We could easily say that Berlin is a city divided. It is divided between the magnificent history of the three German reichs and the contemporary Bundersepublik, the third economically most developed country on the planet. And it is the city that was once divided not only spiritually, but physically as well. Without a doubt there is no better symbol for the Cold War than the heart of the Iron Curtain – The Berlin Wall. To commemorate the clash of ideologies, a part of the wall is preserved on the bank of the river Spree, today covered with graffiti. In the city itself a paved line within the asphalt road shows where barely 25 years ago a border stood that divided the world in two. In an ironic twist of fate the conflict between communism and capitalism became an attractive market niche for the Berliners, and many a stand sells fur hats with red stars, and sickles and hammers, and one can also visit the Cold War Museum and the museum on the former Deutsche Demokratische Republik. The notorious border passage into the American Sector of the German capital, the Checkpoint Charlie, is today recreated a couple of meters down the street from the original border and tourists can take photos of actors in military uniforms, standing guard beneath white stars and red stripes. A stone's throw away from the border passage stands the Cold War Museum, when you can take a look at the propaganda posters, newspaper articles and various memorabilia of the Cold War period, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet occupation of Poland, the division of Germany, the MAD strategy (Mutually Assured Destruction) and of course the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, the Perestroika, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
If you ever wished to relive the days of socialism and perhaps indulge in nostalgic memories of the days of your youth, then the Eastern Germany Museum is the right thing for you. Accompanied by the sounds of old newscasts you can take a look at the everyday objects from the life in Deutsche Demokratische Republik. Together they create a certain zeitgeist from 25 years ago, which could be felt in the republics of the former Yugoslavia as well. I am talking about typewriters, calculators, statues of Lenin and socialist knock-offs of Coca Cola. In the interactive museum you can open drawers that hide short texts about the everyday of Eastern Germans, their active sex lives, information on industry, economy and culture of the socialist Germany, and highlights from their political practices. You can experience life in a three by three meters large prison cell, you can sit beneath the hot light of an interrogation room, drive a Travanta, the only brand of automobile produced in the DDR, and enjoy in propaganda films, portraying the ideal future of the communist republic in the 1990s and beyond the turn of the millennium.
In the heart of Berlin, there is almost no street, where you cannot find a moving monument to humanity's darkest years. Neue Wasche is a chapel built in the memory of all who fell in battles between the years 1939 and 1945, as the victims of national-socialist violence and a collateral damage of the butchery of the Second World War. The dark room is lit by a single rooftop window and in the middle of an empty hall the weeping Madonna kneels, a black-stone-clad pieta, who, wreathed with flowers, conveys a bitter message about the follies of our kind. Next to the Tiergarten stands a bronze monument of a Soviet with a rifle, commemorating the Russian soldiers, who fell on the Eastern Front and in the Battle of Berlin. And perhaps most importantly, right beside the Brandenburg Gates, stands a square, full of massive stones that create a concrete labyrinth: it is a testament to the victims of the Holocaust, a testimony to the immeasurable human cruelty and an avant-garde reminder to the posterity as to where unbridled violence leads. All these monuments are a kind of German confession, their acknowledgment of the mistakes of their fathers, a magnanimous of peace in the world and a show of exceptional courage in facing their past through art.
On the second day we attended the ITB, a trade show of international tourism, where all kinds of countries presented themselves, from USA with its girls wrapped in the American flag to the always present host Germany, and to more exotic states, like the Islamic Republic of Iran. We spent the day in the vast exhibition center, where our upright students gathered information for their research papers. Their topics ranged from ski slopes of the world, cruises, seas, lakes, congress tourism, adrenaline tourism, wellness, cultural tourism, incentive tourism, Mexico (who was the central theme of this year's ITB), Fiji and the Maldives. The Slovenian stand was of course clad in green of our land. They presented our hotels, ski slopes, lakes and resorts, as well as idyllic country side villages, on account of which people in the civilized world are certain that our homelands boasts neither roads, nor electricity. Due to the two thousand year anniversary of the founding of Emona, two legionnaires and two ravishing Roman ladies walked around and served wine, according to an ancient recipe spiced with cinnamon and honey.
