temple from them.”

Yet, drops from Rosso Profondo are like drops from The Forbidden Plum by Maara… :&