Since the 72h campaign "Uns schickt der Himmel" in Berlin 2019, there has been a wonderful friendship and partnership between Ludwig Wolker e.V., CAJ Berlin and Agents of Change in Kyiv/Ukraine. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have not yet been able to realize our return encounter and the planned stay in Kyiv, but our anticipation is still not dampened! We last met on May 15th, 2021 for a Ukraine day in Berlin.
Have you ever eaten blini, pelmeni and vareniki? Ukrainian cuisine has incorporated elements of different European cuisines, such as Russian, Turkish, Polish and Hungarian cuisine. The proportion of Old Slavic elements is the most important. Some of the most famous dishes can also be found in some Berlin restaurants, for example at Datscha, which offers a kind of modern fusion. We were all very excited about our lunch, which we picked up on a walk through Kreuzberg during our Ukraine Day in Berlin.
It was nice to be able to meet in presence at least in the German group. Melanie and Veikko from CAJ Berlin have been involved in this project since 2019 and were able to tell us about the first encounter with the Ukrainian group in Berlin. Mykyta from Kiev was also there at the time and is now helping to organize the project as the coordinator of our partner group. Julia from KSJ Berlin - our expert in Eastern European languages - and a group of young people from Stralsund - Lisa, Jochen, Charlotte, Marianne, Klara, Vanessa, and Schuschi, are new to the team.
At a Weltreise-workshop in the beautiful green garden of the Kreuzberg Children's Foundation, we were able to exchange ideas about the importance and significance of international experiences and international encounters. We also learned a lot of new things about the world's continents in a quiz - could you spontaneously name three capital cities in South America? Or did you know that Lake Baikal in Russia is the deepest lake on earth with a depth of 1,642m?
The most important part of the day was of course the exchange with our Ukrainian friends about Zoom! Lisa from Lviv, and Daryna and Anastasia from Kyiv told us about their hometowns, about the everyday life of young people during the Covid-19 restrictions, and gave us a lot of travel tips and ideas for our planned visit to Ukraine.
It quickly became apparent that we had a lot in common. Klara and Daryna, for example, are both artists who are passionate about drawing and painting. Julia and Anastasia are both philology students and can help each other in understanding the other language in the future. Schuschi has Ukrainian family roots and can teach us a few words of Ukrainian before we meet in Kyiv. What we also noticed - a lot of us here have cats who like to strut around in front of the Zoom screen ;)
Are you also interested in a Ukrainian encounter? Feel free to get in touch and be part of it!
Project Partners:
Agents of Change
