English - MARRIAGE

Baltic
SOUTH COAST
What
eastwards?
lies
A magazine for boaters keen on broadening their horizons
l
S
What lies beyond
the horizon?
Maybe curiosity was the reason
people sailed forth in the first place.
In this issue we explain why it’s a
good idea to set sail again and again
to discover something really new. And
why we particularly recommend
sailing eastwards along the southern
coast of the Baltic. The following
pages invite you to broaden your
horizons in the truest sense of the
word, for there’s a lot more to discover
than ultramodern marinas:
Stories, pleasures and
encounters between Rügen
and the Curonian Spit
Contents
14
Warning: nights
often stormy
Poles know how
to party. Our reporter has some
stories to tell
about that. But
the nude girls in
the men’s room
were just dolls.
History recollected
in tranquillity
06 Szczecin, an erstwhile German city
that became a new home to many Poles
after the war, reflects the history of the
whole Baltic region from Germany to
Lithuania. Including the family history
of Anna, who now markets the region’s
attractions.
06
10 Whether in Szczecin, Gdańsk or
Greifswald: A number of new museums encourage a laid-back look at the
region’s tumultuous past.
The touching
story of a
German-Polish
city
Endearing and
edifying: our reporter’s interview
with Anna and
her grandmother
in Szczecin.
Encounters of the
nice kind
10 If you spot any porpoises,
be friendly to them and log the encounter – the German Maritime Museum in
Stralsund will thank you for that. And it’s
worth a visit anyway.
14 About a night of partying in the
so-called Tricity of Gdańsk, Sopot and
Gdynia, in which our reporter got to
know some Poles and their night life –
and had some rich anecdotes to share
the morning after.
Looking good
18 Turn-of-the-century spa style
and maritime modernism: no dearth
of attractions along this coast for the
architecturally attuned eye.
20 Two questions for director Volker
Koepp, who found the beauty of the
Curonian Spit between Kaliningrad and
Klaipėda worth shooting a film about.
18
22
Pure sailing
The wild, wild east, thought
father and son, as they set off
for Kaliningrad. Only to find
that once you’re on course,
everything goes like clockwork.
22 For a father and his grownup son,
a dream came true when they undertook
a voyage to Kaliningrad. They explain to
us why that was “pure sailing”.
24 And a whole lot more for you to
discover yourself. Here’s an overview.
Nice curves:
Modern architecture round here is often
rounded and visually pleasing and goes
well with the classic spa style.
3
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
INTERVIEW
-
yourself
Set
“
a
goal”
Our brains love habits. They make our lives easier, with new processes only costing us extra energy. That’s as true for the breakfast ritual as
it is for planning a holiday – no wonder, then, that many people choose
to return to the same place. But instead of another week in Denmark,
why not add some variety, like sailing east? Sports scientist Julia Thurn
explains why new goals are good for us.
Julia Thurn, why do we often find it so
difficult to take on something new?
Why are we such creatures of habit?
Julia Thurn: Habits make up a huge part of
our behaviour. In fact, around 45 per cent
of our day-to-day conduct is set by habit.
That means we don’t really need to think
about what we’re going to do next, we just
do it. It has to be that way; we’d expend so
much more energy if we were to stop and
think before brushing our teeth or making
ourselves a coffee. It happens automatically. Habits are important because they
make our daily lives that much easier. On
the other hand they complicate things, as
they don’t allow us much flexibility when
we have to deal with something new.
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
As a sports scientist, how did
you start working with habits?
I was interested in how some people really do manage to change their behaviour, be it by becoming more active or
making changes to their diet. Even if it is
just committing to activities like gardening or cycling to work, these changes can
be difficult to maintain. The New Year’s
resolution cycle is so familiar; you tell
yourself you’ll go jogging twice a week
and initially you might stick to it. But after a few weeks you fall back into your old
behavioural patterns. I want to know why
that is: How can we achieve long-term
changes in our behaviour and really improve our health?
4
How does that work then?
We often have to give up old habits if we
want to make a positive change. For example, the familiar pattern I follow when I
come home from work – take my shoes off,
sit in front of the TV for half an hour without really putting much thought into it. This
is problematic; how can I swap this routine
that I’ve got so used to and replace it with
another, like jogging or going for a walk?
What’s so difficult about it?
A classic sign of a habit is performing it
with a certain regularity. The same goes
for that holiday that you take year in year
out. With such a familiar behavioural pattern there’s an automatism in place. That
INTERVIEW
means, I no longer ask myself whether I’d
rather go to Denmark or whether I’d rather sail elsewhere. The decision to travel to
Denmark, where I’ve been so many times
before, is more or less automatic.
Especially when I’ve enjoyed myself
in Denmark, for example. Then it
must seem more difficult for me to try
something new and unfamiliar, right?
That’s true. But initially there’s a coupling
of stimulus and reaction taking place. That
means that I sense a certain stimulus, and
that triggers a certain reaction. For physical activity that could mean that I get up
in the morning and drink my tea – that’s
an automatic trigger that I then have to go
jogging. It’s exactly the same with booking
a holiday. It’s spring again, I’m starting to
think about my summer holiday and then
my friend calls, the one I went away with
the last few times. Spring, holiday, friend
– these stimuli are already triggers that
could lead to me booking the same holiday
as last year.
So good experiences strengthen
this automatism?
Exactly. That’s the second point: emotions.
I was, let’s say, holidaying in Denmark
once, and I enjoyed that. We’re talking
about the “somatic markers” that are saved
in our bodies, which you may call gut instinct. This gut instinct makes sure that I
head in the same direction next time I have
to make a decision as I want to experience
this same positive feeling once again.
