Berlin’s outdoor swimming pools will be two degrees chillier this summer than in previous years, in what the state operator says is its contribution towards reducing German reliance on Russian gas.
Water at the German capital’s 16 gas-heated Sommerbäder, or lidos, which start to open this week, will be kept below the weather-dependent standard temperature throughout the summer season.
Three pools heated by solar power, in the districts of Gropiusstadt, Mariendorf and Pankow, will remain as warm as usual. Last summer the average water temperature in Berlin’s outdoor swimming pools was between 22C and 24C.
“We have made this decision because we wanted to make a contribution to the reduction of gas imports”, said a spokesperson for Berliner Bäder-Betriebe, Europe’s largest communal pool operator.
The spokesperson said the lowered temperatures were not a cost-cutting measure driven by increased gas prices but a “political statement” coordinated with the Berlin senate.
In a related political gesture, Berlin’s public baths have been free to use for holders of Ukrainian passports since March.
Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine has exposed Germany’s reliance on the import of Russian natural gas, which has increased over the last decade in spite of warnings from east-central European and Baltic states that the Kremlin could use its energy resources as a geopolitical tool.
The German minster for economic affairs and climate action, Robert Habeck, has vowed to wean the country off Russian coal by the autumn and cut reliance on Russian oil within the coming days, pending a supply deal with Poland.
Foregoing deliveries of Russian natural gas, which covered 55% of Germany’s gas needs in 2021, will probably take until mid-2024, however.
Outdoor swimming is a popular summertime leisure activity in Berlin, whose population is accustomed to a long and freezing winter but sweltering summer months.
Some legendary lidos, such as Kreuzberg’s Prinzenbad, have featured in films such as the 2003 comedy Herr Lehmann (released in English as Berlin Blues) and the 2007 documentary Prinzessinenbad (Bath of Princesses). The public pool on the shores of Wannsee lake in Berlin’s west was the subject of the 1950s pop song Pack die Badehose ein (Pack Your Swimming Trunks).
The city’s open-air swimming pools drew 2 million visitors in 2018, though the annual number of swimmers dropped to 1 million in the first year of the pandemic as pools and lidos restricted admissions in keeping with hygiene restrictions.
As the water in the Berlin’s pools offers brisk refreshment this summer, it remains to be seen whether swimmers will instead opt for a front crawl in one of the hundreds of non-heated but freely accessible lakes that dot the surrounding countryside.
