A little bit out of the center of town, the Treptower Park is a popular place in the south of the city. The park is huge (88,2 ha) and run along the Spree River. This is the place to have a beer, sit in the grass for a pic-nic, dance in the riverside beer garden or go on a tour boat that go up and down the river. The park was created in 1876 and carried on by Johann Gustav Meyer. In 1919, 15,000 striking workers forgathered here under Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. In the heart of the Park lies the Soviet Union's memorial. The memorial is impressive. It is dedicated to the 5,000 soviet soldiers killed in action who were buried here. It was built from 1947 until 1949 in a monumental Stalin style. It took 1,200 workers to build it. Even though its on German soil, this is a monument built by the Soviets to remember the heavy losses they suffered at the hands of Germany. The body ot the memorial is flanked by 16 sarcophagi representing the then 16 Soviets states. It is made up of a serie of carved stone relief panels that togheter tell the story of war against Germany, each inscribed with quotes from Stalin. One row of the structure has those captions in Russian, the other in German. A huge statue of a Soviet soldier stands on top of a small chapel type building filled with flowers on a hill. The soldier is holding a sword with one hand and clutching a child with the other arm. He is standing on a broken swastika. A vast concourse slopes up to a viewing platform which is flanked by two huge triangles Russian Flags of red granite, reportedly taken from Hitler's New Chancellory, each accompanied by statues of kneeling soldiers. This is highly thought-provoking landscape gardening on a big scale and all without a single piece of religious symbolism. Not so far, the Archenhold Observatory is the oldest and largest observatory in Germany. Built in 1896 for an art exhibition, it became an observatory in 1909. It was here that Albert Einstein held his first lecture on the Theory of Relativity in 1915. Next to the observatory there is a planetarium where visitors can admire the world's longest refractor telescope : 21 Meters. If you walk far enough through the park, you’ll pass the Gasthaus Zenner a riverside beer garden dancing, which also contains a Burger King and arrive at the high bridge. The Insel der Jugend (Island of the Youth) is also a worth a trip. There’s a tiny bar in the woods and places for kids to mess around. The Insel’s large and grimy main building is a youth center and often has bands and film programs. Further, behind fences, the spectre of the Spreewald Park. The popular East German theme park. Opened Oktober 4th, 1969 the park went bankrupt in 1991. The owner disapered in Peru. http://www.spreepark.de/spreepark/