Julia Thurn is a Sport and Health
Sciences researcher at the University
of Stuttgart. In her PhD thesis she
studied how we can break habits and
become more physically active.
Setting out
“
to do something
new will be easier
as a group.
”
So how can you keep yourself in line
if you want to do something you’re not
used to?
The first step lies in consciously taking
something on, implementing a short-term
behavioural change, and then setting yourself a goal with this in mind. Goals are important in the short run but they can also
5
work in the longer term. The goal should be
specific; it should be measureable, obtainable, realistic. And it should have a time
scale. I could say I want to sail east this year,
and even more specific would be to decide
on a certain route. Then I can “time-phase”
my holiday, or even set a date already. As
this intention is realistic, then it’s really
not that difficult!
What kinds of “tricks” are there for
staying on track?
It’s very helpful to make a plan of action to
see how the process will unfold – in psychology we call this an implementation intention. I determine what I want to do, where
I want to do it, with whom and so on, and
I think about how I can overcome the hurdles. So if I know that I don’t like jogging
in the rain, I’ll know how to deal with this
eventuality should it occur. It’s important
to have an “if-then plan” up your sleeve.
What’s also very important is the societal
aspect; if I set out to do something new, it
will be easier as a group. I’m less likely to
cancel on someone else than on myself, and
they can always motivate me if I’m not feeling that up to it.
It has to be fun though, surely,
or how else are we supposed to
motivate ourselves?
Yes, but you should just get on with it rather
than sugarcoating it. Accept that a new behavioural pattern may be tiring at first, and
there may well be some negative sides to it
all, such as getting a stitch when running,
or having muscle ache afterwards. Above
all, set yourself goals that fit with your attitude and are conceivable to you; the motivation should come from within and not from
outside, like someone offering you money
as a reward. Fun is the strongest motivation you can have, and you don’t need the
reward if you’ve achieved your goal! The
reward will come from within. SOUTH COAST BALTIC
HISTORY RECOLLECTED IN TRANQUILLITY
port
A
people,
for
too
As youthful as Szczecin may seem, most of the city’s residents still bear a
historical burden. Their family histories are often entwined with the history of the
whole eastern Baltic during World War II. After the war this seaport became a port for
people, too. Many Poles who were driven out of the eastern areas overrun by the Red
Army found refuge – or were forcibly resettled – here. What amazed our reporter was
how laid back a conversation about such a turbulent past can be.
A
nna’s
grandmother
came
when the bricks
went: the typical
brown bricks once used to build a German
city called “Stettin”, which was now mostly
reduced to a heap of rubble. Millions of those
bricks were then shipped eastwards for the
reconstruction of the old cities of Gdańsk
and Warsaw. At the time Irena Kiewra, her
sister and her mother were among thousands of refugees heading in the opposite
direction, westwards, who were supposed to
build a Polish city called “Szczecin”. Though
they themselves had smaller plans. “All we
cared about back then was just the next little step,” recounts Irena, who at over 80 still
seems quite capable of coping. “There was
work here for my husband as an engineer at
the shipyards. We got a flat and I was able to
sit my school exams as an adult.” She went
on teach maths, physics and chemistry and
even became a school principal.
TEXT BY Oliver Geyer
Anna’s grandmother Irena was one of
thousands of people from eastern Poland
resettled in Szczecin after World War II.
7
PHOTOS BY Silke Weinsheimer
After the war, Irena, her sister and
her mother had fled the Russians, leaving
behind the eastern areas of Poland that
had been lost to the advancing Red Army,
and went to Strzelce Krajeńskie via Lublin.
They lived there for a few years – without
her father, whom the Soviets had hauled off
to a labour camp. Later on, when Irena fell
in love with another man, she left with him
for Szczecin: an unfamiliar city that until
recently had still been German.
Is it possible to simply sit there spooning in my soup while three generations of
a family tell tales of expulsion, exile and
deprivation? No, I think to myself. And
keep spooning it in all the same. The food
here simply tastes too good. Besides, Anna’s grandmother and mother and Anna
herself are plainly easy-going about the
family history.
And they’re all in high spirits. The
three women have gathered round the living-room table in the family house to
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
Young people from
Szczecin were the
first to show a
renewed interest in
local history.
tell me about their lives – when they’re not
busy serving me seconds. Polish hospitality manifests itself in the form of brimful
bowls of fish soup and a mountain of sweet
pastries. In-between on the table lies a
sheet of paper on which Anna has scribbled
a family tree. Lots of names, lots of places
– in present-day Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania. How come Anna’s other grandmother has such a German-sounding maiden
name, I ask. “Her mother had a German
husband,” answers Irena. “Polish women
were always very pretty, the Germans always fancied them.”
Anna, whose job is about “marketing”
the city of Szczecin, organized this merry
family-history get-together. In her day-today life, the 32-year-old concentrates more
on the city’s future than its past. On the
new marina, for example, which should
be finished in 2015 – right in the middle
of town, within walking distance of buildings steeped in history, just a few miles’
sail from Szczecin Lagoon and Dąbie Lake.
Anna belongs to a new generation in SzcSOUTH COAST BALTIC
What had
seemed
inconceivable
became a matter
of course in
no time at all.
zecin who have discovered an interest in
the past and have started asking their
grandparents about it. What was it like
where you came from? What was here before you came? The city’s German past has
become a collective hobbyhorse. After all,
traces thereof can still be seen on every
street corner. German words are inscribed
on the walls of old buildings, on manhole
covers and tombstones, beside which
8
the tourist office has put up explanatory
plaques in Polish, English and German.
