“Tuff im Osten”: dancing to promote community spirit

At the station in Greiz, a small town in the east German state of Thuringia, Fjodor Busik alights from the train in his black puffer jacket and, smiling broadly, holds up his trademark golden waving cat. He gets an ecstatic welcome from a crowd of youngsters who form a circle and start doing the “Ossi-Tanz” - the East German Dance - while he videos them with his smartphone. And there’s not even any music: Busik just raps and hums a few syllables while conducting the crowd - but it’s clear that everyone is having fun. A short time later, the video - now with music added - is viewed thousands of times on TikTok and other social media. The message is simple: good vibes, a sense of belonging and identification with East Germany. 

Fjodor Busik, 23, grew up in Eisenach in Thuringia, works as a nursery school teacher and for some years now has been rappingunder the name Fydoz. His sister Valentina is the current Miss Germany. Busik loves his home region of Thuringia: “The people there are just upbeat and stick together. There’s a really family-like atmosphere. And the nature is stunning.” He says that he has often visited big cities in the west of Germany but normally finds them “too loud, too crowded, too anonymous”.  

Combating clichés and promoting community spirit 

In Busik’s opinion, “the east often falls by the wayside in Germany. Some people in the west don’t even know that Thuringia is a federal state .“ Generally speaking, he thinks there are “lots of stupid stereotypes”. That’s why he tours towns all over eastern Germany, making one video after another. Busik’s aim is to “give Thuringia a boost and put it back on the map”. Using the hashtag “tuff im Osten” - which translates roughly as “cool in the east” - he jumped onto the “Ossi-Tanz” bandwagon a few months ago, an online trend launched by the band “Ossitrio”.  

The dancers didn’t just get likes for their performance, however - there was quite a bit of mockery too. Some posts simply made fun of “the east” in general, while others even called for “the Wall to be put back up”. Though Busik gets a lot of popular acclaim for his videos, he also has to face some hate speech. But the rapper doesn’t let this get him down: “Obviously these guys have nothing better going on in their lives, so you have to feel sorry for them really.” And adds, with a laugh: “Success is the best revenge.”