Some were very satisfied with the visit. Some accuse Kant of being a bluff and his tomb of being boring. But on average, on Tripadvisor, the philosopher does well: average score 4.3.
“It’s very interesting to visit the grave of such a man. The tombstone has a curious shape. Spotless. There’s a wonderful light.” Rating: five stars out of five.
“Terrible philosopher. Boring grave. Kant was a fraud, with a terrible philosophy. […] Kant’s grave is desolate and gloomy even for a grave. Just stone and more stone, at the back of the Cathedral. It leaves no impression, which is fitting for Immanuel Kant. If you like Kant, good for you, you will really enjoy this boring grave”. Rating: two stars out of five.
“A minute, no more. Just enough time to stop and think about all the brain damage his work has inflicted on my young and unprepared students…”. Rating: three stars out of five
These are just three of the hundreds and hundreds of reviews that Immanuel Kant’s grave has accumulated on Tripadvisor. You may rightly, understandably, predictably wonder: but wait, is Kant’s grave on Tripadvisor? The answer is: of course it is, it’s one of the 348 things to do in Kaliningrad, Russia (and here it would be reasonable to ask another question: are there really all these things to do in Kaliningrad, Russia), precisely the 12th of the 348 things, although it’s unclear whether the ranking is determined by qualitative or quantitative criteria.
The most fascinating aspect of these visits is that they are perfectly identical to all the other visits that human beings make to all the other monuments in all the other tourist locations in the world. Tourists take selfies in front of the tomb, share their experiences on social media, and leave reviews on Tripadvisor, indeed. To be precise, there are 767 reviews on Tripadvisor, with an average rating of 4.3 for the attraction, considered “very good” by the platform (Kant would be pleased). Among those who say they are “surprised that such a famous man has such a simple tombstone, stripped of decorations, just the stylized name in marble, almost as if he wanted to refer only to the books, the essays he wrote” and are keen to specify that they “spent a few minutes in the mind of the eternal and immortal – Kant”, that very Kant, not another Kant. The philosopher who foresaw everything about Western culture, but even he could never have imagined the omnipotence of touristification. Of his own grave, then.
It is titled Beware of the dvce! and it is a tale of "the deeds of a few people, often alone and poorly organized but filled with anger, courage, and above all hope for a new world free from fascism."
