The idea comes to him in the shower. “Why,” SRF reporter Matthias Rusch (49) asks himself this spring, “I don’t even try to get from the northernmost to the southernmost point in this country that is so fixated on money without a cent, on foot and by hitchhiking, and eat and earn shelter?” In Bargen SH, Rusch starts his one-week “adventure that opened my eyes”. He is traveling without a camera team and films with his mobile phone so that the encounters with the people are as real as possible. The result can be seen from Monday to Friday on “Schweiz aktuell” (SRF 1, 7 p.m. each day).
He works out his first meal in the poorest community in Schaffhausen, in Merishausen, where he helps a farmer and gets groceries from the farm shop. Then it’s off to Küsnacht, the richest municipality in the canton of Zurich. “At the train station I saw parents picking up their children from the scout camp. I thought they might spontaneously accommodate a stranger.” In fact, a family takes him to their 7-room villa. “We ate pizza in the garden and it was a cozy evening.”
The next day he makes a hitchhike at Männedorf ZH. “A fancy Mercedes stopped.” But the man refuses to be interviewed later. “It was a Russian millionaire who told me that he had recently had unpleasant reactions to his nationality. He gave me a tenner for that.”
“I was able to refute many prejudices”
At first, Rusch doesn’t identify himself as a TV employee so he doesn’t need the SRF as a door opener, and only asks later if he can conduct an interview. Most of the protagonists are happy to provide information, except for the Russian and a group of men who are driving him in the direction of Central Switzerland. “They were plainclothes investigators from the canton police.”
Basically, Rusch says: “I was able to refute many prejudices on my trip. Also that Swiss are reserved and reserved. If you ask nicely, many will be willing to help.” In Riemenstalden SZ, the village pub invites him to a glass of cider despite the day off and offers him a room to stay overnight. “I helped him with the cooking and in the garden.”
He collects rubbish at the Gotthard service area in order to come to dinner. “I also found a five-franc and I was really happy. And realized: If you don’t have any money yourself and suddenly find five francs, you feel like a king. You learn to appreciate the little things again.”
In the heavy traffic center in Erstfeld UR he speaks to truck drivers from all over Europe. Nobody wants to let him spend the night in the cabin, “that’s their private realm. But I was allowed to sleep in the hold of a Czech driver. Because he wanted to continue north, I got up at five o’clock and switched to a Ukrainian’s vehicle heading towards Ticino. He had already made coffee for me when I knocked on his door. He’s back in Ukraine now, we’re still in contact today. Just last week he wrote me that he lives just ten kilometers from the bombed mall that made headlines around the world. Then I realized what a paradise we live in and how little we are aware of it».
«Travelling without money is more exhausting»
In Bellinzona, Rusch is allowed to grate potatoes for his rösti in a grotto run by Tamils. In Lugano, he is housed by an unemployed fashion designer who is dependent on social security. A gas station attendant at the border can’t offer him a job because business is bad in Italy because of the lower petrol prices. “But he wanted to give me a twenty out of his own pocket.”
Rusch’s balance sheet: “It doesn’t matter where you end up, but what kind of people you meet there. Traveling without money is definitely more exhausting. The organizational stress and uncertainties keep you on your toes. And you have to let your pants down, so to speak. Say you don’t have anything but want to work for food and shelter. In return, you get to know exciting people who enrich your life in a completely different way.»
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