Can’t-miss kiss

What a lip-lock it is.

A smooch that inspired a famous mural and is replicated on every souvenir possible from posters, postcards and mugs to keychains, tea towels and t-shirts.

It’s a reminder of communism, but also a symbol of freedom and even LGBTTQ+ inclusivity.

It’s the My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love mural on the East Side Gallery of the Berlin Wall by Russian painter Dmitri Vrubel. (It’s sometimes also referred to as Fraternal Kiss.)

But, of course, hardly anyone knows it by its official name.

However, describe it as “two old dudes mouth-kiss” or the “communist kiss” and a lot more people know what you’re talking about.

Tourists galore

Humanity comes in droves to see the mural, chuckle or shake their head at it, analyze it and check it off the list of quintessential things to see and do in the German capital.

I’m one of those tourists who visits, not once, but twice.

The first time is on a driving tour in one of those quirky little communist-era East German-made Trabant (or “Trabi”) cars.

The mural viewing is fleeting: a quick glance and a photo because our Trabis can’t be parked and left unattended too long at the curb.

Our tour group is part of a rabble of tourists, some have come to admire all the murals, others for the “communist kiss” specifically.

There are school groups and young families, vacationers of all ages, giggling teenagers, art aficionados, and bucket-listers.

Our Trabi Safari guide Thomas Schmidt tells us the mural is by far the most well-known and popular on the East Side Gallery — a remaining one-kilometre stretch of the Berlin Wall that’s festooned with art.

The second time, I’m on my own, early in the morning, when it’s less crowded and I have a better chance to admire, smirk, and reflect on what all the hubbub is about.

Inspired by real life

The mural is a depiction of a 1979 black-and-white photo taken in East Berlin by Régis Bossu of then Soviet Union general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and then East German general secretary Erich Honecker celebrating the 30th anniversary of the communist nation.

Generally, such a fraternal kiss or “bruderkuss” was supposed to be on the cheek.

But Brezhnev liked to plant his right on the lips, some say as a show of Soviet dominance.

As David Bowie croons in his Berlin Wall-inspired song Heroes, “And we kissed as though nothing could fall” — but fall it did, of course.

After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, Germany reunified and the “communist kiss” mural went up in 1990. It quickly became pop-art royalty, a Soviet blast from the past and a harbinger of a brighter future.

See it all

While the My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love mural is on just about every Berlin tourist’s to-do list, you don’t visit the German capital solely for a mural.

You’ll want to take in the greatest hits of this city that was once divided by the Berlin Wall — with capitalist West Germany on one side and communist East Germany on the other.

So, whether you’re on a Trabant car tour, on foot or in a tour bus, you’ll want to get a selfie at the Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie, look up at the 368-metre-tall Fernsehturm Berlin TV Tower, admire the domed Reichstag government building and Berlin Cathedral, wander around Alexanderplatz and Gendarmenmarkt squares and stroll over the Oberbaumbrücke bridge.

You’ll want to eat pork schnitzel and potato salad and drink Riesling or Schultheiss Pilsener beer on the patio of a gasthaus.

You’ll want to stay at the Hilton Berlin, which is an American chain hotel that looks right at home in Berlin’s city centre with its neo-classical facade, because it’s walking distance to all the tourist sites.

Non-stop flights

Air Canada is starting new seasonal flights between Montreal and Berlin, from July 3 to Oct. 11.

Air Canada will operate its latest plane on the route — the new, 182-seat Airbus A321XLR (extra-long range) — which is touted as bringing a wide-body jet feel to a narrow-body aircraft.

The A321XLR has a single aisle with three economy seats either side (which makes it narrow-body in aviation-speak) and sports the first 14 lie-flat seats in business class in Canada on a narrow-body jet.

For more information, check out AirCanada.com and VisitBerlin.de/en.

smacnaull@nowmediagroup.ca