 There's too much of it, and also way too little water just cannot seem to satisfy Europeans. When it rains, drivers in the streets lose their minds as if it were happening for the first time ever in history, and our settlements are often built in a way to try and get rid of rainwater as fast as possible. And yet, when it doesn't rain, drought rears up its head. Water pollution has been steadily decreasing across decades in many regions in Europe, and we don't really seem to have a good solution to it. We want water, and lots of it. We want it readily available at the beach and in our cups, let alone in our factories, but we don't want to give water what it demands of us. Why? How would you like to die? Hopefully not swimming in Donacana, although that would be fun. Actually, I would prefer to die in Donacana. I think it would be great to be in water and turn to earth. People are building their houses in the areas before where floods. Now they build dikes, and if something happened, they're like, that's bad, but you build it there. It's like, and then you are screaming, there are mosquitoes, but you buy land like in the area where there were wetlands, so you know that there will be mosquitoes. Talking with Jakob and talking with the boat companies, or not talking with them, which is also a type of communication. Yeah. It's nice to have spaces that are close by, that you kind of cherish for what they are and really like maybe don't fly somewhere else, but know also that there is a place close by that is beautiful. Hello and welcome to Standard Time. The show you watch on your own time, because it's digital. Today we dive deep into the topic of water, not just my favorite beverage, but also a living space. I'm Erika Kingopop, editor-in-chief of Eurazine, an online cultural magazine presenting this show. Eurazine is also a co-founder of the Display Europe platform. We feature a diverse range of content from across Europe in 15 languages and many more perspectives. Now, water isn't just the stuff you forget to drink eight glasses of every day. It is, without exaggeration, the most important condition for life to exist, both biologically and for societies to form around. We probably should think more about this, because our relationship goes well beyond the tap. We've seen cities thrive by waterfronts, wildlife blossom along riverbanks and communities rally to protect their aquatic homes, yet, and here's the catch, not all have the privilege to access this essential need, and not all bodies of water get to enjoy a peaceful coexistence with the bustling urban life. Oh, and speaking of bustling, did you know that fishing in urban waters has been found to have higher levels of anxiety? Yeah, they're too worried about the skyrocketing rent prices under the sea. And let's not get started on the traffic during the upstream commute. Today's guests are Anna Momladze Deterinck, a co-founder of Schwimferein Donaukanal, an urban swimming club in Vienna. Amelie Schlemme is a co-founder of Hybrid's Desus, a sustainable fashion brand creating hybrids suitable on both land and water. And from the heart of Bratislava, we have Jakub Zygmunt from Bross, an NGO safeguarding the natural waterways for over two decades. You guys want to use water as a public space for humans. And you guys think that humans shouldn't take up all the space from wildlife. Can you tell us about revitalizing wetlands, this project of yours? All the organization started when the heater power plant was built on Denup, and there happened many, many things. So basically just all the water from the inland delta, which is under the Bratislava, was took and sent to the hydropower plant. So before there was 2,000 cubic meters per second, and now to the inland delta goes just between 300 and 600, which is really reduced of the flow and everything. And there was one of the biggest temporarily or all the time flooded wetlands in Slovakia, and now the water is almost sometimes four meters lower than before. So there was a huge reducing of wetlands species and everything. Why are these wetlands species so important? When you have mosquitoes, there is something which is eating mosquitoes, or it's like larvae, or like as an adult, and then you are going in the chain higher and higher. And when you take one of the things from the chain, then it's can, like we can end it that there will be just rats and pigeons everywhere. Now that you mentioned pigeons and rats, we have both of those in Vienna. So let's go over to the other side of the border. So tell me ladies, how did you come up with this idea of swimming in the Donaukanal? Have you always done this? Is this something you like picked up along the lines? Was it ever illegal? Did you have to fight for this? We are swimming where the rats and beavers are also swimming. It's in the Donaukanal and it's a sidearm of the Danube which is going through the inner part of the city. It's a cold current that runs through Vienna all the time and also in summer, and a lot of people are searching for cooling down spaces and the possibility to recreate. And the Donaukanal is a great resource there, which is ever, always there. It's constantly flowing and why not activating this space with our bodies? That was our question that we asked ourselves three years ago in 2020 when we founded this more artistic association in the beginning which got the title Schwimmverein Donaukanal, which is like a swim club. But actually we are really lazy people floating down the current. At the same time it's not only this individual pleasure, but we also really understood that it has political dimensions, it has a lot of ecological dimensions. So it has all these layers and I think that makes it such an important call to do and to activate this public space. To the question of is it legal to swim there, it is legally allowed but not recommended. That's the position that the state government takes and the city government. If you want to try it, go ahead, but be careful and in that case you can check our website where we have fact-checked