The little Belgian town of La Calamine near the German border is one of the strangest places in Europe. For almost one hundred years, it was an independent micro state known as Neutral Moresnet with its own flag, tax system and language.
You have to visit the local museum, Museum Vieille Montagne, to discover the curious history of La Calamine (also called Kelmis in German). In a series of dark, cluttered rooms, you discover that Moresnet was once a centre of zinc mining. The huge Vielle Montagne mine outside the town supplied zinc cladding for Paris rooftops. It also formed the basis of calamine lotion as well as providing the arms industry with a vital metal.
After the fall of Napoleon, when the map of Europe was being redrawn, the precious zinc mine lay between the Netherlands and Germany. In 1816, it was made a neutral territory called Neutral Moresnet marked out by 60 border stones.
The museum has some strange relics from the period when Moresnet had its own laws, a separate tax system and an independent currency. It even had its own postage stamps, although they could only be used within the town.
Neutral Moresnet was briefly the setting for one of the strangest utopian projects in history when the local doctor persuaded the micro state to change its name to Amikejo and adopt Esperanto as its official language.
The state designed its own flag and created a national anthem. But the dream came to an abrupt end in 1914 when German troops occupied the town. Nothing now remains of the neutral country except for a few boundary stones dotted around the damp forest.
Derek Blyth’s hidden secret of the day: Derek Blyth is the author of the bestselling “The 500 Hidden Secrets of Belgium”. He picks out one of his favourite hidden secrets for The Brussels Times every day.
