Date: 08/09/25
Mood: recovering
Listening to: Where the Dark Things Are - Kerli
LIFAD and MiG era photo research
If you ever wondered, "what IS the context for this Paul jpeg????", I am trying very very hard to help!!!
Why do you know it's from 2010?
Okay, fam. Deepest lore! From February 2010 to approximately August 2010, he wore a black earring. On stage too. If you ever see him with a black earring on our right (his left) ear, that's 2010. If you see on the left (his right), that he has NO earring - that means he's wearing the 2010 black one on a single side. It wasn't symmetrical.
Why do you know it's from 2013?
Heh, 2013. Listen!! Imagine you're him on tour traveling from home. What do you pack in your bag? No, seriously. Answer the question. You'd pack clothes. Okay, well you can't bring your whole closet can you? Now imagine you're on tour for like ~2 months on and off for weeks and weeks. Guess what happens? You repeat your clothes. You keep having your fancy hotel dry clean and wash your shirts. Your bag space is limited. So you probably packed ~5 shirts and maybe ~5 pants at most. Maybe two of those pants are actually shorts because it's summer. You'll bring one leather coat, one pair of sunglasses, and one beanie. Alright, now you're thinking like Paul. You feel me?He ends up wearing the same clothes in fan selfies constantly. 2013 has remarkable traits of: red button shirt, white button shirt, dark navy blue button shirt, light grey shirt.
Also, in 2013 he changes from 3 bracelets to 2 bracelets...
Corrections
Manchester UK
This photo set is sometimes mistakenly claimed to be March 2nd or from Liverpool. It's impossible. March 2nd had R+ in Russia and Latvia. It's from February 2nd, a month prior. Additionally, it's impossible to be Liverpool because the actual location they're at is a street in Manchester. Which is a location of a show that day. Thank you.
Not 2010
This woman's camera is incorrectly dated and setup. There is literally no show on April 9th, nor September 4th for the entire goddamn tour cycle of both LIFAD and MiG. (I checked both possibilities just in case.) I was very peeved by this photo because of... the black earring lore I just stated before! This is silver. I got pissed lmao. Her camera is 100% wrong.
Because of her messed up camera, I wanted to find a more possible date of origin. At least a range. My thought was the month and year may be off by a year. Putting this at like March or May 2011 or 2012 which would make more sense for the tour cycles. She clearly did attend a concert because on her arm is silver confetti she collected from somewhere. It's not a random moment of meeting Paul. She is dressed for a show, so...
If her camera is off by a month, this makes the more likely answer one of these choices:
May 8th/9th 2011 - Toronto, Canada
March 8th/9th 2012 - Belgium
May 8th 2012 - Minnesota, USA
May 10th 2012 - Winnipeg, Canada
Because of her silver confetti, I was thinking that could only come from Amerika on the set list. Right? That would only make it the 2012 shows in that case.
Hotel Research
I have spent weeks deciphering hotels in the background of Paul jpegs with a higher than usual amount. There's still some I need to figure out. When I did this, it helped organize the folders way better.
I finally identified most of them.
2010.02 - Belarus - Crowne Plaza - Minsk
2010.03 - Russia - Ararat Park - Moscow
2010.03 - Ukraine - ????
2010.11 - Chile - W - Santiago
2010.11 - Argentina - Faena - Buenos Aires
2010.12 - Colombia - Radisson - Bogota
2010.12 - Mexico - W - Mexico City
2012.02 - Russia - The Ritz-Carlton - Moscow
2012.03 - UK - Great John Street - Manchester
2013.04 - Italy - Grand Majestic - Bologna
2013.06 - Finland - Hotel Kamp - Helsinki
2013.06 - Poland - Intercontinental Warsaw - Warsaw
2013.06 - Russia - Renaissance Hotel - Samara
2013.07 - France - Grand Hotel De La Reine - Nancy
2013.07 - Italy - Astoria Hotel - Udine
The brick wall hotel remained unidentified forever to me. I then try "5-star hotels" in every city they played that tour leg lol. The building has an "F" plastered on it that is likely related to the name. On my third try, I found a match. I tried Brazil and Mexico first and my third attempt was Argentina. Third hotel on the list was Faena Hotel and I immediately clicked it because >F. Bam, there's the brick walls. And then a confirmation of the archway seen here. Nailed it.
How did I solve the rest? Context clues. Belarus features them holding the country flag. The Italian hotel had Italian words on the wall. The Finland one was identified by the restaurant in the back that said it was located attached to the hotel. The UK hotel was solved via fangirls on Deviantart who lived in the UK talking about the photos. The Russian ones were solved via Russians who were there taking videos lol. After twice, I caught onto the Marriott and started seeking out their 5/4 star hotels in the cities played. Easy. W, Renaissance, and Ritz-Carlton are all Marriott.
