Hamburg is not only the historical vision of the North Sea coast, and « Germany by the sea », it’s also the second largest German city and the eighth largest city of the UE! Located along the river Elbe, the docklands of Hamburg have a direct access to the North Sea, between continental Europe and Scandinavia.
With a beautiful viewpoint from the sky, the camera opens this video with some stunning postcards of the history, Heritage and art of the city, as well as some industrial, financial and industrial high places for Europe.
Among those, the DUSS Terminal, one of the largest hubs of the train route from China to Europe. And this is where we meet the young Samir Turkovic! This friendly 21 years old young man from Hamburg carefully checks all the loaded trucks and trains and explains, all smiles, that he is currently finishing his training to become an official crane operator at the DUSS.
As we watch Samir loading the train cargos that will ride from Germany to Zhengzhou (China), we can’t ignore how comfortable and happy he looks among all these buttons and gears. These images give a very impressive idea of how large the hub is and a glimpse of how big the volume of goods transiting through this place must be. We can see hundreds and hundreds of trains and containers patiently aligned, like miniature construction blocks (except they are life sized), ready to take the rails and hit the road.
Samir cheerfully explains to the camera that he’s just a young guy who loves to party and also clearly loves his job for what he calls « the China trains ». It is quite obvious for the audience how proud Samir is of his work at the DUSS. And he has all reasons to be, after all. With hard work and dedication, he trained for a whole 3 years, both at the terminal with other more experienced crane operators and at school. Seems to us that Samir was much more interested by the practical training, and he always enjoyed manipulating the cranes rather than sitting on the school benches. In his own words: « I play with the crane »… isn’t it any young boy’s dream to play with such a giant toy?
Although it might be a pleasure for Samir, it is still impressive to watch the crane move some 100 to 200 containers a day, back and forth to the trains. And these « China trains » that Samir is talking about, what are they exactly? They are the freight trains from China to Europe, also known as “The Modern Silk Road” trains. Nothing less than the longest freight train route in the world: more than 10 000 kilometres across Asia, the Eurasia Bridge and finally Europe. This freight line is in itself a revolution in merchandise transports and worldwide trades: the trip is done in 20 less days than it would by boat and 80% less expensive than air shipment. Quite the achievement. Judging by the number of loaded trucks we see deploying from the DUSS with containers taken from the trains, the delivery of all other European countries from Hamburg by the roads and highways becomes just a matter of hours after that…
But back to Samir. With a more serious tone, he explains that: « It’s good for the people who are living here. When I go to the internet, I go to ebay.com and I buy a cycle, it takes only 2 to 5 days to get here, so it’s good for the people. My best products from China are Apple, Samsung and yes, best products are from China, such as cameras, TVs…etc. »
As Samir tells it in his own young and enthusiastic way, seen from a customer’s business end, UE is one of China’s largest trading markets and most of the goods imported to Germany and across Europe, electronics but not only, come from China. Not only does this allow Europeans like Samir to enjoy an access to brand new technologies and all best products issued in Asia, with a decent shipping cost included, but it also clearly brings jobs for the youth of Germany. Because Germans and young people in Europe in particular currently suffer from worldwide economic crisis and a very concerning job market meltdown.
The conclusion that Samir gives us is full of wisdom, for such a young age. It’s a mix of that old saying, play hard and work harder. But it also is a relevant and pragmatic analysis of Samir’s job, the luck he feels to be working as a crane operator and the opportunity brought by Eurasian freight trains, from one business end to the other: « It has helped everybody. It is fun and I can play computer games at home. But this is real and this is cooler. In Hamburg, this is the best job. Because, in Hamburg the logistics is very big and the money is good. »
Samir sounds like one of the luckiest and happiest young man working in Hamburg right now, and he probably owes that to the overall good state of business in China. If we must keep something from this video portrait and real life picture, it is that this freight line plays and very important role in another economy, some 10 000 kilometres away. The train line managed to shorten the distance and the space between two economics and two continents. As a positive symbol of globalization, the train line, Samir in the West and the export managers of Asian companies in the East, are just part of a same energy and a same effort to keep the world united and going round. Only faster.
The video, with its choice of doing a portrait rather than giving a series of numbers, adds a special touch to its purpose. Of course, the freight trains are a massive technical prowess with a very solid international logistics and all the business networks behind. But it also does what all train lines do: they connect people.
Bilingual Project Manager with international experience