Ostel Hostel
If you’re curious about life in the now-defunct GDR (that is, former Communist East Berlin), here’s your chance to indulge in what Berliners call Ostalgia, a kind of kitschy nostalgia for Soviet culture (without the Stasi spying on you and better food). This tower-block hotel wafts you back to the recent yesteryears of Russian bad taste. A picture of a beaming East German official adorns the reception, where clocks show the time in Commie Moscow, Havana, and Beijing. You can choose to snooze in a prefab apartment decorated with Soviet-era furnishings and portraits of vanished politicians, check into the Stasi suite complete with bugging devices (inoperable), or bed down in the budget pioneer dorm like a good little apparatchik. Don’t expect the luxuries of the decadent West because you won’t find any—except for bed linen and towels. But you will probably have a good time, a decent night’s sleep, and wake up glad that the Wall fell. Plus the staff is nicer than anyone ever was during the GDR days.
If you’re curious about life in the now-defunct GDR (that is, former Communist East Berlin), here’s your chance to indulge in what Berliners call Ostalgia, a kind of kitschy nostalgia for Soviet culture (without the Stasi spying on you and better food). This tower-block hotel wafts you back to the recent yesteryears of Russian bad taste. A picture of a beaming East German official adorns the reception, where clocks show the time in Commie Moscow, Havana, and Beijing. You can choose to snooze in a prefab apartment decorated with Soviet-era furnishings and portraits of vanished politicians, check into the Stasi suite complete with bugging devices (inoperable), or bed down in the budget pioneer dorm like a good little apparatchik. Don’t expect the luxuries of the decadent West because you won’t find any—except for bed linen and towels. But you will probably have a good time, a decent night’s sleep, and wake up glad that the Wall fell. Plus the staff is nicer than anyone ever was during the GDR days.
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