This photo from the Ritz-Carlton is one of my all time faves.
Why? God, I wish I knew. It's slightly blurry in motion. Maybe I just like his side profile. Maybe I'm damaged over a man in his late 40s. Maybe both.
What did I learn?
Every hotel is probably a luxury 5-star hotel. The rooms and amenities are nice.
Average price per night was $300-500 USD... per person.
Management often picks hotels associated to Marriott. They may get bulk rates or something.
2010 = black scarf with floral pattern, grey bird beanie, multi-colored scarf, J. Lindeberg coat
2010 = summer clothes = probably NA or SA where it was warm
2012 + late 2011 = blue scarf, big over coat
The price on the mini fridge food is utterly psycho at many of these hotels. If I am paying $500 for the room, you can stop charging me $8 for a candy bar too. Like damn, offset the costs into the room price. How are you charging this for snacks when you're not asking me for any fees to use your extremely expensive pool facilities? C'mon. One of these costs you more to maintain than the other.
What did I gain? Oh my godddd, I could write the most descriptive, accurate, and detailed fanfic about a hotel with Paul ever conceived in the history of anything. I have looked at every hotel's room suites and dining area out of blind curiosity. The best hotels in my opinion are Ararat and the Ritz-Carlton for most appealing to my taste of where I'd want him located. Yay Russian hotels?? They just have the most appealing suites and bedding fabric looks soft to me and fluffy. I also liked the Ararat's bathrooms. The Ritz-Carlton was just impeccably nice looking in general that I'd want to live there lol. The most aesthetically pleasing is the 2013 Italian one of the Grand Majestic. Wow, that place is gorgeous!! It looks like a girl's fantasy dream of a princess house. It tingles my inner little girl looking at it. I guess it's like the IRL version of the Animal Crossing Princess and Rococo furniture sets from New Leaf!
I love hotels and cities. I love big cities. (Chicago born girl at heart.) I love the bustle and aesthetic. Hotels are my hobby and when I was young, my dream was to work at one... (insane I know). Nothing is more appealing to me than airports and hotels. I wanted to work at them when I was a kid very much. I realized it's because it's like an indoor city. It's the vibe and energy of it that overlaps a city's noise, bustle, and people flow. Simply contained indoors. Looking up all the hotels he stayed at satiated so many internal fantasy desires and voyeurism in my mind to accompany the outside photos. Loved it. 10/10 experience. I really could write the fic lmao.
Airport
2010 Columbia
2010 Argentina - arrival and departure
Yesssssss, the fandom famous child on the floor photo is from Argentina!!!!!!!!!! It will never not be funny and that child has grown up never knowing they're immortalized via Paul jpeg.
2010 Chile
How did I do it? Y O U T U B E. People in South America kept paparazzi filming them at the airport. After struggling through the hotels via doors and walls, I realized... wait a minute hold up. What about video? Why have I forgotten about videos??? I remember some of the gifs from this footage and didn't think to consult it lol. Sure enough, entire 2010 videos are frozen on YouTube in time. Which is far more reliable than broken Photobucket or Imageshack. So I started going through the "Rammstein airport" and "Rammstein hotel" rabbit hole on YouTube for 5 hours. I also searched in Spanish with aeropuerto and then made the genius plan to search Paul's name + hotel names in Russian via VK video. Yeahhh baby, there's the grainy 320 pixel cell phone footage I always wanted from a flip phone in all its glory.
I love everything about this video. I love him speaking Russian to them. I love her thanking him in German. Bless this multi-lingual crossroads of communication. If he can go out of his way to understand you, you can at least try back... right? He knows more of what randoms are saying and reacts better in the moment. It's kinda amazing by comparison of how deadpan the others are because only 10% of it makes any sense to them. There's no reactions to things being said on their faces much, but he does react...
I swear if he didn't have a time limit or a flight to catch, he'd be there for 30 minutes doing this.
Random Photo Lore
2010.02 XXXX Bar
I have positively identified these photos to the XXXX Bar in Saint Petersburg Russia. Random women dressed like this was normal for the bar based on the socmed. There ya go ladies. Context. Needed context. The men there were Richard, Till, Schneider, and Paul. Reesh was hardly photographed with Paul so I don't have them. Till was not in any Paul images so...
