Soviet Memorial and Memory Lane

So I'm going to do things a little bit backwards today cuz it was just a good day...  I like to keep things fresh and mix it up every once in a while. :) I will go back in time soon to go over my first week later, but for now, I would like to share my day with you today...

Last week before I left Seattle I was praying for a place to live when I arrived here in Berlin.  Now it's probably good that I give you a little background... I first came to Berlin for Labor Day 1986 when I was 16 years old.  When we were living in another part of Germany, my dad and stepmom wanted to have a weekend for themselves, so they said they'd let me take a weekend trip with the base tours, they asked me where I wanted to go.  I said Berlin, and they agreed that would be okay.  1986 was still the cold war era.  Berlin was still split between East and West with a big crazy wall between the halves.  I'm so glad I came then, as a 16-year old to see a city divided by a wall and political and social ideology.  I got to go through Checkpoint Charlie and the whole bit, it was a very impactful weekend and I had a blast!.Who knew that trip would still impact me so many years later?

I also lived in Berlin from August until October 1992.

On thinking of my return to Berlin for the 3rd time, there was one memory that I had of my first trip nearly 27 years before.... there was this really impressive, cool but very weird Russian war memorial in the east I had seen that I was just fascinated by.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a communist, I don't worship the motherland, but nonetheless I was fascinated by this place.  So, when I was praying last week, this memorial came to mind... How cool would it be to live near the park where this was located and it could be my new prayer spot!  At the time I prayed this, I didn't realize how cool the area was near the park....  At any rate, God certainly blessed my prayer, it's only about a 15 minute walk there from my apartment! I am pretty sure it would have taken me longer than that to walk to Home Depot from my house in Spokane for those who knew where I lived there.

Now, I didn't see too many rooms for rent in this neighborhood, and besides, I completely screwed up the address and everything with the guy I ended up renting the room from.  There was confusion about the address, the name on the door to buzz to be let into the building, and frankly I just felt like a loser when I finally met him.  I was also about 10 minutes late, because the ad said it was a 10 minute walk from the subway.  It was over 20....  So I got here and I thought for sure the guy would say I was totally stupid and ask me to leave.  Amazingly, just exactly the opposite happened!  We had a great conversation and he confirmed it the next day that I had the room if I wanted!  Needless to say I said yes. It was also exactly within my budget and a very reasonable deposit....

So I had a great time praying there this morning, but I have to be honest, I was a bit distracted.  My first impression of this place is that it was weird, which it is kinda, but then I started thinking about it.  I read one of the captions on one of the limestone murals and it started to make some more sense.  Germany attacked Russia against an agreement they had and the mural had a caption that was a quote from Stalin that said that essentially Hitler wanted to enslave the Russian peoples and they felt forced to defend themselves.  Furthermore, I had to remind myself that Russia was an ally with US, France and Great Britain in World War II.  After the war, the allies forced Germany to be occupied by the Allied forces mentioned above.  The US had it's sector, so did Britain and France.  Russia also got influence over a very large piece, the eastern sector of the city. The same happened for the rest of Germany as well, with Russia occupying what became East Germany (the German Democratic Republic)   Now this is the part I'm not so clear on, but in essence, the Russian government heavily influenced the leaders in these sectors and eventually people hated the regime so much they began leaving East Berlin and East Germany for the western sectors.  This is why they built the wall, to keep people from leaving. (By the way, if any of you finds these facts to be inaccurate, please let me know and I will be happy to correct any facts or add any other information to this).

Anyway, I had a great time just praying and walking around the park this morning and remembering my first memories of my trip there in 1986.  I think the thing that really amazes me is that not only were the Russians not shy about building a very large monument to themselves, but the area it's built on is very large.  Real estate ain't cheap in Berlin. This area is hundreds of acres.  The statue is probably 100 feet tall or more and is very imposing and impressive.  It shows a very large, strong-looking soldier stomping on a swastika, holding a child in his arms, and the soldier is wearing a long flowing robe.... the hero!  Again, very imposing and impressive. I think it's interesting that God blessed my prayer to live here, not sure why... But I am still very moved, impressed and fascinated by this place.  I will definitely be returning there for more prayer times!

After leaving there, I went to the US embassy (which is RIGHT next to the Brandenburg Gate) so I could register with them that I am living here. Apparently they don't do that there.  I have to go to the consulate instead (they have both in the same city??).  So I took my opportunity to look around the BB gate a little and walk to the Reichstag (the German capitol building) just a few blocks away. Later, I was back downtown on the Kudamm at the Europa Center and I found a very interesting postcard. It was a picture of the Brandenburg Gate before the wall came down.  But something struck me about it, it looked exactly the way I remember it back in 1986, including one section of the wall that had been painted with 4 identical statues of liberty next to each other, but painted stylisticaly, and in different colors (see pics below).  It really helped bring back my first visit to Berlin so much more vividly.  Again, I was very impacted by this and the way this amazing city has changed over the past 27 years.  In the picture, there was nothing around the gate at all, it was kind of all by itself.  Now there are all kinds of buildings all around it, and up to a few feet from it.  This city really has changed a lot, I'm really blown away how much in 20 years.....I have already posted pics on facebook of the soviet war memorial, but I posted pics of the postcard and the monument as well below.

So, because I'm so close to this park that I knew used to be in the Soviet sector of Berlin (East Berlin), I looked to see where the wall was, and sure enough, I actually live two blocks inside East Berlin!  This is a really nice neighborhood and frankly I was quite shocked to discover this used to be on the other side of the wall.  I'm two blocks east of the wall AND two blocks north of the wall as well!  The name of the borough I live in is Alt Treptow.  I really love it here!

Well, I think that is enough for tonight.  Thanks for walking down memory lane with me.  Oh, by the way, I should include a link if you would like to see and read more on the soviet memorial. http://www.berlin.de/orte/sehenswuerdigkeiten/sowjetisches_ehrenmal_tiergarten/index.en.php and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_War_Memorial_(Treptower_Park)

Enjoy!