Merseburg –
With his ice world in Fritz-Hofmann-Weg in Merseburg-Freiimfelde, Ralf Hellmuth has already become a little celebrity. He likes to make people walking in the street happy with his winter world, but actually he doesn’t like the cold. And that has a serious background: “My wife, who was still my girlfriend at the time, and I were on the Baltic Sea during the bad winter of 1978/79. We wanted to go to Wolgast, ”explains Hellmuth. You and other people got on a bus that probably shouldn’t have left. “Because the bus slipped into a ditch.”
Horror winter on the Baltic Sea: icicle growers from Merseburg suffered second-degree frostbite
They then set out on foot and that was pretty terrible. “We could hardly breathe, the blizzard was so huge. Besides, we didn’t see anything and could have gotten into somewhere else. ”Somehow they would have made it to a place where the mayor found them a small room. “That was our salvation.” However, Ralf Hellmuth did not come out of the blizzard completely unscathed. “Back then I got second-degree frostbite on my hands.”
He rarely needs gloves these days. “But I often have two caps on top of each other because I’m such a frostbite. I don’t really like the cold, although we also go on winter vacation. ”In Austria, for example, Hellmuth was inspired to create his ice world. “There you have small installations made of snow and ice on every corner.” The icicles on Hellmuth’s house will still be visible for a short time, then they will become a victim of the sun and in a few days the whole magic will be over, because the temperatures are rising . But Ralf Hellmuth is still happy that his ice world was fun for at least a few days. “Maybe it will work again next winter.” (Mz)
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