information about safety. So where does this idea come from to you? Did you grow up bathing in the Danube and just insisted on this when you moved to Vienna for university or where does this come from? I didn't grow up bathing in Danube because I was actually growing up in Tbilisi. I mostly swam near the seaside of Georgia so that was once a year. I didn't have that much of a connection to water in my everyday life. And then when I moved to Vienna I actually cannot claim the credit for coming up with the idea, but I think it was so beautiful that we could come together around the cause. Then the idea was there from very many different perspectives. I'm not sure how you came to it, but you can maybe tell us. Yeah, I mean we were researching in general like the relationship that you also addressed between the city, the people living in a city and water. And so it was about public baths, for example, that mark a very specific space in the city where there is very interesting social dynamics around it, very specific codes like how we behave, how we dress, what is normal there and it's this kind of semi-public space. And so we kind of just expanded the perspective and broadened it. When you just take a step back and observe the environment that you're in and then you discover these new options and opportunities, that's where it came from, together with this water and curiosity. In a consumerist society, like in the center or center east of Europe, this is self-explanatory that there is water in the tap and there should be water in abundance. But we don't really have that kind of abundance of water and not just because of construction projects like the one that you mentioned, but also because heavier and heavier droughts are coming up across the past couple decades. How do you see the connection with the warming of this area that we have less and less water available? I think one of the most probably, maybe in Slovakia, is that the water managers, their task is to really get rid of the water as fast as possible, so it will not make any disaster. So there are, for example, in Slovakia, they're putting stones and cutting out the side branches and putting stones on the beach or on the sides of the river. So the water doesn't have any, it just goes, it just runs to the ocean. So you don't really stop the water. That's one of the things where this inland delta was doing, that the water just runs around everywhere. So it's supposed to seep in and that should replenish groundwater, right? I understand that's not really happening if you don't have wetlands. Yeah, and when you build the dykes around and you just don't make space for the water. So like it's like on the nil now that they were waiting for the floods. Yeah, people are building their houses in the areas where before were floods. Now they build dykes and if something happened they're like, that's bad, but you build it there. It's like, and then you are screaming there are mosquitoes, but you buy land like in the area where there were wetlands, so you know that there will be mosquitoes. And now a word from our partner. Today we come to you from the Alte Schmiede Kunstverein, a vibrant cultural hub located in the heart of Vienna, Austria. Thanks to them for hosting us. Their program ranges from literary talks and events to concerts and all of them are free to attend. For a complete list of events and further details, please visit Alte Schmiede's website at AlteSchmiede.at. So approximately this like past 200 years in this region is about regulating the rivers because water used to be ever present everywhere, so much so that even in the city where I grew up in the east of Hungary, we had like proper wetlands in the middle of the city next to the House of Culture. Now it's kind of less and less available because we don't have these water reserves replenishing because we get rid of stuff, right? Because we're going to build there or we want to use it for agriculture, but actually agriculture is also suffering from this water management to my understanding, right? In the south of Slovakia it looks like in Edeland. There are like many, many channels and they were built during the communism when they built the Melioration channels. So you dig a small channel deeper than around and then you take all the water from there, which is really funny because they're taking the water there to this channel and then they're pumping this water to the fields which doesn't make sense for me. Yeah, it's a lot of interventions into something that would work better if they didn't intervene. And then you have like when there is rain and if there was a wetland before you destroyed the soil, it's somehow different. It will not soak that fast and you are doing, you are pushing so much money to change it. Would you say it is possible in this extremely regulated, over-regulated system to even make changes that make sense? From my point of view, let's take these, let's say like natural parks, when you will really just focus on the protection of nature. So let's make one error, do everything what we are saying is important and then say like we were right or not. For the sake of nature, environment, biological systems, you have to make concessions, give up something from a civilizational sort of comfort point of view. You are immediately expected to show incredible results with just a flick of an eye, with like very little investment. And it is somehow expected of everyone dealing with the right to do this for cheaper and not hinder anybody's convenience. But when we talk about convenience, I think this really comes in in an urban space. Like the Donau Canal from a not yet swimmers point of view, it's a very pleasant place to walk, to bike, there's trees, there's birds singing, you know it's like a very nice green space, but it's more of a park. So it doesn't have that kind of like wildlife element. You talked about how you want to change the relationship of the city with the waterways, but how does it change you when you start to closely engage with this body of water and