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Jennifer Tusun walks the narrow corridors of a toy store in the Alexa shopping center in Berlin with an inquisitive look. Lego game packs and board games are stacked on the shelves around him. But Tusun is looking for something else. He wants to give his nephews, ages two and four, powders that they can use to color the water when bathing. She doesn’t like to shop online, says the 38-year-old. “It’s too much for me there.” That’s why you want to take the last chance to enter a store.
Like Jennifer Tusun, many people feel the day before hard closing. Hundreds of thousands of them flock to the country’s shopping streets and malls for the last time. This year it is not possible to buy gifts just before Christmas Eve. Starting Wednesday, most retailers will have to close their stores, until at least January 10, and maybe longer. This is the only way, that is the hope of politicians and virologists, that the corona pandemic can be contained.
The situation is paradoxical: the closure is supposed to ensure that people meet less often. But in the last days before his execution he does the exact opposite. Many want to take the last chance.
The Alexa Mall also fills up noticeably every hour this Tuesday. Long lines quickly form in front of small shops and shops of well-known fashion brands. Meanwhile, the security guards verify that the mall is not crowded and that everyone wears their masks correctly. The displays and advertisements also refer to existing hygiene standards. Red and white barrier tape blocks access to all seating options.
However, Jennifer Tusun is not very comfortable shopping. “I’m not usually a fan of Christmas shopping, but with Corona everything is even more uncomfortable,” she says. People did not keep their distances correctly. So he just wanted to buy the powder quickly and then pick up his nephews from kindergarten.
“50 percent stick to the rules”
Frederik Jauch is also bothered by the lack of discipline among last-minute shoppers. The 26-year-old runs a store for the fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger. Her brown hair has been tied in a braid. During the conversation, she buries her hands in her gray sweater.
It wasn’t until this morning that he had to tell a customer to wear the mask correctly, he says. “My perception is that 50 percent of people stick to the rules and 50 percent don’t show much consideration.” However, he feels safe because “we pay attention to the hygiene rules here in the store.”
Jauch understands that he has to close his business again now, even if it hurts. “Maybe we could open again now if we had gone into a hard lock earlier,” he says. But of course you are always smarter afterwards.
Politicians are partly responsible for the fact that people stormed city centers in the last days before the shutdown. At the end of November, the Federal Minister for the Economy, Peter Altmaier, declared that maintaining retail trade remained a “national and indeed patriotic task”.
Obviously, the message has arrived. Lara Hasic, for example, made the conscious decision to buy the book that she wants to give her father in a bookstore. And not on Amazon. The 23-year-old is studying communication design in Berlin. In the next few days he would like to return to his hometown of Karlsruhe. She is not completely carefree. Because your grandmother will be there at Christmas too.
Last minute shoppers are not particularly willing to talk to journalists. Many are simply stressed, but for some, the new shopping embarrassment may play a role, too. Apparently, they’re uncomfortable with being one of those who voluntarily socialize with people again shortly before closing.
While there is a lot of activity on the lower floors of the mall, much of the upper floor is almost completely deserted: the dining room. Only a few restaurants are still open. Usually guests of the mall come to strength here after a tiring day of shopping. But now the tables are closed. In order to eat the pizzas, wraps and burritos, you have to leave the house. That is unappealing.
Some come for a walk
“Before Corona we had 24 clients in one hour, now it’s 24 in six hours,” says Guido Paeske. He has been running the Mexican snack bar Bocadillos for two years. But from up here, restaurant owners like him don’t notice much of the latest big rush below.
Some people even enter this storm voluntarily, without the pressure of gifts. Meike Möller and her husband Björn have already taken care of everything for their children. They still came to the mall today. “For a walk,” says Meike, “we had a date in Berlin and we wanted to enjoy the time without our children.”
The couple lives in Magdeburg with three children. They will both have to work on Christmas and New Years Eve. I work shifts at an Amazon fulfillment center.
