Charlottenstan<\/strong><\/p>\n Part II<\/strong><\/p>\n Here they are \u2013<\/p>\n Unemployed, carefree, uncomplaining <\/p>\n Berlin bums<\/p>\n Nights and evenings they lie under bridges,<\/p>\n Loitering, having already filled themselves <\/p>\n With beer for a euro, <\/p>\n The one with the red star <\/p>\n Sold nasty and bitter, <\/p>\n But to me \u2013 it is a blessing. <\/p>\n It makes me feel good, brings relief.<\/p>\n Hey, make way, brother-bums, <\/p>\n Uncombed, shaggy,<\/p>\n Spiritually rich,<\/p>\n Like enriched uranium,<\/p>\n Like a broken water tap, <\/p>\n From which it pours incessantly, <\/p>\n Like from a Berlin nose in winter. <\/p>\n Look,<\/p>\n All their earthly bum-possessions <\/p>\n Packed into a single supermarket <\/p>\n Cart.<\/p>\n To continue lightly<\/p>\n On the final journey<\/p>\n To paradise. <\/p>\n I join your noble society.<\/p>\n I, the outcast, the devoured, <\/p>\n Submit my application to enter <\/p>\n your bum-masonic lodge<\/p>\n Quite a few of our kind have already <\/p>\n Arrived, tested their fate here by the tooth <\/p>\n Tormented by the city, beaten <\/p>\n By Berlin. <\/p>\n We shall dance with you,<\/p>\n Twitch wildly<\/p>\n Under a linden tree balding from November,<\/p>\n Under the hoarse speaker <\/p>\n Of a dive bar near Treptower Park <\/p>\n Where a certain woman <\/p>\n Forever drunk <\/p>\n Jerks her flesh to the beat of the music <\/p>\n Or just because <\/p>\n In headphones, in silence<\/p>\n Against the S-Bahn crowd. <\/p>\n Sometimes just a little more <\/p>\n And it seems she\u2019ll crash, she\u2019ll hit me<\/p>\n Dragging my feet every evening home alone<\/p>\n On my own thoughts. <\/p>\n Let us self-destruct, brothers! <\/p>\n Enough pretending <\/p>\n Playing the fool, acting<\/p>\n As if there is still a tomorrow. <\/p>\n Tomorrow \u2013 bright, murky, dark, <\/p>\n Multicolored,<\/p>\n Like the beer varieties in a Sp\u00e4ti window, <\/p>\n Everything is already stolen, <\/p>\n Like jewels from the Louvre, <\/p>\n Impudently by thieves through an open window<\/p>\n Filched. <\/p>\n We ride,<\/p>\n A smelly Grandpa-God right here <\/p>\n Snores,<\/p>\n Sprawled across three S-Bahn seats,<\/p>\n Drool trickles from his blond beard, <\/p>\n Old down jacket torn <\/p>\n Into feathers, into black jacket-grease. <\/p>\n God has aged, he sleeps and watches <\/p>\n Like a blissful movie<\/p>\n The happiness of his children. <\/p>\n They dash across the lawn, <\/p>\n The sun, they have fun, they play, <\/p>\n Living as they were told by <\/p>\n holy Old and New Testament books,<\/p>\n With gusto, without malice. <\/p>\n But outside the window it\u2019s not like that, outside is Berlin<\/p>\n On the night from Friday to Saturday <\/p>\n Rags, pukers, retching wrecks<\/p>\n Circle like crows<\/p>\n Tearing bottles<\/p>\n From Berlin\u2019s trashy, iron-glinting mouth,<\/p>\n Pale German youths <\/p>\n With an unceasing boombox, <\/p>\n Dull and energetic eyes, <\/p>\n Like those of soldiers in an occupation army<\/p>\n At the very start of a war<\/p>\n Tum-tu-ru-rum, l’amour toujours,<\/p>\n They torture my ears,<\/p>\n Testing my endurance. <\/p>\n But it\u2019s all empty,<\/p>\n I nod off, starting to drowse, <\/p>\n Seeing dream-pictures, <\/p>\n Late autumn, something from childhood,<\/p>\n Shadows, trees, the tipsy glint of a streetlamp. <\/p>\n The station! Devil! I overslept! <\/p>\n I scramble out. <\/p>\n Goodbye, Grandpa-God!