伦敦本土精英与外来巨富争夺高档社区

London — The seasonal lights are strung along the main street. Vendors offer scarlet poinsettia and white-berried mistletoe and trees to be decked for a cozy English Christmas — hardly the front-line emblems of a war against the encroachment of the superrich.

伦敦——节日的彩灯沿着主干道垂挂着。商贩在出售一品红、白果槲寄生和圣诞树，正好用来装扮出一个妥帖的英式圣诞节。这里看起来，一点也不像是阻击超级巨富侵占领地的战争前线。

Yet in Highgate, an upscale neighborhood five miles north of London’s heart, the familiar year-end trappings mark what researchers call an alpha territory fought over by two elites: Those who have for decades cherished it as a center of cultured, comfortable, largely professional affluence; and outsiders of newer and much greater wealth who see it as little more than a location for trophy mansions.

然而，在伦敦市中心以北五英里的高档社区海格特，这些常见的年终装饰却突显出研究人员口中的一种现象：两个精英阶层在上演一场有关领地的龙争虎斗。一方在此定居了数十年，珍视这里，认为当地聚集着品位高雅、为人得当、大多为专业人士的富足人群；另一方则是外来的新富，身家也高出前者一大截，认为这里不过是其炫富豪宅的地方。

The conflict is depicted as the consequence of a widening global divide between the überrich and the rest, reminiscent of the upstairs-downstairs gulf in Western society before World War I.

这场冲突被描述成了全球范围内超级富豪与其他人群之间鸿沟不断拉大的象征，令人回想起第一次世界大战之前西方社会的楼上-楼下之争。

Writ small, social researchers say, the tussle could foretell a future in which an ever-smaller upper crust will command financial heights far beyond the dreams of lesser mortals, even those who qualify, like many of the folks in Highgate, as pretty well off themselves.

社会科学领域的研究者表示，海格特的冲突虽然微小，但或许预示了未来：一群人数越来越少的最上层将掌控财富的制高点，把凡夫俗子远远甩在身后，就连那些本身算得上富足的人，比如海格特的许多居民，也做梦都难以望其项背。

These days, equality campaigners say, 80 immensely rich people have amassed the same wealth as the poorer half of the world’s entire population.

倡导缩小贫富差距的人士称，事到如今，世界上最富裕的80人累积的财富，与全球人口中较为贫穷的那一半相当。

London, according to a report focusing on Highgate by researchers at two universities, is the location of choice for the global superrich, whose desire for homes in prestigious places is “displacing pre-existing elites” and reshaping the character of their adoptive neighborhoods.

两所大学的研究人员联合对海格特社区所做的一份报告显示，伦敦是全球巨富最青睐的地方，而他们在高端地段置业的欲望正“让当地原本存在的精英阶层流离失所”，并在重塑他们新家乡的特色。

Indeed, the adversaries of ultrahigh-end redevelopment say they start new campaigns every month to resist the construction of immense mansions, often with multistory basements for cars, home cinemas, spas and panic rooms.

果不其然，反对超高端再开发项目的人士称，他们每个月都要发起新的运动来抵制超级豪宅建设工程。这些豪宅往往会挖掘多层地下室，用作车库、家庭影院、休闲健身房和安全屋。

There are those who shrug and say it was ever thus. Highgate and the neighboring Hampstead have long existed as an enclave of grand homes often created or remodeled by magnates who built their fortunes on coal or soap or beer, and were not shy about expressing their wealth in bricks and mortar.

有人对此一笑而过，说事情从来便是如此。长久以来，海格特与相邻的汉普斯特德都是豪宅遍地。这些房屋由借着煤矿、肥皂或啤酒之类的东西发家的大亨新建或改建，毫不掩饰房主的财富。

But it is those same houses, and the plots around them, that now attract more secretive outsiders from Russia and elsewhere. Many are said to hide their identity with high fences, security gates and thickets of front companies registered in tax havens.

然而，正是这些宅邸及周边的地块，如今吸引了来自俄罗斯等地的更为神秘的外来者。据说，其中许多人在掩盖自己的身份，利用的是高高的围栏、牢固的大门与注册在避税天堂的一层层的壳公司。

Among the most talked about is a 25-bedroom house called Witanhurst, said to be the second-biggest residential property in London, after Buckingham Palace, a vast pile with vistas over the 800-acre Hampstead Heath.

最引得众人议论的一座豪宅是有25间卧室的威坦赫斯特(Witanhurst)。它号称是伦敦第二大的宅邸，仅次于白金汉宫，气势宏伟，坐拥汉普斯特德800英亩的美景。

According to news reports, the buyer paid some $75 million for it and resolved to spend the same again on enhancements, including basement excavations for features including a 70-foot swimming pool and a garage for 25 cars. Once the renovations are complete, the house will command a resale value of $450 million.

新闻报道称，买家支付了7500万美元将其收入囊中，并且决心再花上这个数目来进行改建，包括开掘地下室，用来建设70英尺长的游泳池、容纳25辆汽车的车库等设施。一旦完成翻新，这座房子的转卖价值将达4.5亿美元。

As the huge remodeling progressed, mystery over the ownership deepened. Some even gossiped that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was building himself a high-end hide-out. Then The New Yorker identified Andrey Guryev, a fertilizer magnate from Russia, as the beneficiary of a company called Safran Holdings, said to own Witanhurst on behalf of his family.

随着这项巨大的改建工程的推进，围绕着房主身份的谜团也加深了。一些传言甚至表示，是俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·V·普京(Vladimir V. Putin of Russia)在给自己打造高端藏身之所。后来，《纽约时报》揭露，俄罗斯化肥大王安德烈·古里耶夫(Andrey Guryev)是一家名为“藏红花控股”(Safran Holdings)的公司的受益人，而这家公司据称代表其家族持有威坦赫斯特。

Since its days as a travelers’ halt on London’s northern approaches, Highgate has hosted prominent, sometimes mysterious, outsiders.

自从当年开始充当南下伦敦的旅客的歇脚点，海格特就在招待外来的贵客，其中不乏神秘之人。

The Russian Trade Mission, for instance, is rumored to be a nest of spies. The poshest thoroughfare has been home to the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the supermodel Kate Moss and many others. Its 19th-century cemetery is the final resting place of, among others, Karl Marx and Alexander V. Litvinenko, who was poisoned with radioactive polonium.

比如，俄罗斯贸易代表团驻地传说中是间谍的窝点。这里最高端的街道名流荟萃，既住过诗人塞缪尔·泰勒·柯勒律治(Samuel Taylor Coleridge)，又住过超模凯特·莫斯(Kate Moss)。海格特建于19世纪的墓地，安葬着卡尔·马克思(Karl Marx)和亚历山大·V·利特维年科(Alexander V. Litvinenko)等名人。后者生前是特工，遭放射性物质钋毒杀。

But there is a particular unease about the newest arrivals. “We don’t want limos with smoked windows and men in dark glasses with bulging breast pockets, and the place surrounded by CCTV,” a local councilor, Michael Hammerson, told The Daily Mail. “That’s not Highgate.”

不过，对于最新的这批来客，当地人有一种特别的不安。“我们不想要深色玻璃的豪车，前胸口袋鼓囊囊的戴着墨镜的男人，到处装满闭路电视监控系统，”当地议员迈克尔·哈默森(Michael Hammerson)告诉《每日邮报》(The Daily Mail)。“海格特不是这样的。”

That definition, though, is precisely what the skirmish is all about.

然而，海格特到底该是怎样的，正是这场冲突的核心所在。