## Many-sided Leipzig

Mutabor, you're in time. And what?..

Living in Halle, I (Mutabor) once had visited my friend Danila, the same who rescued me in the sewer in Chemnitz. Danila was living in Dresden, I went to him through Leipzig where I had seem right enormous number of lost places, among of which I have notices some area fenced with concrete walls with barbed wire above it. This picture resembled to me the Artillery repair plant in Petersburg. So it arosed my interest, I applied to Wikimapia and found out that the Soviet tank repair plant "Motor" was located there.

In February 2014 I tried to explore this area. The reconstruction had alreacy started there: some trees were sawed, but buildings still remained intact. The area was surrounded with double fences, there were some fences also inside, dividing the territory into some parts. The buildings were empty; some of them turned into ruins. At the neighboring area the military food storages, also abandoned, were located. Now there is almost no boundary between these two places, the tank plant and the food storages (pic 1–30).

The river which has not evaded me or the day of the ersatz places

Having visited "Motor" plant (which had not really impressed me) I started to look for some sewers which I had noticed looking to the satellite map. The first one was under reconstruction (pic 31, 32), the outlet of the second one was closed by a lattice (pic 33). The third one, the biggest, looked rather accessible, but a rope staircase was needed to get into it (pic 34–37).

Next time I tried to explore this underground river (more precisely, the mill canal) in May. The weather was dry for a long time, the snow had thawed long ago and I expected not so much water in the river. But reaching the outlet I heard the loud noise of water and then saw an impetuous stream coming from the outlet. One had to be completely crazy to try to go down into the water (pic 38).

But I was not intended to go home without a result. I had got the "spare location" for a case of a failure. It was the well-known galvanotechnical factory which I had seen from the train window coming to Halle for the first time (pic 5 at the page about Halle). But now, about a year later, the factory was under reconstruction. The main building was inacessible. But I had chance to find a smaller additional building which remained intact with interesting apparatus inside (pic 39–45). Coming back I saw an interesting construction: a water tower combined with a chimney (pic 46).

This was not the end of that trip in Leipzig. Coming to the factory, I had notices a set of the abandoned buildings and had visited them at the way back. This had appeared the post railway station, one of the largest in the world (pic 47–58).

Conquer of the mill canal

Later I had chance: in February the water level in the mill channel calles Plei&ss;emühlgraben was relatively low and I successfully went down into the water using the rope staircase. But after the huge portal the sewer became smaller and the water level and speed went higher. Hopefully the bottom was firm and flat, but not slippy, so I could go there. This was a very interesting old sewer made of white stone and brick, with different cross-sections. I could not pass the sewer until the inlet since the water level went higher and at some point exceeded the height of my water mocassins. I'd found out an openable manhole and left the sewer. Some pictures was smeared since the water quaked my tripod and I had forgotten (really!) that my camera had a flash (pic 59–64). After getting out I walked for some time in Leipzig making pictures of other underground sections of Plei&ss;emühlgraben and not only (pic 65–69).

Copyleft Plutonia 2014, 2015
Don't forget your number!

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