<\/p>\n It seems you\u2019ve made a flood. <\/p>\n Outside it pours from your heavens,<\/p>\n Though, it\u2019s pouring from your pants too.<\/p>\n God has soiled himself! What a scandal! <\/p>\n War! War is coming! War has arrived!<\/p>\n War is knocking! War is at the door!<\/p>\n The arms and legs of innocent children <\/p>\n Are torn by omnivorous bombs,<\/p>\n Wake up, Grandpa-God! <\/p>\n Look what\u2019s happening!<\/p>\n Do something already, create!<\/p>\n You can turn water into wine <\/p>\n And, they say, a lot more besides.<\/p>\n I shake him. <\/p>\n But he looks out from his sleep <\/p>\n Without understanding<\/p>\n Like an owl.<\/p>\n Devil! Mein Gott! Wrong station.<\/p>\n Click of the door! <\/p>\n Jumped out too early \u2013<\/p>\n Frankfurter Allee<\/p>\n Allee named after Stalin<\/p>\n Before the cult of personality <\/p>\n Was debunked. <\/p>\n The heart of Friedrichshain!<\/p>\n I want to piss out <\/p>\n His name <\/p>\n By the fence where the construction stands still,<\/p>\n It\u2019s so gray and old now, <\/p>\n It probably even remembers Chancellor Schr\u00f6der.<\/p>\n I want to write out in eternity<\/p>\n The name.<\/p>\n Unbearable. <\/p>\n But I\u2019m not the only wise one. <\/p>\n In this godforsaken corner<\/p>\n It squelches under my boots <\/p>\n Like in a village toilet <\/p>\n A Russian one <\/p>\n The most neglected <\/p>\n As if a monster will leap out of the sludge,<\/p>\n I step over the bricks <\/p>\n And release all the filth<\/p>\n Guzzled down through the night,<\/p>\n It flows and “S” bumps into “T”,<\/p>\n The puddle growls, gurgles, soon it will rise,<\/p>\n But the breath is caught,<\/p>\n But the nose is seized, <\/p>\n But what if a policeman is behind me? <\/p>\n Will catch me, like in childhood, by the scruff of the neck: <\/p>\n Here’s your fine and greetings!<\/p>\n Deportation!<\/p>\n Cell, corridors, the rustle of metal, <\/p>\n Cold on the wrists,<\/p>\n And the plane, <\/p>\n Auf Wiedersehen!<\/p>\n But no \u2013<\/p>\n There is no Stalin to deal with us. <\/p>\n At night to me<\/p>\n Like according to a Deutsche Bahn schedule<\/p>\n The executioner arrives,<\/p>\n I am returning to the homeland. <\/p>\n Quite voluntarily, truth be told,<\/p>\n Out of curiosity, out of boredom,<\/p>\n From the pampered bliss of Europe<\/p>\n Having fled.<\/p>\n Suddenly, for some reason, at a rally <\/p>\n In support of Ramzan Kadyrov. <\/p>\n Blue sky, uniforms of <\/p>\n A celestial color<\/p>\n And the police tenderly <\/p>\n Surround me <\/p>\n And escort me forward,<\/p>\n Friends, unseen for a long time, smile, <\/p>\n A celebration, balloons, portraits, posters!<\/p>\n They wave \u2013 farewell! <\/p>\n That\u2019s exactly how it should be.<\/p>\n You wanted this yourself, you came here for this. <\/p>\n What follows next \u2013<\/p>\n In a room narrow and dim,<\/p>\n The executioner is nearby, he\u2019s businesslike, <\/p>\n he\u2019s busy with tasks \u2013 <\/p>\n No time for me \u2013 well, see ya, soon enough. <\/p>\n To a cot with oilcloth <\/p>\n Another poor wretch is chained,<\/p>\n He mumbles, he quivers <\/p>\n Like a caught butterfly, a trapped bird:<\/p>\n He strives to get out \u2013 but it won’t happen \u2013 <\/p>\n Bound by straps.