Terra Difficile

Terra difficile.* This region, as a rule, bypass the Russian travel agencies and do not complain too much vacationers. Calabria - an area that managed to be in the very “sock” of the Italian “boot”, is the poorest in Italy. The fault of this is the famous Calabrian mafia, because of which life has frozen here
*Terra difficile (it.) - heavy, difficult earth.

Calabria occupies an area of ​​15 thousand square km, on which only 2 million people live

Calabria began at the airport of Rome. Looking up at a man of a strong physique flying in a croton, the New Times correspondent noticed an impressive tattoo on his left hand: two snakes wrapped a knife with a massive handle. A thick gold chain gleamed on a man’s neck. Later, Kalabrian friends explained: such a tattoo is a sign of belonging to the local mafia, the Ndranget. And this is the business card of the province, located on the very edge of the Apennine Peninsula.

The view of small, scattered among orange groves of coastal villages was even worse-SCILLA, CANNETROLO, VILLA SAN-JOVOVANNI, GALICO, Arches, San Gregerio-this most beautiful area of ​​Italy has now turned into a huge cemetery, where among the ruins there were more than thirty thousand dead and many thousands of wounded-they left without any help without any help. The pouring rain, which was then replaced by an icy wind from the mountains, and near the streets, distraught, thousands of half -naked people ran and screamed with hunger.
Axel Munte. "Legend of San Mikele"
(About the 1908 earthquake in Calabria)

However, there is another: two seas, 800 kilometers of sandy beaches alternating with the rocky shores of pristine beauty. The whole “upper” Italy has been mastered, traveled and bypassed, it seems that the tourists there did not leave a living place there. And the Calabrian "sock" is still a paradise for lovers of pristine beauty. The local orange gardens, like in Sicily, bear fruit all year round. Vinograms give birth to clusters, from which they put an excellent local wine - it is unlikely that you will find dry wines with the names of Chiro, Greco del Bianko, Bivongi, and Krait. The local hills and mountains are the southern spurs of the Apennine, and there are many places for skiing ...

Calabria is known for its gastronomic delights

Calabrian McDonald’s

“Are you from Russia? - Two harsh policemen at Kroton Airport calculated the author in appearance. “Let's go with us: baggage control.” Things were subjected to the most careful inspection. There is little amazing: Ndranget and the Russian mafia have long been in hand in hand, and any Russian suitcase may be suspicious. Weapon trade is the main common interest of Russian and Calabrian mafiosi. But the main article of the income of the NDranget is the traffic of drugs, especially cocaine (thanks to the introduction into Colombian drug cartels), as well as a business on the secret burial of toxic waste.

1. Styl - the birthplace of Tommaso Campanella and just a picturesque place
2. The bow of the trophy is famous far beyond its borders

"Dad, do not be afraid, I will not go to the carbiners!" - The inscription on the wall of one of the houses in Kroton flaunts. Being a carabinier in Calabria is a kind of risky occupation. Ndranda is the mafia stronger than the Neapolitan Carrara, the Sicilian goat of Nostra, and even more so the Apulian Sacra's Crown Uinita. In the reports of Interpol, it is called the most powerful transnational criminal organization. “Ndranda is global as Coca-Cola or McDonald's,” confirms the Italian researcher of the mafia structures of Nikola Grateri. Once again, this was proved by the financial crisis of 2008-2009: while the banks freezed lending, Ndrande with its huge stock of cash actively led a large business around the world, thus introducing it into it. The Italian Association of Small and Medium Business Confeserti calculated: in 2009, the Apennine criminal groups spent about $ 36 billion on investment.

Locals love to steal evenings on the street

The power of the NDranget is in its families: it consists exclusively of family clans (Kosos), in which everyone is relatives - by blood or marriage, and therefore it is very difficult to join this community from the outside. NDrande today is approximately 200 clans and more than 6 thousand members. Each family completely controls its territory. And this order has been opened since the emergence of the Calabrian mafia - the 15th century, when local residents fought with the Spanish conquerors under the motto of Omerta, Onuri E Sangu - “Caution, Honor and Blood”. * * According to one version, the word ndrangheta comes from the ancient Greek Andraagathia - heroism.

Scorched earth

Signora's eyes are red from tears. Yesterday, Ndranget killed one of her sons. All in black, she hardly holds on her feet, accepting the condolences of relatives and neighbors. And occasionally he repeats: “I did not know ...” She did not know that her beloved son Luke was a drug courier. The New Times correspondent has witnessed one of the dramas that are played in Calabria regularly. The Italian media also report new arrests regularly: so, in early July, the police arrested 320 NDranget members throughout the country - in Rome, Milan, Bologna and Breshia, confiscating their property for more than € 100 million. In recent years, this is the largest operation against the Calabrian mafia: about 3 thousand police officers and carbines participated in it.

1. Not all roads lead to Rome
2. The door of one of the Palazzo in Revo Di-Calabria

But the NDrande again and again rises from the ashes. Largely due to the fact that its members, being arrested, rarely give confession: they know that in this case, life will have to part not only to them, but to all members of their family. Therefore, criminal reality still permeates and determines the entire existence of Calabria.

