Nabokov’s “A Guide to Berlin”

Here we are at Stuttgarterplatz in front of the Charlottenburg S-Bahn Station.

Stop here for a moment.

Let's imagine this place around 100 years ago, in the winter of 1925, Vladimir Nabokov, who back then went by the pen-name V. Sirin, is sitting in a cafe nearby waiting to visit his publisher. He just walked from his apartment a kilometer south of here in Wilmersdorf. Nabokov himself was never a huge fan of Berlin. He would later call Berlin a kind of prison sentence. Despite that, he lived here from 1922 to 1937, after his father was shot and killed here during an emigre political meeting gone wrong. The assassin's bullet wasn't even meant for him. He stepped in to protect another man and paid with his life. The younger Nabokov stayed to look after his widowed mother, and to write through his grief.

Ok, let me show you where we're going.

With your back to the Russian grocer, look across the road, slightly left.

Do you see the corner building with the "Alberts" sign on the first floor? We're going to cross the street here at the crosswalk, then head towards that sign.

Once you get there, turn right and walk along the sidewalk.

Got it? Great. Let's head over there.

Getting back to Nabokov's 1925 guide to Berlin…

“The horse drawn tram has vanished, and so will the trolley and some eccentric Berlin writer of the 21st century wishing to portray our time, will go to a museum of technological history and locate a 100 year old streetcar. And in a museum of old costumes, dig up a black and shiny button conductor's uniform. Then he will go home and compile a description of Berlin streets in bygone days. Everything, every trifle, will be valuable and significant. The conductor's purse. The advertisement over the window. that peculiar, jolting motion which our great grandchildren will perhaps imagine, Everything will be ennobled and justified by its age.

Remember, turn right when you reach the "Alberts" sign.