The attractive village of Lehde is known (presumably ironically) as the ‘city of punts and pickles’. Calling a place that’s home to around 150 people a city seems a bit far-fetched, but the rest of that description is pretty accurate. Lehde sits in the Spreewald, a district of Brandenburg that is crisscrossed with waterways that were traditionally navigated on flat-bottomed punts, and is also at the epicentre of Germany’s gherkin industry.
The village is built on small islands surrounded by multiple branches of the River Spree, which turns into an extensive wetland in this area, that are only connected by wooden pedestrian bridges. Remarkably, access to Lehde was only possible by boat until as late as 1929, when a road finally connected it to nearby Lübbenau. Today, it forms a not quite continuous whole with the larger town but, amongst tall pine and birch trees, it still feels every inch an isolated village – some farms still only reachable by boat.
I arrived in Lehde after a 2 km walk through the surrounding woodlands. The village is an interesting place to wander around but the main reason for coming here is to visit the truly excellent Freilandmuseum Lehde, an open-air museum that explores the lives of villagers in this fascinating region in the 1800s. There’s little better than an open-air museum, particularly one featuring people in period costumes. The Freilandmuseum didn’t disappoint.
The museum is best known for telling the history of the Sorbs, a distinct ethnic group of Slavic origin that have lived in this region for at least 1,400 years. Historic Sorb farm buildings, with traditional and video displays of what rural life in the Spreewald was like in the 1800s, are fantastic. There is a brilliant film using original footage from the 1950s of how the whole community harvested the cucumber crop. It then follows the cucumbers on their journey from field to pickle jar.
It was the Sorbs who introduced the cucumber to the region when they migrated here from the Carpathians. Sorbs haven’t always had an easy time in Germany, with periodic attempts to eradicate their unique culture. Counterintuitively, they fared pretty well under National Socialism – which viewed other Slavic peoples as subhuman. They were protected during the years of communist rule, and today their culture and language are protected by law.
There are perhaps only 80,000 Sorbs left in Germany, the vast majority in this region of Brandenburg and across the border in Saxony. Sorbian is taught in schools, a Sorbian-language newspaper exists, and the Serbski Institut continues to research their history, culture and language. That said, economic drivers and voluntary assimulation into German society present a greater challenge these days than ealier efforts at forcible integration.
What remains is a fascinating culture that draws on thousands of years of history, and even if Lehde is a little touristy it is an insight into Sorb life that isn’t readily available elsewhere. Houses, then and now, are built out of wood, many with reed roofs. They also have what looks a lot like a Viking design on their gables. These are Sorbian snake symbols. The traditional dress of sorb men and women is also unique, although they did remind me a bit of some traditional regional Dutch clothes.
I spent a couple of hours in the Freilandmuseum and afterwards strolled through the village. It was mid-afternoon and the waterways had become much busier with people taking tours in punts, but also many people in canoes – another hugely popular way to explore the waterways. It took me a while to find the route out of the village, but I was soon on my way back to Lübbenau and the promise of a beer in Brandenburg’s smallest brewery.
Notes from Camelid Country 
What amazes me is that beyond the “folklore” as we see it today, our ancestors, mid-XIXth century lived like that. No running water. No antibiotics. No central heating. And survived. 🙂 Great post again Paul. had to follow again, I don’t know why it’s not coming to my mail. Irksome.
Question: in one of the first photos why are there 5 socks drying?
I think the socks might have to remain a mystery. Human development really has ‘speeded up’ since around 1750, even the changes that have occurred in my lifetime would have been unthinkable to my grandparents. I suppose that will all end once we invent well-functioning AI and can be replaced by more intelligent beings!
Possibly. Yet, the question remains: surely there must be a way to fight stupidity? 😉
And yes, our grandparents’ life was two, three worlds away. My grandfather was born with horsedrawn carriages… I still remember, early sixties, when my parents bought a TV for him, a huge, heavy B&W contraption and took it by train to Brittany.
The pace of change has been relentless. One of my most enduring memories is a B&W photograph on the wall of my grandparents house, it was my grandfather ploughing a field with two shire horses. Only seen in agricultural shows these days, but everyday life for his generation.
I hope you still have the photograph beyond your mind’s eye. 🙂
I do remember in the old house in Normandy, when we kids would roam around the woods and fields, there were old farm horses laid to pasture and retirement. Looking up Shire horse. Probably like a Percheron. Oh. A very tall horse. How many hands is 1.80 m?
From memory, they were massive, I guess around 17 or 18 hands in old English measurements (1.8m in today’s money!). Hooves the size of serving plates!
I can imagine! If I recall form my riding days, ponies were about 12 or 14 hands or below.
I hope some people are trying to maintain the breed. As an example, Breton cows became almost extinct a few years back. No match against Holsteins.
Well if they’re not commercially viable! I think there are quite a few organisations that protect shire horses as a heritage breed. I definitely recall seeing a ploughing display a few years ago using shire horses, but I imagine there aren’t so many of them these days.
Milk production was the issue. But the breed has been saved. As heritage. Good for the Shire horses. Sorry to say I just looked it up. They’re “at risk”, under 1500. Let’s start a suscription.
Only 1500, that’s a bit depressing for such an iconic breed. We do not value the things that don’t have an economic value!
Very true. Anything that does not have a dollar (or Euro) sign is just good for rubbish. A shame really.
Just to add: This is the only place where the Sorbish culture has survived. They used to live in a vast area stretching to the Czech Bohemia and Poland in former times. Rests of Sorbish culture did still exist in Poland till the late 19th century as far as I remember, but it was absorbed lateron by the Polish culture and society. At the German-Czech border there is a small nice village called Bozi Dar which is in fact an original Sorbish name, not Czech. May be this information is of interest for you. Good night!
Thank you for that, it looks like quite a pretty place.I’m hoping to do some more travels in that part of Germany as well as visits to Czech Republic later this year.