Hey Berliners!

The holidays ended yesterday. Tomorrow morning the buses fill up again, the U8 has schoolchildren on it, and the six-week experiment in a quieter city is over.

The weather has not read the memo. This week climbs from 19°C today to 29°C on Thursday — the city goes back to work exactly as it turns properly warm.

And the week itself refuses to sit still. Pop-Kultur spends seven days walking across Berlin, from Wedding through Kreuzberg to Prenzlauer Berg. Tanz im August closes on Saturday with a free dance battle on Tempelhofer Feld, where anyone can join for the last hour. Seventy-five museums stay open until two in the morning. And on Friday night, football comes back.

Three things open this week rather than close: a new exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie, Musikfest Berlin, and the Bundesliga season.

Summer is clocking off. It is going out busy.

— Dr Yassir A Shuaib

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🎓 Apple Back-to-School — to 22 October
An €80 Apple gift card with a MacBook Air, iPad Air or iPad Pro; €120 with a MacBook Pro. The standard iPad doesn't qualify. University students, their parents and university staff only — school pupils and schoolteachers don't. Verify through UNiDAYS first.
👉 Shop the Education Store here

📖 reMarkable Paper Pro — €100 off, to 1 September
The Paper Pro and the smaller Paper Pro Move are both €100 off bundles. If someone in the house takes handwritten notes, this is the window.
👉 View the offer here

🧹 Shark and Ninja, up to 62% off
MediaMarkt and Saturn's back-to-school promotion, extended to both brands. Vacuums, air fryers, blenders.
👉 View the range here

💻 Lenovo ThinkPad E16 Gen 2 — €749 (was €899)
16-inch, Ryzen 7, 16GB, 512GB. A workhorse rather than a thin-and-light.
👉 View at Notebooksbilliger

🕹️ Half-price arcade every Tuesday
Electric Social at Alexanderplatz drops all arcade games to half price every Tuesday, prize machines excepted. Fifty-plus cabinets, noon to midnight — the whole day, not a late window. The games are the bargain; the food isn't.
📍 Grunerstr. 13 — U/S Alexanderplatz
👉 More info here

⚡ Switch electricity and save
Most households on a basic-supply tariff save several hundred euros a year by moving to a cheaper provider — how much depends on usage and postcode. Two weeks' notice; the new provider handles the cancellation.
👉 Compare here

🎵 Pop-Kultur — from tomorrow to Sunday · across the city ⭐

Twelfth edition, and the first to run a full week. Rather than sitting in one venue, the festival walks: Wedding, then Kreuzberg, then Prenzlauer Berg.

The all-week pass has already sold out, so single tickets are the way in, and the Central Asian pop strand, made with the Goethe-Institut, is free.

· Mon–Tue · silent green, Wedding — talks, club concerts, and a campus for 150 young musicians
· Wed · the live programme opens at silent green — bar italia, Avalon Emerson & The Charm
· Thu · Pop Up_Berlin, the independent label market, at Festsaal Kreuzberg
· Fri–Sat · Kulturbrauerei, the heart of it — The Notwist, Sassy 009, Sophia Kennedy

It closes next Sunday at the Pierre Boulez Saal, with Múm playing a new commission called Sonnenuhr.

👉 Programme & tickets here

It's cool and grey today, then a proper warm week – Thursday reaches 29°C, the hottest since the heat broke. Rain holds off entirely until Friday, which is also the night the Bundesliga opens and Beer Week starts outdoors. Saturday brings afternoon showers, right across the dance battle on Tempelhofer Feld. Take a jacket for that one.

· Today · 19°C / 11°C · cloudy, dry
· Mon · 22°C / 11°C · dry — first day back at school
· Tue · 25°C / 14°C · mostly sunny
· Wed · 26°C / 16°C · warm, still dry
· Thu · 29°C / 19°C · the week's hottest
· Fri · 26°C / 15°C · cloudy, rain arriving
· Sat · 22°C / 14°C · showers in the afternoon

👉 Full forecast here

🏫 School is back tomorrow
Around 400,000 Berlin children return on Monday, which makes it the first properly busy commute since early July. Leave earlier than you think.

