About us

The Subbotnik building is a former school canteen of the Dr. Theodor Neubauer School.

In 2016, the idea was born to establish a socio-cultural center in the canteen, which had been vacant for many years. The city temporarily handed over the building to Subbotnik e.V. to lease. What began with cold winter evenings in a very small group at a makeshift bar has now developed into a weekly "Volxküche" (people's kitchen), which on good summer evenings has to be frantically recooked because there are too many guests. People also meet here on other days of the week as part of workshops, political groups, cultural and educational events.

The neighboring Dr. Theodor Neubauer School, to which the Subbotnik building and grounds once belonged, was completely demolished in autumn 2020 after years of vacancy and is now being rebuilt. From 2022 (according to the current status), a secondary school will reopen here.

Self-image

The Subbotnik areas offer space for events and gatherings of all kinds. The Subbotnik is to be understood as a space that is defined by the participation of all stakeholders (artists, creatives, associations, initiatives, individuals, members and visitors). To achieve this, everyone here needs to treat the space and each other responsibly, sustainably and respectfully. For us, this only works in an ongoing negotiation process. The place for this negotiation is a regular plenary session in which we reach consensus-oriented agreements. For us, the prerequisite for this is an emancipatory demand on ourselves and others. For interpersonal interaction, this means a combination of consideration and open communication. As a general objective and main component, we understand emancipation to mean social and individual self-liberation or self-empowerment. A maturity that forms the basis for private, communal and political action and is always to be understood in the context of responsibility for one's own actions towards others. This excludes all ideologies of inequality in principle. This means that sexism, homophobic or trans-hostile behavior or statements, racism and anti-Semitism have no place here. Within this framework, everyone is welcome to use, maintain or expand the Subbotnik. The implementation and adherence to the self-image requires structural working methods.