Posted on 02/27/2003 8:19:27 PM PST by nickcarraway
BERLIN (Reuters) - Hoping to capitalise on a wave of nostalgia for Communist East Germany, a Berlin company is planning to build a theme park that revives life behind the Iron Curtain in the country that disappeared nearly 13 years ago.
Massine Productions GmbH hopes to recreate a 10,000-square metre (107,600 sq ft) replica of East Germany, complete with surly border guards, rigorous customs inspections, authentic East German mark notes, and restaurants with regulation bland East German food.
"The aim isn't to make big joke out of East Germany," said Susanne Reich, a spokeswoman for the company which is expected to invest several million euros on the project, slated for the southeastern Berlin district of Koepenick.
"It was an important part of Germany's history and the period should be recreated as accurately as possible."
Nostalgia for East Germany has lingered ever since reunification in 1990. Known as "Ostalgie", a play on the German words for east and nostalgia, the spirit has given rise to scores of "GDR parties", books, songs and popular films.
A German film "Good Bye, Lenin", in which a man recreates East Germany in a 79-square-metre (850-sq-ft) flat to protect his ailing mother from the shock of reunification after she comes out of a coma, has surged to the top of the German film charts and more than a million people have been to see it.
Even though East Germany lasted just four decades, Reich insists that the project has the potential to go the distance:
"We've spoken to a number of tourist agencies in Europe and the United States, and there's been plenty of interest."
"You can't get good chinese takeout in China and cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That's all you need to know about communism." -- P.J. O'Rourke
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