Zur deutschen Fassung.

Since August, I have been living in Chemnitz, which, to the older ones among us, might ring a bell as Karl-Marx-Stadt. The news usually leads to an astonished “Why Chemnitz??” Surprisingly not only from people who have never heard of Chemnitz, but also from the locals.

Now that I’ve had to give the reasons for this decision at least a hundred times, I finally thought of the obvious. I have this little blog, after all, which has already revealed far too much of my personal life. Thus, I can simply explain the thought process that led me to choose Chemnitz and then conveniently, comfortably and elegantly refer to this article whenever I am asked for the hundredth and next time.

First, let me remind you how and where I had been living these past years:

Here there, gone tomorrow. Living out of a backpack. Without many material possessions or much personal baggage. Rarely knowing where I would be in two months. Complete freedom.

But as beautiful as this constant roaming around is, there are downsides to it.

No, I don’t mean all the times I got accused of being a spy, like when I happened to walk into a Navy base in Montenegro. That was always fun, and what’s one week in prison, when you get a good story out of it? A good deal, I would say.

It was my history studies that suffered the most from this erratic lifestyle. As educational as it is to live in a different country every few months and to immerse myself in the local history, as interesting as the museums in Bogotá and the archives in Montenegro are, I can’t write a thesis if I’m constantly on the go and can only take a few books with me. I have heard that they have books on the interweb now, but I’m more of an old-fashioned student.

Also, I have already been house and cat sitting for more than five years now, which has taken me to many interesting places from Switzerland to Sweden, from Venta Micena to Vienna and has been saving me the expense of rent. But, as you know, I believe that a healthy lifestyle requires starting something completely new every 5 to 7 years.

And lastly, I’ve enjoyed so much hospitality over the last years that I am determined to give some of it back. I’ve always preferred being a Couchsurfing host rather than a guest, and I wanted to have an apartment again where friends and strangers can stay for a few days and bring stories (and booze) from all over the world.

The decision in which country to settle was involuntarily easy. Places like Romania, Bolivia or Abkhazia would be much more interesting for me than Germany.

But unfortunately, I didn’t learn anything practical like mining or carpentry or truck driving, that would allow me to make a living anywhere in the world. Because I didn’t have good enough grades, I only found admission to the Faculty of Law, from which I was dismissed with a lousy bar exam. Whenever I went to the port in Piraeus, Odessa or Dar es Salaam and wanted to enlist on a ship, I was ridiculed. “He can’t even do a taut-line hitch,” the sailors laughed and showed no interest in a lecture on the history of maritime law.

Thus, I had no other choice than to move to Germany again, the only country where I can practice as a lawyer. (The few German lawyers working abroad are usually involved in dubious things like money laundering on Caribbean islands. That’s not for me.)

If it had to be Germany, it should at least be a region which was hitherto unknown to me. I have always liked the feeling of being a newcomer, not knowing anything or anybody, starting from scratch and setting out to establish new friends and contacts. Whenever I am in one place for too long and I understand how everything works, I feel not challenged anymore.

After I have repeatedly criticized how little interest West Germans show in East Germany and because I think that the implementation of German unification is the responsibility of each and every citizen, one decision was clear: As a Westerner, I would move to the East. And to the proper, real, hardcore East, not Berlin or Potsdam or one of those gentrified places.

Because I find flat landscapes dull, Mecklenburg, Pomerania and anything north of Leipzig were ruled out right away. I understand that flat fields are practical for growing corn, for tank battles and for the gross national product. But I am more of a hobo than a farmer, so I need mountains.

I also wanted to move to a medium-sized city. Nothing against big cities, but if you mainly want to study and write, then there are too many distractions in Leipzig or in Dresden. But it shouldn’t be too small either. Annaberg-Buchholz and Bad Schandau are cute, but I would be afraid that there won’t be anything left to discover after a few months. Görlitz is wonderful, but since the almost complete loss of Silesia, it is simply too peripheral. (If I had a talent for Polish, it would be a wonderful place to live, but I don’t.) The city should also have at least one university, and a proper one at that, not just individual faculties like in Freiberg or Tharandt.