- Oh my god! Didn't I misheard? What a shame! - exclaimed Nonno in the paroxysm of noble anger. - What did I do that you do not want to stay? No, I can’t stand this shame! Since Calabria is called Calabria, not a single Calabrian has heard such an insult. Do you need to go? Why do you need to go?
In vain, we tried to calm the raging patriarch. How! We spent three days in Gerach, three in Redgo, two in Bova and Styl, and not a single day in the wind! The father of the family was gloomily silent, the grandchildren begged; But the angry old gentleman, stuck on the table with his fist and dripping the furniture, finally turned around violently and rushed down the stairs, leaving us in complete confusion.
From the travel diaries of Edward Lira.
Traveling in Calabria on a donkey. 1847

July-2010. Freshly fellow godfather

Agricultural farm, hotel, vegetable shop, fishing ship, hairdresser - everything is controlled by the invisible owner. “This is a scorched, difficult earth, Terra Difficile,” says Antonio, a resident of Croton. - Calabria could have been made by a tourist paradise, there is everything for this - the sea, beautiful beaches, forests. But the money that comes from the center for the development of the region is plundered by the mafia. ” In September, Antonio finally leaves Croton and moves to Central Italy, to Tuscan: there he intends to open the center of maintenance of cars, and leaves his workshop in Calabria to the companion. “There is life in Tuscan. Here she froze many years ago, ”Antonio states sadly. There are hundreds like him: the Kalabrians leave their small homeland in search of work to the north, leaving empty houses and even entire settlements. Ghusraki cities-nard-di-dipache, rogudi, Africa-gloomy local reality: abandoned as a result of economic stagnation, earthquakes and floods, they become gloomy monuments of Calabrian reality. Like the infamous highway of the Salerno-Clabia, which they have not been completed for 30 years ...

Explosive mixture

Francesco pergola funeral, victims of mafia showdowns

It was this reality, along with constant earthquakes and a harsh mountainous landscape, that he pierced the local character: it is believed that the Kalabrians are very solid, stubborn, often heavy people who are accustomed to suffering, as in the song of the local singer Mimmo Tuscano. Testa Dura - they often say about themselves: “copper forehead”, “stubborn head”. There is no more jealous man than a Calabrian, as there is no more exemplary family man: a family for a native of these places is a holy. Kalabrian hospitality also does not know the boundaries: when you get into the local family, you will feel like a welcome relative, whom you intend to legitimize to half death - and everything from a strong feeling.
Such a character is largely the fruit of a burning historical mixture: as many blood was mixed in the Kalabrians as the conquerors came to this earth: Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Spaniards, Turks. Do not forget that ancient Greek culture first penetrated the Apennines from Calabria. In the VIII century BC, the first Greek policies arose here: on the ionic sea - Sibaris, Kroton, Lokry, in Tyrrin - Metauro, Ipponio, Medma. All of them formed in the highly cultural Greek colony - Magna Grecia, Great Greece. It was to Kroton that the 40-year-old Pythagoras came from the island of Samos to establish his famous philosophical school here. Calabria gave the world another famous philosopher - the time of the Renaissance - Tommaso Campanella, who was born in a picturesque mountain town of Stilo.
There is little left from Great Greece in Calabria, but this is the small Calabrians with true knightly zeal. For example, a single column remaining from 48 columns of the Greek temple in the town of Kapokololn. Or the famous bronze of Riach: two bronze ancient Greek warriors above human height, discovered in 1972 at the bottom of the sea near the Riach Marin, were today put up in the administration building in Revio-Di-Calabria. Closing the National Museum of Great Greece for reconstruction, the local authorities did not dare to hide the warriors from the eyes of the people - interest in them is too great. However, having gathered to look at the statues on Friday, you will have to put on ceremonial clothes - on the day of the local council in beach form, the administration is not allowed into the administration, even in the most cruel heat ...

Operation in San Luke- the main residence of the ndranget

Between Scylla and Haribda

The sea in Calabria for every taste. If you want - Tyrrin, with rocky shores, white sand and pure azure water, as in the city of Tropeya, justly called pearl. If you want, ionic, with secluded grottoes and secluded beaches, on which you can meet the catchers of the sea hedgehog. What the Creator did not offend Kalabria is a natural variety. Tired of the heat - it's time to go to the high -C of National Park with the Russian name Strength.

Confiscated by Calabrian mafiosi is estimated at millions of euros

Here, even in hot August in the evening, dew falls out without a jacket and you can’t do without a jacket, and the landscapes are Swiss or Siberian: pine forests, strawberries, deep and clean lakes, air that you want to drink - and delicious mineral water that flows from a tap in any house. And if someone thinks that a Calabrian can be surprised by snow, you won’t wait! In winter, the force brings the power in snow so that the food has to be thrown into the mountains by helicopters ... oh this food ... it is for the inhabitants of Calabria (as, indeed, for all Italians), is the second religion. If the pasta is with a capital letter “P”, that is, fresh, handmade, if the cheese is the famous Pecorino sheep, if eggplant are pickled with mint, if coffee is “Gulelmo”, a special Calabrian frying. And here is also a high hold of the sweet red onion from the trophy and the famous Calabrian Peperonchino - burning red pepper: this “Viagra for the poor”, as it is called here, is able to turn the dish into a risky attraction. And of course-the fish, whose queen is considered to be a laundry. It is caught everywhere, but most of all - in the beautiful place of Scylla. It was here, on the shores of the narrow Messinsky Strait, separating the Italian mainland from Sicily, according to the myth, that the naval monster of the same name lived. Together with Haribda - a monster that lived on the other side of the strait, it caught up with fear of the seafarer. In ancient times, only the Odyssey and the Argonauts managed to go between Scylla and Haribda. And today, local fishermen talk about complex currents and whirlpools in the Messinsky Strait. But in modern times, it is not difficult to overcome them for the Kalabrians. It is much more difficult to pass between two more serious evils - a mafia and poverty. And yet, probably, it’s worth trying - this land is too beautiful in order to give it to the torn to be torn to the monsters ...