Established 1961 21 Lifestyle Features Sunday, October 27, 2019 A picture taken on Oct 24, 2019 shows restoration works ongoing at the Alexander Palace at the Tsarskoye Selo palace museum in Pushkin outside Saint Petersburg. — AFP photos ussia’s Alexander Palace, the last home of The first premises to open to visitors include the Emperor Nicholas II before he and his family emperor and empress’s rooms including the Mauve Rwere executed by the Bolsheviks, will reopen to Boudoir, Alexandra Feodorovna’s favorite room, and the the public next summer after million-dollar renovations, tsar’s bathing chamber designed in the Moorish style. officials said Friday. The palace, considered one of the “The Alexander Palace is a special place,” Olga best works of the Italian architect Giacomo Quarenghi, Taratynova, director of the Tsarskoe Selo Museum, told was built in the late 18th century for the future Emperor reporters during a presentation on Thursday. “It was built Alexander I and became the permanent residence of the for the imperial family’s private life which was pretty last Russian tsar in 1905. closely guarded.” The palace, located on the outskirts of the former Unlike other palaces, the Alexander Palace was not imperial capital Saint Petersburg, has been under renova- destroyed by Nazi Germany during World War II and tion since 2012 and was completely closed to the public housed the military command and a prison. The court- three years later. The first eight rooms will reopen after yard was used as a cemetery for SS soldiers. It was from the makeover next June or July, a spokeswoman for the the Alexander Palace that the tsar and his family were Tsarskoe Selo State Museum, which oversees the vast sent into exile to Tobolsk in Siberia in August, 1917. neo-Classical edifice, told AFP. The renovations have so Afterwards, the family was moved to Yekaterinburg far cost some 2 billion rubles (28 million euros; $31 mil- where they were executed, along with their servants and lion), she added. The works were mainly done on the the doctor, in July 1918. — AFP floors, tapestries and ceilings. erlin is a city with two of everything, 1948-9, German workers together with thanks to the rival sides competing American and French allies managed to Bduring the Cold War to delight citi- throw together Tegel airport in the north- zens with zoos, television towers or foot- west in just 90 days. It supported the ball teams. “The two sides tried to best Airlift operation that kept the city sup- each other by showing off their ability to plied with food and other essentials In this file photo taken on November 09, 2014 German singer Udo Lindenberg In this file photo taken on September 17, 2019 US actor and singer David rebuild Berlin as well and as quickly as throughout the lockdown, complementing performs on stage during a Street Party organized by German government to Hasselhoff (“The Hoff”) poses during an event to promote his new audiobook possible” after 1945, said Hanno pre-war Tempelhof in the south. Closed in mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, in front of the titled “Up against the Wall” at the East Side Gallery, a remnant of the Berlin Hochmuth, a researcher at Potsdam’s 2008, Tempelhof has become a public Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. — AFP photos Wall, in Berlin. Centre for Contemporary History. Here park. But Tegel and Schoenefeld are both are some top examples of the German still in operation — long after they were capital’s double vision. supposed to have been replaced by the new Berlin-Brandenburg Willy Brandt air- Biggest zoo versus richest port, slated to open in 2012. Flight opera- The biggest zoo in all of Europe is tions have been pushed back for years tucked away in the sleepy Friedrichsfelde over construction defects and cost over- rom David Bowie playing to a divided city Rostropovich plays Bach residential district of former East Berlin. runs, making the question of whether the to David Hasselhoff serenading a jubilant Two days after the Wall tumbled, exiled ‘Sonderzug nach Pankow’ Known as the Tierpark, the attraction terminal will ever receive a single passen- Fcrowd of East and West Berliners, music Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich travelled by Udo Lindenberg built by the communist government in ger a running joke in Berlin and beyond. helped capture the emotion of the Wall and its from Paris to Berlin to play a Bach suite at German rock singer Udo Lindenberg’s 1983 1955 is less well-known and less wealthy collapse. Thirty years on, here’s a look at the Checkpoint Charlie. Images of the elderly mas- song “Sonderzug nach Pankow” (Special train to than the