How did you come to Aussig? Do you have roots here, or are you "newcomers"?

Olga: I was born in Ústí. And I wasn't just born here, I've spent my whole life here, with the exception of a five-year break when I studied in Brno. So I'm an Aussiger at heart.

Michaela: I'm the only newcomer - from Türmitz, which is about three and a half seconds away from Aussig on the Elbe. And if I leave out all the traveling around the world and the move from Prague to Königgrätz and from Königgrätz to Prague, I've been back in Aussig for about five years. But we, who live not far from Türmitz, have always been from Ústí too, so I feel at home here. I am naturally attracted to inhospitable environments.

Why are you not anchored in Königgrätz or Brünn, for example? What drew you back here?

Olga: I am a very family-oriented person, relationships are important to me, not only with family but also with friends. I studied in Brno for five years and I love it, but I haven't put down roots there, I still have most of my friends in Ústí. And above all, I have to say that I love it here, Aussig on the Elbe, our region, the mountains all around. Brno is a terrible plain for me. The city is beautiful, but for me it's not my home. So I came back after my studies, found a job here and stayed. Even though a lot of people grabbed their foreheads.

Michaela: It's very nice in Königgrätz, but I don't see all the things that absolutely belong to Aussig - the remoteness, the industrial wastelands, the remnants of success and prosperity. I would probably miss it. I can't imagine living somewhere in a beautiful paradise where everything works and everything is totally cool. I'm naturally attracted to inhospitable environments. I came back here for love, friends and of course family. I'm also a bit older now and can't imagine raising a child in, say, Prague. That I would have to share every square meter of nature, fight with a baby carriage in the subway, fight for a place in kindergarten. If you can do a bit, you're not threatened by unemployment and fierce competition here. In Prague, the competition is fierce. So I think it's a bit easier to live here.

When did you decide to get involved in Ústí?

Olga: It had been bubbling inside me for a long time. I felt the need or the desire to do something. Of course, we're not the only ones in Aussig who are trying to improve things, and I've always found that very appealing. So I slowly started to look around. We started by cleaning up public spaces, because we shouldn't be indifferent to the environment around us. And then, by chance, through a mutual friend, we became aware of the "Participation" project, an incentive for citizens to submit projects to improve public spaces. We submitted a proposal to improve our residential area.

Michaela: I've always been an activist. I started being very active at the end of secondary school and during my studies. Aussig an der Elbe was very culturally lame and still is today. In the years 2002 to 2012, when I was doing events, there weren't many opportunities to listen to reggae, hip-hop, techno and 104 all this subcultural stuff. So I started organizing parties. Then there was a long break because I was traveling all over the place for love, work, studies and education. When I came back, I became a mother a few years later and started living as a parent in Aussig an der Elbe. Through this I connected with the girls and we found out that we perceive the world in a similar way and that this is probably the right place to do something about the things that bother us or that we miss.

For example, what have you already done or what are you currently doing?

Olga: All three of us live in Kleische, which is a very nice area with lots of family houses, people know each other, it's a small village. And we have a park here that we want to improve as part of the "Participation" project. We have initiated the playground and the revitalization of the park, and Míša has received money from a private company to build a pergola. We have also started to organize events in the neighbourhood that involve cleaning up or maintaining public spaces, e.g. guerrilla gardening. We have taken ownership of the place where we live and are trying to improve it to make it a nice place to live. We also try to work with the municipal authorities - if we see that something is not working or something is broken, we point it out and try to fix it. And little by little, we also started organizing other events to bring people together and create a warm neighborhood.