There has been so much enthusiasm for
German Stettin that critics admonished
the city not to forget its Polish history.
This is one reason a museum was built
right next to the new philharmonic hall at
Plac Solidarności. On a brief walking tour
of the city, Anna presents the building
with obvious pride and reacts quite routinely to my baffled look: “Yes, yes, there’s
a museum here: most of it is underground.”
All I can see here is a cobbled square with
bulges sticking up in some spots, as though
some expanding subterranean pressure
had found an outlet there. This “Centre of
Dialogue” is supposed to address a longneglected question: How do the people of
Szczecin see their own identity? And who
really are the people of Szczecin?
They’re people like Irena Kiewra, who
came from parts of eastern Poland lost to
the Soviets. Jews liberated from German
concentration camps. Several thousand
Polish resistance Home Army soldiers,
HISTORY RECOLLECTED IN TRANQUILLITY
who, after the failed Warsaw Uprising in
1944 and even long after the war, were still
hoping for an invasion by Western troops
and the re-establishment of the old Polish nation-state. They all formed the new
population of Szczecin after nearly all the
Germans had fled or been driven out.
A melting pot of people with all sorts
of different hopes, desires and aspirations.
But most of them had the same problem:
they had long since ceased to feel at home
here. Not only because it was situated so
far west, from a Polish perspective, that
it seemed to be on another planet, but also
because they were unsettled by the official propaganda. The city’s status under
international law remained unclear, a circumstance on which agitators capitalized:
when a desire for freedom spread through
Szczecin’s populace and the shipyard
workers went on strike, for example, they
were told that whoever weakened the front
was handing Szczecin over to the class enemy, the revisionists in the West. It was not
until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and
the permanent recognition of the GermanPolish border that the uncertainty subsided – and people felt secure enough to put
down permanent roots here.
Anna’s office is part of a cooperation
of tourist offices on the southern Baltic
coast, from Stralsund to Klaipėda, which
have joined forces to promote the region’s
many attractions. It’s a joint project across
the borders of countries in which war, suffering and forced displacement prevailed
for decades. What had seemed inconceivable for so long became a matter of course
in what was, historically speaking, no time
at all.
Over coffee the women then have a
minor difference of opinion. Grandmother
Irena is not too keen on the modern museum building. It looks like a rollerskating rink for kids, she says to our general
amusement. And yet the museum is about
people like her husband. Back in the 1970s,
he was involved in the strikes that began at
the Szczecin shipyard and eventually set
the liberation movement in motion. But
Irena prefers the part of town above the
banks of the Oder, where more of the old
buildings have been preserved. The ones
made of typical brown bricks. MUSEUM
HISTORY

Upheavals
Opening in Szczecin in summer 2015:
The new Przelomy (“Upheavals”)
Centre for Dialogue
The museum recalls the social dislocations in this refugee city after the war
and subsequent milestones in local
history that led to widespread social
change, such as the illegal shipyard
strikes that helped trigger Poland’s liberation movement and similar developments in other parts of Eastern Europe.
www.przelomy.muzeum.
szczecin.pl
]
H
Art of the World
Shipyard of freedom
The Pomeranian museum in
Greifswald is a first-rate museum
of art and history.
“No-one should leave Greifswald
without having seen this museum,”
says the German weekly Die Zeit.
Gothic, classicist and modern
architectural styles marvellously
mesh in this four-building complex.
The gallery of paintings includes
works by Caspar David Friedrich,
Vincent van Gogh and Max Liebermann. Likewise worth seeing: the
exhibits on 600 million years of
the earth’s history and the history
of the Pomeranian region.
www.pommerscheslandesmuseum.de
The Gdańsk Solidarność Centre:
Major European history within
walking distance of the marina
The Solidarność Centre, whose
façade is modelled on the rusty
hulls of the Lenin Shipyard, opened
in 2014. It is about a movement
that profoundly changed the world
we live in: the Eastern European
liberation movement – and in particular the Solidarity trade union
led by Lech Wałęsa.
www.ecs.org.pl 9
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
C
European Museum
of the Year
It’s no wonder that Stralsund’s
Ozeaneum was awarded
“the Oscar of museums” back
in 2010.
The five buildings that make up the
complex sit at the harbour’s edge
like roundly polished pebbles washed
up on the shore, nestled amidst the
crowds and the brick-gothic architecture of Stralsund, a UNESCO World
Heritage Site since 2002 and the pride
of the Hanseatic League. Comprising of five exhibitions, among them
the world’s largest Baltic Sea exhibit,
and 45 water tanks, the Ozeaneum
is something of a mix between an
aquarium, a zoo and a natural history
museum. Even just the herring tank,
where you could watch the schools
of dazzling silver-scaled fish for hours
on end, is well worth a visit.
Tearing yourself away from this is
a must though, not least to explore
the tunnel aquarium with Niki,
the sandtiger shark, as well as the
penguins on the roof terrace and
the 20-metre-high “giant of the sea”
hall where visitors lie on their backs,
as if on the sea floor, and look up at
lifesize replica whales.
www.deutschesmeeresmuseum.de/ozeaneum
(information in German)
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
10
H
Porpoise spotting in the Baltic Sea
Biologist Anne Herrman and the German Oceanographic Museum
are encouraging sailors to log their sightings.