⚽ The Bundesliga returns Friday
Bayern against Stuttgart opens the 64th season in Munich at 20:30 — a rerun of May's cup final, which Bayern won 3–0. Union host Eintracht Frankfurt at the Alte Försterei on Saturday at 15:30.

🍺 Berlin Beer Week opens Friday
Ten days, 35+ events, 20+ venues, tenth anniversary. The opening party is free at Straßenbräu, Friday from 17:00. The Brews Cruises run Friday and Saturday from Jannowitzbrücke: three hours on the Spree, 25+ beers, and €69.90–€89.90.
👉 Programme & tickets here

🎬 Last week of the open-air cinema season
ARTE Sommerkino closes Friday after ten weeks between the Philharmonie and the Gemäldegalerie. Freiluftkino Kreuzberg runs to 6 September.

🚫 Zug der Liebe won't march
The techno parade due on the 29th is off. The organisers said the security measures now required contradict what a fear-free street protest is for, and 70% of their trucks fell through. Their remaining floats join a rally to save the RAW-Gelände on Saturday instead.

🩰 Outbox Me Battle — Sat 29 Aug · Tempelhofer Feld · FREE ⭐

Tanz im August closes outdoors, is free, and is open to anyone. Street, ballroom, house, breaking, and contemporary are all styles in one battle: €300 for the winner and €200 for second, with a jury including Black Pearl and Kadir "Amigo" Memiş.

· 13:30 · Free workshop with Mélissa Guex — email [email protected] to register
· 15:00 preselection · 16:30 first round · 18:45 final · 19:00 awards
· 19:00–20:00 · open jam

That last hour is the point. It isn't a show you watch; it's a floor you're invited onto. Step-free, no seating.
📍 In front of Haus 104, between the Columbiadamm and Oderstraße entrances — U6 Paradestraße / S+U Tempelhof
👉 More info here

🏗️ Josef Kaiser: Bauen für die DDR — Berlinische Galerie · €12/€7
Kaiser designed Kino International and Café Moskau on Karl-Marx-Allee. The opening night is Thursday, 19:00–22:00, free — and then it runs until 1 February.
👉 More info here
📍 Alte Jakobstr. 124–128 — U1/U3 Hallesches Tor

🎼 Musikfest Berlin — opens Friday, runs to 23 September
Four weeks of orchestral music at the Philharmonie. The Vienna Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, and Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre.
👉 Programme here

🌙 Long Night of Museums — Sat 29 Aug · 18:00–02:00 · €23/€17

Forty-fourth edition: more than 70 museums, around 750 events, one ticket, eight hours. This year's theme is 'Crime in Berlin' — forgery, forensics, espionage, cybercrime, and unsolved deaths.

Worth planning around
· Free vintage-vehicle shuttles between the Technikmuseum and the Humboldt Forum
· Live graffiti at Urban Nation — Age Age and Tomsta interpret "crime" in real time, and nobody sees the finished piece until the last stroke
· An escape mission at the Museum für Kommunikation, decoding clues to solve a case
· At the PalaisPopulaire — a terrace concert at 20:00 and a live podcast on art theft at 20:30

Children up to twelve go free but still need a ticket. And the one that catches people: annual passes and the Museumspass don't work that night. Everyone needs the Long Night ticket.

👉 Tickets & full programme here

SUN 23 · TODAY
· ⚽ Union away at Eintracht Braunschweig · 15:30 · DFB-Pokal first round
· 🛒 Flohmarkt Mauerpark · 10:00–18:00 · free · cash only
· 🛒 Nowkoelln Flowmarkt · 10:00–17:00 · free · Maybachufer

MON 24 · SCHOOL IS BACK
· 🎵 Pop-Kultur opens · silent green, Wedding
· ⚽ VSG Altglienicke v VfL Wolfsburg · 18:00 · DFB-Pokal · Stadion auf dem Wurfplatz

TUE 25 – WED 26
· 🎵 Pop-Kultur · live programme opens Wed — bar italia, Avalon Emerson & The Charm
· 🌿 Türkenmarkt · Tue · 11:00–18:30 · free
· 🗣️ Language Exchange · Tue · 19:00 · free · Travolta Bar

