Treptower Park. The suburbs of Berlin. The bank of the River Spree. Turn from the road and take a walk down a long, forested lane – trees on one side and allotments on the other. As you leave the road behind the rumble of traffic gives way to another, stranger sound: the screaming of metal against metal.

Ahead of you, guarded by a tall and well-maintained fence, is what remains of Spreepark; a theme park from the glory days of socialism in East Berlin. There’s little left now. Rides moulder in the undergrowth. Rollercoaster rails turn slowly to rust. The grand wheel, the brakes of which failed some years ago, turns slowly in the wind, screeching as it does so.

It is still possible to visit the park. It’s even open to the public on occasion for concerts and other one-off events. For most of the year, however, it sits silent and steadily decaying, visited only by curious tourists and locals who can remember what it once used to be.

1. The Wheel

As you watch the wheel turn it’s tempting to think that it might be possible, still, to ride it. Climb aboard, hold on tight, and the wind would slowly but surely push the great structure through a full revolution. What a view you’d have of the wreckage from so far up above!

This is not an advisable course of action. One security guard remembers a time when he had to rescue an elderly woman who had crept into the park at night and become stranded in a gondola far above the ground. Fond memories of the park of her youth had prompted her to return, and try to ride the wheel just one last time.

2. The Teacup Ride

The teacup ride is familiar. Perhaps the same model as other rides you’ve been on in other theme parks in other parts of the world. This one, however, is decayed and ridden with holes, stripped back to bare wood and plastic. And yet it works, still. The teacups rotate. The turntables rattle around on their bearings. The tour guide invites you to climb aboard. Abandoned for two decades, it still hasn’t seen its last batch of riders yet.

3. The Rollercoaster

Once upon a time this was among the tallest rollercoasters in the world. Now, broken and rusting, it appears laughably small. Even quaint. Imagine, however, the experience of someone from East Berlin climbing aboard this contraption. For someone with little knowledge of the existence of Disneyland, of western rides, of more modern, dangerous thrills… for them it must have seemed an imposing and impressive structure.

4. The Dinosaurs

There are several dinosaurs scattered throughout the park, missing tails and heads. Some are toppled on their sides, their ribs caved in, their bellies open to the world. They are toothless and scrawled with graffiti, every bit a pathetic a sight as the marooned swan boats, the landlocked pirate ship, the log flume that hasn’t flowed for almost twenty years.

Plastic and fibreglass outlast concrete. They outlast plaster and wood. When human civilisation ends and nature reclaims the cities, two of the last buildings to crumble will be the Cinderella Castles in Disney World and Disneyland. They are two of very few structures in the world made largely from fibreglass. Our theme parks may well be, in the end, the last things that remain.