the source

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Christoph Rehage

Brigach and Breg

Donaueschingen wasn’t far. First I reached the convolution of Brigach and Breg, the two rivers that formed the Danube. Then I reached the official source.

I’m stressing the fact that it was the official source of the Danube because hydrologically, it was anything but. The real, confirmed source of the Danube was about 40km away, in a place where the river Breg came out of the mountains.

But some time over the last few centuries, people had somehow come to the agreement that this place right here was going to be the official source of the Danube. And so they had built a nice well around it. Added some statues. Tossed some coins into the well. Etc.

Slava Ukraini

The Caboose and I hung out by the well for a while. Then, suddenly, an old lady started talking to me in Russian. She was from Ukraine, she told me. Slava Ukraini, I said. “Geroyam Slava,” she replied. Could I take a picture of her?

Only to my surprise she didn’t want a picture of herself with the source of the Danube, no. She wanted one with a Jesus on a cross sculpture on a church wall nearby.

I took the picture, and when I wished her good health and said goodbye, she got tears in her eyes and said her grandson was at the front.

She only said one word: “Bahmut.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I made some wishy-washy everything will be okay and Putin will die kinda of statement, and then I once again added the phrase Slava Ukraini.

“Geroyam Slava,” she said, once again, and then she was gone.