“Environmental pollution and overfishing, along with increasing levels
of noise in the sea, are having a huge
effect on sea mammals. In the western Baltic there are roughly 35,000
porpoises, whereas the eastern part
is home to only 450, so we’re studying the populations to find out where
and how they live and what they’re
dying from. Around 700 sightings
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
are logged by ferry passengers, sailors and motorsportsmen and women
alike each year, notifying us when
a porpoise or seal, such as the grey
seal, is seen dead or alive. Occasionally they’re even seen in groups,
with one yachtsman spotting 15 porpoises at once last year! Sightings
are then registered through an app;
sailors are likely to get their smart-
12
phones out to take a photo anyway,
and in doing so, the exact time and
location are also recorded.”
You can also log sightings of
porpoises and seals online
(only in German):
www.schweinswalsichtung.de
To find the app, search for
OstSeeTiere in the App Store.

More than meets
the eye
Amber may well bring
images of elderly women’s
jewellery to mind, but
rumour has it there’s a
little more to it than that.
The special properties of
amber have long been known
in Poland and across the
Baltic region, where it’s been
used as a traditional remedy
for treating inflammations
and wounds for thousands of
years. More recently, smaller
cosmetics companies, such
as the “Amber Spa” in Lithuania, have profited from the
disinfectant and harmonising
properties of the fossilised
resin, producing creams,
scrubs and massage oils containing the substance.
www.spaamber.lt
13
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
When tables
creak
high heels
under
ENCOUNTERS OF THE NICE KIND
They’re dancing on the tables. Lumumba’s unfazed – he didn’t flinch when the brunette grabbed
a chair, stepping up onto the table, nor when her
blonde friend swiftly followed suit. And even now,
when the two of them move in strict rhythm,
around each other, with each other, even now Lumumba is expressionless, while the bouncers pass
knowing glances. Party Polska. It’s on.
F
Friday night in Gdańsk
A bunker from the
Second World War is
now a huge club with
four floors
TEXT BY Johannes Ehrmann PHOTOS BY Fabian Weiß
ory up off the floor and ask yourself, at what
point did the evening get out of control?
Was it amongst the students in CZARNA WOŁGA, where no one seemed to have
any real interest in the sailing regatta on
the large flat screen? Maybe in DWIE ZMIANY, the new artsy bar serving the “Mad
Dog”, the national drink, Polish flags from
raspberry syrup and vodka, mixed at a
20:80 ratio. Maybe even earlier, at dinner,
when the first hazelnut schnapps arrived
on a long wooden plank, just before the
Żurek dish.
No idea. It doesn’t matter. Saturday in
Sopot, a long walk along the beach helps to
get the body back into gear, and there is still
another night to the weekend. Into the taxi
and down to Gdańsk.
Starting point: CAFÉ LAMUS behind
the old market hall. 70s-style suns and a
Björn Borg racket as wall decoration, racing
bikes hanging from the ceiling.
riday night in Sopot, somewhere between midnight
and three in the morning,
the time is lost between beer
and double vodka shots, and on the first
floor of SPATiF, over the Monte Cassino
promenade, the tables creak under highheeled shoes. Lumumba, good old Patrice,
looks stoic, passive to everything going on
around him; the beer taps, the clubbers,
on tables and carpets – the socialist leader
from the Congo, Lumumba, whose portrait
hangs above the bar, next to the two-headed Smirnoff eagle, not 200km from Kaliningrad, and the 80s beats permeate your
body, girls just wanna have fun.
It was supposed to be the warm-up, a
casual Friday night in the Baltic spa town
in the middle of the Tricity, with Gdynia to
the north and to the south old Gdańsk. And
the next morning you can’t escape your
thumping skull, as you pick scraps of mem15
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
For a beer in Józef K
The bar is named after
the Roman hero from
Kafka’s “The Trial”
Fresh cider from the barrel, “Cydr@libi”,
half apple half pear, decent stuff from one
of the 100 or so microbreweries in Poland.
Same goes for the beer. It’s really taken off
in the last three, four years, says Łukasz,
one of the owners; many younger bars go
without beer from the major brewers completely, preferring to sell “Hopus Pokus”,
“Sir Arthur”, “Jules” or “Doctor Brew”.
Next door, in LAWENDOWA 8, bigger
and brickier, you’ll be welcomed by a thick
Australian accent, Andy from Adelaide
is behind the taps, he’s not been here that
long. When he first arrived they hung a sign
on the wall, “Andy doesn’t speak Polish”,
and then something underneath it, something to do with the male genitalia, they
told him later on, a solid introduction to the
guests by all means.
The humour here in the old Hanse
town is sincere and occasionally raucous;
CAFÉ ABSINTHE underneath the theatre building serves a shot rather fitting to
this theme, “Sperma Barmana”, that looks
exactly like it sounds, so three of those,
the barman says when asked, could take a
while hahaha. Gotcha.
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
“
It was only
supposed to be
the warm-up,
a casual Friday
night.
”
And outside, under the Golden Gate,
they sing protest songs from the 80s; three
young guys, acoustic guitars, wild manes,
loud voices and a handful of football fans in
chorus. Green-white scarves, great atmosphere, Lechia won 1:0.
Then past the bronze Jan III Sobieski,
one evening, saviour of the Occident, over
the main street and through the alleyway,
into the dark courtyard, you’ll find the
LOFT, post-industrial charm and beer and
16
superb bread and dripping, owner Tomasz
pours with tattooed forearms, his wife
bakes the bread, they’re “Remmigrants”,
were in Dublin, when that was still profitable, now they are back here, building
something up and having fun with it. Current specialities in the LOFT: alcobears for
two Złoty, those being gummy bears lined
with… Well, yes, exactly.
