On January 30, 2025, Spiegel bestselling author Stephan Orth came to the Wieslocher Kulturhaus at the invitation of Pickup4Ukraine and with the kind support of the Kulturforum Süde Bergstraße e.V., to present his new book “Couchsurfing in Ukraine” in the well-attended concert hall. The book’s subtitle reads “My journey through a country at war”. With his charity reading we collected donations for the purposes of “Pickup4Ukraine – Unterstützung für Kriegsopfer der Ukraine e.V.”.
Sunflowers and Sirens. Stephan Orth’s multimedia lecture began with a photo of a sunflower field against a blue summer sky – the resemblance to the Ukrainian flag was certainly intentional. After a brief moment, a recording of the sound of an air raid siren began, which has been part of everyday life in Ukrainian cities for almost three years, interrupting people’s work and waking them from their sleep – often in the early hours of the morning. This was a shocking moment, especially for those viewers who have been in Ukraine in the past three years.
Little personal side note: Even if you actually know that you are in Wiesloch, so to speak “at home” and safe, your hair stands up. Too often you have been woken up by this noise at night, then your brain immediately switches on and you look at your cell phone. Turn off the Air Alert app alarm and watch “what’s flying” on Telegram channels. If it is “just” a MiG or drones, you grab your cell phone, passport, wallet and power bank and go into the hallway, behind two walls without windows, and wait. If it’s rockets or cruise missiles, you get fully dressed – jacket, hat, shoes – and run into the nearest underpass with your sleeping bag and sleeping pad. This is the program that runs in your head when you hear the sirens.
What’s it like to be in the country? Back to the presentation: Stephan Orth uses “Couchsurfing” to describe stays in Ukraine, during which he – starting from Kyiv – took trips to different cities and stayed there in the apartments of private individuals for two to three days. In this way he gained an insight into their lives and the respective region. He visited cities like Odesa and Kharkiv, but also Zaporizhzhia and a town in the Carpathian mountains.
He spoke about the subway station in Kharkiv, where entire families found shelter underground during the first months of the war. To keep the children busy, an artist motivated them to paint the thick pillars on the platform with their “heroes”. The pillars now show paintings of soldiers, but also of nurses, with large heads and eyes. He hiked through the Carpathians with local guides and later visited the parents of a guide in Zaporizhzhia, where Russian attacks are commonplace. On the way he took part in delivering aid to surrounding villages.
And what do Russians say about it? In his book reading, which was accompanied by a slideshow, small films and Ukrainian music, he not only described his experiences in the country and his personal encounters with the people there, but also provided the context of the Russian attack: Why has Ukraine been in a state of emergency for almost three years now, and what is the perspective of the Russian population? His presentation was rounded off by excerpts from the almost unbearable propaganda of Russian state television, which openly calls for the murder of the Ukrainian population (including children) if they do not allow themselves to be “convinced” – again supplemented by the description of his own impressions from Russia (during his Couchsurfing trip there in 2017) and from conversations that he had with his Russian hosts in the period immediately after the start of the war of aggression.
A big thank you! Pickup4Ukraine would like to thank Stephan Orth above all for his willingness to support our work with this event! Thanks also go to the Kulturforum Südliche Bergstraße e.V. and especially to Heinz, who took over the organization of the evening. We are grateful for Simone and Ines providing food and friendly hospitality in the evening! We would like to thank the audience for their generous donations – they are helping us procure the vehicles that we would like to deliver on our 15th transport (the waiting list is already well filled). We sincerely thank the photographer, Mr. Helmut Pfeifer, for kindly providing his photos from the event! And last but not least, our big thanks go to our networker-in-chief, Malte Rosenberger, who put Pickup4Ukraine in touch with Stephan Orth!
Overall, it was a successful and very impressive evening that answered questions about how people in Ukraine persevere, how they maintain their courage, and what all of this has to do with us.
Book recommendation! If you are still looking for a gift for your loved ones, go get this book!
