Rotting Soviet-era themepark in the heart of Berlin

Dark Roasted Blend has a beautiful gallery of Spreepark PlanterWald (originally called Kulturpark Planterwald) a Soviet-era abandoned themepark in central Berlin, which is gracefully rotting away. This is a Boing Boing/Cory Doctorow trifecta: abandoned themeparks, Soviet kitsch, and urban exploration. Yes, please!

When it opened in 1969 as Kulturpark Planterwald, it was the "only constant entertainment park in the GDR, and the only such park in either East or West Berlin". However, the Berlin Senate did not seem to have provided for enough parking space... which is quite silly, all things considered. Plus, the forest around the park was deemed to be doomed from the impact of visiting crowds. In any case, the socialist and then private owners were left with a bunch of debt and the place got suspended in limbo... But the story does not end there (read on).

Surreal Abandoned Amusement Park in Berlin [Avi Abrams/Dark Roasted Blend] (via Kadrey)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: berlin • decay • germany • happy mutants • sovkitsch • themepunks • urbex • wide

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xzzy

Can get more views of this park if you go watch the movie Hanna!
Mr. Customer

How did I once manage to live a 15 minute train ride from here and not know it existed? My shame is boundless.
mappo

I grew up adjacent to an enormous abandoned drive-thru safari in New Jersey. My friends and I loved exploring that post-apocalyptic wasteland.
doctorjohnsmith

The stuff rotting there is from the 90ies. Except for the ferris wheel nothing from the soviet-era is left. Nonetheless I can highly recommend visiting that place. Its an amazing experience.
http://twitter.com/leftnotracks Scott Falkner

If they ever make a live version of Spirited Away… they can all go to hell!
- Frode Helland
  
  Funny you should mention Spirited Away. If you walk along the river from Treptower Park S-bahnhof, right before you come to Spreepark there is a place that instantly reminded me Miyazaki: the Insel der Jugend. http://www.dasberlinblog.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/insel-der-jugend-wikipedia-andreas-steinhoff.jpg
semiotix

This is a Boing Boing/Cory Doctorow trifecta: abandoned themeparks, Soviet kitsch, and urban exploration.

Damn, I had “open-source steampunk Disneyland” in the pool.

(And I hedged by placing a sweep bet on “TSA destroys Die Antwoord’s 3-D printed ukelele.”)
- dragonfrog
  
  “TSA destroys Die Antwoord’s 3-D printed ukelele.”
  
  “United Breaks Guitars” would have nothing on the resulting angry music video. Nothing. I would probably have to fortify myself with whiskey and Metalocalypse cartoons before even watching it.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000127417487 Stefan Le Breton

there was a successful kickstarter for the kulturpark: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1353197694/kulturpark

Also the homepage http://www.kulturpark.org/

My mother grew up nearby and did’t liked it, when they started logging all the trees there.
I once was looking how to get inside.. but was too afraid that the security guards will catch me ;) so i ionly made pictures from the outside:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stelb/142160613/in/set-72057594128086501
mutantlog

This reminds me to recommend Spreepark, the best German-abandoned-amusement-park-orchestral-dance-pop band ever, especially their song Spreepark Jetzt! (030-533-350). Sure, they haven’t done anything since 2009, but I find that song ridiculously catchy! Their songs can be found at http://www.spreeparktheband.com/
Frozen

I can’t shake the impression that the movie Hanna was partly set in this place.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DDVT7SINDDPQ5NKYJVHROJDA2Y phule
  
  That is exactly what I thought when I saw the first photo. And so the Google confirms:
  
  http://focusfeatures.com/slideshow/hannas_spree_park_and_other_haunted_amusement_parks?film=hanna
noah django

me and my buddies got into Opryland in the off-season once. it was at night, though, so we had to stick to one side that was lit from the parking lot. still got to climb onto the flume ride track and smoke weed and whatever else teenagers do in empty themeparks. i think they tore it all down not to long after that, so I’m glad I did it, but Spreepark is way cooler. And for those who haven’t seen Hanna yet, that movie is pretty awesome.
gyp

Cory, you might also like this then: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCqGhjGdwZ4 It is shot in the abandoned amusement park of my hometown that was built in the Soviet era (both the park and the town itself, the latter being named after noone less than Stalin for a while), although we did not have a rollercoaster to rot in such a haunting way :)