Michaela: We simply summoned up all our courage. For me personally, for example, it was unimaginable that I would write a project proposal for money. But I found out that Olga is a lawyer and understands the "un-Czech", Lucy loves Excel and knows how to do maths, and I can write a continuous text, so it's the perfect combination. Thanks to these first steps, we found out that we could put everything together and decided to apply for the first money. At that time, we received almost a hundred thousand crowns from the Via Foundation as part of the Living Community programme and we were to organize the Nádhera (Beautiful) festival, which has a long tradition in Kleische. We also organize a charity Advent market every year, where we invite local businesses to make something to eat or not to eat. We want people to realize that, unlike multinationals, these traders pay the bills or even childcare, and shape the face of the city. Not the hypermarkets on the outskirts... Not forgetting the Divadlo (o)všem event, where we offer performances for young and old. All of them are connected with a fundraising campaign for an important institution, be it a hospice, a kindergarten or an animal shelter. The link between all our events is an ecological approach. We try not to use disposable packaging to really minimize waste. And I think that overall we manage to keep the events civilized. No arguments, no fights... No one has ever been robbed here. I think that's a miracle when you have six hundred people in one place and they're drinking alcohol.

Olga: We also try to educate people a bit, for example, that theater is not taboo, that they don't have to be afraid of it. Or we introduce them to local bands, show them local businesses. Ústí is a city that lacks patriotism and pride. We try to show a little that there are things here that we can be proud of. But of course this is only successful in a certain social group, you can hardly convince a person who lives on the breadline and lives in a marginalized area that Aussig is great...

Michaela: We encourage positive thinking because people here are just angry. They have taken on the role of victim. They point the finger at those who they believe are responsible for their unhappiness and dissatisfaction. And that's where it ends.

Olga: If we want to live in a beautiful environment, we have to do something about it - and not just wait for a politician or a civil servant to do it. The people here are simply angry, they have taken on the role of victims.

Why did you name your association Promyky?

Olga: Promyka (mongoose) is an animal, a kind of meerkat that lives in India and is very brave and not afraid of poisonous snakes. Parents there buy mongooses for their children as pets to protect them from snakes. So mongooses are like guardians. When the girls and I started to get active and do our first projects, we really messed with the officials, we were often sad and angry.

Michaela: The mongoose is probably the only animal in the world that eats the most poisonous snakes! If he is clumsy and gets bitten by a cobra, he dies for a while, but then he wakes up again and carries on. I love this character trait. On this journey of goodness, we encounter various "snakes" that bite us with a word or a trick, knock us down for a while, but we get back up and keep going.

How did you arrive at the principle that your actions should be environmentally friendly?

Michaela: I often think about how much plastic I throw away every week to run my household. I would count myself among those who try to avoid plastic, even though I don't only store in packaging-free stores. That's why we try to get other participants at our events to think about it with us.

Olga: Maybe it's also because we are now at an age where we realize how terribly important it is to save our planet and educate our children to do so. We have friends who run a packaging-free store in Aussig. They were the first to make consumers think. They also gave me a good kick in the butt. Although I've always tried to separate waste and not be completely consumerist, I didn't think that far ahead.

Michaela: Our experience at other parties plays a big role. When the festival is over and the spotlight comes on, you see this incredible amount of plastic cups around you. It's important that the organizer does as much as possible to minimize the waste and that the stand operators are obliged to provide deposit cups. This has worked very well for us - apart from the fact that we hardly have to clean up, we also don't have to spend four hours in the park with a flashlight to collect all the discarded cups after dark. Aussig is full of smart, hard-working people and the city fails to recognize this.

Have you come across any obstacles or perhaps a dead end - have you had to change some of your intentions?

Olga: We have a lot of textbook experiences like this. In the context of "participation" we probably had our first close contact with the authorities and local politicians, and that was quite draining for me. You're used to the idea that if you talk to someone it just works, but when dealing with officials it often wasn't like that. That's why we were very disappointed at first. For example, we wanted to renovate a park, looked at various tips on the internet about what you can do, what it looks like in other cities, and in the end we realized that we were naive and that the limits of the authorities are enormous. The same lady has been sitting there for twenty-five years, who has a fixed procedure and doesn't want any girls who have no experience with it to interfere. Or you arrange for them to approach an architect and then find out that they haven't even spoken to him, they've chosen a completely pointless company and it's going to cost pointless money, but there's nothing you can do about it because they say: take this or leave it. In the end it turned out well, we have a nice park that people go to, but the original idea was completely different. And then there's the time aspect. We'd like to have everything now, or at least as soon as possible, but then you realize that's not possible. For example, we thought we wanted to plant a spruce in the park to decorate it with lights at Christmas because there was no suitable tree. And it took three quarters of a year before the tree was planted. If we had simply bought it from the nursery and planted it ourselves at night, we would have had it straight away. But I don't want to be unfair. Many people at the office are trying to help us.