THU 27
· 🏗️ Josef Kaiser opening night · 19:00–22:00 · free · Berlinische Galerie
· 💿 Pop Up_Berlin label market · Festsaal Kreuzberg
· 🎧 Berlin Beats · 19:00–22:00 · FREE · Hamburger Bahnhof garden
· 🍜 Street Food Thursday · 17:00–22:00 · Markthalle Neun

FRI 28 · THE SEASON TURNS
· ⚫ Hertha away at Eintracht Braunschweig · 18:30 · 2. Bundesliga
· ⚽ Bundesliga returns · Bayern v Stuttgart · 20:30 · Allianz Arena
· 🎼 Musikfest Berlin opens · Philharmonie
· 🍺 Berlin Beer Week opens · free party at Straßenbräu from 17:00
· 🎵 Pop-Kultur moves to the Kulturbrauerei
· 🎬 ARTE Sommerkino · final night
· 🌿 Türkenmarkt · 11:00–18:30 · free

SAT 29 · THE LONG NIGHT
· 🏃 Parkrun Hasenheide · 09:00 · free 5 km
· 🥬 Winterfeldtmarkt · 08:00–16:00
· 🩰 Outbox Me Battle · from 13:30 · FREE · Tempelhofer Feld
· 🔵 Union v Eintracht Frankfurt · 15:30 · Alte Försterei · Bundesliga opener
· 🌙 Long Night of Museums · 18:00–02:00 · 70+ museums · €23/€17
· 🎵 Pop-Kultur · The Notwist at the Kulturbrauerei
· 🔊 Zug der Liebe goes RAW · rally at the RAW-Gelände

🎞️ ARTE Sommerkino am Kulturforum — last week, closes Friday
After ten weeks, the deckchairs come off the Kulturforum on Friday night. Everything in the original language with subtitles. €12 online, €13 on the door, €11 with free Yorck membership. If it rains, it moves indoors to a Yorck cinema — the call comes that afternoon.
👉 Programme here
📍 Matthäikirchplatz — U/S Potsdamer Platz

🌅 Freiluftkino Kreuzberg — runs to 6 September
Which leaves this as the last one standing. Open-air cinema, in the Bethanien courtyard. €10 (€6 reduced); programme changes daily. Dogs on leads welcome.
👉 Programme here
📍 Mariannenplatz 2 — U1/U8 Kottbusser Tor

Look for OmeU - original language with English subtitles.

🩰 Tanz im August · final week
The festival's last days, across HAU, Radialsystem and Sophiensæle. Most of it is wordless; where there's text, the programme flags the language. It closes Saturday with the free Outbox Me battle on Tempelhofer Feld.
👉 Programme & tickets here

Language tip: The Maxim Gorki surtitles every performance in English. The Schaubühne, Deutsches Theatre, Berliner Ensemble, Deutsche Oper and HAU do selected nights. The Komische Oper has a screen in every seat.
👉 See here

🎧 Berlin Beats — Thu 27 · 19:00–22:00 · Hamburger Bahnhof garden · FREE
Techno in the museum garden: no ticket and no registration. The final Thursday of the run – it ends this week. Galleries are open to 20:00 with a museum ticket; street food is in the garden.
📍 Invalidenstr. 50–51 — S+U Hauptbahnhof
👉 More info here

🎼 Musikfest Berlin opens Friday 28 Aug
Four weeks of orchestral music at the Philharmonie, to 23 September. The Vienna Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, and Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre — which the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra opens with on the first night.
👉 Programme here

🎵 And the week belongs to Pop-Kultur — seven days, three districts, as in the lead above.

🎭 Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic — Gropius Bau · closes next Sunday · €15/€10
Last week. Nude with Skeleton runs Wed–Mon, 14:00–18:00, and is closed on Tuesdays. Explicit — not for children.
👉 Tickets here
📍 Niederkirchnerstr. 7 — U/S Potsdamer Platz

🖼️ Cassirer und der Durchbruch des Impressionismus — Alte Nationalgalerie · final month, to 27 Sept
Around 100 Impressionist works – Monet, Degas, Cézanne, and van Gogh – were built around the dealer who brought them to Germany. Extended hours: Tue–Sun 9:30–19:00.
👉 More info here
📍 Bodestr. 1–3 — Museumsinsel