There was one city that kept coming to mind. Chemnitz had been on my radar ever since it was chosen as the European Capital of Culture 2025. If I have calculated correctly, 2025 is just two years away. And because I want to stay in one place for at least three years, that fits perfectly. So I’ll get to see the whole program, from the hectic preparations, the billions of investments, the influx of visitors from all over the world, and then the sad decline back to insignificance. Or hopefully something more sustainable. In any case, that could be exciting.

I have moved plenty of times in my life. Usually I just rented an apartment through the internet, without knowing the city or even the country before. Sometimes this approach worked fantastic, sometimes less so.

This time, I wanted to approach the matter much more professionally, methodically and systematically. Thus, I decided: “I will visit Chemnitz for a day, walk around town aimlessly, and see how I feel.” I think that’s much more informative than when people pore over statistics about which city has a supposedly better quality of life, where the climate is best and pollution is lowest, where you earn the most and pay the least in rent. Although the latter actually speaks for Chemnitz, as we are about to discover.

The train ride from Leipzig to Chemnitz is already a real stunner, as you approach the increasingly wild and romantic landscape over daring viaducts. They still have the old trains here, with the cozy six-person compartment, where you make new friends every time, and where you can open the windows and smoke in unison with the steam locomotive.

Once you reach Chemnitz, the first question is: “And where is the city?” Because unlike in Cologne, for example, where you are overwhelmed by that stupid cathedral as soon as you get off the train station, here you step outside under the open sky.

From the first moment, I feel good in Chemnitz, but it takes a while until I understand why: In this city, you don’t feel confined anywhere. There are no winding alleyways, no dark corners and no deep canyons of high-rise buildings. The streets are as wide as the Champs Élysées, if not wider. Wherever you venture, it feels spacious, open, wide and airy.

I have a standard test: When I can cross the main road in broad daylight, violating the red traffic light, without being run over, then I like the city. (If not, then not.)

There may be other cities where you can enjoy this sense of freedom in public spaces. Beautiful Eisenhüttenstadt, for example. But nobody lives there anymore. Chemnitz, on the other hand, is home to 250,000 people. To achieve such generous urban planning on this scale, that’s world-class architecture, which puts Chemnitz in the same league as Minsk, Pyongyang or Brasília.

Some people feel lost in vast open landscapes like Mongolia, Atacama or Chemnitz. I like them. So if you are looking for spaciousness and tranquility, you no longer have to make the arduous journey to the North Cape or to Alaska. Just hop on the bus to Chemnitz and feel like in a city that was built just for you.

And if your first thought upon arrival is “wow, what a futuristic bus station”, then you’re already in the right mood for a tour of the city of modernism. With architecture that you have hitherto only seen in science fiction movies and in Yugoslavia.

For the sake of historical fairness, though, I should mention that Chemnitz did not become as modern out of its own volition. Rather, it required some urban planning assistance from the helpful Allied air forces, which gave Chemnitz the opportunity for a relaunch in 1945.

Unfortunately, the intended denazification did not quite work out in the long term. But architecturally, Chemnitz has risen from these ruins as Karl Marx once did from the ashes. Especially along the Avenue of Nations, a truly magnificent boulevard that would be the envy of world cities like New York, Paris or Buenos Aires (if they had ever heard of Chemnitz), you feel as if teleported back to the 1950s and 1960s.

This may not be “beautiful” in the classical kitschy sense, like in Rothenburg or in Marienbad. But I think it’s fantastic that entire neighbourhoods preserve that time, right down to the lettering on the cafés, hotels and bookshops. Walking through Chemnitz is like that feeling you get when you discover a box of old, faded postcards in a second-hand bookshop that remind you of your childhood.

Eastern modernism they call it here, although the West built in a similar style in those euphoric days of the nuclear age. But in the West, it was usually torn down again after 30 years, because, according to Schumpeter, capitalism must always destroy everything.

