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Altentreptow (dpa) - Before the eyes of numerous onlookers, the spectacular lifting of a huge boulder began in Altentreptow near Neubrandenburg.
After a good hour of work with four hydraulic high-performance presses, the 400-tonne natural monument moved slightly upwards on Thursday just before noon.
“He's floating,” shouted Mayor Volker Bartl (non-party), visibly relieved.
Three years ago he launched the project around the giant colossus, which is to attract visitors in the future.
The natural monument is to be raised by almost three meters, because the roughly eight-meter-long colossus with the dimensions of a single-family house only protruded about half of its height from the ground. Altentreptow expects to be a magnet for visitors in the renovated park on the Klosterberg, because experts estimate that it is Germany's second largest boulder in the area of the northern ice ages. The final height should be reached on Friday afternoon.
“You only do something like this once in a lifetime,” explained Helmut Glomb from the Berlin-based hydraulic company A&K, slings and hoists.
The 58-year-old pushes the decisive levers for all four hydraulic presses, which push the special construction with stone upwards millimeter by millimeter.
Specialists like him have already lifted many bridges, but also worked on the glass facade of the Paul-Löbe-Haus in Berlin, as he said.
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When it is fully raised, the boulder should be measured, explained Karsten Schütze from the MV State Geological Office.
By early Thursday afternoon it was possible to lift the "Big Stone" a good meter.
How complicated the whole thing is was shown on the side.
Old concrete road slabs were piled up on a foundation.
On top of them lie two heavy steel girders from which the colossus hangs in two special ropes.
These concrete slabs have sagged severely from the pressure.
"But that has now settled down," says Glomb.
Most of the visitors were infected by the mayor's delight.
He had toasted with champagne with construction manager Roland Thoma the first time he was floating.
The glasses were then thrown against the granite giant.
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"The stone is around two billion years old and came here from Sweden with the Vistula Ice Age around 25,000 years ago," said Schütze.
At that time, the giant boulder was only a small stone compared to the ice sheets, which in Scandinavia had heights of up to 3000 meters.
When the ice retreated, the "Big Stone" stayed in Altentreptow.
In first place so far is the "Kleine Markgrafenstein" south of Berlin, whose weight is estimated at around 470 tons.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210506-99-493662 / 3
Big Stone
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Altentreptow