BE SURE TO WEAR CAULIFLOWERS IN YOUR HAIR
A couple of years ago I got caught up in a riot on Berlin’s Oberbaumbrücke. It’s a medieval styled bridge joining Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg which are two rival districts once separated by the Berlin Wall. As things kicked off I realised the whole thing was far from spontaneous: these folk had spent days, if not weeks, preparing weapons for the battle. I watched in amazement as people with faces masked by scarves stormed across the bridge. Smoke billowed over their heads from a fire at the further end of the bridge. Missiles flew through the air, slamming into bodies indiscriminately: children, women, men, everyone was hit. The sound of screams and the stench were overwhelming. I’d never seen anything like this at all.
Press and TV cameramen pushed kids out of the way for the best pictures. I tried to get into the thick of it all to take shots of my own – I figured I had a responsibility as a fearless journalist to get stuck in, no matter how intense the fighting. But I soon found myself pushed back repeatedly as Friedrichshain launched another assault. Punks with mohicans chased mercilessly after the more conservatively dressed and overwhelmed Kreuzbergers, their weapons catching the sunlight, bloodcurdling screams bursting from their lungs. It was like watching Mad Max meets Braveheart.
Meanwhile the police stood by, simply watching. They were rather enjoying the spectacle. In fact they had arguably the best view of what was happening. You got the feeling they were itching to get stuck in. But they couldn’t. Because this was the Oberbaumbrücke Wasserschlacht, an annual event in which these two rival Berlin districts try to settle their rivalry by – to keep a short story short since it doesn’t need to be any longer – saving up all their organic garbage and lobbing it at each other. Their weapons are, quite simply, rotten fruit and vegetables: rotten fruit and vegetables which absolutely stink.
‘Rioters’ held their noses as they took aim before throwing lethal weapons like overripe cucumbers and rotten eggs into the air. People dressed in waterproofs, or at the very least plastic bags, emerged from the chaos covered in stinking, partially decomposed food. White t-shirts were streaked Technicolor yellow, green, brown and red. One dreadlocked woman passed me with half a melon on her head as a helmet. I considered adopting similar armour. As she gave me a thumbs up a mouldy orange bounced off my trousers.
The screaming all round, meanwhile, came from kids squealing with delight as putrid tomatoes and strawberries struck them. Their parents gritted their teeth from a distance, grimacing at the stains. You couldn’t blame them.
When Friedrichshain finally took the bridge I slid home through slushy streets. My clothes were like battle scars: I had orange peel in my hair and a decomposing onion wrapped in my shoelaces. There was an aura around me that seemed to be attracting flies and mosquitoes. All through Kreuzberg the streets were full of casualties, people with dried tomato seeds stuck to their faces and cauliflower in their hair. They trailed a faint line of slime on the tarmac behind them.
But, as they popped open their bottles of Berliner beer and limped wearily to their homes, they all knew that they’d done everything that could have been expected of them: they’d saved their overripe fruit, separated their rotting vegetables from the rest of the rubbish, and though – as Kreuzbergers – they had been defeated by the more anarchic Friedrichshainers, they’d given it their best shot. They’d be back next year, and next time they’d have bigger and better weapons. Mangos. Avocados. Melons. They might be a bit soft, those Kreuzbergers, but they’d got better supermarkets…
Feature: Oberbaumbrücke Wasserschlacht, Berlin (JMag)
