Playlist: Hechtech's Portfolio
Some of Hechtech's best work over the years.
Featured
Fake Jew in Germany - (director's cut)
From Hechtech | 26:59
After the fall of the Soviet Union Ukrainian-born opera director Julia Lwowski was able to come to Germany because she was a Jew. But was she?
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Hundreds of thousands of Jews migrated from Eastern Europe to Germany after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some had Jewish ancestry; some just said they did. Either way, as all religions had been denigrated in the USSR, Germany was their first opportunity to learn and practise their faith.
Julia Lwowski is one of these migrants who is now an opera director. She recently worked on a production of Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold, which tells the story of a gold treasure under the Rhine River stolen by Alberich, a mean and ugly Jewish drawf. Join Julia and circumcized radio producer David Hecht as they explore some wierd identity issues.
Readings by Uwe Westphal, Ana Gomez-Carrillo and Nikolai Frank
Special thanks to:
Roman Lemberg - advisor on all things Wagnerian,
Ralf Meier - immigration expert at the German Ministry for Education
The Ruhrtriennale festival and the MusicAeterna Orchestra from Perm, Russia conducted by its musical director Teodor Currentzis, for permission to use recordings of Das Rheingold.
Sierra Leone's Conflict Diamond Trade (2004 NPR's Day2Day)
From Hechtech | 05:07
David Hecht reports on the condition of Sierra Leone's diamond trade
David Hecht reports on the condition of Sierra Leone's diamond trade, a multi-million dollar industry linked to major conflict and crime in that West African country. The diamond profits continue to elude the miners themselves.
Farming and famine in Nigeria (2009 PRI/BBC The World)
From Hechtech | Part of the Nigeria-Niger Food Trilogy series | 08:30
A generation ago, the African nation of Nigeria launched a plan to embrace modern farming. But today the country is
A generation ago, the African nation of Nigeria launched a plan to embrace modern farming. But today the country is more dependent than ever on imported food. To find out what went wrong with these agricultural efforts, reporter David Hecht travels to a Nigerian village he first visited in the 1980s.
David Hecht’s travel to Nigeria was funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis reporting.
Fast Food In Nigeria (2009 PRI/BBC The World)
From Hechtech | Part of the Nigeria-Niger Food Trilogy series | 04:30
Running a fast food operation in a country beset with mismanagement, corruption, and lack of infrastructure.
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- Fast Food In Nigeria (2009 PRI/BBC The World)
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Mr. Bigg’s is the largest fast-food chain in Africa’s most populous country. This Nigerian chain, loosely modeled on McDonald’s, offers hamburgers and French fries as well as local fare. But running a fast food operation is no easy feat in a country beset by mismanagement, corruption, and a lack of infrastructure. David Hecht reports.
David Hecht’s travel to Nigeria was funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Russia's Anti-Revolution: 100 years after the Revolution (director's cut)
From Hechtech | 29:48
Communism ended in failure, capitalism corrupted Russia’s soul. Now Russians are looking inward. Our story follows the grandson of a once forgotten religious philosopher Seymon Frank, whom some of Vladimir Putin’s elite now hail as "the only systematic alternative to Marxism today".
The religious philosophy of Semyon Frank is about ‘The Unknowable’. Even his grandson Nikolai Frank doesn’t really understand it. So, along with radio producer David Hecht, we travel through Russia to meet people who can explain it, and help us understand why some in Russia’s right-wing, anti-Western Putin establishment now claim Semyon Frank as “Russia’s salvation”.
We find the Russian Orthodox church divided. One part comes out of the dissident movement of the Soviet era when religion was denigrated. Today, their spirit continues with calls for Western-style freedoms and human rights. The other side of the church is embodied by the glitzy new cathedral next to the Kremlin, some of whose adherents envisage a hierarchical society more in line with pre-Soviet Tsarist Russia.
How then does Nikolai’s grandfather fit into the mix?