Chemnitz was already modern even before it became Karl-Marx-Stadt in 1953. I don’t know why Dessau and Weimar and Tel Aviv brag about the Bauhaus architecture and Chemnitz is always overlooked. If you want to experience modernist architecture, Bauhaus, New Objectivity, but also the Gemeindebau as you know it from Vienna, then you will spot a whole number of gems on a walk around Chemnitz.

Or rather, to address one peculiarity of Chemnitz right away, during one walk around town, you will hardly see anything. This is probably the reason why many people, who are only passing through for a few hours, move on disappointed. Because Chemnitz is gigantic! 221 square kilometers, the same size as Bucharest, Amsterdam or Düsseldorf. Larger than Stuttgart, Hanover, Stockholm, Helsinki, Nuremberg, Milan, Copenhagen or Lisbon. More than twice the size of Paris! And these are not cities where you walk around for two hours and think that you have seen everything.

I go for a stroll every day, if only to refine the air of this industrial city with the sweet scent of cigars. And after six months in Chemnitz, I’m still discovering completely new neighborhoods.

Chemnitz is also wonderfully green. The lake below the castle or the city park along the river, also named Chemnitz, invite you to spend the day outside. The cemeteries and the Park of the Victims of Fascism invite you to reflect about history.

Zeisigwald (literally the forest of siskins) is large enough for hours of hiking and dotted with old volcanic cones, hidden lakes and leafy beer gardens.

Küchwald forest with its pioneer railway, an open-air stage and the GDR’s aerospace center reminds me of Akademgorodok. Or at least of Vingis Park in Vilnius.

And the suburbs all have their own character anyway. Rabenstein with its castle. Klaffenbach with its moated palace. Einsiedel with the yummy brewery. Adelsberg with its distinctive tower.

I could go into rhapsodies about the whole area, the castles and palaces, the endless forests and the Zschopau valley. The whole region is being included in the Capital of Culture 2025, so you’re almost drowning in ideas for excursions and hikes. It never gets boring here, and the German flatrate for trains (49 €/month) is used to the maximum .

But today, I will stick to Chemnitz itself.

Not knowing where the actual center is, I took a wrong turn on my first visit and ended up in Sonnenberg. This is a wonderful Wilhelminian style district and I couldn’t stop being amazed. Every house is a gem, with elaborate gables, bright and colorful, with ceiling paintings and stucco in the entranceways. Just like St. Petersburg before the revolution, if anyone still remembers.

And the best thing, at least for people like me who are looking for an apartment: In no other city of this size have I seen so many “for rent” notices in the windows. The entire housing market is on its head. This is so relaxing compared to cities like Berlin or Munich, where almost all conversations revolve around extortionate rents and real estate sharks. In Chemnitz, meanwhile, you can easily find something for less than 5 euros per square meter.

The mantra that the housing shortage can only be solved by building, building, building looks like it is standing on shaky scaffolding. Maybe there is enough housing, but a distribution problem. Especially for people who work from home or for students, I don’t understand why they absolutely want to live in Munich or Frankfurt, where a large part of their lifetime is spent increasing the landlord’s fortune. Smart students go to Chemnitz, Cottbus or Halle, have a relaxed life and always have enough money in their pockets for parties and holidays. (And yes, I studied in smaller cities myself: Regensburg, Milton Keynes and Hagen.)

And then, Chemnitz has thousands, even tens of thousands of apartments, houses and palaces that you can move into without any rental agreement at all.

Sonnenberg in particular reminds me a lot of the Bronx. Demolished houses. Crack houses. People taking their living rooms out onto the street in summer. The supermarket, called “Netto”, is referred to as the “Ghetto Netto”. The always slightly intoxicated men in front of it don’t gather around burning oil barrels, but they do set fire to cardboard boxes and use an upturned shopping cart as a barbecue grill. And whoever is the first to leave the house in the morning might stumble over a dead body.

