Swiss cultural stand at the Silk Road Forum, Qazvin, Iran

Welcome to the Swiss cultural Stand at the Silk Road Mayor Forum, Qazvin, Iran 2016

Welcome to Qazvin, a place that feels like home...

The team of the Swiss cultural stand at the Cultural week in Qazvin, held in august 2016, led by Nataliya Borys invites you to a crazy adventure filled with unforgettable memories, funny events and amusing interviews through the greatest event of all times in Qazvin, Iran, and brought together a group of local personalities to represent Swiss culture culture..

Feel the spirit of the place. Qazvin

Meeting Head organizers : Nataliya and Farzad

Collaboration with Embassy of Switzerland in Tehran

Iranian team is extremely thankful to the Swiss embassy in Tehran, and its members, such as GaĂŤlle and Christine, for their support and their kindness!

Meeting GaĂŤlle from Embassy of Switzerland in Tehran

Melika: Gaelle was extremely nice with us, and so accessible. She seems to like pictures and she listened carefully to us. I hope I can meet her again and she is, of course, welcome to Qazvin as many times, as she wishes. My home is always open for her!

Mohammad Javad Dargahi, main organizer.

Farzad: Without Mohammad Javad Dargahi, the main organizer of the event, from Azar advertising agency, it would be extremely difficult to hold the event. He solved many problems and I should admit that we faced so many stupid problems!

So Swiss….

Interview with Nataliya Borys : “Qazvin, it is an incredible human experience” There are no words to express my gratitude to my Iranian team to help me. Without them nothing would be possible. They sacrificed their time to help me for free. I really appreciate it. My team accepted to go beyond their “comfort zone”, this makes a big difference with my other projects.

Sometimes while participating in other projects, I often ask myself, if people really care. Having everything in Europe and being used to participate in different projects, fully financed by EU funds, I wonder if someone still cares in Europe. We, in Europe and in Switzerland, are the privileged ones. This difference strikes me every time I am in Iran. In Qazvin, my team CARED and was fully involved. Because they don’t have a possibility to participate in projects, as Iran is not a member of many world’s organizations, women can not travel alone and foreign conferences are for some “happy few”. This cultural event was an unique possibility to them to get some “other” experience, to have this multicultural “stage” and to be involved with foreigners.

I am extremely excited and grateful to be a part of this unique project, combining outreach, multiculturalism, games and team work. This kind of project is not my first experience, but this Iranian event was really special. In which ways it was really special? First, because it was a real challenge to manage such a big event by limited resources. Second, it was awesome to meet so many interesting people. And it was incredibly enriching human encounter.

Which were the secrets of success? What will you say to your team?

Be active, be productive and be on time :) Your life motto?

Danger can be real, but fear is a choice. Your choice.

Would you be back? Of course, I miss them all already !!!

Which was the Swissiest and the funniest moment for you?

The Swissiest moment? There were so many ;) Most of them were related to organizational moments. But hopefully, my Manager of solving all these problems, Farzad, managed it so greatly. Later we realized that threatening organizers with complaints to the embassy worked well. So once when we couldn’t get a key, Farzad made the angry face and started telling that I am going to leave right now and to complain, if the problem is not fixed. And the problem was fixed :) The most incredible moment for me? It happened when a Swiss girl, a tourist, came to our stand and started speaking...English with Nataliya! They didn’t know any « common » Swiss national language! I thought that living in the same country, people speak the same language. Obviously not. So funny ...

The funniest moment for me...was the...soup incident! Our team prepared the Swiss soup (Nataliya managed to cook a Swiss soup). One of old women tried the soup and started complaining that the soup was not good to her taste.

While complaining she noticed that she was one of my relative. Suddenly, she started to praise the soup saying how delicious it was! We couldn’t stop laughing...

Introducing unbelievable media team from C-Shot Studio!

Attention filming in progress!

Introducing Arash Ashrafian, director of C-Shot Studio Arash was elected the most handsome man during the stand‌.si si...

Nataliya: I don’t know why, but with Arash my selfies were so funny!

Reza Mostafavi, a photographer with a big SMILE

Qazvini people get crazy about Swiss stand….

Swissiiiiiiii!

Presenting Vahid, a Superman. The man to do EVERYTHING.

Nataliya: I don’t know what we should have done without Vahid! He was the man to do EVERYTHING: he cooked, made tea/coffee, bought things, did pictures, fixed many stupid problems, and all this with a smile!