<\/p>\n The executioner has pliers in his twisting fingers <\/p>\n Unhurriedly he pulls out <\/p>\n The poor wretch\u2019s teeth. <\/p>\n One by one.<\/p>\n Meanly<\/p>\n Someone whispers in my ear: <\/p>\n \u201cLook \u2013<\/p>\n clever!\u201d<\/p>\n They\u2019ll say later \u2013 <\/p>\n his teeth were aching! <\/p>\n He was at the dentist’s! <\/p>\n And the teeth \u2013 all gone!<\/p>\n The torture is finished.<\/p>\n And the poor wretch<\/p>\n Catches the air with a black, empty mouth, <\/p>\n His eyes \u2013 <\/p>\n White, bottomless cataracts.<\/p>\n They spilled out across the whole width<\/p>\n As a white sea. <\/p>\n His eyes \u2013 <\/p>\n Wide open doors. <\/p>\n Horror! Madman! The end! <\/p>\n Here is the translation of the concluding section of Ivan Treptow\u2019s “Charlottenstan.” This final movement ties the personal nightmare of the immigrant to the political reality of Europe, ending in a dizzying, defiant surrender to the “spinning earth.”<\/p>\n \u201cNext!\u201d And away with me \u2013 <\/p>\n By the elbows. <\/p>\n And teeth\u2014click\u2014<\/p>\n Click go the straps. <\/p>\n Motherland! They\u2019ve plucked me from your breasts, <\/p>\n Like a potato beetle\u2014from a spud!<\/p>\n Motherland, you appear in dreams impudently, uninvited \u2013 <\/p>\n Here I am, here she is! <\/p>\n Later you\u2019ll wash yourself in salty sweat!<\/p>\n The tangled sheets have gone soggy and boiled<\/p>\n At four in the morning \u2013 <\/p>\n And it\u2019s neither here nor there, <\/p>\n Neither sleep it off, nor wake up for certain<\/p>\n And the bed has become a bit cramped, <\/p>\n When <\/p>\n These two settled into it \u2013 <\/p>\n The Motherland and me. <\/p>\n You eat our bread! <\/p>\n They told us at the Job Center, <\/p>\n Where our kind gets their benefits. <\/p>\n Yes, thank you, but your bread tastes of blood, <\/p>\n Fattened on the entrails of our exile-country, <\/p>\n It goes down poorly, <\/p>\n It has the fuel-oil bitterness of petroleum,<\/p>\n In it is the gas bubble, the Schr\u00f6der deal,<\/p>\n In it is a nuclear dump with home delivery,<\/p>\n You fattened the beast, you cherished it, raised it, <\/p>\n Petted it gently, slapped its scruff,<\/p>\n Admired it, looked into its eyes \u2013 <\/p>\n The little beast has grown, look!<\/p>\n You treated it to Deutsche Marks, <\/p>\n And it roared, gnashing its teeth.<\/p>\n And now you say casually:<\/p>\n You must get used to the fact already, <\/p>\n That in your country \u2013 <\/p>\n There is war. <\/p>\n At Schlesi I dropped tears <\/p>\n Salty like halloumi,<\/p>\n Cold as your hands,<\/p>\n As your lifeless, blue fingers,<\/p>\n German beauty, <\/p>\n Having rejected me, having entrusted me<\/p>\n To the care<\/p>\n Of time.<\/p>\n At Kotti <\/p>\n The drunks rubbed together <\/p>\n Who are you? What do you want? <\/p>\n Three of them stopped me<\/p>\n Interrogated me,<\/p>\n Floated like ships <\/p>\n Out of the Berlin fog,<\/p>\n Mugs\u2014what do they look like\u2014covered in spiderweb tattoos, <\/p>\n Swollen with drunkenness,<\/p>\n Beaten,<\/p>\n Washed by Berlin rain like the pavements.<\/p>\n At Bellevue station<\/p>\n I vomit nonstop.<\/p>\n Beautiful views \u2013 <\/p>\n Four puddles! <\/p>\n One framed the ticket machine, <\/p>\n Two settled more vilely <\/p>\n By the drink kiosks,<\/p>\n The fourth lies modestly under a bench<\/p>\n Fresh as can be!