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Champagne-sur-Seine

Sorry, bubbly-lovers, this is not a post about a quaint village we visited to taste some of that French nectar of the gods. Champagne-sur-Seine is a small town not too far from us, with an interesting (well, to us; you may find this quite boring) 20th century.

Those of you who suffered through my last Berlin blog will recall that Craig and I spent a day tracking down historic industrial buildings in Berlin, because the first real “factory that looks like a factory” was built there in 1910, designed by Peter Behrens. So when, a couple days ago Laurie and I drove through Champange-sur-Seine, which friends had told us was kind of gritty and not interesting, we perked up when we drove past some beautiful factory buildings. They were obviously pre-Behrens, because, as big as they were, they weren’t really industrial-looking. Today, we returned to take a closer look.

In 1903, the Schneider Company, which manufactured electrical equipment, chose Champagne-sur-Seine for a new factory. The company built a huge factory and warehouse, and other companies followed. By 1923, Schneider employed 1,500 people in its factories, and the town had grown from 600 inhabitants to over 3,200. After the Russian revolution, the company brought workers from Russia; Champagne-sur-Seine still has a Russian Orthodox Church. Schneider also built a large number of apartments for its workers.

Schneider ceased operations in this plant in the 1990s. The buildings now have some industrial occupants, but employment has never come close to its peak with Schneider.

First, the Schneider buildings:

One of the apartment buildings Schneider built for its employees.

As we walked around the area, once jammed with other electric-industry-related companies, Laurie said, "This is a ghost town," and indeed it is. Many warehouses and factories remain, but few are occupied.

One interesting thing: the companies that have occupied these hundred-year old buildings are almost all high-tech companies, serving the electronic sector that was birthed by the electric industry. So what Schneider started in 1903 continues in a way. As we walked around the town we came across a sports complex, now quite rundown, as the city and country just doesn't have the money to keep up a facility built when the town boomed. There are still tennis courts (in good shape and well-used, as tennis is popular here), a rugby field, soccer pitch, and play areas for kids. In the middle of this complex, for my bike-riding readers (that's you, yakibiker) a velodrome, not in good shape at all:

Champagne-sur-Seine has some beauty and style, too:

All in all, an interesting town that has fallen on bad times. One part of what we were told is true: it's kind of gritty. But it also has an interesting past and some fine ghosts. We liked it a lot.