As I have written at length about elsewhere, seeing is not believing when it comes to the so-called historic centre of Potsdam.
There is history in Potsdam beyond the ‘historic centre’ however. The area in which I am housesitting was once a large East German military and Stasi training area. The pretty red brick buildings opposite my apartment complex, were housing for Russian soldiers during the Cold War.
To my mind they are more attractive than the bland blocky buildings erected more recently for residential use.
Even in the city centre, there are areas which were left largely unscathed by the Allied bombs and Russian artillery shells of WW II and the depredations of the post-war communist regime here.
The old Post Office building is a handsome structure.
I actually can’t say with any confidence that it’s original. I’ve been wrong before. But it looks like it’s old, and I find it hard to believe these zealots who are intent on building lifeless replicas of important buildings would be bothered with the Post Office.
The Rathaus (City Hall) is under renovation. It is an original building, albeit constructed in relatively modern times (between 1902 and 1907) despite its baroque exterior.
Then, there are actually three of the original city gates still standing.
Perhaps the most impressive is the Brandenburg Tor or Gate; not to be confused with the one in Berlin. It stands at one end of the rebuilt Brandenburg St.
The Brandenburg Gate was hidden under construction scaffolding.
Photos were conveniently provided to show us what the Gate should look like.
The German Eagle adorns the pavement.
The original gate here had been part of the city walls and used for collecting tolls. Frederick the Great had the old gate demolished and this triumphal arch erected to commemorate his victory in the Seven Years’ War. The city walls were demolished in 1900 and since then it has been a free standing edifice.
Appropriately, the original Church of St. Peter and St. Paul is visible at the other end of the street.
The oldest of the city’s gates which is still standing is the Hunter’s Gate, built in 1733.
My homeowner said that the Neue Tor (New Gate) resembles a Fisher Price castle. She’s not wrong.
I would have guessed that this was an obviously modern recreation of some older structure. I would have guessed wrong. This gate was part of the city walls and was indeed rebuilt, but as long ago as 1869. It is thought to be the earliest example of the English Gothic revival style in the European continent. Some scholars of architectural history however, dispute this. Inveraray Castle in Scotland, on which it was thought perhaps to have been modelled, did not have conical roofs in its original form.
Some of the houses near the Neue Tor share some of the same exuberant architectural flourishes.
Others boast caryatids holding up the porch roof.
That’s something you wouldn’t see in Canada.
Unlike the vanilla buildings on Brandenburg Strasse, the houses on the street running off the Neue Tor had character.
I was fascinated by this red brick building, which turned out to be a District Court facility.
In addition to a sphinx on the roof –
– it had medallion cameos of a whole plethora of Prussian Kings.
That’s Kaiser Wilhelm I standing in the niche (the grandfather of the infamous Kaiser Bill from WW I). Frederick the Great was on the other side.
I think Frederick looks much more dignified with his trademark cocked hat and walking stick than the Kaiser with that absurd spike coming from his helmet. Still, its not as bad as a photo of Kaiser Wilhelm II I saw where he had a full sized eagle on top of his helmet. And the eagle was wearing a crown.
C’mon. That’s over the top even for an imperial warmonger.
There is a long history of replicating architecture styles here in Potsdam. Between 1730 and 1733 King Frederick William I caused Jan Bouman to design about 130 houses in the Dutch style of architecture. “The Soldier King”, father of Frederick the Great, apparently hoped to attract urgently needed Dutch artisans to Potsdam, by building them houses they would feel at home in.
Like putting up a particular style of birdhouse I guess, hoping to attract a bluebird.
They are quite lovely. They are the originals and therefore authentic I guess. If you can call an imitation of a style prevalent somewhere else ‘authentic’? Authentic or not, this is the largest collection of Dutch style houses outside of the Netherlands.
King Frederick William III, a descendant of the Soldier King, built an small enclave of Russian houses in Potsdam during the Napoleonic Wars. There were built for the Russian singers of the First Prussian Regiment of Guards.
I have heard a variety of stories about how and why these Russian singer soldiers ended up in Potsdam. In one version, they are prisoners of war brought back from Russia and kept in durance vile in Potsdam, where they are made to perform for the Prussian King.
In another version, they were a gift to King Frederick William III from the Russian Tsar Alexander the First. We’ll pass over this story without commenting on how human beings, soldiers or not, can be ‘given’ by one king to another.
Since the enclave was called Alexandrowka, this version of events seems more likely to me. Also, why would Frederick William go to all the trouble of building Russian style houses for prisoners of war?
There is a museum which might have answered these questions for me, but it was closed.
Gee, something in Potsdam I couldn’t get in to see? Colour me shocked.
A few descendants of those Russian soldiers still live in some of the houses, but many of them in private hands have not been kept in as lovely a condition as the ‘show’ houses.
There is also a Russian Orthodox Church in the vicinity.
They were big on pink around here. Seems out of character somehow for a militaristic society. And a church.
It has a reasonably plain exterior.
The Alexander Nevsky Church is still in use.
It seemed to be – wait for it – closed.
I shot a photo through the glass in the door.
It turns out you weren’t supposed to take photos inside, but by the time the doorkeeper saw me and waved me off, the deed had been done.
The Dutch quarter too has a church, but the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul is Roman Catholic.
It’s completely lacking the gilded, rich ornamentation we usually get with Catholic churches though. Built between 1867 and 1870, it has both Byzantine and Roman elements.
To my (admittedly uneducated) eye it looked almost Slavic. There is a lovely wooden slatted ceiling.
Painted columns take the place of stone.
Indeed the painted ornamentation gave a light and warm feeling to the whole inside. I think it was my favourite thing in Potsdam, Frederick’s massive and ubiquitous yellow and pink confections notwithstanding. Maybe that’s because it was one of the few places I actually succeeded in entering.
As I left the church, my eye was caught by the distinctive architecture of the back of the building.
Walking that way to get a photo, I saw a cemetery. It seemed to have some sort of war memorial column and I wondered if at last I was going to see a German war graveyard.
To my surprise, it was a cemetery for Russian soldiers who fell in the fighting for Potsdam during 1945.
The graves all had slightly raised borders and ivy was growing over them. The tombstones had various kinds of stars on them or over them. Red stars presumably.
The column in the centre has figures of Russian military personnel from the four branches of Russian military service. They look to me like prime examples of that larger-than-life, super-heroic style we’ve seen in Russian propaganda posters; Socialist Realism I believe it is called.
This probably as close as I will get to Russia, so I was very excited to see it, and the Russian enclave.
I wonder if some of the descendants of Frederick William’s choir lie in those graves?