Ostalgie: discover the life of the past
If you think that you already know Berlin, because you have visited a lot of times the German capital, then I´m sure that you can tell me what is the vita-cola, ampelmännchen oder Trabant. Ah, no, you can´t? Well, the fact is that you are completely wrong. Come on, come to Berlin and enter in the world of Ostalgie!
The 9th of november the Germans celebrate the 20th birthday of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and so as well the German reunification. This day is a very important incident in Germanys history of which a lot of Germans of the ancient East are thinking about very emotionally. However, the yearning for the life in the German Democratic Republic, that means especially for its products, is growing. During the last years there was established a new kind of trend, the so called Ostalgie. It is a portmanteau of the German words Ost (east) and Nostalgie (nostalgia). In the media, press, television, radio and in a lot of magazines you can find reports and documentaries about the life in the GDR. Switch on the TV, watch the programme called “Ostalgie Show” and let you travel back to the world of old East Germany. Although the Germans are very proud to live in a reunified nation, there still exist some cultural differences between the East and the West which mark the German society.
You won´t need much time to find shops where you can buy products of the Ossis. In the German capital is a huge amount of shops where you can buy besides the typical GDR Tschirts, authentic products from the period betwenn 1949 and 1990: the famous Spreewaldgurken (cucumber), the coffee brand Mocca Fix Gold, original uniforms of the ancient National People´s Army, the big Russian fur caps, one of the oldest cleaning agent Ata-Scheuermittel, and even you can buy the orginal shopping paper bags “Gut eingekauft”. All of these products enjoy a huge acceptation in the reunified Germany. As you can see, the offer of East articles is very expanded, starting with food, over clothes and household articles, withing books, CDs or movies: Berlin has everything!
If you want to discover the cosmopolitan city in a different way, why don´t you do a Trabbi-Tour? The Trabant, also known as Trabbi, is a very cheap car which was the most common vehicle in the GDR. The people couldn´t choose between a lot of automobile models, and the Trabbi was the cheapest one. For buying a Trabbi, they had to be registered in a list and sometimes the people had to wait for 10 years…or they just went to the black market. Nowadays, the Trabbi is very worshiped and Berlin gives you the posibility to rent this historical car to discover the German capital and its spectaculars monuments.
For getting to know every single important detail in your trip through the ancient East of Germany, why don´t you visit the DDR-Museum? It’s an interactive museum in the Berlin district of Mitte where you can discover through the different expositions the life of the Ossis (denomination for the habitants of the GDR). It is divided into 17 thematic expositions, like for example, the products, the STASI (Ministry for State Security), education, frontier, culture, trips and holidays etc. Moreover it’s a museum where you can act and touch, that means, you can walk through the original kitchen, open the cupboard of the bedroom and take some clothes or you can take a seat in a Trabbi: in this museum you have the feeling of being in a real original flat of the GDR.
If you still aren’t convinced about visiting Berlin, sit back and relax on the couch and watch the famous movies Good bye, Lenin! or Sonnenalle, films which show you the way of life in the GDR. You surely won’t wait any longer to book your flight to the German capital. And to relax a little bit from your trip through the East of Germany, why don´t you rent one of these comfortable apartments in Berlin?
