Ten secrets from Hanover

Ricklingen: The world record in Murmiland

On February 27, 2015, 10,000 marbles rolled down a long track all at once at the Ricklingen Community Center. That had never happened before—it was a round-as-a-ball world record made in Hanover!

A spectacle to watch

It took just seven minutes for the 10,000 marbles to run together along a 25-metre-long track with a soccer pitch, past small spectator figures and through a chime across the finish line to the world record. Ortwin Grüttner came up with this unique marble spectacle and made it possible. When it comes to marbles, he is creative and unbridled in his passion. To get the fun rolling in a really sophisticated way, the mechanical engineer not only builds a track to roll on, but also mechanical works of art that have been worked out down to the smallest detail - each one a little fantasy world with cute "Murmis" that regularly invite you to play along in a mobile exhibition. The "Murmis", reveals Ortwin Grüttner after his world record in an interview with the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung on March 2, 2015, "are the inhabitants of Murmiland, who experience adventures in each of the fantasy worlds on display. Sometimes they fight dragons, sometimes they end up in prison." Of course, they were also involved in the world record, including standing in the soccer goal and "cheering on" the marbles on their way to victory.

30 years of Murmiland

For more than three decades now, Ortwin Grüttner has been delighting all young and old fans of the colorful marbles, who can have fun in his mobile Murmiland with more than 50 marble runs, sometimes with cranks, sometimes with a springboard, often with mazes or labyrinths and always with lots of colorful marbles. And there is always some new fantastic adventure world, which the Lord of the Marbles has usually spent many thousands of hours tinkering with, and which are all unique and not for sale.

Incidentally, Murmiland is at home, so to speak, in the Ricklingen district center in Hanover. An anniversary exhibition was planned for its 30th birthday from March 22 to April 12, 2020, at which the new themed rides "Great Wall of China", "Temple City of the Incas" and the "4-cylinder marble elevator" were to make their debut alongside Ortwin Grüttner's well-known and popular marble run artworks such as the marble pinball machine and the giant marble run. Unfortunately, this milestone birthday had to be canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic and could only be held two years later.