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I’ve already written about my experience with the German Police. Just recently another episode came to an end.

A couple of days ago, last Sunday, we found out that Olya’s bike was stolen from the locked bicycle room in our building’s underground parking :( it’s worth noting that the parking can be accessed only with a key; bicycle rooms are also locked and bikes are chained to floor-mounted bike-racks.

In theory, everything is pretty well secured :) but in practice: anyone can get into the parking through the car gate, when it is left open, by following the car entering the car park; our neighbors are idiots, they almost never lock the bicycle rooms (even now, after the theft); and the bicycle rack was just sawed through by the thief.

Both of our bicycles were chained to the same rack, but only Olya’s bike was stolen. There was probably just one thief, and he couldn’t ride both of the bikes. But he was a bit unlucky: quite literally two weeks ago I installed an AirTag under the seat of Olya’s bike whereas my bike didn’t have a geotracker!

Firstly, we reported the crime to the police — in Berlin it can be easily done online, and filed a claim with our insurance company. Almost immediately we were called back by the police, they asked a few questions and told us that tomorrow, on Monday, the officer would come to take a look at the crime scene.

Then we picked up a carsharing car and drove to the place where the AirTag showed the bike was.

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Short trip around Germany 2024

Bremen

The first association that comes to my mind when I think about Bremen is the Brothers Grimm fairy tale and the Soviet cartoon based on it, “Town Musicians of Bremen”. I didn’t know what to expect from this town, and it seems the town’s government builds their strategy on attracting tourists by exploiting the images of the Donkey, Dog, Cat, and Rooster—they are everywhere here, at least in the touristy downtown area.

Bremen undoubtedly is one of the most charming German towns I’ve visited. The most memorable places include the beautiful historic central train station, which was built in 1889, a scenic embankment, and the cozy, quaint old town.

Ruhrgebiet

Ruhrgebiet is an industrial region in the west of Germany. It consists of several towns (Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg, and others) that are so closely connected that it’s hard to tell where one ends and another begins. In the 19th and 20th centuries, this region was the centre of heavy industry, with major coal mines and steelworks that played a key role in Germany’s economic development. Since the mid-20th century, when coal mining and steelmaking began to lose their importance, the Ruhrgebiet entered a period of decline. Today, many factories and mines have been closed and converted into cultural centres, parks, and museums.

In general, it’s a boring, dismal and grey place. It’s literally grey, the number of sunny days here is smaller than the rest of Germany. I wouldn’t stay here for a long time, but abandoned mines and steelwork factories are very unusual and worth visiting. Besides that, I was lucky, and at the time of my trip, there was a Champions League match between Borussia Dortmund and Celtic. I couldn’t miss this game. I bought tickets from a reseller at three times the price, but the game was worth it-I got to see three times as many goals as a regular match, the game finished 7-1 :))

Munich

It wasn’t my first trip to Munich; this time I visited a couple of familiar places, for example, the stunning English Garden, and also I went to Scamfest Oktoberfest and to the Olympiapark and its surroundings.

I didn’t expect anything special from Oktoberfest, but anyway, it became the biggest disappointment of the trip. It’s just a bubble blown by the local marketeers, and there is no reason to visit this event! Crowds of drunken tourists, double prices for everything, and ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY nothing original: food, beer, entertainment—all of these things are the same as at any other German fest, or even at any other event in any other European town. And all these things are in a noisy crowd of drunken, vomiting tourists stumbling around in Lederhosen and Dirndls. Honestly, I felt more secure in the crowd of Celtic FC fans shouting chants and shaking the tram they were in, than at this Oktoberfest.

The Olympiapark is quite a beautiful place, though, just like any other well-maintained park, but I found the former Olympic Village and the block of panel houses next to it to be more interesting. It’s a cheap place and there are no other similar districts in Munuch. It’s mostly students living here now. Some photos can easily be confused with those taken in, let’s say, Chertanovo :)

Over the past two weeks, I’ve had two amusing encounters with the German police.

On one day, I was riding my bike along my usual route. It turned out that part of the road was closed due to construction, but I wasn’t paying much attention to it. After riding about 100 meters, bang!, a female police officer stops me and starts speaking in German. I ask her to switch to English, and she calmly explains that due to the roadworks, you’re not allowed to ride there and shows me where I can take a detour.

On August 19th, there was a supermoon, and I wanted to photograph it in Treptower Park. The idea was to capture the moon behind the Soviet War Memorial. So I went there during the day to scout out the best spot. I should mention that my photography gear isn’t the most professional, but it might look that way from a distance: tripod, camera, 300mm lens. About five minutes later, two police officers approached me and started asking what I was doing there and if I was shooting for commercial purposes. I explained about the supermoon and that at most, I’d post the photo on my little blog. The guys said they had no issues with what I was doing but warned me that the monument and park are under Russian control, and if “they” (it wasn’t entirely clear who exactly) don’t like my photos, “they” might ask me to delete them. I hope it won’t come to that :/ Below is the supermoon photo I took that evening.