📷 Anton Corbijn — Fotografiska · to 20 Sept
The photographer behind Depeche Mode, U2 and Joy Division — nearly 200 works across fifty years. Open daily until 23:00, which makes it the rare museum you can visit after dinner.
📍 Oranienburger Str. 54 — U6 Oranienburger Tor

🏙️ Ruin und Rausch: Berlin 1910–1930 — Neue Nationalgalerie · to 3 Jan · €14/€7
The city's boom-and-collapse years, in its own museum.
📍 Potsdamer Str. 50 — U/S Potsdamer Platz

TODAY
· 🛒 Flohmarkt Mauerpark · 10:00–18:00 · free · 500+ stalls, karaoke from 15:00, cash only
📍 Bernauer Str. 63 — U8 Bernauer Str.
· 🛒 Nowkoelln Flowmarkt · 10:00–17:00 · free · second-hand and handmade only. Fortnightly, so it's back today
📍 Maybachufer — U8 Schönleinstr.
· 🛒 RAW-Flohmarkt · 09:00–17:00 · free · vinyl, vintage bike parts. The one for early risers
📍 Revaler Str. 99 — S+U Warschauer Str.
· 🍢 Thaipark · 11:00–20:00 · free · cash · also open Saturday
📍 Württembergische Str. 1 — U3/U7 Fehrbelliner Platz

ALL WEEK
· 🍜 Dong Xuan Center · 10:00–20:00 · free · closed Tuesdays
Six halls, 400 traders, and the closest Berlin gets to Hanoi — food, textiles, nail bars, and Vietnamese restaurants most people never find. Free parking, and the tram stops at the door.
📍 Herzbergstr. 128–139, Lichtenberg — Tram M8, 18 or 21
👉 More info here

IN THE WEEK
· 🌿 Türkenmarkt · Tue 25 + Fri 28 · 11:00–18:30 · free · prices drop after 17:30
· 🍜 Street Food Thursday · Thu 27 · 17:00–22:00 · Markthalle Neun
· 🥬 Winterfeldtmarkt · Sat 29 · 08:00–16:00 · Berlin's biggest weekly market

🔵 Union are through
They won 1–0 at Braunschweig in the cup yesterday afternoon. Hertha go to the same ground on Friday, in the league — the same stadium twice in six days, which is an odd bit of scheduling.

🏆 VSG Altglienicke v VfL Wolfsburg — tomorrow · 18:00 · DFB-Pokal
A Berlin regional side hosting a Bundesliga club. This is what the first round is for — and Wolfsburg's captain Maximilian Arnold isn't starting, which won't hurt Altglienicke's chances.

⚫ Both Berlin clubs go to Braunschweig
An odd bit of scheduling: Union plays there today in the cup, and Hertha plays on Friday at 18:30 in the league. Same ground, six days apart.

🔵 Union v Eintracht Frankfurt — Sat 29 · 15:30 · Alte Försterei
The Bundesliga opener, at home. The season starts the night before, with Bayern against Stuttgart in Munich — a rerun of the cup final Bayern won 3–0 in May.

🏃 Parkrun Hasenheide — Sat 29 · 09:00 · free
Timed 5 km, register once; briefing in English and German. Done before any of Saturday's festivals open.
👉 Register here

· 🎤 Cosmic Comedy — Thu, Fri & Sat · Kookaburra, Prenzlauer Berg. Doors at 19:00, free vegan pizza around 20:15, show at 21:00 — the gap catches people out. Thursday open mic is €13; Fri/Sat is €17.
📍 Schönhauser Allee 184 — U2 Eberswalder Str. · 👉 Tickets here

· 🎤 Saying the Wrong Thing — Wed 26 · doors 20:00, show 20:30 · The Wall Comedy, Friedrichshain. Pay what you want, from €2.
📍 Grünberger Str. 84 — S+U Warschauer Str. · 👉 Tickets here

· 🎤 Egotistical — Fri 28 · 21:00 · Z-Bar, Mitte · from €14.61
📍 Bergstr. 2 — S Oranienburger Str. · 👉 Tickets here

· 🎤 Meanwhile in Berlin… — Sat 29 · 20:15 · SaliGari, Friedrichshain. Five local comics on dating, expat life and German bureaucracy. From €18.02.
📍 Simplonstr. 23 — S+U Warschauer Str. · 👉 Tickets here