<\/p>\n Red, with tomato paste <\/p>\n Mother Nature from my gorge <\/p>\n Bore them generously, <\/p>\n Dressing them thickly with gastric juice, <\/p>\n Vile weed!<\/p>\n Knocked me off my feet, a knockout!<\/p>\n An evening of solidarity with Russian dissidents, <\/p>\n Cut short untimely.<\/p>\n It robbed me!<\/p>\n Scram! S-Bahn, rare sideways passengers, <\/p>\n Ordnungsamt, Sicherheitsdienst, Polizei,<\/p>\n They\u2019ll pinch you yet, <\/p>\n The dogs, <\/p>\n A slap on the pocket,<\/p>\n Seems not all is lost yet, <\/p>\n Get the hell out! <\/p>\n Every station <\/p>\n Is won heroically, <\/p>\n Just not to fall asleep, not to drowse off, <\/p>\n Not to collapse on a neighbor,<\/p>\n Not to end up in Grunewald, in Potsdam, <\/p>\n Here it is \u2013 Charlottenstan<\/p>\n waiting for a night\u2019s lodging,<\/p>\n Bare, pissed-on bushes by the station, <\/p>\n In some places, a dump has been left on top, <\/p>\n Charlottenstan, Charlottenstan! <\/p>\n Berlin is your charlatan-city,<\/p>\n A city of deceit! <\/p>\n It promised us love, careers, <\/p>\n Instead you get jack shit! <\/p>\n Herr Treptow, let\u2019s go, <\/p>\n Here is your appointment, your ticket \u2013 for sleep. <\/p>\n Night, Wilmersdorfer Strasse is pitch black, <\/p>\n Empty as a ghost town,<\/p>\n The shawarma joint has fried all its chickens,<\/p>\n Smoked them,<\/p>\n Life itself was here, but it vanished, <\/p>\n Everything was traded-bought-drunk-eaten-smoked away,<\/p>\n Life is bad! As always\u2014they whined,<\/p>\n How they burned out in their offices,<\/p>\n And now there is no one and nothing,<\/p>\n Only gopnik teenagers <\/p>\n In checkered \u2013 knockoff \u2013 caps<\/p>\n addressing you: \u201cbruder! bruder!<\/p>\n Warum, bruder?\u201d<\/p>\n Brother! Go eat a dish of shit.<\/p>\n Swine! An old man hisses at us <\/p>\n We are pissing in his entranceway <\/p>\n We are Russians! What a delight <\/p>\n Old man, let us on the threshold, <\/p>\n Or else we\u2019ll fall behind the Gay Pride parade <\/p>\n The dog-people didn’t recognize us at first<\/p>\n Growling-barking, <\/p>\n White bodies, carrying their well-fed bellies, <\/p>\n Collars, muzzles<\/p>\n Spikes<\/p>\n The dogs passed in a column, <\/p>\n We followed them, <\/p>\n We\u2019ll shed the decencies of civilization <\/p>\n On Christopher Street Day! <\/p>\n Heigh-ho! <\/p>\n Come on, little gay boy, don’t be shy! <\/p>\n Vacuum the road quickly! <\/p>\n Tail up!<\/p>\n Blessed be your nose!<\/p>\n The road will be mastered by the one walking! <\/p>\n Oh, the little path! <\/p>\n Past Potsdamer Platz <\/p>\n We fear no pounding of any kind <\/p>\n It\u2019s a bit too early to die yet, boys!<\/p>\n Idleness awaits us at home <\/p>\n What have we done<\/p>\n More rum and coke <\/p>\n Like behind the school in childhood. <\/p>\n Fun, like in Brazil, <\/p>\n But now <\/p>\n Alone in bed, <\/p>\n As in a grave <\/p>\n Am I.<\/p>\n Hello, my black brothers <\/p>\n From G\u00f6rlitzer Park. <\/p>\n Has the CDU mayor not fenced you in yet <\/p>\n With a high wall? <\/p>\n Do you hate France so much <\/p>\n That you, the francophones,<\/p>\n Made a run for it <\/p>\n Into this grayness \u2014 to the Teutons, <\/p>\n Having first left your native Mali or CAR. <\/p>\n \u201cRusya! Wagner!