Today I read that the Stadtfarm in Landschaftspark Herzberge has to close for good due to income losses - missing sales to the catering industry, fewer customers, and rising energy costs.¹ That’s a real loss for the area, because the concept of aquaponics is really fascinating.² By utilizing natural cycles, the breeding of edible fish (African catfish³) is combined with the cultivation of vegetables. The liquid excretions of the catfish serve as valuable plant fertilizer: they pass through a biofilter, where bacteria convert the ammonium into nitrate. The water is then used to feed tomatoes, peppers, chilies, and herbs, before cycling back to the fish. It’s a closed-loop system that works without soil or additional irrigation.⁴

At the beginning of the year, I wandered through Tegel and visited a small piece of Russian soil: the Russian Orthodox cemetery. The whole area has an interesting history, and it’s the only church of the Russian Orthodox community in Berlin-Tegel.¹

The initiative for the cemetery goes back to the “Bruderschaft des heiligen Fürsten Wladimir,” a brotherhood that is still active today. They bought the property for 30,000 marks in 1892, at a time when the Russian community in Berlin was growing. In addition to the cemetery and chapel, the brotherhood erected several buildings, including greenhouses, a typesetter’s workshop, and a library.² At the center of the graveyard stands the St. Constantine and Helena Church, built in 1894 as a replica of Moscow’s St. Basil’s Cathedral. The chapel once housed precious icons, but these were lost through robbery. I haven’t seen the chapel yet, but I’ve read that it has a beautiful iconostasis - maybe I’ll get to see it someday.

Yesterday I read an article¹ about Saharan sand reaching Berlin on the wind. This meteorological effect is pretty rare in the north, and I was curious to see how orange-red the sky might get. So I walked to Rummelsburger Bucht, hoping to catch the dawn. Unfortunately, it was too foggy and cloudy. There were some interesting colors for a brief moment, but I wasn’t fast enough to get a good picture. It’s funny how even when nature doesn’t put on the show you expect, the anticipation itself makes you see your surroundings differently. I found myself looking up at the sky more than usual, searching for hints of color that might not have been there at all.