Berlin: City of Bears and Barracks Architecture
At 7 a.m. the bus pulled over at a German filling station. A trailer nearby displayed a giant puppet of a cabaret singer clad in a low-necked red uniform, smartly saluting an opera hat with two fingers. Obviously, it is from the Luna Park. Very German, like a movie starring Marika Rock.
In the morning haze I trudged over to a cafeteria. There was a German approaching, but a closer look showed it to be one of the passengers.
Inside the cafeteria I saw a giant burger with cucumbers, tomatoes, and cheese under the glass top. They call it Multikaiser, the size of a small log. I bought it and ate and ate until I got tired. It really is enough to last you a week.
While I was plowing through my burger, other passengers walked in, casting interested glances at a distance, obviously thinking that here was the first real and chewing German. Then came a look of disappointed recognition.
We drove into Berlin at 9 a.m., May 9, and found the streets empty. It was as though we had entered a ghost town. Could it be an epidemic? Early warning that a bus packed with Chornobyl survivors was arriving? May 9, it transpired, was the fortieth day of Easter. It was a day off, of course.
The first people we met in the German capital were Arab trishaws. They looked very Oriental as did their vehicles, a picture from India.
Somebody’s mobile phone buzzed in the cabin. A portly bearded man shouted into the phone, “Marina! Yeah, congratulations, too. I’m in Berlin!” He sounded pompous, as though stressing it was only natural for him to be in Berlin on May 9, that he had always greeted this day in Berlin with friends.
Now cars were passing us, even smaller than we had seen previously, like toy chairs on wheels.
We spotted the first indigenous Germans by a traffic light, two hefty middle-aged gentlemen with pink faces, wearing light shirts and beige pants. Both stood silently and importantly, waiting for the light to cross the street.
Behind them a giant Mercedes logo was revolving atop a black giant building.
We were on our way to capture Berlin. There were the same dandelions as in Kyiv on the lawns of Jachim-Stallerstrasse, except that here they were surrounded by jewelry-like chamomiles. A couple was loudly arguing, he looking somewhat like a punk with his trimmed hair combed up center top and lacquered to help the beauty last; she sporting a pair of jeans and in high heels, with the Wild West singing cowboy belt hanging loosely from the narrow hips, body language very erotic, considering the size of the hips which she really knew how to swing. Both obviously had a hangover.
She was screaming at him so loud that we were ready to buy earplugs. It was then I realized that (a) German was very good for agitated verbal exchanges, as every expletive sounded so very natural, and that on such occasions it sounded even better than in songs; and (b) that Germans, if irritated (as we would see on more than one occasion later), vent it without hesitation.
As it was, the young fellow showed no visible response to the girl’s decibels with no apparent signs of irritation. At first this enraged the girl even more, then she stopped, took out a lipstick, tended her lips, and lapsed into a businesslike monologue. Obvious ly her man knew his companion well.
HUNTING BEARS WITH A BEAR CAN GET ONE KILLED
We went on a sightseeing trip aboard a double-decker bus, with an open upper deck. It was painted a cheerful egg yoke yellow, like a New York taxicab.
The fare was heavy on the Slavonic wallet: 18 euros. Our group leader Yaroslav, however, had arranged for a collective children’s discount, so we paid nine (he said that some ticket inspectors were hard to deal with because of their innately German punctiliousness). After some negotiating he had made the deal, meaning that we were now children with a post-secondary medical education on a business trip abroad.
The bus route had fourteen thematic stops and we had earphones, listening to a taped running commentary (available in English, French, Japanese, Russian, etc.) on every historic site.
There was a bear, the symbol of Berlin, on literally every corner, making the city look like a bear preserve. The animal was represented in every possible way, painted lemon with roses, white and wearing green boots, brown in women’s portraits, spotted crimson; sitting, standing, and lying. The Berlin variety could well challenge the Russian bear as to who can claim the immortal ursus as symbol.
Perhaps this was the simple truth behind the Great Patriotic War [as Stalin and his fellow heroes renamed World War II – Ed.]: one bear decided to fight another, yet hunting bears with a bear, one will surely get killed by a bear.
Meanwhile the war theme was constantly present in our earphones; we heard the statistics on war devastation: 70% of all buildings were destroyed by air raids. Hence the construction boom continues still. We saw construction cranes everywhere.
The city’s architecture reflects the German character: military. Figuratively speaking, Berlin is so many barracks. Comfortable, sparkling clean, black, white, neat, high-rise, yet right angles everywhere. (Could this be a postindustrial Troyeshchyna? – Ed.)
At one point our guide bragged about Berlin postmodernism. What we saw was another barracks, except that this one stood askew, with loopholes for windows. So much for the creative quest.
We drove past the Department of Transport and Post Office shaped like a steamship, looking a bit more cheerful than the barracks. But that was an exception from the rule, with apartment buildings lined up like matchboxes.
Looking left and right, we reached Europe’s first electric traffic light. How symptomatic that Europe’s first device controlling people’s movement originated from Germany! As we examined it elderly neatly dressed Germans wearing white socks drove past on their bicycles. Bicycles here are treated on a par with the other motor vehicles and bicycle paths are seen on every sidewalk, outlined in white or paved with pink tiles.
The bus turned to what was left of the Berlin Wall. It was like approaching any construction site: a concrete foundation with an iron framework. The only distinction was a multitude of graffiti, exalted inscriptions in German and English: Summer 1990! Hurrah! And suchlike. And then we were surprised to see a portrait of a Soviet soldier, clean-shaven, with ears protruding from under his garrison cap. It was a former checkpoint, with a portrait of an American soldier on the other side.
(To be continued)
