Near the MDR railway station in Leipzig is a giant concrete brassiere daubed in colourful graffiti. It’s called the Kohlrabi Circus, and it’s not what you think.
I thought, when I first saw it, that it was something industrial. Like the kind of monstrous domes they erect over nuclear power plants to protect against earthquakes and planes falling from the sky (à la Zhangzhou). Naturally, this turned out to be nonsense. The northern dome is home to the (not so good, I’m told) KWS IceFighters ice hockey team. When they’re not busy lobbing pucks, the hall’s used for events, flea markets, the occasional street food festival … anything that benefits from lots of space and plenty of toilets.
The southern dome was home to Germany’s largest ice-skating rink for over a decade. In short, these are two chilly mounds. If you walk down Semmelweisstraße in-season, you’re likely to see mounds of shaved ice outside, glistening in the sun.
Glistening in the sun are the weekend streets as The Mathematician and I head out for a walk. There’s been a run of -7 Celsius icy nights the last few days, and the skies are clear and inviting. We shuffle-slide our way to the half-frozen river and stand on the bank, happy that the sun’s still above the trees on the other side. A mountain biker in his 50s pulls up and calls out to a passing kayaker, who turns and paddles towards him.
“That’s the wrong piece of sports equipment!” the kayaker laughs.
“What do you have there?” the cyclist replies. “An ice breaker?”
As the two men chat on amicably in the frost, we make our way upriver.
“I love these signs,” I say, passing one that’s only really visible from the water. It tells you which stretch of the river heads where, and for how many kilometres. “Seems like such an adventure! Heading off in your little boat, a flask of something hot — maybe soup — and some supplies. Then you go this way”— I point —“and end up by the Auen lake — even Halle if you carry it past the weirs! And that way”— I point again —“takes you into the riparian woods. Magical.”
“We really should hire one at some point.”
“Yeah. We’ve been saying that for several years now.”
“Hm.”
“Nice thought though, right?”
She nods. “It is. Come on, it’s cold.”
We take in Clara Zetkin- and Johanna Park, cross the lovely little Japanese-style bridges over the pond, and saunter down to KilliWilli for a burger and banter.
Heading home afterwards, we take a longcut and walk the wasteland north of the Kohlrabi Circus. We hear the crack of a hard ball hit by hard wood. Ahead of us, not too far from the road, are several Indian men.
“Oh, wow,” says The Mathematician. “I think they’re playing cricket!”
“Seriously?”
I have a look. She’s right. There’s a little plastic wicket set up on a strip of concrete and a batsman with an actual cricket bat. I laugh.
“Never thought I’d see that played here. And in this weather — it’s practically a winter sport.”
“Who needs those?” she says, pointing to the double domes across the way.
Traders, that’s who. Because more than a century ago, when the Kohlrabi Circus was first built, it was used as a massive covered fresh-food market. There’d been a smaller one before, farther north towards the city centre, but it was inconveniently far from the railway line, a problem for a trade fair city that supplied a decent portion of central Germany. So, the hall and domes were built, and built large. (At the time, they were amongst the largest in the world.) The locals nicknamed it Kohlrabi Circus (Kohlrabizirkus in German) and it stuck.
“I tell you what, I fancy being back inside,” The Mathematician shivers.
“Fancy a cocoa?” I ask, as we hop across the Semmelweisstraße.
“You bet your arse!”
