urban exploration

It’s 2018, and there are still some Lenin statues left around Germany. We visited one of these statues in Berlin, and we continue looking for them around the country. One day we got lucky, and we managed to find two of them on the same day. That blessed day was back in October 2016 when we took our bikes north and went to Fürstenberg to do some urban exploration.

Hunting Down Lenin Statues in Fürstenberg

Urbex
6 min read
14/09/201810/12/2023

Back on July 30, 1936, Flugplatz Rangsdorf was opened to the public as Reichsport airport Rangsdorf. It was the eve of the Summer Olympics of 1936, and the location was used for the International Aerobatic Competition for the Prize of Nations. After that, the area was used by civilians and military forces but, mostly it was a place where pilots learned how to fly.

Exploring the Abandoned Flugplatz Rangsdorf Close to Berlin

Urbex
6 min read
29/07/201818/02/2024

Flugplatz Brand: Abandoned Barracks and Bunkers Close to Berlin

Urbex
7 min read
30/04/201818/02/2024

Back in 1999, local historian Christian Bormann found something that it wasn’t supposed to be lost. Nine years after demolition began, he found a piece of the Berlin Wall, somehow forgotten in the woods between a train station and a supermarket. More than 80 meters of the original Berlin Wall, built in 1961, is standing there, some with the V-shaped brackets that once had barbed wire on it. It’s hard to believe that something with this historical importance was lost and this is why we went there to see it with our own eyes.

The Newly Found Original Berlin Wall that was lost in the woods in Schonholz

Berlin
5 min read
05/02/201823/05/2024

I was in Kaliningrad in the last days of October 2017, and the House of Soviets caught my attention since I arrived in the city. The building can be found in the middle of the central square of Kaliningrad, close to where the Königsberg Castle used to be but not quite there. The House of Soviets was built over the moat of the castle, and you can clearly see this in the following picture. There you can look at the ruins of the castle and the abandoned building in the back.

The Monster of Kaliningrad: The Story of the House of Soviets

Kaliningrad, Russia
7 min read
22/11/201730/10/2024

Far away from the tourists the flock Berlin there is a neighborhood called Kaulsdorf, and it’s there that you will find the lonely hippo known as Knautschke after a famous hippo that was born in the Berlin Zoo back in 1943. Knautschke has the entire Freibad Wernersee to himself but, when I was there, I didn’t see he enjoying much of it. Maybe it was cold; maybe it was the fact that the pool was frozen. Maybe he was just waiting for a time where he would have company, but this will, probably, never happen.

Freibad Wernersee: The Abandoned Pool where a Hippo rests forever

Berlin, Urbex
6 min read
23/08/201705/02/2024

Like I said before, We Will Forget Soon is a fantastic book that documents a part of German history that most people don’t like to talk about but that needs to be told. Dario-Jacopo Laganá and Stefano Corso did a fantastic job with their book, and I believe that everybody that has some interest in this part of history needs to have this on their bookshelf.

We Will Forget Soon: An Interview with Dario-Jacopo Laganá

Berlin, Interviews
11 min read
08/05/201722/02/2024

The Soviet Union had a strange obsession with statues. But the Soviet Union is gone for a long time now and where have all these statues gone? I not sure about most of them but I manage to find some of them in what could be described as a Soviet Statue Graveyard in Tallinn. And I’m here to share with you what I saw there.

Our Visit to the Soviet Statue Graveyard behind the Estonian History Museum

Estonia, Tallinn
5 min read
26/01/201724/01/2024

The abandoned boat in the Spree River has a name, even though I couldn’t find one when Fotostrasse visited the place back in July 2016. The boat is called MS Dr. Ingrid Wengler. It was named after the owner’s true love, a surgeon at the Dreifaltigkeits-Hospital in Lippstadt. She died in 1979 and she left a hole that never closed. This is why Franz Günther van de Lücht, the owner of the abandoned boat, says about his loss. But the fact that the boat that carries her name is stuck between the Molecule Man sculpture and Badeschiff leaves another one.

A Visit to an Abandoned Boat in the Spree River

Berlin, Urbex
7 min read
11/11/201621/12/2023