When all the academic duties were taken care of, we went in the downtown Berlin. We took a look at Ka De We, the oldest German supermarket, a 6-flored shrine to capitalism, where the rich and the great do their shopping, and those who wish to be seen in their companies take walks. When dusk fell we headed towards the heart of the German nation, the Bundenstag, which was prior to a Soviet stabbing it with a red flag known as the Reichstag. Since we, after all, paid a visit to the German parliament, not everything went smoothly, as couple of us did not have our documents with us, and the diligent Germanic police officers found knives with one or two of our company. Otherwise the Bundenstag is a glorious building, constructed in the Neo-renaissance style, with a mighty dome at the top, from which one can see entire Berlin that is particularly gorgeous at night, bathed in all of its lights.
At the dawn of the third day, when we had our breakfast and prepared our suitcases, we continued our path. We headed eastwards, towards Dresden, the most beautiful city of the Eastern Europe. On the road there we watched a film of the same name, about the fire storm, that in the last days of the WWII decimated the city, all the while we managed to sleep off the pains of a an all-night bender. Dresden, the city on the river Elba, waited for us all covered in sunshine and another day full of joys of European history was ahead of us. Dresden is, despite its bloody history, one of the most stunning European cities, for its churches, palaces and an opera house are some of the mightiest testimonies to the powerful aristocratic history of the German lands. Semperoper, or the Saxon State Opera, is a magnificent building that next to the palace and a cathedral dominates Dresden's Theater Square, and there is no artist who would not be touched by its gable. There stand statues honoring the great authors, from Carl von Weber, a Romantic composer, whose compositions where first to be played in this opera house, to William Shakespeare, the greatest bard of the Modern Age.
Our path continued towards south, towards the capital of the Czech Republic, Prague. We arrived there in the evening and all tired we managed to admire the sunset-lit church, designed by Jože Plečnik and it is a truly moving feeling, seeing how far reached the influence of this Slovenian architectural master. Prague is truly a city with a soul. It is a city that unlike Berlin, even in the old center smells, of urine, and junkies in broad daylight fill their veins with drugs in the parks. It is a city when you can feel the diversity of its people, from the Czech natives to Vietnamese immigrants, and all the way to the Russian tourist, who are so numerous, so as to make one believe that these Eastern Slavs are the only people, other than our group, who come to enjoy the history written in the stones of Prague. With Hradčany, a castle district composed of castle itself, one of the most beautiful European cathedrals and the renowned Golden Street, which back in the day housed artisans, Prague boasts the possibly most astonishing city centers in the world. Especially if we admire this marvel of medieval architecture at night from the banks of Vltava, which is lit up by the reflection of the castle's lights. The city itself seems to be mostly dedicated to Charles IV of Luxemburg, the second king of Bohemia. Prague's most well noted monument, the Carl Bridge, is named after him. And it was quite refreshing to take a walk on the Vaclav square; the largest square in the city, if not for its grandeur, for the fact that it is named somebody else other than Charles.
When after the last Prague evening, full of watered down Czech bear and their heavenly fatty food, our six days came to an end, we set back towards south, back towards Maribor. On the way we stopped at the Czech towns: Telč, a lovely city by a lake, where we took a look at their famous well, where travellers and more importantly merchants drank back in the day, and in Trebič, a doubtlessly pretty city, but by then we were all too tired to be able to enjoy in its colorful city center and the Jewish cemetery. On our trip we joyed and learned, hung out and teased each other. Together we whined about the pain in our feet, together we lived through hard times on the way back, and together, over the course of six days, we learned a great deal. We learned about tourism, about the unbelievable history of Czech Republic and Germany, about the culture of Prague and the glamour of Berlin, about the watered down Czech bear and perhaps most importantly, we learned about what it means to be a good comrade. In the best sense of the word.
