Nash Montana takes a break from translating German to describe the transformation of her Alpine home into Modern Multicultural Winterthur.
The Long Winter Comes to Winterthur
by Nash Montana
I grew up a mere twenty minutes’ driving distance from Winterthur. On the “other side” of the hill, so to speak. The Kyburg, one of the most beautifully preserved castles of Switzerland, lies halfway in between.
As teenagers we’d get on our two stroke motorcycles — top speed 40kmh — and ride to Winterthur. It was closer and not as big and scary as Zurich. Winterthur in the ’80s was one of THE in cities: it had everything we needed. It had a growing theater and concert culture and brought in many big names like Springsteen, Cash, Led Zeppelin, etc.
But then something changed. I have no clue if it was due to a change in the city council, the proverbial old guard giving the scepter to the new guard. I don’t know, but something happened. Suddenly the city became overrun with people from Kosovo, Albania, Pakistan and Turkey.
The city lies naturally in a geographical area that doesn’t get much sun. The suicide rate just southeast of Winterthur is the highest in all of Switzerland. It’s called the suicide corridor, highway 15 from Bauma all the way to Winterthur. The corridor along highway 15 has incredible beauty that is hard to describe, from mystical forests and hills to the only Buddhist temple in Europe that was visited regularly by the Dalai Lama, to the already-mentioned Kyburg and other medieval structures and castles and houses, to extremely traditional Swiss manufacturing companies such as “Kuhn-Rikon” for anything kitchen-related, Maggi products, textiles and weaving, and 35 different kinds of incredible-tasting cheeses.
I assume that the main reason so many “refugees” and asylum seekers and migrants settled in the area around highway 15 and Winterthur is that Swiss people were simply seeking to get into areas that were sunnier and less gloomy and depressing. The entire highway is mostly overshadowed by hills and small mountains on both sides. Most towns get no sun or barely any sun during the day. Hence the high suicide rate, I believe.
So, along the way, Winterthur turned into the asylum seekers’ s***hole we see today. No one wants to go there anymore except for liberal do-gooders. The problem is, when you live in the area I’m from, you HAVE to go to Winterthur for any official government purpose. All major administrative bureaus are there for the Zurich Upper-land area. From the DMV to passport issues to any kinds of permits etc., and Winterthur has the largest police station in the Canton of Zurich besides the city of Zurich.
Thanks to all the cultural enrichment, for the past 20-25 years women and children can’t ride trains and buses alone anymore, kids can’t walk to school unaccompanied anymore, and asylum seekers take dumps in alleys and ruin every single festival, concert, and shopping experience in Winterthur.
An excellent forecast on the verminization of Western Europe, one city,town or village at a time, a form of cultural cancer. BTW here in the USA some major cities are in the process being converted into cesspools by this new wave of cultural misfits.
This is absolutely true! Winterthur used to be a beautifully preserved swiss jewel, it’s a real pity that such wonderful place is being filled with people who is willing to destroy it, everytime muslims or africans move into alpine style houses they fall into neglect and are drastically changed, here in Austria we say that the first sign of a new muslim neighbor is a toilet bowl abbandoned in the street or the garden, muslims don’t like western toilets, they prefer the latrine/hole in the floor… and they.. ¿how to put it mildly? well they “ignore” the bowls in the toilets of restaurant and bars.. the cleaning personnel in those places certainly hate them. I’ve seen this in Winterthur in my recent visits, I always loved that town I never found it gloomy or depressing, I myself was born and live in a alpine “dark” village in Tirol and love the sober augustnes of the alpine landscape and its grey, windy days, I lived in Brisbane Australia for 6 months when I was younger and after the blazing sun and unbearable heat of the australian spring/summer I never complained about the alpine climate again!
Strangely enough, I have heard that 5 star hotels frequented by arabs have the same trouble with the inability/unwillingness to use a water closet. The arabs defecate in the bath tubs causing much consternation to cleaning staff.
Olga I concur with you on your comment about dark, cool places, I’m from Norway and I love cold long winters.. sun and heat are overrated.
And still no revolt. The disaster is all Swiss. Hard to believe it’s the Muslims who are proactively draining the swamp there and everywhere – with some success.
The Muslims are having some considerable success draining the Christian swamps. As their ideology demands.
They can do it only because the government let them!
And the government lets them because the people let them. Same here in the US. When will we ever fight for a constitutional republic?
For some reason I thought Switzerland was more selective on who they let into their country. Has Swiss immigration policy changed since these people came to Winterthur?
It is drowning in immigrants, you can literally walk in from France, Germany or wherever as there is no border any more. What is different is that the Swiss don’t dish out passports with the irresponsible abandon of the idiot countries that surround them.
They’re certainly better than the rest for doing it that way, but having very-long-term problem foreigners might not be a whole lot better than dishing out passports, in the very long run. It’s a dangerous way to do things also.
I have no problem with normal foreigners that integrate, mind you.
The funny thing is, Switzerland is not an EU member, but voluntarily abides by EU rules, including free internal EU travel. I guess the financial gnomes of Switzerland are afraid they will miss a dollar (or euro?) of trade profits by having to actually negotiate bilateral trade deals.
This is the Switzerland that mined all the border roads and bridges, armed every citizen, and let the Germans (and allies) know that they could probably breech the defenses, but it would cost them. It didn’t hurt that the Nazi bigwigs had their stolen caches of money in numbered Swiss accounts. Sometimes, you have to go along to get along.
Switzerland, by the way, maintained strict immigration quotas. They knew perfectly well what was happening to the Jews, and allowed Jews in when there was an opening, but not otherwise. Hard on the Jews, but helped to maintain Swiss culture and identity. So, now they’re throwing it all away for what?
It’s interesting about the sunless slopes of Winterthur. It’s an exact metaphor of the future: sunless, colorless bland landscape populated by dark shapes without individual
distinction.
I was in Winterthur for a conference in 2011. Not exactly idyllic – but then things didn’t seem so bad back then either…
” Most towns get no sun or barely any sun during the day. Hence the high suicide rate,”
Well, that’s not something you read in the glossy tourist advertisements.
it would be interesting to know if the suicide rate is supported by the muslims in Winterthur.Just an idea!
In Germany, the suicide rate was always higher in the east, independent of historic periods in modern times- after renaissance that is- and the key is protestantism, these areas being mainly protestant and thus populated by people who according to their faith are responsible for their life and assume responsibilities.( I don’t know if this goes for the Winterthur area though).
So there is little hope that the muslim population there will contribute to its own restriction by number.
Here’s an interesting idea:
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmuslim/comments/5aw1qz/ive_burned_200_dvd_with_critical_books_movies_and/
Always wonder how the Pakistanis manage to inveigle their way into every single country in the West.
Even Iceland and the northern Inuit towns here in Canada!
Now seriously, why would [people] from hot desert countries want to live in those places? Yet they are there and have established their military headquarters (mosques) there.