B EAST Magazine website

By Joel Alas

Once upon a time, there stood a castle in the center of Berlin. A huge and hulking Baroque monolith, it was built by the Prussian kings to display their power and wealth. But the castle wasn’t powerful enough to survive World War II. It was damaged by bombing, and was later destroyed entirely by the occupying Soviets.

In the 1970s the DDR built the headquarters for its government, the Palast Der Republik, on the same site. But after German reunification, it too was destroyed under the guise of asbestos concerns (though many believe the building’s removal was a symbolic act against the former Soviet East German state).

Now it sits empty. A beautiful green park with boardwalks reaching down to the River Spree has been installed there, enjoyed all summer long by tourists and locals alike.

Over the past decade, a group of powerful and rich (mostly) west Germans have lobbied the government to reconstruct the old Prussian castle (known as the Stadtschloss) on the site. With their good ties with the ruling political parties, they were able to persuade parliament to agree to the plan. The project was budgeted at over half a billion euros, although the cost is expected to skyrocket beyond that. An architectural competition was called, and a boring design by an Italian architect was selected.

Over the past few months, the wheels have been falling off the project. The architectural competition was found to be improperly conducted, and a financial crisis has drained the treasury. Berliners are slowly waking up to the realization that the idea of building a fake castle was stupid to begin with, and makes even less sense in the current economic climate.

Today B EAST magazine announces the first public demonstration against the Stadtschloss. Called “Schloss Mit Lustig! Cancel The Castle!”, the demonstration will take place on Saturday October 17 at 15.00 on the site of the proposed castle. A jumping castle will be on site, and participants are requested to come dressed as royalty to help ridicule this indefensible waste of money.

Later that night, B EAST will host an afterparty for the demonstration at Betahaus in Kreuzberg called “The Only Good Castle is a Jumping Castle.” Our favourite DJs Shameless Limitless will spin some electro-techno-laptoprock, and Linards the Latvian DJ, formerly of Riga’s Space:Garage, will provide visuals.

Get all the details at www.stopstadtschloss.com

Over a year ago, we told you about Iraq’s abandoned embassy in East Berlin. The embassy was deserted by Iraqi diplomats shortly after the fall of the wall, and was promptly forgotten.

We at B EAST decided it was time the deteriorating building was handed back to the public. One sunny weekend in August, we – along with our Berlin friends (the Shameless Limitless DJ team, plus the Berlin Loves You t-shirt crew) – took over the embassy, armed with a generator and a sound system.

Here’s two videos that show what went down:

“The green Zone” from Knut Knutson on Vimeo.

Eight years ago Ivan Maslyukov had finished school and completed his military service for the Belarussian army unscathed and entered the rat race as a web-designer before creating “the game,” Encounter. Now, almost 70,000 ‘urban gamers, from Prague to Kiev, Minsk to Tashkent, are embarking upon Encounter “combat” missions around their cities in a race to solve web-delivered clues to find codes in real-time, real-world and often in really crazy abandoned industrial sites. Hopefully with life and limbs in tact.

Why did you create Encounter?
There was a girl who I loved but I didn’t know how to seduce her. I decided then to create something great, to impress her imagination.

And? Did you get the girl?
Yeah, the girl was seduced, but many years later!

Fantastic! But what makes it better than other online games?

Well it’s not simply an online game. Online means “communication via the Internet” but EN happens right on the streets of your city. It’s not only the best online game; it’s something different too. It’s real.

Ivan Maslyukov-The Man Behind Encounter