Interview with Jakob Richter
Jakob, you are one of the youngest tour guides in the whole of Upper Lusatia. How did you come to offer guided tours of Görlitz?
The impetus was an advertisement in the newspaper promoting tour guide training in Görlitz. That was all it took to get me interested - I've always been very interested in my home town of Görlitz and foreign languages are a big hobby of mine. I now occasionally offer guided tours of the city in English and French and that's what I was hoping for at the beginning: To get a bit of practice outside of school in actively speaking a language.
You've already mentioned the tour guide training: How did this work for you?
In Görlitz, there is an adult education course that ideally prepares future city guides for their work. In my case, the course consisted of attending a lecture on the history of the city given by other city guides about once a month. That was practical, of course, because you get to meet your future colleagues in person. Of course, you also have to do some research on your own. But you are never left on your own! I also had the opportunity to join other city tours as often as I wanted to get ideas for my own city tours.
If you don't mind us asking: How did your first city tour actually go? Were you able to hit the ground running, or were you still standing in front of the guests with a notepad the first time?
The first city tour went pretty well. In principle, it's not a problem to use notes, but I decided against it right from the start - I can simply work better with free speech. In my opinion, a much bigger problem than the tour itself at the beginning was correctly assessing the weather and temperature. When I started, it was winter and you sometimes have to dress even warmer than usual because you stand a lot during the tour.
What tips would you give to someone who might soon be standing in front of a group as a tour guide themselves?
If you go into the tour with a positive attitude, there's not much that can go wrong. With the knowledge that you are well prepared and that you enjoy your job, the rest almost goes by itself. Of course, the biggest fear at the beginning is always that you won't be able to answer a question. I've been in that situation myself. But of course the guest didn't hold it against me that I couldn't answer their specific question straight away - after all, we tour guides are only human!
What is important to you for a good city tour?
A good city tour should combine information and entertainment. It's no use just listing facts and figures for 90 minutes. It's much more important to me to bring the stories of my city to life. They don't even have to be 100% true and verifiable. In Görlitz, for example, there is a legend connected to the clothmakers' uprising: In order to lure the insurgents into a trap, the clock of the Holy Trinity Church was set 7 minutes ahead so that they came out of hiding too early and were caught by the night watchman. Even today, the clock always strikes 7 minutes before the hour. Whether the clock really struck 7 minutes earlier back then has not been proven at all. But stories like this make a tour of the city incredibly entertaining and stay in your memory.
Why would you recommend others to start as a tour guide?
As a tour guide, you learn an incredible amount for presentations and free speaking in general. Since I became a tour guide, I don't really need any notes at school anymore. And I think that this skill will also be very helpful later in my studies or career. As I said, another important point for me was that I wanted to speak more foreign languages. You hardly have such a good opportunity to come into contact with international visitors in your home city as you do as a city guide!
Thank you very much for the interview!
