30 YEARS AGO

The worst winter of my life had just ended.

I felt hopeless, locked in a life that would never change.

My friend and I had spent the winter in a run-down apartment, with barely any heat, no inside toilet and no warm water, all the while knowing that we might get kicked out any moment. Which finally happened and now we tried to find friends who would take us in one week at a time. There where no coffee-shops, no bars one could go to and the only restaurant nearby was unaffordable. None of us had a phone, and the internet did not even exist as fantasy.

My friend had not worked in some months, so beside running out of money, she could have been arrested any moment for not working, which was considered asocial.

I had searched for empty apartments many weekends, reported them, but so far without a result. (A good result would have meant, to be allowed to renovate one of this apartments and after a lot of work to rent it) Often we were told, that we simply didn't deserve an apartment of our own - being neither married nor having children.

My work was boring, depressing and utterly meaningless. Slowly I gave up hope, that I could ever study in this country or find something useful to do.

While Michael Gorbachov radically changed the Soviet Union with Glasnost and Perestroika, our leadership declared, that our country was already perfect and nothing needed to change. It felt frozen in time.

I felt stuck in a swamp of denial, hopelessness and not belonging.

This was the winter of 1988/1989.

Six months later the peaceful protest started, demonstrations happened every week, and finally the old man stepped down. Newspapers began writing some truth.

A whole people lost its fear.

Nine months later the Berlin Wall fell.

Everything changed.