Michaela: I've been following politics in Aussig an der Elbe since my school days and I'm not surprised by the priorities of the different sides. But I am fascinated by the unhealthy communication. Unfortunately, the public interest is not a priority for some people, whether in office or in a political position. For example, when we went into "participation" with our idea for a playground, which was supported in a citizens' competition, the representatives of the city administration and the district very quickly referred us back to our place. They offered a concept that we had already rejected in our original proposal. We were not looking for another prefabricated playground. Then along came ignorance of the environment, selfishness, ageism and political mannerisms, and there followed many months of unpleasant meetings where we insulted each other, shouted at each other and slammed doors. It was really unpleasant. This led to the deputy mayor being removed. But we were told in the council that "we are mothers who get off on the good stuff". Then of course there are the official procedures, the rigidity, everything takes an awfully long time. What I see as paradoxical, however, is the dismissive attitude towards active citizens. If they weren't stupid, they could approach people, give them something they want, fulfill their wishes and at the same time stick to their processes and use them as their own PR. I'm fascinated by the fact that we have a city full of smart, hard-working people doing a lot of great things for little money and sometimes even for free, and the city fails to recognize or take advantage of that.

What motivates you not to give up?

Michaela: In addition to my activities with Promyky, I paint large-format pictures in public places with a number of other people. And the reward is that I get a call from the German embassy after the publication to say that the German president is coming and that he is interested. Or when a legend from the graffiti scene tells me that this artistic activity makes sense. Or that it will survive a year outdoors without a scratch.

Olga: A big motivation for me is the joy of the people - that they enjoy our events, that they go and are happy. I'm also happy that we support local producers and businesses. And we also want our events to have a certain charitable aspect, so we always raise money for non-profit organizations. That gives me a good feeling that the event will make someone happy who needs it. Of course, it sounds terribly idealistic when you go to an event with a piggy bank, you feel like a beggar. But the most important thing is the result.

Michaela: It's also encouraging to ally yourself with the public administration - if you can find someone there who is willing to work with you and make the path a little easier. If they open a door that lets you bypass the other five doors, that's fantastic. Especially if it's a person who doesn't feel the need to be photographed in the paper, shake hands, get tagged on social media and so on. When you have to push about thirty journalists away with one hand to tell the president this story.

What was it like with the German President - what did he actually see of your work and what did he learn about Aussig thanks to you?

Michaela: Two years ago, I met a historian from the local museum, Martin Krsko, who wrote a book entitled Unknown Heroes Also Spoke German [Neznámí hrdinové mluvili i německy, Edice ČT, 2018], which is about people who were mostly of German and Jewish origin and were deported after the war, but who left important traces that not only advanced society in Ústí. At the same time, I am friends with Petr Karlíček, the director of the City Archives of Ústí, who is a true fountain of knowledge about the history of the city and beyond. One day I had the idea of organizing art actions in public spaces and conveying stories through large-format photographs or simply large-format paintings that could wake up the people of Ústí. You could tell them: "Look, I lived in a terrible time, I had everything here, then I had to leave my homeland because I was Jewish or German, but I didn't give up. I started living in another country, and although I didn't know the language of the host country, I made a great career there and invented something that perhaps served the whole planet." One of these stories is about Ruth Hálová, one of the Winton children. Her mother was so clever and strong that she put little Ruth in Winton's arms and told him to take her to Britain and save her life. Ruth went through many different families and was very lucky to have teachers who discovered in her a talent for biology, which she then devoted her whole life to and researched. After the war, she returned to Aussig, where she met her mother and led an incredible life until she was ninety years old. If people take a bit of interest in this story, they might pick themselves up and say: "I grumble about Aussig, but the people who lived here before me went through hell, had to leave their families behind, and I grumble about the garbage not being cleared away in the square..." I'm simplifying now, but there's a much broader aspect to the story. Anyway, we painted this right in front of the main station because little Ruth met her mother at the main station in Aussig after the war. We therefore thought it appropriate to depict her in this immediate environment. A seventy-meter-long work by Adela Bierbaumer and Magdalena Gurská was created there. And before we had finished, the German president arrived. Aussig made excellent use of this, inviting him to the museum for a large exhibition entitled Our Germans, and on the way back he came to see our painting. It was a fantastic quarter of an hour. It's a really good test when you have to push about thirty journalists away with one hand to go up to the wall with the president and tell this story, and then also have an interpreter and cameras with you. It was an interesting experience and a great enrichment for Aussig. I think it helped us a lot in the media and I'm glad I was able to be there.