also in a way that is not usual? I have a very intimate relationship with this water and so through like being maybe in the first place egoistically driven that I can swim there and it's my pleasure, there is some anchor points in me that this information comes in, like it can land on something that is for me personally interesting and relevant. And I think that's what we can kind of contribute with this question and also with people that start to swim and create this relationship with the Donau Canal. So this relational aspect is really one where when you start and then you're beyond your only personal pleasure, you can really, you're interested also in the bigger picture and I also observed this in me, like this summer for example we were in Romania and there was like a lot of people that are working in an activist way with the Danube or also around water quality like came together there and like I was not so much interested in that before. But now I do have like this knowledge about this place and all of a sudden like I'm receptive to new knowledge about it. So you basically have to learn to be interested in this. What you as a member of Schwimferrand Donau Canal are constantly trying to do is to negotiate your place, to find ways to coexist and also now talking with Jakob and talking with the boat companies or not talking with them, which is also a type of communication. Yeah. You know, you just see how many stakeholders the rivers have, what our bodies have that actually as Amelie was saying, sometimes in the beginning I would look at it as a more rather egoistic like oh let's reclaim it for swimmers but reclaiming by only one group that lives in the city would not be the fair way of doing it. So I think now I always think about it like what would be the new functions of rivers in the cities until now there haven't been many in the recent decades and how can we kind of co-design it together. And to that also we were now recently also in Paris on an urban bathing symposium and it was really inspiring to see what Paris is doing and how they are looking at the river. As they want to be a car-free city now they're looking at it as a waterway that can be revived again and I mean big companies apparently like IKEA already started with cargo ships like going up and down the Senn River to provide the goods to customers. But that sounds to me like you basically have to reverse engineer a sort of chain of relationships from commercial traffic that now dominates waterways at least in an urban setting. Do you think, Jakob, that there is a point where humans and the natural body of water without big intervention can actually co-exist? Or is it better if humans just bogger off and leave some space alone and have some other space to themselves for leisure? I think if we really just follow the rules and say like okay, don't throw the garbage into the water do this, do this, it will be better. Like people want to like everything like our nature is destroyed. Then you build around really nice lake where you want to go swim you build a house like your cottage and then you don't have like this reservoir for like things from the toilet but you put like small tubes into the lake which makes the lake dirty. But you bought the land because you like this area where we want to swim but you make it dirty. I don't understand it. But you guys kind of encourage not really playing by the rules or sort of playing around the rules. The example that we always follow and we are time after time reassured that this is the best practice in Europe is the situation from Switzerland in general sense that's the approach we follow and especially in this gray zone that we are operating where it's not recommended to swim I think it's even more important to be self-responsible and own the thing you do. I mean until now we've been I could say really responsible but also as it's we don't have full control or registration we're not the state we are just a small association so there might be people who started swimming in the canal without having the full information of what we own on the subject. I would really like to add because it's so nice how you also frame now the self-responsibility because I think the moment that you have lost that are just like you don't really understand them or you don't see the logic in them like why should I follow them and so it's exactly this when the city for example the city of Vienna they really they say like here look this is what we prepared for you and now just take it and have fun with it and but we will make sure that everything every danger every risk is reduced as much as possible and so of course like then okay the Viennese as you stated I think they do like this following that but I think in many places maybe in other countries also when you don't really see the the sense of that and you're also not having this tradition of following the rules you're like okay whatever but if you're more in like educated in the to behave self-responsibly then on the one hand you really make your own choices as you as you described plus you maybe additionally are interested in more things and you need to understand them also in order to behave correctly a lot of environmental organization works that they are trying to show them what we have as a nature how we should behave in the nature but then you mostly focus or you reach just the people who want that information then I think there are people they don't really want them information that's for example like people who are driving buy the cars in in like protected areas which they know that it's illegal they know why it is illegal but they just want to do it you can't argue with these people because they don't want to listen and now some words from our sponsors or shall I say funders and founders the European Commission and the European Cultural Foundation the European Cultural Foundation is based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands and they have long been keen on connecting Europeans across borders languages and cultural backgrounds they've