Switzerland Today
Greetings from Bern,
It’s hot. That’s it. The End.
With newsmakers on summer holiday, action is scant on the ground. We’ll still do our best to deliver newsworthy content to your inbox.
In the news: Mystery gold, F-35 fighter contract, fine dining and unwanted pets
- The case of the mysterious three tonnes of Russian gold that entered Switzerland after the start of the Ukraine war remains a mystery. Customs have shed a tiny light on the matter todayExternal link. There were two shipments from the UK: 3,089 kilograms in May and 284 kilograms in June. But the authorities have no reason to believe that the gold was produced before the cutoff deadline of March 7, 2022. For legal reasons, no information was provided on who the Swiss importer was.
- Defence contracts are almost always complicated, opaque and controversial. Switzerland’s decision to purchase 36 F-35 fighter jets from the US is not an exception. It appears that the final price for the planes is still up in the air External linkdespite the F-35s being touted as the most cost-effective of the options on the table.
- Speaking of tables, the list of the world’s 50 best restaurants of 2022External link was released today. At number 40 is Swiss establishment Schloss Schauenstein in the world’s smallest town of Fürstenau in canton Graubunden. “The menu enriches the senses, with dishes like trout with kohlrabi and dill, tortellini pasta with veal and brown butter, and venison with pepper, blackberry and fermented garlic”. Bon Appetit!
- Dogs acquired during the pandemic are being dropped off at shelters at record ratesExternal link. Experts blame the closure of puppy training schools for badly behaved pooches that novice owners cannot handle. According to recently published statistics from the central dog database AMICUS, 15,136 puppies aged between eight and 15 weeks were imported into Switzerland last year. Big increases in imports (over 2,700 more pups) were reported in the last two years.
Death of a pop art icon: Goodbye Claes Oldenburg
Swedish sculptor Claes Oldenburg has died at the age of 93 in New York. Known for his outsized public sculptures of everyday objects like spoons, shovels and pickaxes, he made a splash on the New York art scene in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1985, along with his wife Coosje van Bruggen, he came up with the idea of creating a giant Swiss Army Knife BoatExternal link and setting it afloat in a Venetian boatyard. A real Swiss “happening”. Other famous artists have also been inspired by the multipurpose knife tool External linkbut none on the scale of Oldenburg.
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