Vahid, as the Master of Fondue and of Swiss soup

The Master of Fondue and of Swiss Soup. He could cook it all: Swiss fondue, Swiss soup, Swiss tea, Swiss cocktails (yes, even Swiss cocktails!). What have I done without Vahid?

Introducing Masoud Farhad, our James Bond

Talking with Masoud Farhad about his “Swiss” experience.

What was the funniest moment ever?

Masoud: I teach at university and lots of students know me. During the cultural week, I asked Qazvini population questions about Switzerland and I felt as a teacher again asking them!

A good –working and well-organized team works better than any individual person. Absolutely.

Which was the “Swissiest” moment ever for you?

Masoud: I could feel this « Swiss » management, it made our team to be better organized. I know now that a good organized team works better than any individual. During the Qazvin's cultural week, as a member of Swiss Stand, I learnt a lot about leading and managing a team.

I personally learnt that each person in a team should have his/her role according to his/her abilities. Each person is better in his/her place, I would say to be in a right place in a right moment. I am happy and proud to live this experience with my friends.

Thanks for that :)

Introducing Melika, a Supergirl! Viva girlpower!

And a new TV-star, Melika, is born!

Girl power!

Swiss food

Which Swiss specialty Qazvini people preferred? Without doubt: the number 1 was...the Fondue! I was skeptical if Iranians would like it, but they really appreciated! Chocolate was less appreciated, and surprisingly Ricola tea was another big success! People didn’t stop asking for it.

Presenting Roya: vital member of the Swiss team

Farzad: Roya was an essential member of our team. She, as Vahid, could do everything: cooking, distributing, talking with people. Qazvini people really liked to talk with her. She made them love the Swiss food :)

The quiz: what do you know about Switzerland?

ARE YOU READY? HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW SWITZERLAND? 1. Which one of the following is not the official language of Switzerland? 

German, French, English or Italian ?

2. What is the accepted currency in Switzerland? 

The Swiss Euro, The Swiss Dollar or The Swiss Franc ?

3. How much chocolate do the Swiss eat on average per person per year? 

3 kgs, 5 kgs, 12 kgs or 20 kgs ?

4. Which of these famous tennis players is a Swiss? 

Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer or Andre Agassi ?

The easiest question for Qazvini people? It was about the Swiss tennis player, Roger Federer of course! The most difficult? About Swiss parliament and Swiss chocolate brand.

It was really hard to know that Swiss eat so much chocolate! Nobody could have imagined that. It was a hard question! But the hardest question was about the forth Swiss national language: the romansch!

Playing quiz at Imam Khomeini International University

Girls from Syria were very shy, but they willingly played the quiz and enjoyed the Swiss tea :)

Oops, I did it again...introducing a procurement team member: Behzad

Nataliya: Behzad, Farzad’s oldest brother, was our procurement manager: he managed to find everything we needed. I realized that I couldn’t even find pictures of him, because he was always on a move! He was also our « oops, I did it again » guy ;) he made tea and sweets for all local kids, and when I was not around, he fed local security guys too ;) He was too kind to everyone. Some kids were waiting for him to get more gifts.

Sweet memories and impressions

I had my first TV experience due to this event, and I am really grateful to Nataliya and the embassy of Switzerland for such great opportunity! I have learnt a lot, but I would probably mention the most important thing I learnt during all this time: we individually fail, but together, as a team, we are unstoppable!

My memories? There were many funny stories. Qazvini people were curious and impressed by Swiss food. Many of them begged to purchase the Swiss tea or the Swiss food, but we couldn’t. We invented a drink, called Swiss cocktail, as we ran out of Swiss tea. The idea was to mix Iranian similar herbs with juice to make a healthy cocktail. Qazvini people were confused by “Swissi cocktails�, but once tried, it became a big hit!

Iranian team was particularly impressed by the Embassy of Switzerland, how accessible and nice it was, and how easily they provided us with gifts and things for the stand. People were particularly happy with small Swiss pins!

This event allowed me to get some new skills, especially in communication and interaction, as I met a lot of people and I got to know them. I had to handle them all!

Why all good things come to an end? We don’t say goodbye See you again!

Last but not the least‌#selfie contest!

Last but not the least‌#selfie contest!

Which selfie do you prefer?

Written and executed by: Nataliya Borys, Geneva University