“You may say, “But this is our time, we have this time.” No, only the space in this time. And also – just part of the space, that one you understand. .. You own a few hours in a foreign city. You can buy souvenirs at this time. They will belong to you. You can buy things, even a ticket to a concert. And when you will leave, your things, souvenirs and tickets, used small papers, will be with you. Because the sounding and longing of a song did not and will not belong to you. The roaring and soughing of a city did not and will not belong to you. The soughing and roaring, hopes and longing are – time that cannot be captured. It is not owned by anyone.
You only had the right to hear it, participate in it. And, in case you had the power, you could increase the intensity of the time. That’s it.” – Imants Ziedonis (1933 – 2013), Latvian poet and writer
It was a hot morning in August 2012 when I woke up in the middle of Berlin. The former Tempelhof Airport stretched before me being unusually quiet. Only one small airplane was hiding near a large building under whose roof was placed a tent camp. I had the opportunity to participate in Campus Party Europe, one of the most ambitious world’s technology festivals, under its invitations programme.
My mother had the chance to take a trip to this city just once – during the Soviet times. Consequently, she was allowed to enter only the eastern part of Berlin. But I still remember how excited she was when telling me about the street that Germans call ‘Unter-den-Linden’ (‘Under the Linden Trees’). Her voice sounded as if it were a fairytale in which she happened to be for a while.
The last days of August seemed still striving to prove me that this was a hot week. The temperature was about +30°C. That did not lessen my greedy wish to see the city. It was my next-to-last day in Berlin. I went out to the Columbiadamm. This street is named after the American airplane Columbia on which Clarence Chamberlin and Charles Levine made their first flight from New York to Berlin in June 1927. They arrived at the Tempelhof Field. What followed was a touring of the city, autograph sessions, and a private meeting with President von Hindenburg.
On my schedule was a simple touring of Berlin. I walked through the city by foot several hours, and at six o’clock I found myself standing on the Glinkastraße. I suddenly noticed that the street was too quiet for a Saturday evening, and there were too many policemen. Maybe an official visit… I had barely managed to think it when a large demonstration appeared on the Glinkastraße. The German youth were coming.
The most part of the young people simply walked along the street. Sometimes, in the middle of this serious and – at the same time – glad stream showed up special cars with big placards. Then, a van rolled. Its arrival was accompanied by a song from the Russian band Pussy Riot. Through the loudspeakers the music sounded even mightier. Several policemen went by, one of them was holding in his hand a video camera that was turned off.
I hastily tried to free some space for new photos in my amateur camera that was almost full. I had time to make a few images, one of them is special. The evening sun is shining on young smiling people; in the middle of the pic, a placard reads: “Davon werden wir unseren Kindern erzählen” (“Things we will tell our children”).
And I have to remember the famous flight of a West German teenager Mathias Rust. His air travel was completed when I was attending high school during the Soviet times. He shocked the world, by landing his aeroplane in Red Square, right in the centre of Moscow. “They were laughing and happy,” now recalls Mathias Rust speaking about the people he met there.
Rust was found guilty of violating Soviet airspace and sentenced to four years in a labour camp. Later, he was released as a gesture of good will after serving only 14 months. But the smile did not disappear from our faces when we were talking about his flight. This event was a clear evidence that the so-called Soviet power is not almighty.
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The proposed title was “I Was a Berliner for Six Days” (as a little bow to Kennedy’s speech). 🙂 Eviya