Germany.Berlin

  Berlin is a city teeming with landmarks and historical significance. The theme of souvenir products and some memorial sites vividly conveys the atmosphere the city aims to present to visitors, specifically the historical period when East Germany was under Soviet command. Various attributes along with the trendy souvenir brand "USSR" add a unique color to Berlin...

   Our first introduction to the city began with a visit to the open-air museum "Topography of Terror", whose main goal is to make the rise and criminal actions of the National Socialist regime visually accessible and comprehensible. This place showcased the famous Berlin Wall in all its glory, adding some knowledge about the terror that existed in the 20th century...  

    Here, the height of the wall, which was about 3.6 meters, was clearly visible...

 Continuing along our pre-planned route, we stumbled upon these cool vintage cars... 

   Then we saw another "spirit of the past" — "Checkpoint Charlie", the most famous border crossing point between the former GDR and FRG. It was established immediately after the city was divided by the Berlin Wall and became a symbol of the USSR-US confrontation...

  We were very impressed by this modern monument...            

  The interpretation of the author's intended meaning can vary, but my description of what I saw was that people hold onto a lot of unnecessary things and anxieties that clutter our minds and squeeze our souls into a heavy lump...

 We were also extremely surprised by a drawing in the style of the USSR noticed on one of the historical buildings, which once again emphasized the Germans' attitude towards their history... 

    Moving further along our planned route, we found ourselves at Potsdamer Platz...

  An interesting bench in the shape of lips simply couldn't be left without a kiss...

  We encountered another piece of the Berlin Wall in this square. From the painting on it, it was immediately clear why the lip-shaped bench was located nearby; everything here is interconnected... 

    The skyscrapers of Potsdamer Platz reminded us of a scene from New York...

  The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, dedicated to the Jewish victims of Nazism, was one of the most memorable places. More than 2,700 grey slabs of varying sizes spread across a vast area, creating an atmosphere of lifelessness and emptiness. This composition likely aimed to convey how horrific and inhumane the act of genocide was...   

  The appearance of a blooming tree among the rough slabs, in my opinion, symbolized hope and showed that life will always prevail... 

  Here is a German rickshaw, significantly different from its Indian counterpart with a more modern vehicle...

  And so we approached the main symbols of Berlin, the first of which was the Reichstag (German: "state assembly"), where the highest representative and legislative body of the German Empire and the Weimar Republic met from 1894-1933, and since 1999 has housed the Bundestag (German: "federal assembly"), the unicameral representative body of the FRG. An interesting fact is that Soviet soldiers, during the battle for Berlin and the storming of the parliament building, left numerous inscriptions on the walls (including in the plenary hall), some of which have been preserved and left during restorations. 

  In 1947, by order of the Soviet command, the inscriptions were "censored," meaning inappropriate inscriptions were removed, and several "ideologically consistent" ones were added. In 2002, the Bundestag debated removing these inscriptions, but the proposal was rejected by a majority vote. Most of the preserved Soviet soldiers' inscriptions are located in the interior of the Reichstag, now accessible only with a guide by appointment. However, since we hadn't made a reservation, we couldn't get inside the most visited parliament in the world...  

   Of course, the main symbol of Berlin is the Brandenburg Gate, created in 1788-1791. For a long time, it served as a symbol of divided Germany, and after 1989, it became a symbol of the country's reunification...

From the Brandenburg Gate begins one of Berlin's main boulevards — Unter den Linden (German: "under the linden trees"), named for the linden trees that adorn it. Walking along the boulevard, we turned to Gendarmenmarkt, considered one of the most beautiful squares in the capital of Germany. The center of the square's composition is formed by the Concert Hall, flanked on one side by the French Cathedral and on the other by its twin, the German Cathedral (pictured on the right)...

  Next, we visited the Pergamon Museum, located on the so-called Museum Island of the Spree River. The photograph shows the bridge, crossing which we entered the enclosed square and approached the museum entrance... 

  The Pergamon Museum houses collections from three museums: the Collection of Classical Antiquities, the Museum of Islamic Art, and the Museum of the Ancient Near East. It features various exhibits of ancient monumental architecture, the most famous of which are: the Pergamon Altar, the Market Gate of Miletus, and the Ishtar Gate with the Processional Way.

  The Pergamon Museum was built specifically to house the Pergamon Altar, a famous work of art from the Hellenistic period (323 BC - 30 BC), one of the most significant monuments of that era that has survived to this day. This altar was named after the city of Pergamon in Asia Minor, where it was created. The main theme of the relief depictions is the battle of gods with giants:  

    The Ishtar Gate is the eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon. It was constructed in 575 BC by order of King Nebuchadnezzar in the northern part of the city. The reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way was carried out in the 1930s using material found by archaeologist Robert Koldewey. The reconstructed Ishtar Gate measures 14 meters in height and 10 meters in length...

