Hotel Sittavia by Vitali Vitaliev

Masochism has become a feature of modern travel. Luxury suites, candle-lit dinners and first-class flights are no longer enough to satisfy the demands of discerning holidaymakers, now looking for danger spots (even if imaginary), where their nerves and egos can undergo some pleasant titillation. They need trials, hardship and horror-stories, which could be later recounted to friends in the safety of their lounge-rooms. This trend has already brought to life all sorts of mass-market survival manuals and guides to "the world’s most dangerous places", numerous hotel rooms replicating cabins of the Titanic and even guided tours of Chernobyl (I thoughtlessly went one in 1994 and, as my wife likes to tease me, my body still glows in the dark).

One such place is Hotel Sittavia in the outskirts of the East German town of Zittau, on the Czech border. Its owner, Guenter Ziemann, went out of his way to recreate inside his establishment the atmosphere of the former GDR. Situated in the building of the former GDR military academy, with grim long corridors and squeaky doors, Sittavia is stuffed with Communist memorabilia and samples of GDR products - from Vita Cola (a politically correct "Communist" version of Coke) to Tutsi tooth-paste and "F6" - foul-smelling "proletarian" cigarettes. The walls are adorned with photos of tin-shaped Trabants, much ridiculed East German cars, and the hotel’s "Best People": Herr Ziemann himself, his wife and two receptionists.

Each room has its own East German theme. Mine was dedicated to ORWO - a factory that used to produce low-quality films and photographic paper. There are rooms celebrating German-Soviet Friendship Society, Young Pioneers Organisation, Union of German Communist Youth and victorious East German athletes (where they probably serve you steroids for breakfast). At the Reception, guests are asked to fill in a formidable GDR entry form and are issued with a grey East German "Personalausweis" (passport). All prices are in now-defunct East German marks.

The owner assured me that the whole idea was but a joke, but as someone who had spent 35 years of his life in the totalitarian Soviet Union, I didn’t find it particularly funny. Ten years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the former East Germany is still struggling with the aftermath of its 40-year-long Communist past. The level of unemployment in Zittau is 25% - three times higher than in Germany’s Western lands, social services are in a mess, and every year thousands of locals migrate to West. In short, the wound is still bleeding, and laughing at it now is like inviting guests to a "Titanic suite" while the Titanic is still sinking.

My brief stay at this peculiar hotel was nevertheless useful. The fact that I was the only guest there was encouraging: it showed that, even among the new breed of masochistic Western tourists, whom the proprietor is obviously trying to target, there is no great demand for the crude symbols of totalitarianism.