\u201d \u2013 you smile glossily, <\/p>\n Digging up your storage holes<\/p>\n With bright pink palms<\/p>\n In the roots of trees, on glades and wastelands,<\/p>\n Among stinging nettles, maples and burdocks, <\/p>\n Among tourists, the experienced, and suckers<\/p>\n Distributing your jewels, <\/p>\n Pre-packaged <\/p>\n In twenty and thirty grams,<\/p>\n And tossing me another pinch <\/p>\n By right of origin.<\/p>\n Brothers, your gifts are dazzling. <\/p>\n Indeed, I heard, <\/p>\n Someone went blind for a good half hour, <\/p>\n Having consumed them. <\/p>\n Probably, something was mixed then <\/p>\n Into the wondrous herbs,<\/p>\n Chemistry! They\u2019d call them \u201cspices\u201d<\/p>\n In my gloomy homeland <\/p>\n This is a poison worse, perhaps, even than literature, <\/p>\n A poison from which youths go mad, <\/p>\n A poison from which they leave home, <\/p>\n Lose their sight,<\/p>\n Brothers, you aren’t blind, but your eyes are red<\/p>\n And the vessels in them \u2013 have you seen?<\/p>\n Burst scarlet, like emergency pipes.<\/p>\n I feel it myself<\/p>\n As I turn into a vessel for sin. <\/p>\n Let us self-destruct, brothers! <\/p>\n The earth will crawl away like a snake from under my feet<\/p>\n Wait, where are you going!<\/p>\n It spins too much,<\/p>\n Daring, nimble, wild,<\/p>\n Like a carousel \u2013 <\/p>\n Haven’t you noticed? <\/p>\n And I throw myself, I catch it <\/p>\n The cunning thing. <\/p>\n And I dive into its nettles and burdocks. <\/p>\n I hold it by the scruff, I torment it,<\/p>\n But it doesn’t give in, it chirps away.<\/p>\n Stop! <\/p>\n You\u2019ve carried us away far too far already, <\/p>\n Even too far! <\/p>\n In childhood I dreamed of walking around you, seeing you all,<\/p>\n But I didn’t count on <\/p>\n It turning out like this, <\/p>\n That I myself would become an emigrant<\/p>\n Without work, without a homeland, <\/p>\n Even love itself died <\/p>\n In the bushes of Grunewald <\/p>\n In childhood I only read about such vagabonds in old novels. <\/p>\n Stop! Enough spinning, enough playing the fool!<\/p>\n But it doesn’t listen!<\/p>\n So, I will roll to spite you, to defy you<\/p>\n From sunset to sunrise.<\/p>\n As cargo, as a burden, <\/p>\n So that it becomes harder for you to bear me.<\/p>\n And I roll. <\/p>\n From side to side, like a top, a sausage, a ball. <\/p>\n The black brothers laugh. They know for certain now: <\/p>\n This foolish earth <\/p>\n Is unstoppable, such is its turbulent nature, <\/p>\n No matter how much of its grass you destroy or smoke. <\/p>\n Text: Ivan Treptow<\/strong><\/p>\n Photo: Alisa Istomina<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here is the translation of the second part of “Charlottenstan.” It continues the raw, gritty exploration of Berlin\u2019s underbelly, shifting from the intimate ritual of the first part to a surreal, nightmarish descent into self-destruction and historical trauma. The second part of the poem \u201cCharlottenstan\u201d by Ivan Treptow is a final and irrevocable choice in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-3779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-emigration","tag-chytac-u-jemigracyi"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3781,"href":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779\/revisions\/3781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG_20251208_211400_11zon-1024x576.jpg\")
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