👉 Everything on this week here

🩰 Outbox Me Battle — Sat 29 · Tempelhofer Feld · FREE
The 13:30 workshop with Mélissa Guex is open to anyone, whatever their experience, and the open jam from 19:00 takes all comers. Outdoors, step-free, nothing to book.
📍 In front of Haus 104, between the Columbiadamm and Oderstraße entrances — U6 Paradestraße

🌙 Long Night of Museums — Sat 29 · from 18:00
Under-12s go free but still need a ticket, booked online. Start early — the free vintage-vehicle shuttles between the Technikmuseum and the Humboldt Forum are the part children remember, and the museums get busier as the night goes on.

🏫 Hold onto the Super-Ferien-Pass
School starts tomorrow, but the €9 pass keeps working through every school holiday to Easter 2027, up to age 18. Autumn break is the next one.

🥘 Pamela — Mitte

Big Mamma's second Berlin restaurant, after the Alexanderplatz one, and restraint isn't the aim: velvet, marble, mirrored ceilings and a four-metre Murano chandelier. The look is 1980s Milan.

The cooking, under Chiara Cavuoto, is more serious than the room suggests — pasta made fresh daily, Neapolitan dough rested for 48 hours, and mafaldine with truffle at €25. If that's more than you want to spend, aperitivo starts at €11, and the bar is the better seat anyway.

And it's air-conditioned, which matters this week.

Mon–Thu 12:00–15:00 and 17:00–23:00; Fri–Sun 12:00–16:30 and 17:30–23:30.

👉 More info & reservations here
📍 Charlottenstr. 59 — U2 Hausvogteiplatz / U6 Stadtmitte

📚 InterKontinental — Friedrichshain

Germany's first bookshop dedicated to African and Afro-diasporic writing — fiction in English, German and French; poetry; political non-fiction; and children's books. It has won the German Bookshop Prize three times, in 2021, 2023 and 2025.

It sits on Sonntagstraße, the quiet Kiez behind Ostkreuz that most people only pass through on the S-Bahn.

Closed today and Monday. Tue–Sat, 12:00–19:00.

👉 Browse the shop here
📍 Sonntagstr. 26 — S Ostkreuz

All from the joint portal of Berlin's seven state-owned housing companies. Prices are warm rent – cold rent plus heating and service charges.

💶 €485.60 — Spandau · 1 room · 25.9 m² · no WBS · aged 60+ only
Eiserfelder Ring 9. First floor, lift, balcony, cellar. Part of a WohnAktiv scheme, so age-restricted.
👉 View flat here

💶 €532.96 — Mitte · 1 room · 29.3 m² · no WBS · senior housing
Swinemünder Str. 95. Top floor of six, lift, and balcony. Comes with SOPHIA support services attached.
👉 View flat here

💶 €751.01 — Spandau · 2 rooms · 63 m² · WBS status unclear
Pichelsdorfer Str. 129. Third of four, in a building from 1900. Available now — but the listing doesn't state whether a WBS is needed, so check before applying.
👉 View flat here

💶 €1,373.25 — Spandau · 2 rooms · 59.1 m² · no WBS
Daumstr. 205. Fourteenth floor of sixteen; lift, balcony, step-free. Built 2022.
👉 View flat here

DATATRONiQ — Senior Backend Developer, Go & Kubernetes
Industrial AI and IIoT. Go, Kubernetes, edge computing. 👉 Apply here

Buena — Senior Software Engineer (m/f/d)
Proptech digitising German property management. End-to-end ownership. 👉 Apply here

Tandem — Senior iOS Engineer
Language-exchange app with millions of users. Swift, SwiftUI, and UIKit. 👉 Apply here

CEF AI — Founding Platform Engineer
First platform hire at an early-stage AI company. Scope to match. 👉 Apply here

Superchat — Product Manager, Core (m/f/d)
Business messaging platform core product team. Not an engineering role, for once. 👉 Apply here

Berlin software engineers earn €77–112k. The Blue Card threshold is €50,700, or €45,934 for IT and shortage roles.

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See you next time. Same time. Same Kiez.

— Yassir