Unscene Berlin

I've worked in tourism for most of my time here, and I've found that most people under the age of 35 who come to Berlin are coming here for the underground culture or street culture.  For 363 days of the year, they really do struggle to find it, but on the last day of April and first day of May, the entire southeast side of the city magically sheds its pretentious, stylish veneer and the underground breaks through the surface. You still have to know where to look for open air parties and, in some areas, their underground vibe tends to be diluted or even washed away altogether by the consumerist masses and vendors hawking tacky, overpriced party wares (see also: the MyFest) but the underground can be found fairly easily by anyone just stumbling around town, assuming they stumble far enough. There's a lot of chaff mixed in with the wheat, so to speak, so be persistent until you find it whatever sound or atmosphere you're looking for! May Day is a day when even the...

We shouldn't be surprised that a celebration that can be linked with both Taurus and Mithras - two Anatolian deities - is a big deal in Berlin's favourite Turkish district. But few people seem to realize that there is any deeper connection between them. In this article, I explain how the seeds of the May Day rituals we know and love today were sown in ancient Turkey.  When it comes to May Day in Berlin, the connections between the holiday and the city's Turkish population seem like they are mostly incidental. The aged, cynical patriarchs of the Turkish community seem reluctant to deal with the drunken tourist crowd, even as they desperately compete to entice it into their shops and restaurants to spend, spend, spend. But the Turkish community may well have more of a right than some Germans do to take more of an interest in May Day; after all, its connection to the spring holiday stretches back far beyond the Kreuzberg riots of the 1980's. In fact, it stretches b...