1. Mai 2012

May 1st is Labor Day in Germany.  It is celebrated quite differently than the Labor Day in the US where schools are closed, but shops are open for big sales, and it is the last open weekend for beach season.  For me while growing up Labor Day meant school would open the next day.

In Berlin, it is a day for revolution.  Schools are still closed but so are most stores.  The restaurants and cafes being open as most people have off and can go to them.  There are political demonstrations and often riots.  It is a day to throw rocks and bottles at police.  (Which doesn't sound like the best of ideas in my book.)  Since the late 1980s the biggest demonstrations take place in Kreuzberg around the Kottbusser Tor area.  To try to reclaim the area from a day of rioting they have introduced MyFest, which is a street fair around the Kottbusser Tor area on May 1st.  I read somewhere that the police help to throw the fair to offset the riots, but I am not sure if this is true.  We were told that it was a fun street party for most of the day, but to make sure to leave when it seemed like most people were leaving.  We decided to give it a try.

So we headed out to the U-Bahn.  We are not very far from Kottbusser Tor, so it was easy to get there.  Because so many people go, the trains were running every minute making it even easier than normal.  This is an excellent strategy I think to keep people from being too packed in and to keep tensions down.

Once we arrived we joined the stream of people walking in the blocked off streets.  There were tons of food stands.  Some were the typical food stands at any fair or festival, some were outside stands for the restaurants behind them, and some were from people who lived in the apartments that lined the streets taking advantage of the throngs of people invading their streets.  Kreuzberg has a heavy Turkish population so it was not too surprising that most of the food available was Turkish.  Beer and mixed drinks were also easily available at every turn.


Music was everywhere too.  Because the street fest was spread out across several streets in the area there was no one place for a big stage to be set up so that everyone could listen.  Instead they set up many little stages here and there along the street.  As you walked you would go from being able to hear one band or DJ to the next.  Our favorite band was Puto Production, which is the group of guys playing drums seen here.  They were pretty good and their show was a lot of fun, so they drew a big crowd of listeners and dancers.  They played for quite a long time before taking a break too, which was quite impressive.  They played near another stage that was piping out a CD through speakers and this band kept playing louder as the music through the speakers also got louder. 

In the end we did not stay all too long because of lack of sunblock and a list of other things we had to do.  So we didn't get even close to the time where people start throwing things at police.  People were still out with their kids.  Some people almost complain that May 1st is getting too tame now, and that it's turned into just another street festival.  But I don't complain about it being a street festival.  I enjoy them.  And this one did not disappoint.