I’m on the train from Paris to Berlin and I’m noticing little areas beside the tracks with little shacks and gardens. Are these little cabins?

by gepinniw

13 comments

  1. They are garden shacks. People can rent them if they have no own garden at their house but still want one.

    The name in German is “Schrebergarten”.

  3. I don’t know the correct name but this is basically a place people buy and just chill there , grow some vegetables and barbecue. AFAIK This is basically like a county side cabin. The only thing is that it can’t be your main place of residence

  5. Others have already said, it’s “Schrebergärten” (Schreber-Gardens, named after their Inventor Moritz Schreber)

    They are very cheap and basically are supposed to be a sort of low-cost getaway for people in appartments, so that you can still have a nice little garden to hang out and do Barbecues in the summer.

    HOWEVER: You also have to uphold them rigorously, you can’t have hedges too high as they have to be viewable from the pathway (so that people can take walks through the park and look at the nice gardens). There are also a bunch of regulations on what you can and can’t grow there, and a certain percentage of the land HAS to be used for crop-growing (I think like 40%).

  6. It’s the hideouts where we Germans store our small daily resentments and secondary or implicit prejudices. Usually they get brought out only in wintertime, in times of national crisis, or for unexpected random but regular display.

  11. “Schrebergärten” or allotments as others have mentioned.

    As for why they are often located near train tracks: Historically, many workers were stationed near the tracks to operate switches or signals. These individuals had to stay close to the tracks throughout the day, so they used the surrounding plots of land to grow vegetables, which they could sell to supplement their income. Over time, these small farms evolved into the allotments we see today. In most cases, they are now used primarily for recreational purposes.

  12. Reminds me of sitting behind a couple on the train, that were obviously visiting Germany for the first time. Guy says “Look babe, these German slums look so nice.”

  13. It’s where the poor people of Germany live. Didn’t you know?

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