Leipzig

I spent today in Leipzig (an hour from Dresden via rail), and was very impressed. They have made huge strides in rebuilding and reconstructing, and the city has an energy, cosmopolitan air and polished feel that makes the DDR days seem, to a visitor at least, like a dim memory.

The impression starts with the train station, which is enormous and quite beautiful, with a very swanky multileveled shopping center inside, soaring ceilings and a huge glass-and-steel shed.

Highlights of the day included a visit to the  Zeitgeschichtliches Forum, a very well-done museum that chronicles the DDR years from the perspectives of major events and everyday life. The display of ancient-looking 1970s East German consumer products in a tiny, rickety shopping cart -- detergent, macaroni and cereal, in flimsy cardboard packaging that looks as if it was designed by a child -- speaks volumes on the situation there at the time, but there are many more serious items and exhibits on display as well. The mindless imitation of the Soviet Union, embraced with special fervor by the East German puppet-leader Walter Ulbricht, really comes alive when you see all the photos, documents, regalia, film clips and huge trove of objects.

Later I stopped by the permanent exhibition on the Stasi (East German secret police) in its former local HQ in the Runde Ecke building. The displays consist mainly of documents in German, but you quickly get the sickening picture from all the letter-intercepting, eavesdropping, surveillance photography and other prying equipment on display. There are also some ridiculous disguises (wigs, moustaches) and some awful cells where detainees were locked up. Outraged Leipzigers, who played a leading role in the Wende, stormed and occupied the building in December 1989 and, according to the museum, "managed to prevent the majority of the files from being destroyed; in the Leipzig district alone, 10,000 meters of files and 3.7 million file cards were saved from destruction, and can now be inspected in the Leipzig branch of the Gauck Authority."

I also visited the beautiful Nikolaikirche, with its unusual pink, green and cream carved ceiling and plaster palm-frond topped Corinthian columns, and arrived at the Thomaskirche just in time for a motet concert. Mendelssohn and Mozart both played here, and Bach was the concert master for the last 27 years of his life. It was spine-tingling to be sitting in the very same church. Today's concert included works by Buxtehude, Byrd, des Prey and Tallis, and the organ and choir were magnificent. 

The Leipzig music theme continued with a walk around the Augustusplatz, home of the Oper Leipzig and the Gewandhausorchester, and was capped off by a quick visit to the Mendelssohn-Haus, where the composer spent his final two years.

In the mid-afternoon, I stopped by the Zum Arabischen Coffe Baum, a historic coffeehouse-cum-museum that's been a fixture off the Markt since 1720. Up and down a very creaky, narrow staircase is a series of rooms with various coffee-related exhibits. They include a pair of tatty mannequins, the female of which has her hand in a most unappetizing position when viewed from a certain angle.

At the end of the day I headed south via tram to see the Völkerschlachtdenkmal, a bizarre, almost Tolkein-esque bit of 1913 gigantism built to commemorate centenary of the defeat of Napoleon.

Dinner was a treat, courtesy of a place called Apels Garten. The Sächsische Kartoffelsuppe (Saxon potato soup) arrived darker than usual -- it almost looked as if it were curried -- but it was piping hot and had excellent flavor and texture, thick but neither gluey nor grainy. This was followed by Hirschbraten mit Preiselbeer-Birnen Sauce dazu Kohlrüben-Walnuß-Gemüse und hausgemachten Semmelknödeln: slices of fork-tender venison topped with dabs of cranberry preserves, in a light, delicious brown sauce with a faint pear flavor and whole toasted walnuts. It came with crisp-tender sticks of pale golden kohlrabi, a very underappreciated vegetable in the U.S. but quite popular in Germany, and "dumplings" in the form of slices of a savory, terrine-shaped bread pudding, crisp and light as a feather.

I would love to visit this city again and get to know it better, and I hope that it continues to thrive. Its energetic and resilient citizens certainly deserve it.