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Leipzig: A walk around a city reborn

literaryreview.co.uk

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Re: Leipzig: A walk around a city reborn

#31

Post by wolframhempel »

When I studied there in 2004-2007 (Art History and Archeology of all things) Leipzig was just amazing. It was raw, chaotic and dirt cheap. I lived in the very center of the city in Hainstrasse, right next to the market and the street with all the bars. I had a beautiful 70 square meter apartment as a student that I paid 320 Euro a month for. Down in Suedvorstadt things got even crazier. We went to underground bars with 1 Euro beers and cockroach races. We went to death metal clubs and Absinth bars. We dressed in top hats and steam punk goggles for Wave/Gothic meeting in spring. We spent a lot of time in nature in Leipzigs Auenwald (a permanently flooded forest) and countless lakes. It was awesome!

Today, when I come back to Leipzig, things feel very different. More refined - true. But also much more bland and faceless. Leipzig's countless little quirky shops have largely made way for the same cookie cutter shopping malls you find everywhere - with your Zara's, H&Ms and G-Star stores. Lot's of places are empty, such as Karstadt and Petersbogen, owing to an over-supply of department stores for what's still a fairly small city. Larger industries have attracted more settled workers - and the crazy punks and metalheads of 2004 have grown into eco-conscious citizens with pension plans and immigration concerns.

Maybe (certainly) I'm just getting old - but god, I miss the raw and wild nature of the post-reunification days...

Re: Leipzig: A walk around a city reborn

#32

Post by CamperBob2 »

AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #29
entropie wrote: post #28

I live in Leipzig. The best thing is IMHO that we have the Grüner GÜrtel ("green belt") which is a pretty large area of real primeval forest right crossing through the town and suround the city core. In future outer leipzig will be surrounded by seas (7 Seen gebiet) which emerged from old mining holes and are all connected with each other.

"surrounded by lakes", not seas. European languages are weird for lakes and seas. French mer != Dutch meer. German see != English sea.

I'm surprised at the German case -- isn't U-boat a colloquial term for Unterseeboot?

Re: Leipzig: A walk around a city reborn

#33

Post by mmoll »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #32
AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"surrounded by lakes", not seas. European languages are weird for lakes and seas. French mer != Dutch meer. German see != English sea.

I'm surprised at the German case -- isn't U-boat a colloquial term for Unterseeboot ?

Yup. German is really weird because you have both „die See“ (the sea) and „der See“ (the lake)

Re: Leipzig: A walk around a city reborn

#35

Post by 01100011 »

wolframhempel wrote: post #31

When I studied there in 2004-2007 (Art History and Archeology of all things) Leipzig was just amazing. It was raw, chaotic and dirt cheap. I lived in the very center of the city in Hainstrasse, right next to the market and the street with all the bars. I had a beautiful 70 square meter apartment as a student that I paid 320 Euro a month for. Down in Suedvorstadt things got even crazier. We went to underground bars wi…

> the crazy punks and metalheads of 2004 have grown into eco-conscious citizens

Isn't some of that just generational change? In the US, kids seem a lot more tame these days than kids of the previous few decades. They have a different set of pressures, and social media has grown in power quite a bit over a decade.

Re: Leipzig: A walk around a city reborn

#36

Post by xtracto »

wolframhempel wrote: post #31

When I studied there in 2004-2007 (Art History and Archeology of all things) Leipzig was just amazing. It was raw, chaotic and dirt cheap. I lived in the very center of the city in Hainstrasse, right next to the market and the street with all the bars. I had a beautiful 70 square meter apartment as a student that I paid 320 Euro a month for. Down in Suedvorstadt things got even crazier. We went to underground bars wi…

I lived in Halle (Saale) between 2008 and 2012. We used to go to Leipzig quite often to hear the philarmonic, shopping and just around town. I remember it as an amazing little city with plenty of culture. I hope I can visit it again in the future.

Re: Leipzig: A walk around a city reborn

#37

Post by grimoald »

inglor_cz wrote: post #22
swayvil wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teutonic culture didn't spawn the militarism. That's just the angle that was exploited by the propaganda campaign. It's how you turn an innocent population into a unified fighting force (or whatever). You exacerbate and channel existing tensions and/or exploit a crisis. You frame your story in terms of popular narratives. They teach this stuff in Dictatorship 101

Well, I specified it as "dark undercurrent". Every culture has its own dark undercurrents. This specific undercurrent worshipped German-ness a lot. As a Slav you definitely feel as an alien visitor there :)

I'm German and I felt very alien as well when I visited. It is an historical monument. People don't go there to commemorate the Völkerschlacht (the small museum nearby is better suited for that), but to see how they commemorated the Völkerschlacht 100 years ago.

Re: Leipzig: A walk around a city reborn

#39

Post by bobthechef »

miniwark wrote: post #12

I had the chance to stay for a couple of days in Leipzig, in 1990 just a few month after reunification : 1) The city was 100% Steampunk ! There where steam heat pipes everywhere along and over the streets. Those pipes where the main source of heating for the city houses and facilities. Things like this one, but everywhere in the city : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haltepunkt_Leipzig_A... The steam was prod…

> 1) The city was 100% Steampunk !

District heating was quite common across the former Eastern Bloc and Russia. In the winter, you could see bands of melted snow on the sidewalk where the pipes ran. I hear the ones still in use have been better insulated since then.

> i did see plenty of missing houses in the main streets.

Yeah, this I've also been told. Compare that with the impressive rate at which Polish cities were rebuilt (aside from the beautiful historic centers, we can debate about the desirability of the modernist architecture that was built in places where it was decided that the historical building was not to be rebuilt; some of them are actually quite interesting, to be sure, but certainly not all of them). Not sure why the GDR took so long, or how they fared next to West Germany.

Re: Leipzig: A walk around a city reborn

#40

Post by cmrdporcupine »

wolframhempel wrote: post #31

When I studied there in 2004-2007 (Art History and Archeology of all things) Leipzig was just amazing. It was raw, chaotic and dirt cheap. I lived in the very center of the city in Hainstrasse, right next to the market and the street with all the bars. I had a beautiful 70 square meter apartment as a student that I paid 320 Euro a month for. Down in Suedvorstadt things got even crazier. We went to underground bars wi…

When I went over to Germany for my Oma's 80th birthday in 2001 or so my girlfriend (now wife) and I made a trip out of it and were going from the party (which was in Bavaria, though my grandparents are from Mainz) to Berlin afterwards to visit friends and check out the city. When I was telling my Opa and his friend about our plans, his Bavarian friend remarked something like "Ah, yes, Berlin, it's not very nice now, it's pretty ugly and dirty, but we're working hard to fix it. It will be much better in 10 years."

We then went to Berlin and had a wonderful time similar to what you're describing. It was still a pretty chaotic and interesting city, with lots of art squats and cool parties. Probably not as cool as it was a few years earlier, but still pretty neat.

I understand in the intervening years Berlin has started to become a sea of condos and boring glass buildings and inflated real estate like every other western city. Or so I hear. So yeah, they "fixed" it.

That same trip we passed through Leipzig and it seemed pretty run down but kind of interesting bit obviously not as "active" as Berlin. My techno friend had good things to say about it, though.

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