Wir als "Stadtposter" in diesem Blog zeichnen uns gemeinhin durch absolute und unentschuldbare Befangenheit aus. Damit dies aber nicht in inzestuöse Cliquenwirtschaft ausartet, die für Außenstehende weder interessant noch nachvollziehbar ist, erfüllt uns jede Schilderung der Stadt durch Menschen, die weder in und mit der Stadt geboren, noch verschwistert, noch verschwägert sind, mit unbändiger Freude. Jedoch sind solche Einsichten so rar gesäht wie Glück und Frieden im Südsudan und deshalb muss auch gleich zugreifen, wenn sich die Gelegenheit bietet. Dies habe ich getan und teile hier den Eindruck einer jüngst gemachten Internetbekanntschaft mit unseren Weblog-Lesern:
What brought me to Eisenhuettenstadt?
Actually quite mundane reasons - I earn my money at the moment as a Business English trainer, and one of the companies I work in is EKO Stahl in Eisenhuettenstadt... last month I started teaching some weekend intensive courses - I arrive on a friday, teach the staff of EKO all day, stay overnight and teach the next day.... I first did this last month, and with a whole evening to kill in Eisenhuettenstadt of course I set off with my camera and went exploring... thats when I took the photos I last uploaded to flickr ...
I took some more last night - I took a walk down the Strasse der Republik, crossed the bridge over the canal and had a look at some of the (nearly) empty plattenbaus that are situated around there .... it was quite an interesting experience .... looking at them at first I thought they were completely empty... I went to look closer, but heard the sound of a loud and angry dog coming closer.... I got slightly freaked at this point, thought that some wild dog must be living around the buildings, and that I had invaded his territory so I quickly turned around and walked in the other direction... when I had walked about 50 metres I turned round to have a look.... the dog was running around and barking, about 10 metres in front of his owner, who had come with him from one of the apartment buildings... it was only then that I realised that the dog was not wild, and that some people still live in these buidings .... I really was shocked ... what must it be like to live in one of these buildings... so broken down, derelict, with so few residents.... why would anybody still live there ... When I asked one of my students this morning in the car on the way to the steel plant he explained that these people simply couldn't afford to move out... there really is a sad human story happening in this town and in these buildings .... I walked around further and turned left, walked past some even more empty buildings.... one in particular, burned out and empty had the sign 'Gewerbeflache zu vermieten' ... ironic and sad, but I was reluctant to stop and photograph this... gangs of people were walking around the area, drinking beer and looking for some friday night action and in this atmosphere I did not feel that my 'desolation tourism' was either appropriate or entirely safe... I'm not sure how I would have managed to explain to these people why I wanted to photograph the destruction of a place that they have to live in.... I walked back to my hotel, past the shopping center, and took only a few more photos... of the empty doner stand... of the momument that states 'Dieser Stahl ist hier gekocht, so wird es bleiben'... of the lights of the steel plant by night....
So, another two days in Eisenhuettenstadt.... and I can only say that my interest is growing... the simplest of questions in my classes, questions that would be uncontrovertial in any other town bring tension here... simply asking my students where they were born brought some interesting discussions... one older student(a man, i would think, in his 60's) said he had been born in furstenberg, had lived through the construction of stalinstadt, the name change to eisenhuettenstadt, the wende... 'you have watched eisenhuettenstadt grow and grow' said another 'and now you are watching it getting smaller and smaller'... 'maybe some time it will be just furstenberg again' .... There was a real air of tension as they discussed the current situation of the company and its future .... at the moment their parent company is being taken over by an indian steel company, Mittal Steel.... I thought they would be despairing about this, but actually they were happy .... 'Maybe', they said, 'with mittal, we will have a chance to make more of our own decisions, to secure the future of EKO'... and if not, i wondered silently, what happens.... even more empty buildings than are already there.... their discussion was fascinating, I felt lucky to be there and to hear it, felt almost stupid jumping in to correct grammar and vocabluary problems... they are an intelligent and impressive bunch of people, with a great attitude .... they seem to me to be entirely without pity ... willing to work to save the place they call home, and that some of them returned to, having lived in other places in germany ....(E.mail von Roisin an mich vom 13.05.06. Vielen Dank für die Zustimmung zur Veröffentlichung!)