Zoologischer Garten in the West, playlist of a peaceful revolution. ter’s impromptu performance, seated on a chair Pankow) mocked East German leader Erich which dates back to 1844. At its height, in front a graffiti-filled part of the Wall, were Honecker for denying him permission to per- the socialist zoo boasted 120 different ‘Wind of Change’ by The Scorpions beamed around the world. “A lot of people died form. The cult hit portrays Honecker as a hyp- species, with many originating from other The melancholic rock ballad, with its because of this Wall. I am also playing in their ocrite who secretly listens to Western radio. It countries across the eastern bloc. Since whistling intro, is often remembered as the memory,” he said about his moving tribute. apparently did the trick because the irreverent reunification in 1990, the former competi- anthem to the fall of the Berlin Wall. But it was in rocker was allowed to stage his one (and only) tors have tried to cooperate as closely as fact recorded in 1990, several months after the ‘The Wall’ by Pink Floyd concert in the GDR later that year... so long as possible. barrier was torn down. Written by frontman While the 1979 song was not actually about he didn’t play this song. Klaus Meine, the smash hit was inspired by a the Berlin Wall, it became forever associated Twin TV towers... music festival the Hanover-based outfit had with it after frontman Roger Waters put on a ‘La Lambada’ by Kaoma By contrast, the Fernsehturm (TV tow- played in the Soviet Union, and its message of major concert in Berlin eight months after the The undisputed summer hit of 1989 in West er) completed in 1969 at East Berlin hub hope and freedom became the soundtrack for Wall’s collapse. Playing to a crowd of 350,000 Germany, “La Lambada” with its hip-grinding Alexanderplatz has become a tourist icon the end of the Iron Curtain. It remains the best- people on a site known as the “death strip” dance moves proved a popular way to cele- of the city, comparable to landmarks like selling single by a German band. where armed East Germans had once stood brate the fall of the Wall that November. A Paris’ Eiffel Tower. But the Cold War con- guard, Waters belted out the legendary lyrics police officer captured on camera letting loose text meant its construction was inevitably ‘Looking for Freedom’ “All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall”, to the sultry Latin pop song perfectly encap- a propaganda coup. “The Soviet bloc by David Hasselhoff as did Cyndi Lauper. The show featured a 170- sulated the unrestrained joy sweeping the new- wanted to show off its great progress in The “Knight Rider” actor went down in metre purpose-built wall that was destroyed at ly reunified city. — AFP as many ways as possible. It’s no accident music history when he performed a cover of the the end of the gig. that the TV tower’s shape apes that of a German 1970s hit “Looking for Freedom” in satellite like Sputnik,” the Soviet Union’s front of ecstatic East and West Berliners at a first, pointed out researcher Hochmuth. crumbling section of the Wall on New Year’s While the antenna soaring 368 metres Eve in 1989, wearing an unforgettable leather (1207 feet) above the pavement still jacket encrusted with flashing lights. The broadcasts, its little sister deep in Berlin’s In this file photo taken on April 08, 2019 the “Baywatch” star is still idolised in Germany, and West, the Berliner Funkturm, has aban- even has a Berlin museum dedicated to him. The Berlin Radio Tower (R, Funkturm) and the tv doned its original function. Like the com- tower (C, Fernsehturm) silhouette is seen Hoff continues to fill out concert halls across the munist version, though, the steel tower country, now chanting “30 years of freedom!” against the morning sky as sun rises over ith intimate acoustic concerts, a for- In North Macedonia’s capital Skopje, a hosts one of the city’s highest restaurants Berlin. ay into environmental activism and a similarly up-close-and-personal vibe was 150 meters up in the air. Bowie and the Boss W Bundesliga showdown David Bowie, whose song “Heroes” had new song penned with a local band, welcomed by fans. “It looks like the guy final- indie darling Manu Chao has charmed fans in ly wants some intimacy while performing, and ...and opera triplets May 27 this year was a historic day for become a rallying cry for the divided city, the Balkans with his under-the-radar tour. I want that too,” said Nikola Mladenovski, a In 1961, West Berlin finished restora- fans of FC Union Berlin, founded in the played a concert in West Berlin in 1987 with This past week the Franco-Spanish singer- 36-year-old lawyer in the audience.