Berlin hotel gets kitschy with it

Most reports about new Berlin accommodation talk about the current plethora of newly opened boutique hotels in the trendy quarters of East Berlin. The city is undergoing a kind of renaissance and it’s out with the old and in with the new; well, except at the newly opened budget hotel called Ostel.

Unlike its many competitors, Ostel hopes to lure guests with the nostalgia of the communist era. The walls are decorated with former communist leaders and the usual behind the check-in counter timepieces display the current time on Havana, Beijing and Moscow. Get the idea?

Owned and run by Daniel Helbig and Guido Sand, all the furnishings that adorn the hotel are original pieces form the former Soviet époque and were found around town in markets or antique shops. Some items were procured from Ebay as well.

Helbig is careful to insist that this is more of a cultural preservation than any political statement. He said, “We had the idea of preserving a bit of GDR culture … (but) we are not crying for the East German regime.”

This did not stop the hotel from opening for business on May Day, the traditional communist worker’s holiday.