Get it down you. And then time for a
bit of history. Further across the centre
and off to a bunker which the World Wars
left untouched, as was the plan, and is now
a huge club with four floors. A young audience, mostly from the suburbs, their trousers a little tighter, their heels a little higher. BUNKIER is consistent: steel hats at the
entrance, “Caution” signs on the walls, lots
of concrete, not always real, corner booths
like prison cells. And naked women in the
men’s toilets. Also not real.
Out of the bunker, grab a snack, one for
the road, a huge fresh burger with beetroot
from one of the food trucks on the Lawendowa, and then up to Sopot, SPATiF once
again, because we love that place so much.
But that is now, shortly before three on Sunday morning, so full you can hardly move.
A short glance over the heaving masses,
open shirts and gelled hair, a final farewell
to the old friend above the bar. See ya, Patrice. Goodnight, Tricity. Let’s do it again
some time, yeah? ENCOUNTERS OF THE NICE KIND
INSIDER
GO OUT AND DIVE IN

Karczma Irena
Usedom’s starred
kitchen
In the basement of the “Irena”
guesthouse in Sopot is its cosy
namesake restaurant.
In one of Kaiserbad Heringsdorf’s
most beautiful villas,
Tom Wickboldt and his team
are cooking up a storm.
With its traditional Polish atmosphere, candlelit wooden interior and
old paintings of moustached men,
restaurant “Irena” offers specialities
such as żurek (rye flour soup with
sausage) and pierogis (Polishstyle ravioli). Not only is its service
friendly and food good value, but it’s
also only a stone’s throw from the
beach and the hustle and bustle of
the Monte Cassino. An ideal place to
start the evening.
Baltic beer specialities
Burgers, burritos and a rotating
guest beer in Klaipėda
In fact, they’re doing it so well that
the restaurant has been awarded
a prestigious Michelin star. On the
menu are sophisticated French
classics with a modern twist, using
local ingredients, such as smoked
eel and oysters with wasabi cream.
For further information
and reservations
www.pensjonat-irena.com
www.restaurant-wickboldt.de
You probably aren’t aware that
Lithuania has a centuries-old brewing tradition; in fact, proportionately,
the Baltic state is said to have even
more breweries than Germany! The
Lithuanian beer in Klaipėda’s “Herkus
Kantas” (Kepėjų g. 17), where the
members of the local sailing scene
come to meet, is particularly popular.
Kipras Paldauskas, the landlord, used
to organise sailing events in Klaipėda
himself, and diners are seated in his
beautiful vaulted cellar.
www.herkuskantas.lt
c
Hanni’s Harbour-side Bar
Well, actually it’s called “Zur Fähre”, or, “To the Ferries”.
But no one here calls is that. It’s more commonly known by the name of its
curly-red-headed landlady, Hannelore Höpner. Along with beer from the
Störtebeker brewery, Hanni serves “Stralsunder Fährwasser”, a type of
caraway schnapps. And there’s often live music as well. “Zur Fähre” is one
of the oldest harbour-side bars in Europe, first documented in 1332.
www.zurfaehre-kneipe.de
17
Step back to the 70s
Lodziarnia Miś ice cream parlour in
Gdańsk (ul. Sukiennicza 18) may only
open during the summer, but there
you’ll find, many say, the best ice
cream in all of Poland. It could also
be down to the fact that, in Miś, time
seems to stand so charmingly still.
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
LOOKING GOOD
ARCHITECTURE
CLASSICAL TO MODERN
Seaside resorts
Dozens of seaside resorts were
built along the Baltic Sea coast
at the turn of the century.
To this day, spa-style architecture figures prominently in
German holiday resorts like
Binz, Ahlbeck and Heringsdorf.
Further to the east, nowadays
in Poland, Kolberg (Kołobrzeg),
Leba (Łeba) and Zoppot (Sopot)
used to be popular resorts
too. Those who could afford
it stayed at the Grand Hotel
Sopot, which is now owned by a
French hotel chain.
Maldives on Rügen
Till Jaich admits it: the Slavs
who settled on the island of
Rügen a long, long time ago
built their dwellings over the
water – on stilts. But it was
actually something else that
inspired Jaich’s holiday complex:
“I was once holding a catalogue
for a resort in the Maldives in my
hand and immediately thought:
we need to build something like
that,” recalls Jaich. That “something” now stands in Lauterbach
on the south coast of Rügen.
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
About two dozen suites built
on stilts, this is an Asian-style
village of pile dwellings – but
with a view of the Baltic Sea.
The houses have windows on
the water, and the rooms are
literally flooded with light. The
complex “made quite a splash”,
recalls Jaich. A great many
regular patrons now frequent
the place. Including boat owners
who enjoy the comfort of docking right next to their house or
diving into the water from their
roofed loggia first thing in the
morning. And all that with the
reassuring feeling of being in an
“eco resort”: for these pile dwellings were built to very stringent
environmental standards.
www.im-jaich.de/en
18
LOOKING GOOD
Ulrich Müther’s shell structures
The civil engineer from Binz on the island of
Rügen gained Europe-wide fame in the ’60s
for his shell structures. His one-of-a-kind lookout for lifeguards in Binz is now used to house
a branch office of the local registry.
Darłowo swing bridge
The swing bridge in the city of Darłowo is a
fine example of what were often rather playful interpretations of modernistic Communist
architecture in the Polish People’s Republic.
Germans are more familiar with Darłowo’s old
name: “Rügenwalde”.
Nice curves
Likewise, modern-day architecture in these parts is often quite
pleasing to eye.
