Balkan Beats

Dancing to Balkan Beats

Address: Revaler Straβe 99, 10245, Friedrichshain

U-Bahn: Wasser Straβe
Opening times: 10pm - late
Admission: 2€
Website: info@badehaus-berlin.com 

                  

Berlin is the birthplace of Balkan beats - a raucous musical genre that combines traditional Balkan songs with modern techno rhythms. Fiddles and accordions duel over electronic drum beats while heavy bass lines combine with blaring brass horns to create frantic, Eastern European dance tunes. This increasingly popular movement was the brainchild of DJ Robert Soko. Originally from Bosnia, he spent some time travelling around Europe before finally settling in Berlin soon after the wall had come down. His regular DJ sets at the Arcanoa in Kreuzberg soon became popular as punks as well as expats came to swig beer and Russian dance to traditional Baltic songs. Eventually he began mixing the music from his old country with the emerging techno scene in Berlin. Balkan beats was born.

There are some excellent Balkan beat nights set up around many clubs in Berlin. Kaffee Burger, made famous by the author Wladimir Kaminer in his novel Russian Disco, and Lido, where Soko still has a residency, both have regular Balkan nights that keep the people dancing and the vodka flowing. However for a particularly authentic experience you should head to the Hungarian Badehaus bar located in the Raw complex, an abandoned train station in Friedrichshain that has been transformed into a thriving nightspot littered with clubs and bars. The Badehaus building was originally used as a bath house for the railway repair workers. It still retains some of the buildings features such as the wooden beams at the centre of the bar and the high ceilings lined with small windows. Bright murals cover the walls and are illuminated by light fixtures made from ornate bath taps. You can drink a traditional Hungarian wine at one of the tables made out of film canisters before heading to the dance floor in the next room. On Balkan beat night you will find everyone here, from punks and ravers, to old, Eastern Europeans swinging each other round as the trumpets flair and the bass pounds the walls. It is not as expensive as other Balkan beat nights, just 2€ to enter and 3€ for a large beer. If you head there early you can also enjoy a traditional Hungarian meal to give you sustenance for the long, wild night you have in store.