If you want something a little more dignified (and can pay horrendous rents of up to 6.50 euros per square meter), you move to Kassberg. This is one of the largest districts of Wilhelminian and Art Nouveau architecture in Europe. Very posh.

For me personally, that’s a touch too bourgeois. And then you probably have snobs for neighbors there, maybe even lawyers. For the first three months, I stayed at a friend’s apartment in Sonnenberg. On the one hand, it was a really exciting area, and I would certainly have found a lot of clients there. But because I prefer studying and writing over working, it was more important that I found a quiet place.

So I moved to the Yorck district. It has such a nice Eastern European charm, with prefabricated buildings, allotment garden colonies and garage estates, which brings back nostalgic memories of my time in Vilnius, in Targu Mureș and in Kyiv.

When you saw the magnificent houses in Kassberg, you probably already assumed: Chemnitz must have been really rich at one time! Indeed it was. Around 1900, railroad construction, mechanical engineering and the textile industry made Chemnitz the city with the highest commercial tax revenue in the German Reich. The city was called “Saxon Manchester”, but also “Soot Chemnitz”.

Chemnitz is a paradise for fans of industrial history. Many of the factory buildings are empty and waiting to be discovered by “lost places” photographers. Others are being creatively reused, for example for the state archive, the Stasi records archive, the university library or a coffee roastery.

Walking the short distance from the old factory buildings to the Karl Marx Monument, you could be forgiven for thinking that Chemnitz was the product of an ill-considered, but all the more intense and deeply sincere love affair between Detroit and Pyongyang. And I mean that as a compliment, because such a unique combination is quite an achievement.

But those who appreciate more traditional townscapes won’t be disappointed in Chemnitz either:

I like second-tier cities that are often overlooked. No surprise therefore that Targu Mureș and Cochabamba, along with Vilnius, have been the cities where I’ve felt most at home so far. I also like it when the residents don’t take themselves and their city so seriously and don’t constantly brag about living in the most beautiful city in the world, whether it’s justified (Rome) or not (Munich).

In Chemnitz, people have a tendency for the other extreme, though.

If I praise the city and tell locals how much I like it, at best I am met with a doubtful expression and they ask if I am trying to make fun of them. In the worst case, they say “Chemnitz is a shithole”, in a way that allows no contradiction.

Always tirelessly fighting for the freedom of speech, I nevertheless contradict and list some of the charming aspects of Chemnitz. The locals then ponder for a moment and say something like “we don’t even have a beach”, “our football team is in the fourth division”, “yesterday the bus to Hilbersdorf was five minutes late, the country is totally going to the dogs” and – very popular – “nothing will come out of this Capital of Culture anyway”.

You then realize that those people don’t have an issue with Chemnitz, but are against everything and everyone, against electric vehicles and public broadcasting, against foreigners and mothers-in-law, against the city and the world. I don’t think these people would be happier in any other place. But what I haven’t yet figured out is why there are more grumpy people in Chemnitz than elsewhere. In any case, you really stand out here if you are smiling in public. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day someone will call the cops on me for being too positive.

So, there might be a few more reports from Chemnitz and the Ore Mountains over the next few years. And for those who follow this blog only for the international travels, you needn’t worry! I still have hundreds of stories in the pipeline, from Abkhazia to the Azores, from Estonia to Ecuador, from Sweden to Sicily. And it was precisely for the reason of getting these memories on paper that I finally wanted to settle down in one place for a few years.

Also, the project “Journey to the Center of Europe” will continue. And I have another project on the European Capitals of Culture in mind. As always, too many ideas, too little time. Please keep your fingers crossed that people will get along and sort out their problems themselves, so that I will have less work as a lawyer and more time to write.

Links:

• Here, I will henceforth have more articles about Chemnitz.
• And if you are coming to visit, check out the rest of Germany.
• There is also more of my photography, if you got interested.
• It’s actually rather curious that I moved to Chemnitz exactly five years after this incident. (Which I had already forgotten.)