Functionalism and clarity are
hallmarks of modern architecture. But on the southern shores
of the Baltic you’ll find plenty
of modernistic buildings whose
characteristically clear-cut
contours are gently rounded.
Gdynia, a city for the most part
constructed in the 1920s and
’30s, is particularly smoothedged. Moreover, the modernistic
style bears a maritime stamp:
the curved façades resemble
hulls, and many a superstructure
recalls the bridge on a ship. The
Polish Ocean Line building is a
typical exemplar of this elegant
simplicity.
19
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
CURONIAN SPIT
He’d be “missing a
picture in his soul”
Director Volker Koepp
has shot films about many areas
of Eastern Europe, including the
Curonian Spit, a narrow strip of
land (essentially sand dunes) between Kaliningrad and Klaipėda.
What led you to make a whole
film about the Curonian Spit?
Back in the era of East Germany
I used to read Johannes Borowski’s poems. That’s when I felt a
desire to get to this special spit of
land. But it was still hard to do in
those days. Then, in den ’90s, I
set out as soon as I could. By then
I’d come across some more texts.
Wilhelm von Humboldt once
said a picture would be missing
in his soul had he never laid eyes
on the Curonian Spit. Thomas
Mann raved about the “terrific
charm” of this landscape with
its shifting dunes, pine trees and
dark blue water.
What picture do you have in
your soul when it comes to
the Curonian Spit?
For me it’s closely connected to
the people I’ve met there. I’ve
developed strong ties to the place
as a result. That’s another reason
the Curonian Spit is a place I
often long for.
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
20
-
Kaliningrad
and
back
Sailing into the harbours along the
Polish coast is reputed difficult?
Travelling to Kaliningrad complicated?
Not so for Georg Hohaus and his father,
Eberhard: their voyage from Gdańsk
to Kaliningrad on a Hai 710 was a
series of pleasurable experiences.
Here’s what they said about it.
The south coast of the Baltic is a
rather unusual stamping ground for
German boaters. What induced you to
set course for Kaliningrad from your
home port on the island of Usedom?
Georg Hohaus: We wanted to discover new
territory, that naturalness it’s not like Germany or Denmark yet over there. At the
outset, when we sailed east years ago for the
first time, we didn’t know what to expect,
whether it might still be as in the days of
the Eastern Bloc. And although you basically know that of course it isn’t like that,
still you’re bowled over by all the stuff that’s
going on over there. There’s something for
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
all walks of life in this region – from the
stylish marina with fancy restaurants to
natural harbours where you have water lilies floating next to the boat.
What sort of a boat were you sailing?
Georg Hohaus: We’ve been sailing a 7.1 metre Hai for years now. A centreboarder that
can also get through shallows, as we did
last year on the Vistula River and Vistula
Lagoon.
What is your impression of the region?
What surprised you?
Georg Hohaus: What was most remarkable
22
to us was how friendly people are. The south
shore of the Baltic, particularly the Polish
coast, is almost like the Mediterranean –
like Mallorca or the Côte d’Azur. So different
from our Nordic waters, in Germany, Denmark and Sweden, where people tend to be
pretty reserved by nature. People in Poland
are more outgoing, more warmhearted, almost the way we describe Mediterraneans.
When you arrive at a dock there, there are
always people dancing and playing live music next door. Everywhere you go there on the
beach you find all sorts of discotheques, tents
with club music, as well as jazz and classical
music in the cities, there’s a huge range.
PURE SAILING
Ministry of Economic Affairs. That’s what
holidaymakers who go by coach do too:
there are various offices that issue invitations for boat tourism, that’s no problem.
Rallying eastwards
The Hohauses took
part in the South
Coast Baltic Boating
Rally along with 11
other boats.
The Russian exclave Kaliningrad is even
more foreign to German boaters than
Poland and Lithuania. What was your
experience like there?
Georg Hohaus: Getting there was simpler
than we’d expected. I had obtained a tourist visa in advance from the consulate in
Bonn, which cost €35 per person. If you
don’t want to take care of it yourself, you
hire an agency. Then it costs a little more,
and they do it all for you.
Eberhard Hohaus: And you need an
invitation. We were sailing in a group with
the South Coast Baltic Boating Rally, and
we had an invitation from Kaliningrad’s
How were you received? As Germans,
did you feel any lingering resentment?
Georg Hohaus: Not at all. On the contrary,
the people are very outgoing and openminded – towards us Germans, too. The
Russians in particular were incredibly
warmhearted, despite the ongoing Ukraine
crisis. They were really looking to make
contact. You could clearly tell that they’re
Western-orientated, that they’re interested
in trading with Germany, with Europe, and
that we are good neighbours to each other.
After all, they’re geographically much closer to us than to Russia.
Eberhard Hohaus: When we spent a
few days in the port, by the Pregolya River,
there was no public transport to downtown
Kaliningrad. People would drive by now
and then and we’d ask whether they could
give us a lift. Every time, we got a big tour
of the city. One time a man drove us way
inland to show us an old German castle.
He was a retired director of an oil drilling
facility in Siberia who didn’t speak a word
of German and knew three words in English. But his niece speaks German fluently
– he called her and then the cell phone went
back and forth between us. That was a nice
day. Encounters like that are part of the
pleasure of travelling.
Did things always go that well? Or did
you have any trouble communicating
occasionally?
Georg Hohaus: That wasn’t a problem anywhere. Plenty of people in the region speak
English, not only the younger ones. They
can often tell from our accent that we’re
Germans – then they switch to German. I
wouldn’t assume that, though, if only out of
politeness. I always address people first in
English.