Can you think of other encounters or the story of a memorable person that changed your mind or attitude?

Michaela: I'm a girl from Türmitz, a remote place. Until I was about 17 years old, I grew up in a problematic environment and I knew a lot of non-Roma, Roma and foreign children who lived in the hostel next to the school. These were children from Romania or Angola who were fleeing war and other persecution. So I think it's completely normal to have different-looking friends, poor, rich, stupid, clever. It doesn't bother me that one can't write an essay on ecology and the other has ten degrees in the same field. Either they try to play and live fairly, or they don't. And traveling has helped me a lot in this respect. When you travel, you encounter so many contradictions and come to realizations that change your life and worldview as a whole.

Olga: I grew up in a very tolerant environment and I am grateful to my parents that they never taught me to be prejudiced. Apart from the social problems that Aussig has, I perceive a lot about the shape of Aussig, which is very much determined by what the city has experienced in the past. My parents and my grandmother told me how beautiful Ústí used to be and how much damage it suffered not only during the war, but also during the period of normalization, when beautiful buildings were demolished and complexes were built that now disfigure Ústí. You have to see Ústí in its historical context, that it is not a city that was only built here a few years ago, but has a past. People often forget this historical context. Unfortunately, we don't appreciate our cultural heritage and Aussig has paid a high price for this. It's difficult to explain to someone from a block of flats that doesn't even have windows that Aussig is a great place to live You've already mentioned that it's important for people to have a positive relationship with the place where they live.

Do you have a recipe for that?

Olga: One of the ways can be what we do. Building a relationship with the place in the form of different events that people like and that become an integral part of their lives. If people have a place where they live and which is associated with certain traditions, then that is home for them. If they know that they will go to the park for a mulled wine at Christmas, to the theater with their children in spring and to a festival in summer, if they know that there are lots of nice events that they will enjoy and where they will meet their neighbors. I live well where I have lots of friends. Of course, you can never like the whole city, there are a lot of places that are really creepy. I'm convinced that someone who doesn't like Aussig on principle doesn't appreciate these beautiful places. They don't see the beautiful church, they don't see the beautiful villas. All they see is a broken garbage can, a broken sidewalk. But of course it's also about the politicians wanting to do something with Aussig, to emphasize its positive sides, its landmarks, the things we can be proud of. Which many of them can't do. It would be very helpful if Aussig didn't have such a negative image, because everyone comes here with fears, but in the end they are surprised to find so many beautiful and interesting places.

Michaela: Every recipe from the perspective of Promyky as a small community of girls, pointing out that the city is a place to live and not a machine to live in, is an unacceptable topic for a part of the population. What can we say, we all have university degrees, we're not doing badly, we live in nice apartments, we have cars, and we live our lives like "the mouse in the oat straw". So it's really difficult to explain to someone from a peripheral area, from a block of flats that doesn't even have windows or an elevator, that Aussig is a great place to live. After five years of trying to convince the Ústí community that we really mean well, that we want to revitalize public space and make life a little better, more people who make decisions in Ústí are now hearing about it. For example, politicians sometimes turn to us and ask us to explain something from a different perspective. As one of our friends says: "We are sort of local micro-influencers. That sounds funny, but we like to change things for the better. I would like the Czechs to admit that they too have made mistakes.

Do you have a spiritual theme that guides your actions - a moral compass? Or are you more women of action?

