Thursday, March 02, 2006
Russian graffiti
Last week I took a tour of the Bundestag, Germany's parliament building. Once the Reichstag, it was damaged during the Second World War and finally taken by the Soviets in 1945. When it was renovated in the 1990s to house a unified German parliament, the signs of the Soviet occupation were revealed -- literally. Soviet soldiers left copious graffiti all over the building, much of which was uncovered when post-war whitewall was stripped. Now the signatures of Red Army soldiers are preserved in the halls where the German government meets, a spooky -- if fitting -- junction of history and the present.
According to our guide, the Russian embassy was asked to translate all the writing. The Russians asked the Germans to remove only one slogan, which read "Death to all Germans." Other famous preserved Russian writing in Germany includes Peter the Great's signature on the door of Martin Luther's living room in Wittenberg's Lutherhalle.
Six Days in Berlin
When I moved to Germany last fall I was determined to see a six day track race. When bitter cyclists sixty years too young to have been there reminisce about the days when track racing was “bigger than NASCAR,” the days when teams of two raced bikes with iron frames and wood-rimmed wheels around the clock for nearly a week in front of crowds of thousands, the days when the Big Apple’s Madison Square Garden sold out with rabid fans there to see a real man’s sport and not those wussy Knicks, they’re reminiscing about the six day days. In America, those days are long gone.
Europe still hangs on to tradition. And what tradition: Six days of beer and big gears, a traveling carnival of massive quads and Madison throws that rolls through eleven cities over five winter months. Beginning in Amsterdam in October, a dedicated (and rich) fan could follow the circuit across Europe. Germany is the six day’s stronghold, with races in Dortmund, Munich, Bremen, Stuttgart and -- in a ten-year-old velodrome about a half mile from my apartment -- Berlin.
On a Saturday in late January I paid 30 euro for a standing-room-only ticket to go see the race. (I had a press pass for the Sunday matinee, but Saturday's the big night.) I took some pictures and wrote an article that will hopefully be in a forthcoming issue of Velonews magazine (but not online). Check out some of my photos here.