How hard is the sailing on that route?
Georg Hohaus: The sailing’s very good
there, particularly since lots of new ports
have been built. You can sail short stages or
long. I’d say on average it’s about 30 miles
from port to port, so you’re sailing for five
23
“
First you have
to just cut loose
in that direction
– and then you
see it’s going to be
fine.
”
Eberhard Hohaus,
a chemist from Siegen, Germany
or six hours. If you want to go to Gdańsk,
maybe a little more, but you can always
make it during the day. After all, your
average skipper isn’t so keen on sailing
at night. That happens to be our speciality: we make very good time because we
make the most of the nights, too. One of us
sleeps, the other takes the helm.
Eberhard Hohaus: Germans often
have respect for this coast because they
say it’s a long coast, and when it’s very
windy, it’s unprotected. In stormy weather
that’s true, you’re better off staying at the
port. Unless you’ve got a proper ship and
you figure you can handle it. Still, there’s
good sailing along the coast, even for novices. With just the two of us in our little
boat, we show that it’s no problem. There
are very many modern ports spaced closely together. First you have to just cut loose
in that direction – and then you see it’s going to be fine.
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
Usedom Music Festival
The sound from the other shore
The Baltic Sea countries are connected not only by the sea, but also
by classical music. Every year from
September to October, renowned
classical musicians from the Baltic
Sea region, and especially from the
current host country, perform at the
Usedom Music Festival – along with
guest stars from all over the world.
The musical treasures of the Baltic
Sea nations and regions are showcased in churches, palaces, villas,
galleries and imperial-era hotels.
What’s more, the music programme
is rounded out by art exhibitions and
lectures. Each country’s culture and
sensibility are mirrored by those of
the others in ever-new, different and
unexpected ways.
EXPLORE
www.usedomermusikfestival.de
5
Places
discover
to
1 2
3
6
4
5
7
1
Ozeaneum Stralsund
(p. 10)
2 “Zur Fähre“ (“To the
Ferry”) harbour-side
bar in Stralsund (p. 9)
3 Pile dwellings:
The Maldives on Rügen (p. 18)
4 Gourmet cuisine
on Usedom (p. 17)
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
5 Usedom Music
Festival (see above)
6 Pomeranian
Regional Museum
in Greifswald (p. 9)
7 “Centre for
Dialogue” in
Szczecin (p. 9)
8 Swing bridge in
Darłowo (p. 19)
9 Spa architecture:
Grand Hotel Sopot
(p. 18)
10 Night life in Gdańsk,
Sopot and Gdynia
(p. 14)
11 Maritime modernism
in Gdynia (p. 19)
12 Karczma Irena Res-
taurant in Sopot (p. 17)
24
13 Solidarność centre in
17 Dreamscape on
14 German literature
18 Baltic beer in Klaipėda
Gdańsk (p. 9)
from Gdańsk
(see right column)
15 1970s ice cream
parlour in Gdańsk
(p. 17)
the Curonian Spit (p. 20)
(S. 17)
19 Amber cosmetics in
Lithuania (p. 13)
20 Sculptures in Klaipėda
(see right column above)
16 Sailing trip to
Kaliningrad (p. 22)
R
City of Sculptures
A stroll through town or a visit
to the museum?
This question doesn’t come up in
the Lithuanian city of Klaipėda (or
“Memel” in German), where sculptures seem to pop up right out of
the ground all over town. Ghosts,
dragons, spiders, you name it:
there’s a different surprise in bronze
at every street corner. Right in front
of the train station is a sculpture
entitled “Leave-taking” of a mother,
wearing a headscarf and carrying a suitcase, beside a boy with a
teddy bear in his hand. It reminds us
how hard it was for many Germans
to take leave of “Memel” when it
became Lithuanian in 1923. A pretty
city. So it’s understandable.
www.cdp.muzeum.szczecin.pl
20
14
18
20
19
Mindreading in
Gdańsk
17
8
11
10
9
12 13 15
14
16
Gdańsk’s return to the limelight
in German literature
c
A handy guide
to ports from
Western Pomerania to Klaipėda
This handbook provides sailors
and motorboaters all the information they need for a trip along the
“South Coast Baltic”. It presents
useful and interesting info about
the region’s marinas, many of
which were recently built or modernized, as well as about plenty
more tourist attractions than
could be covered in this magazine.
The guide is available in Polish,
English, German and Russian –
and on the web:
After Günther Grass’s The Tin
Drum, no other German-speaking
writer had dared to set a novel in
Gdańsk. Now Sabrina Janesch, a
German-Polish writer born in 1985,
has set a family saga entitled Ambra in the seaport – and Gdańsk
now has a voice again in Germanlanguage literature. Or rather two
voices: that of Kinga, the know-all
German town clerk, and that of a
spider trapped in a piece of amber.
Whoever wears the amber around
their neck can read people’s minds.
A book of magic realism that
opens up a wholly new approach
to the city.
