East Berlin and the East Side Gallery

Today was my last full day in Berlin and I used it to explore the city’s eastern part. I hopped on the S-Bahn to the Ostbahnhof and made the short walk to see a roughly 1.3km section of the former Berlin Wall. Its western side is covered with uninteresting crude street graffiti – just like it was when it functioned to imprison the citizens of East Berlin. In contrast, its eastern side is now the world’s longest open-air art gallery – the East Side Gallery. 128 artists from around the world started painting immediately after the wall fell in 1989, and their work has been preserved and occasionally repainted ever since.

The gallery has about 100 modern art paintings, often on topical political themes of the time. Some have become famous, such as Honecker and Brezhnev’s socialist kiss, which was so popular it was impossible to photograph without a fellow tourist posing for a picture….

I had more luck with this well-known picture of an East German Trabant car breaking through the wall………

….and this painting of hands…….

I continued my stroll east and found that the city began to resemble Moscow, with the style of its architecture and gas pipes sticking out of the ground.

Next, my walk took me to the RAW area – formerly a site for repairing trains, but now a centre of post-industrial Berlin counterculture, with galleries, clubs, street food and skateboarding arenas. It was a bit like Camden market in London, only less commercial. I felt a little out of place as I was by far the oldest visitor (of course I was also the only bear, but I have got used to that).

From RAW I headed north to an area where the communist East German government had constructed a long, broad avenue lined with tall buildings in an attempt to show off to the west – Frankfurter and Karl Marx Allees. I found the architecture interesting rather than spectacular – it reminded me of the great Moscow streets like Tverskaya, only rather less impressive. I found myself almost alone except for small groups of Spanish football fans – this part of the city does not attract many tourists.

Feeling underwhelmed by the communists’ architectural efforts, I continued to the very heart of Berlin to the city’s last unmissable sight – the Brandenburg Gate, a triumphal arch built over 1788-1791 on the orders of….yes you guessed it…..Frederik II. Now there was a king who knew how to build impressive monuments!

Next, I headed home on the U-Bahn. My line continued all the way to the Olympic Stadium, where the finals of the European Football Championships were being held that evening, so I shared the train with lots of football supporters. Most were English and sang happily and noisily. The few Spanish fans sat quietly in their seats, trying not to draw attention to themselves. I was relieved to get off at Charlottenburg and leave the noise behind, and to watch the match over dinner with friends on television rather than at the stadium. We ate pizza and the traditional German football food – currywurst and chips. Tomorrow is farewell to Berlin as I head on to Poland.

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