Leipzig Northeast at Half Past Five
by Tobias · 18 June 2026 · Biography & Memoir
Leipzig Nordost at five-thirty — the city doesn't know what it is yet. Neither gentrification nor prefab blocks, just light in windows and a dog with opinions. The Nikolaikirche isn't visible but it's there. 1989, candles, Mondays. At five-thirty you can imagine what comes next. At midnight it's harder.
I start at six, which means I'm on the bicycle at quarter to six riding through Nordost when the city doesn't yet know what it is. At this hour Leipzig Nordost is neither the neighbourhood of the gentrification that's still coming nor the one of the prefab blocks that are still standing, just a few streets with light in individual windows and the smell of coffee from somewhere and sometimes a dog that looks at me like it's already decided what it thinks of me.
The Nikolaikirche isn't visible from here but you know it's there, and I think about it sometimes riding through Nordost — the people in 1989 who came out with candles on Mondays, not entirely sure what would happen next. That's the difference between Leipzig at five-thirty in the morning and Leipzig at midnight: at five-thirty it's possible to imagine what comes next. At midnight it's harder.
Read in the app, leave a resonance, discover more stories.