been supporting arts research and much more since 1954 they also created the Erasmus Student Exchange Program which has allowed over 10 million Europeans to travel and study abroad now they're bringing together partners from across Europe to build a content sharing platform that syndicates articles, audio and video programs in 15 languages and somehow miraculously also doesn't abuse your user data this pay Europe offers content on politics, culture, community and so much more it also brings you this very talk show Standard Time produced by one of the co-founders Eurazine this all wouldn't be possible without the support of the Creative Europe Program of the European Union thanks folks now let's get back to where we were before so because water is at the core of the whole discourse about climate change right do you think that there's a climate awareness or environmental awareness component to swimming and engaging in this old school sense of tourism let's say you go to a museum you go there really with a different openness and open mind and open heart maybe also and I think the point is also when you go to a different country for example or a different place that you don't know you also you go there and you kind of have less of your luggage of your mental luggage and perspectives that you bring there of course it might be that the that the walls are getting even bigger because then the people living there complain like ah these tourists with their weird opinions and what they want to do in my space and of course anything could happen in that sense but and of course we are also in an interesting position with the with the boat companies at the dunal canal there's no transport of any kind of goods or or stuff it's really only tourists going up and down on these boats also in switzerland for example a lot of tourists I know people that visited different cities in in switzerland they are amazed by this river swimming culture and for them it's like really getting something very specific also about that place and then also the local people feel like oh yeah look what we show them like we jump with we put our business dress into our swim bags and we swim down to our work and tourists find this cool or they they write about that and stuff so I think it like if you catch the right angle it can be have a very positive effect and at the same time of course like it's nice to have spaces that are close by that you kind of cherish for what they are and really like maybe don't fly somewhere else but know also that there is a place close by that it's beautiful that's maybe the other part of the tourism aspect that this can cover you know is the relationship of the city and the river very different in bilisi as we were saying judging just from like looking at the color of the water also knowing that there are no centralized wastewater cleaning plants I would assume that it is both illegal and not safe to swim in the water of the Dukwari river it's quite a beautiful river and spends over many countries there are some other cities in Georgia that have more direct connection to their waters which is for example Kutaisi the second biggest city in Georgia it has this beautiful Rihoni river the piers are look more natural they're not kind of in this concrete walls and without any access actual literal access to the water so whenever I go to that city I feel like I can have a more personal relation to the water you have also reflooded former wetlands that have been dried up is there a community that reacted well to this? I don't know if I mentioned here but we talked about it before that all in this inland delta they mostly changed the the three species we were grown there from like like popular like black poplar or salics or this kind of which you find in the flat plain forest to the not native one because they're like not making so many branches they are straight and you can easily easily change them which is also not good for the for anything but at least they they also need water and there like for example there is one guy who is like company in like in a logging and last time we met and he was showing us like how to recreate some wetlands because they need the water anyway you like the water will sometimes come there but because they sometimes buried the the inflows so now the water is not there and they see that they are not able to grow or to plant the trees which will survive so they see it from the economical for sure that they are not because of the any other animals which which normally lives there but it's like good start like hunters are half half it's like everywhere you find people who like understand it and then people who don't like it like hunters they have to go there buy cars everywhere so when there is like everything is flooded they are not so happy so it's also depending on the people and and their knowledge so it's you can't say like hunters are bad people from forestry is bad like it's it's personal this program is presented by eurozine an online magazine bringing your reads from more than a hundred partner publications and across dozens of european languages this talk show is a display europe production a content sharing platform that offers content on politics culture community and so much more display europe also miraculously doesn't abuse your user data shocker right now if you like what you see and wish to support our work please go to patreon.com that is eurozine the magazine presenting this show you can pledge as little as three euros a month or whatever you can afford you'll get access to bonus materials invitations to the taping of the show and even get to suggest topics and questions this program is co-funded by the creative europe program of the european union and the european cultural foundation importantly the views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors and the speakers they do not necessarily reflect those of the european union or the european education and culture executive agency neither the european union nor the ea cea can be held responsible for them