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Katerina Ananyeva
First day in Landau. Welcome to Wine Capital of Germany! [0] - 10.07.2025
The first day of European Citizens Convention was devoted to welcoming. But before that, one should get to Landau. I, personally, came by train. I love trains, it`s such an adventure to get up early, came to the railway station, buy a cup of coffee and drink it before the train and in the train. How exciting is it passing through countryside, small mountains and fields!You can think of yourself like Dickens travelling along England or any other great person travelling somewhere. In Magdeburg, North-East which I left on the morning was about +5 and after 5 hours in train I was welcomed by wonderful warm weather of South- West Germany.
Landau didn`t seem so welcoming, I was lost on the way to Kulturpalast, the office of Citizens of Europe. And, to be honest, that happened twice. But, as everywhere, people seemed quite open to help. My first impression of a town was: ”God, it`s like any other Russian south town on Black Sea !“. That is partly true, especially in terms of weather and lots of green.
The office, which I reached in 40 minutes, was probably empty, only the participants, who, like me, came in wrong time, between two big town tours. I was just I time to catch the last one. The tour guide seemed quite interesting in his own subject and we`ve heard his favorite stories from Landau history. One of them was about the main street, renamed about 4 times depending on the rulings (that of French, Bavarian and German, plus local). The heat point was a story of one of SS- officers, whose father was for communists and, he, himself, a Nazi killed by communists.
Another story was concerned the town gates. There are two. Both have the Luis XIV` face on the façade, but one, built by the French show him smiling, and the other, built by the Germans – grinning.
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Actually, there are lots of stories concerning Landau. Another one, worth of mentioning, is that they have special secret society with its own language and meetings only for the members. Just like in Tolstoy`s War and Peace. After the excursion there was an exhibition opening. One of the issues was about practicum, which became a big problem for almost all European students. After graduating one cannot expect to get a job easily. He or she should spend almost a year for practicum, which is in most cases is not paid. That means that you work for someone for nothing, only for the line in resume! The artist has spent lots of time travelling in Europe and collecting the stories of such students. Most of them are journalists, which couldn`t be left unmentioned.
Another artist is making nutcrackers. She searches for volunteers, interested in making
nutcrackers, they are making one all together and then – she present this ready-made piece of art to the city/ town where it was made. That is one of such, presented to Landau.
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The third exhibition was concerned children`s view on Europe and its problems. But, apart from European problems, some of the pictures tell us a child`s vision on world`s catastrophes, such as last year`s ecological one near Mexico.
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Last point in our first day program was welcoming by the mayor, the rector of local university and other town`s heads, plus an overview of future program. The speeches flood was mixed with songs and performances. As for me, I find this way a good idea, because just listening to speeches will bore to death and nothing more, but some kind of entertainment could keep an attention. However, one of the participants was not so happy to have “some kind of cabaret instead of seriousness”. And this position is easy to understand too.
Probably, what was that all were looking forward to, was the wine tasting after speeches. That was my first wine tasting in life, and I was waiting for it. During the 2 hours of fine wine and snacks I`ve met all the participant, learnt that there were lots of the Hungarians, pair of the Finnish, the Bulgarians, the Austrians, the French… and, sorry not to mention all other countries. The whole Europe came to meet in one place. And that was Landau, a town with rich history, a town that was French, Bavarian and German, a perfect place to discuss the problem of volunteering in Europe and to exchange your ideas.
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