Michaela: I can't talk about spirituality, I don't know what it is. I believe in people. There are many people here who are action-oriented and who, each in their own way, put energy into the city and the people in it - be it financially, materially, with their enthusiasm or by sending me a contact person who can help me move forward.

Olga: I believe that if you do something with good intentions and work for the good of others, it will come back to you. We don't do what we do to somehow boost our own ego or cleanse our aura. I just want people to get something out of it, for it to be meaningful and enjoyable. I see a lot of added value in what we do, as it will hopefully have a positive impact on my children. My daughter is very interested in our Promyky activities, she helps out on the organizing team. So we are also educating our children's generation that it is good to be active and do something.

In addition to the war and pre-war events, Aussig was also affected by the period of post-war injustice. The Aussig Bridge with its memorial plaque is certainly known to many people abroad, especially in Germany. In your opinion, have these events been dealt with?

Michaela: I was recently asked by a colleague from Prague about our relations with the Germans. And I would say that we are doing well. We travel a lot in Germany, we have Czech friends who live there and we also have German friends. I go there for the culture. I love Germany. Germany is a fantastic country and I don't think about these things at all. I see our shared history as a fact. At the same time, I came across a post today that really impressed me. I wondered what all needs to be done so that the Germans themselves can do a mental cleansing with regard to the past. What a national therapy that would be! Today I see them as a proud nation that knows how to heap ashes on its own head. Federal President Steinmeier recently spoke on the anniversary of the end of the war and talked about all that his predecessors had done. I think it is very fair to say now where mistakes were made and what must not be repeated in the future. I would like the Czechs to work on themselves in this way and admit that they too have made mistakes. And that we make them again and again, especially towards ourselves.

Olga: The museum in Ústí is organizing an interesting and quite controversial exhibition entitled Our Germans. For example, German gravestones were displayed on the street in front of the museum. The topic is more open today and no longer so taboo. We are part of the Sudetenland, of northern Bohemia, it is part of our history. Due to the fact that the population here kept changing, settling and being resettled, the roots here are not so deep. People cross the border almost every day, they simply live together. The entire economy of the border communities is dependent on German customers. I don't have the feeling that there is any animosity. I wish the trend was towards giving and not taking.

What do you wish for the next fifty years in your region, what would be a positive development for you?

Olga: I would very much like us to start cultivating the city and turning what is now perceived as a disadvantage into an advantage. For example, local brownfield sites. If something were done with them, like in Ostrava. I want Ústí to be a cool city that is proud of the fact that there is no historical architectural beauty here, but a great culture, smart people and a beautiful and good university. So that people want to stay here or come back. So that the city lives. And I think it would be great if people lived together more, if cultures could mix. I was at the Roma festival in Brno in the summer and thought it was really cool how people lived together, enjoyed themselves, danced and sang. It didn't matter whether you were Romani or not. I want people to be proud of Aussig and I want us to have politicians who love the city and do everything in its interest, not their own...

Michaela: I would like to see a lot of money going into education, that the reputation of teachers increases, that people are not afraid to teach in marginalized areas, that these children get a chance. Thirteen percent of children in Aussig, for example, leave school after the eighth grade. They never graduate. What about life afterwards? What can they do? What do they have to offer? Who will employ them? It is important to adapt education to the labor market, also with regard to the less educated part of the population. I also miss the investment in the Sudeten German landscape, but not in the form of large mines in protected areas where lithium is extracted for batteries that last five years... But it is up to our fellow citizens to wake up, to observe what is happening around them and to address their elected representatives with important issues. I would like Aussig to be a place where there are many people who appreciate it, who love it, who are willing to do something for it, and who do not care if someone decides to deliberately destroy the place for their personal gain. There have been enough personal interests at the expense of the general public, psychopathic attempts to own everything and everyone. I wish the trend was towards giving and not taking.

Promyky
spolekklise@gmail.com
Facebook: Promyky

(This is an automatic translation by Google Translator.)

Source: Mitten am Rande, Anticomplex, Prague, 2022, ISBN 978-80-906198-5-2

(This is an automatic translation by Google Translator.)