 The walls of the gate are adorned with alternating rows of images of sirrush (resembling a dragon or griffin) and bulls...

   The walls of the Processional Way are decorated with reliefs of lions...

  

  Through the Ishtar Gate along the Processional Way, statues of gods were carried during New Year celebrations in those times...

    The Market Gate of Miletus is another famous architectural monument located in the museum. The structure dates back to the 2nd century AD and is made of marble...

   However, we were most impressed by the exhibition of ancient Syrian sculptures, found in the Syrian settlement of Tell Halaf by German archaeologist Max von Oppenheim. The history of the exhibits in this exhibition attracts special attention. After successful excavations and the discovery of such valuable artifacts, Max von Oppenheim wanted to exhibit them in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. However, since he couldn't do that, he opened his own private museum in a former factory building in 1930, naming it "Tell Halaf." However, during World War II, after an air raid, the entire museum turned into ruins overnight. The basalt artifacts gradually baked in the raging fire, and when the burning museum was doused with water, they shattered into thousands of fragments. The fragments were recovered from the ashes but disappeared for more than 50 years in the dark basements of communist East Berlin, almost forgotten by everyone until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989...

  In 2001, restorers began their painstaking work. It took 9 years of intensive comparative work to piece together more than 27,000 fragments and breathe new life into nearly 60 invaluable artifacts. Some pieces were the size of a fingernail, while others weighed one and a half tons.

  One of the statues, a statue of a goddess (3,000 years old), was shattered into 1,800 pieces. This is how it looked after restoration at the exhibition...

 The basalt statues of lions (9th century BC) once stood at the entrance to the Tell Halaf palace...

 One of the restored lions was assembled from 900 fragments...

  The restored figure of a bird-man with a scorpion's body...

   The restored eastern sphinx...

 The exhibition also featured some sculptures from the "divine family" cycle, borrowed from the National Museum in Aleppo...

  After such an impressive museum visit, we continued our walk through the city. After walking a bit towards Alexanderplatz, we decided to rest on the lawn near the Berlin Cathedral, the largest Protestant church in Germany...

    Next to the cathedral is the Old Museum (German: Altes Museum)...

    In the background, the television tower located on Alexanderplatz is visible...

 Special attention was drawn to the souvenir products, which stood out with typical "Russian" hats, matryoshkas, and other items with USSR symbols...

   

  Typical souvenirs attracted significantly less interest...  

 At Alexanderplatz, one of Berlin's central squares, we debunked the myth that Germans are very strict about cleanliness and don't litter. Of course, this is probably an exception to the rule, but still, would you think this is the famed clean Germany...

    After buying metro tickets from one of the machines and validating them on the platform, we took the necessary line to another Berlin Wall memorial located on Bernauer Straße...

  Here, the history of the Berlin Wall's construction unfolded most dramatically. Starting on August 13, 1961, when the borders between the sectors were completely closed, the daily lives of residents on Bernauer Straße changed drastically. Day by day, they had to say goodbye to their usual way of life as they were cut off from neighbors, friends, and relatives. The house opposite now belonged to a different political system. Against their will, without making any effort, the residents of Bernauer Straße became witnesses and participants in the events of post-war German history that played out in Berlin... 

 Desperate people jumped out of apartment windows onto the West Berlin side, paying with their lives for it. However, for some, escape on Bernauer Straße was successful. Thanks to photos and films, the global public became witnesses to these events.
  The construction of the Berlin Wall, which forcibly disrupted everyday life, left clear traces on Bernauer Straße. The former "death strip" remains undeveloped. On the stretch between Ackerstraße and Gartenstraße, one can get an idea of the width of the border fortifications. It is here that the Berlin Wall Memorial is located. Through numerous preserved historical records and traces, the open-air exhibition on the historically rich Bernauer Straße convincingly narrates the purpose and function of the Berlin Wall. It mainly tells the stories of people whose lives were regulated by the Wall, forcing them either to retreat or to overcome it.

 After such an intense historical excursion, we returned to Unter den Linden Boulevard by the Brandenburg Gate, where we relaxed on the terrace of one of our favorite restaurants with a glass of German beer. It would be a crime not to drink beer in Germany...

  After having our beer, we encountered a bear on the boulevard...

   On the way "home," we observed a Greenpeace demonstration against the use of nuclear energy...

    And we also took some night shots of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag building... 

 That’s how we spent our time in Berlin, gaining a wealth of positive emotions and a great deal of informative knowledge. This city is so rich in "hot history" from the past 100 years that we feel the urge to return and visit the places we missed...