cimg0225_part.JPG Strange town, strange maps ... Last Friday I went to a nice party in Berlin, and this party was in the "Riga street" , where a lot of former squatted houses are located. Years since they all have contracts, but the gentrification process initiated years ago by renovating all the houses in the area, gives the locals a lot of pressure. Rents for flats are continuously rising, and poor people have to move out of the area to other, cheaper places to.

Thats why people announced in action weekend to protest against gentrification. After a demonstration in the afternoon a lot of parties went on in this area and people used the spring evening to sit on the streets. The cold nights are quiet, at some point some of them started to make a fire. Maybe in the middle of the street maybe not, I have no idea. But actually this was the time when the police joined the event. I was in the location I just heard the bartender saying 'all out, police is coming' and police in riot gear outside came running trough the streets trying to catch anybody who might be claimed responsible for whatever later.

They did not arrested me, that's something. But Germany and especially Berlin and showed me his police-ugly face once again. Oh, the map. Yes, it shows you under the title 'burning barricades' symbolically the problems I have with this town.

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