Yiannis Papadimitriou commented on the occasion of last Sunday’s parliamentary elections.

I had to go to Berlin for at least five years. I now went back to a special weekend, covering the German elections with DW’s favorite team. After the fall of the wall, they said that this city was “Europe’s largest construction site”. But even today it gives you the feeling that it is in a constant state of transition, search, review.

Once Berlin will become a second Paris, but for non -smokers. With aesthetic Rasonalist aesthetic. This is a grand plan, which until now no one has managed to implement. The Berliners has no time because he is constantly calling, something arranges, with someone he meets delayed and generally remains a bondage of mechanisms, said Kurt Tuholski, the most intelligent chronographer of his generation, but had an inappropriate ending in the troubled ’30s …

A similar impression today gives me some digital nomads who are chasing the dream in Berlin. They may not work in the conventional sense of the term, but they have “something in the works” that will “leave the season”, in five years they can get “the next Spotify”. But they may also fish in Yemen, who knows? Fail Better Next Time, which is also said in America.

“Take it 100”

As a visitor I am a bit unpredictable, sometimes. In Berlin they may be suggested by the Archaeological Museum, but I prefer Helmut Newton’s photography exhibition. But I always follow the advice I give to anyone who comes for the first time: “Get 100”. It is a bus route connecting the infamous neighborhood of the Old West Berlin, the Zoo Railway Station, with the showcase of the former East Berlin, Alexanderplatz Square, a brilliant sample of Brutal Socialist architecture. I enjoy every route as a relaxed reception in a silent city, as if you were calling old friends and saying “Hello, I came”. In addition, you see the main attractions against a symbolic fee again.

Tourist attraction was also the checkpoint Charlie, a controlling control between the American and the Soviet zone in the post -war Berlin, a leading symbol of the Cold War. The authentic construction has been transferred to a museum, but imitation attracts a lot of people, with a Turkish immigrant successfully playing the American captain. There was no sample left over the Berlin Wall. The magnets that write “You Are Leaving the American Sector” are made. Here, on the outskirts of the former degraded Kruezburg district, the phenomenon called gentrification is spreading at a dizzying pace.

When the city center is “refined”

For many it means “refinement” of the area, for others it is nothing more than a “urban violence” that crushes traditional neighborhoods to entice “investors”. Already in Berlin there are real estate companies that manage over 10,000 apartments. What does this mean for rent prices? Let’s discuss it again …

Walking on the main shopping street Friedrichstrasse I pass through the old offices of Tageszeitung, the newspaper I worked with many years ago. The listed building is a monument of architecture, built in 1909 as an industrial warehouse, to later evolve into a workshop of journalistic ideas and historical headlines. Few had so much inspirational headlines. I remember the day China, with Prime Minister Lee Peng, carried out a nuclear test and Tageszeitung was released entitled “Lee does Peng”.

At one point, colleagues moved to more modern offices, they were probably tired of hugging their plants to warm up in winter. The old Tageszeitung building has been deserted. They said that it would become co-working space, a Queer Cultural Center, but none of them happened. It is currently reminiscent of a medieval ship, which was washed up in Kriceberg by the waves of history.

Between East and West

The most eerie becomes the urban landscape as I go to the eastern part of Berlin. Poverty and abandonment obvious, although basic infrastructure is not missing. In Friedrichschein, a former trade union stronghold and until recently the “Greens”, some abused the pre -election placards of the Christian Democrat candidate Friedrich Mertz and the Liberals.

But the same night I am in a completely different environment, for live connections from the informal headquarters of the “Alternative for Germany” (AfD), in a secluded district north of Berlin, where the subway does not even reach. No invitation, no official information. “Greek journalist and Arab taxi driver go to the AfD party, well,” I think. Fortunately we have no paranoia. But not even access to the main area of ​​the event.

After so many emotions, a drink would do a drink in Litsos Square, on the old East and West border. I remember something low green lighting, authentic western cocktails and a colorful Warhol style portraiture overseeing everyone from the end of the bar. This is Berlin. I only hope that no “investor” has intervened, changing the decoration …