2010.02 Royal Bar
Which brings me to a point here, this same range of time also had these three appear at another Russian event bar thing. Same three. My theory is, some of them were publicity pushed to appear at these events lol. I suspect it was an agreement with Russian local authorities or promoters. This does not happen often during this tour cycle. Most after parties are very local or inside the venue. This is not a proper after party thing in either appearance. These two bar appearances are back to back. It appears to be taken between February 25th to Mar 1st when they were in Russia. The Royal Bar ones are Feb 27th. I would think XXXX was the 26th or 25th. In this time of Moscow, they also did the fan photos.
2010.11 Chile concert venue
2010.11 Chile (again)
I have confirmed the street sign in the background matches the sign's designs of the road the hotel is on. Same country.
2010.06 Austria
Suspected to be some place called Club Pi. The site is a defunct nightlife website that is primarily about Austria's scene. I suspect this is from June 2010 due to them playing a festival show that month. The images meet criteria for spring/summer 2010.2013.06 Shiryaevo Samara Volga Russia
I have found a massively prevalent issue with these photos being misunderstood by anyone who isn't Eastern European who is familiar with the area. They mistakenly get labeled Ukraine and Shiryaevo a lot... which is a real place too. But these are Shiryaevo Samara... in Russia. At the Volga river. Welcome to misinterpretation hell over this. Because if you just say, "Shiryaevo" you end up in Ukraine via Google... you see how this happened? lol. Hell on earth for outsiders to the region. I found many random instances of them mistakenly labeled Ukraine as a result. After doing deep digging on the stuff in the photos and background, I have correctly promised they are Shiryaevo, Samara, Russia which is where Rock on Volga was held. And aligns with the numerous Paul-on-a-boat images from the same era lol.
Whenever I think "man on a boat", I have the most intense American brain moment ever conceived. It's complicated.
2012.05 Canada
2012.02 Stockholm Sweden
2011.01 New Zealand
2010.12 Mexico
2010.02 Norway
2010.03 Ukraine
2013.06 Download Festival UK
Not to be confused with a 2010 signing they also did at Download Fest.
2010.03 Frankfurt Musik Messe
I'm having a moment in the LIFAD / MiG folder
LISTEN CAREFULLY
There's three types of fan selfies.1. Normal guy in a photo.
2. Making a stupid expression on purpose.
3. Whatever the fuck this is supposed to be about.
He can transfer his stage persona into selfie format. He did not stop to question if he should.
I've seen enough.
What did I really learn?
The 2009-13 time period of R+ is very poorly documented despite being highly digital. Fam, I am out here studying airport and hotel photos like am a private investigator CSI shit with "zoom, enhance, check the doorknob, walls and building scaffolding, triangulate the coordinates" levels. Send help.This is largely due to the closing of fansites and the way forums vanished with information pertaining images written down. The loss of Imageshack and Photobucket is killing this situation to be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off. Nothing has been properly archived in the Wayback Machine. The wipe of Rosenrot.ca was detrimental. Pinterest is a fucking blight on society. Due to AI and SEO spam, searching keywords is not nearly as fruitful as you'd think. For example, "2010 Rammstein in Moscow Russia" is something you'd think would lead you to forums, sites, and blogs about hotels/concerts with photos... lol.
Because of this travesty online, I have tried to compile my research here so it lives a few more years in a search engine. You are welcome! I cannot tell you shit about your mysterious Till jpeg you have. But maybe my Paul research will help someone else figure it out using the overlapped similar backgrounds as stemming from the same moment, day, or location. I did my best work I could overlapping tour dates (rammwiki.net) and consulting the sacred texts (tripadvisor.com).
I have actually a huge question for ladies who collect Till photos but I may never get to ask them this, sadly. How do you tell apart his different time periods and eras? Till in 2012 and him in 2019 looks the "same" to me lmao. How do you do it? I have to be wrong about this somehow, I know. Because that's simply too long in time for him not to be different. Yet I can't solve it. Does Till have jewelry or clothing signals like Paul does? Does he??? He looks the "same" to my amateur eyes 😠Is this what people feel like when they look at Paul in 2010 and 2013 and think it's the "same" ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ I can't understand it.
I realized when I went down the hotel / airport YouTube footage time sink, that 2010 Argentina and 2016 Argentina airport are two wholly different experiences. 2016 was ~10-15 people and able to get autographs and walk around with them in a coherent mannerism. 2010 Argentina had at least 50-100 there taking up the lobby and outside. You'd think this is a bad thing and signals some type of decline. But not really. Because they're doing bigger and bigger venues and touring than ever in the Stadium tour cycle.
Their Columbia 2010 appearance was so insane, the local police had to be there for safety crowd control. Like goddamn.