Sabrina Janesch, „Ambra“,
Aufbau Verlag
www.southcoastbaltic.eu
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
CONTACTS
WEB SITES FOR MORE INFORMATION
INDEX
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
POMORSKIE / POMERANIA
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
MARKETING INITIATIVE
POMORSKIE TOURIST BOARD
www.pomorskie.travel/en
www.southcoastbaltic.eu/en
THE ZULAWY LOOP /
PĘTLA ŻUŁAWSKA
www.petla-zulawska.pl
VORPOMMERN / WESTERN POMERANIA
RÜGEN TOURIST INFORMATION CENTRE
www.ruegen.de
USEDOM TOURISM GMBH
www.usedom.de
TOURIST BOARD STRALSUND
www.stralsundtourismus.de/en
KALININGRAD REGION / KÖNIGSBERG
KALININGRAD OBLAST
www.visit-kaliningrad.ru/en
ZACHODNIOPOMORSKIE /
WEST POMERANIA
KLAIPĖDA REGION
VOIVODESHIP
ZACHODNIOPOMORSKIE
www.seaofadventure.eu
KLAIPĖDA TOURISM AND
CULTURE INFORMATION CENTRE
www.klaipedainfo.lt/en
WEST POMERANIAN SAILING ROUTE
en.marinas.pl
PORT OF KLAIPĖDA
www.portofklaipeda.lt/en
CITY OF SZCZECIN
www.szczecin.eu/en
IMPRINT
PUBLISHED BY
The Association of Sea Cities and
Municipalities (ZMIGM), Gdańsk,
Poland, for the SOUTH COAST
BALTIC Marketing Initiative
CONCEPT AND DESIGN
Michael Pfötsch, Berlin
www.project-marriage.eu
Gdańsk 2015
TRANSLATIONS
Cherrie Kishazy
Eric Rosencrantz
PROJECT COORDINATION
PLANCO Consulting GmbH,
Essen, Germany
CONCEPT AND EDITING
Kerstin Löffler, Oliver Geyer, Berlin
SOUTH COAST BALTIC
© COPYRIGHT
The Association of Sea Cities and
Municipalities
PICTURE EDITING
David Dörrast, Berlin
PICTURE CREDITS
COVER Matthias Schade (1), p.3
Fabian Weiß (1), Silke Weinsheimer
(1), Eberhard Hohaus (1), Michael
Pfötsch (1); p.5 Julia Thurn (1), p.6–8
Silke Weinsheimer (2), family photo
(source: privat) (1); p.9 Centrum
Dialogu Przełomy (1), Pomeranian
Regional Museum (1), Grzegorz
Mehring/ECS Archives (1); p.10–11
Johannes-Maria Schlorke (1),
PRODUCTION
Geyer Gestaltung,
Werbung & Kommunikation GmbH,
Bielefeld, Germany
26
©Ozeaneum Stralsund (1); p.12
Solvin Zankl (1); p.13 Michael Pfötsch
(1); p.14–16 Fabian Weiß (3); p.17
Hanni Höpner (1), Arturas Morozovas (1); p.18–19 Michael Pfötsch (5);
p.20–21 Mark Robertz (1), Edition
Salzgeber (1); p.22–23 Jens Masuch
(1), Eberhard Hohaus (1); p.24–25
Michael Pfötsch (1), Usedom Music
Festival (1), Klaipėda State Seaport
Authority (1); p.27 Kerstin Löffler (1),
Oliver Geyer (1), Michael Pfötsch (1),
Fabian Weiß (1), South Coast Baltic
Marketinginitiative (1), Jens Masuch
(1); Iconset Dario Ferrando
CONTRIBUTORS
After serving for several years
as a foreign correspondent in
France, Kerstin Löffler is now
a freelance journalist based
in Berlin. Before this project
got started, she made no
bones about the fact that
she’d never sailed in her life.
But ever since talking to
father and son Hohaus about
their voyage to Kaliningrad,
she’s hell bent on giving it a
try very soon.
Michael Pfötsch
Concept
and layout
Oliver Geyer
Concept
and editing
Kerstin Löffler
Concept
and editing
A Berlin-based freelance journalist, Geyer writes for national newspapers and magazines,
including travel stories for
Die Welt am Sonntag and Die
Frankfurter Sonntagszeitung.
He was particularly surprised
to see how much Szczecin has
to offer when he went there
for the first time in his life to
research the above article –
although he actually shares
a summer house with friends
very nearby on the German
side of the border.
Pfötsch is an artistic director and editorial designer
in Berlin. In delving into the
topics covered in this magazine, he was especially taken
with the architecture – and
immediately insisted on illustrating that page himself.
South Coast Baltic Marketinginitiative
Publisher
21 tourism organizations from four
countries deliberately handed over
the reins for this magazine project
to a group of freelance journalists.
The clients found the journalists’
outside perspective on their regions
sometimes rather surprising – but
then refreshing and quite enriching.
Johannes Ehrmann
Journalist
Writes for the German daily
Der Tagesspiegel and the
magazine 11Freunde and won
the prestigious Theodor Wolff
Award in 2014 for his story on
Wedding (a district of Berlin), entitled “Wilder, weiter,
Wedding”. Whilst researching on location in the Tricity
for this magazine, Ehrmann
found confirmation that, when
it comes to partying and
whooping it up, Poles definitely do not take a back seat
to Berliners.
Jens Masuch
Project coordinator /
PLANCO Consulting GmbH
Was away on location for a while as an outside
project coordinator mediating between the
editors and the participating tourism organizations. A great many e-mails and phone calls
later, here it is: a magazine that everyone
involved can relate to – but that preserves a
journalistic perspective. Masuch has a Polish
wife from the very place in Masuria from which
his father emigrated to Germany back in 1962.
”SOUTH COAST BALTIC“ is a joint boating marketing initiative of institutions from Vorpommern /
DE, Zachodniopomorskie / PL, Pomorskie / PL, Kaliningrad region / RU and Klaipėda region /
LT. It is implemented within the South Baltic Programme project “MARRIAGE” (www.project-marriage.de)
Part-financed by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund) within the
South Baltic Cross-border Co-operation Programme 2007–2013.
SOUTH COAST BALTIC