Another Autumn

Statues and Cities

One day in October 1989, when Lenin’s statue was still prominently in place on Leninplatz (Lenin Square) in East Berlin, German Democratic Republic. Photo: Getty Images.

Solyanka

So where did we spend our first noon-day luncheon in East Berlin in the fall of 1989? In Alexanderplatz. Over the followings days, we spotted elsewhere a lunch counter where two young Czechoslovakian workers served us huge portions of potatoes (cooked in all possible ways). We made friendship, and before leaving we gifted them much of the “pocket money” (in Marks of the GDR) the organisation had given us. I just remember they didn’t absolutely want to accept it, but in the end we managed to make it happen. Instead, on our first noon-day in Alexanderplatz we patiently waited for our turn in the long queue of workers at the stall selling solyanka, for the joy of Alessandra (who doesn’t eat either meat or fish). The weather was frozen, and we were dressed in fall/spring fashion (because we left Italy without heavy clothes). Rabbits were jumping everywhere, and the inspiration was making our heart warm anyway. In the following years, we had been traveling a lot all over Europe and far away from Europe, but, curiously, we never saw so far the “western half” of Berlin.

Alexanderplatz, 1989. Photo © phillygdr.

Tierpark Berlin

A zebra stands in the sun amid freezing temperatures at Berlin’s Tierpark zoo. Photo: AFP/Tobias Schwarz. We visited Tierpark in the fall of 1989, when we spent nine days in East Berlin, German Democratic Republic (GDR) on occasion of the 40th Anniversary of the GDR, and I always carried it in my heart. What a wonderful park! We walked there for hours under a thin rain veil, completely alone. It makes me recall also other things, such as the flat where we lived (on the Leninhalle), most people we knew (and most people we didn’t), the mammoth chess open, a friend who we then invited in Florence on holiday, and the inevitable diplomatic dinners (to which Alessandra had eventually to attend alone, being often scheduled in hours of game play). We were not diplomats, indeed, and alas, we showed it on occasion of the anniversary gala dinner. As usual we ended up seating at the table of the Bulgarian delegation, along with the Estonian Grandmaster Alexander Viktorovich Veingold, who, while speaking about Paul Petrovich Keres, kept pouring vodka in my glass, for the amusement of the Bulgarian head of delegation, who was a man gifted with a remarkable sense of humour. The vodka soon made itself felt on us, and the amusement of the Bulgarian toastmaster seemed to touch the sky when a wild quarrel happened between me and Alessandra silenced the whole hall for long minutes. It was a maybe too Mediterranean corollary to the various philosophical matters about which we passionately spoke at length, but nobody held a grudge against us, not even the day after. And somehow history moved on before us.