VIENNA — “Is it Vienna or Wienna?”

That’s the first question Gerhard Jelinek has for the people he encounters on his two-and-a-half-weeks-long tour of many of America’s Viennas.

Jelinek, a renowned journalist from Vienna, Austria, embarked on the journey alongside his son Johannes. The pair arrived in Vienna, Missouri, last Wednesday for a day of filming as part of a documentary they are making to air on Austrian national television later this month.

“We could have made the story of London, Birmingham, Paris, whatever,” Gerhard said. “But as we are from Vienna, Austria, once the capital of a big Austrian-Hungarian monarchy, and now a big city in a smaller country, we thought it would be a funny idea to make a documentary about many of the Viennas around the States.”

The crew stopped in Missouri on day 10 of their 18-day trip. They had already been to Maine, New York, Ohio, West Virginia and Illinois and the rest of their journey took them to Georgia, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey. They filmed for a little while in the morning at The Advocate’s office before stopping into Junkers Junction. They planned to meet local musician Mick Byrd for lunch and more filming.

This year’s trip to the American Viennas is not Gerhard’s first. The seed for his current project was planted decades ago during a visit to Vienna, Illinois.

“I made a documentary 31 years ago in Vienna, Illinois around the election of Bill Clinton,” he said. “Since 31 years, I thought it might be a good idea just to make a road trip through all the towns and villages called Vienna.”

Taking inspiration from the previous documentary’s framing around the 1992 presidential election, Gerhard saw the 2024 presidential election as a springboard for the Vienna road trip he had imagined all those years ago.

“This year is the election once again, so I thought it might be a good idea for Austrian national television to make a documentary to show the feelings of people of the heartland America to get a feeling of what the people are really into with their problems,” he said.

“He used to chew my ear off about this project,” Johannes said. “Then the election was coming up and we said ‘Okay, now is the time to do it.’”

“I thought it might be a very risky idea to make the documentary with my son,” Gerhard said. “We never work together on a professional basis. We’re father and son, so he’s always right; I am not right. He even is telling me how to drive. I taught him to drive and he’s telling me now.”

“So far that’s been all the big discussions,” Johannes said.

“We’re now 10 days into our trip, and we’re still alive, still living, still talking to each other,” Gerhard joked.

According to the Jelineks, American politics is a topic that European people follow closely.

“I think there’s not an Austrian perspective,” Gerhard said. “There’s a European perspective on American politics. Europeans expect serious politics you can depend on. For us, U.S. foreign policy is very important with the war in Ukraine and the situations in Israel and Lebanon. You have war everywhere, and without the United States as a stabilizing power, it would be really worse. We are interested in a good American government that has a plan.”

“From the outside, it feels very emotional here,” Johannes said. “The politics in Europe is very sober in comparison. We also watched some television here, and it’s very weird seeing one television channel be all the way in this direction, and the other channel is in the complete opposite direction. It feels like not only on social media, but even the television channels here are like echo chambers that are just bouncing around their own opinion. That feels very extreme as a European.”

Although the media portrayals of political issues seemed extreme, Johannes said their interactions with people had not felt that way.

“We’ve met a lot of Republicans because we’ve traveled through a lot of Republican states,” he said. “But they don’t have the same rhetoric that you would hear from (Donald) Trump or from Fox News. People are actually very down-to-earth, and it seems very reasonable what they want and what they wish for and what they care about. It seems kind of soothing in a way to meet all these people on the ground who say ‘Oh, we don’t talk politics’ and we’re friends with Democrats and Republicans. Everyone is pretty chill, and it feels like there is maybe some healing process going on and people are getting closer to each other again. That’s my hope from talking to the people.”

“You get a much better impression of what’s going on between New York and Los Angeles if you travel across the country,” Gerhard said. “The correspondents go to Washington and to Los Angeles and talk to the famous people. Maybe this is America, but maybe the rest is also America.”

Gerhard said the issues American people had shared with them on their trip were very real.

“I think the problems — prices, inflation, immigration, drugs, taxes — the problems are similar in Europe and Austria,” he said. “Much stronger in Europe is the problem of changing the energy basis. To have a green deal, as it is called in the European Union. We haven’t seen too many electric cars over here.”

“It’s been a little sad seeing all the train stations turned into historical museums,” Johannes said. “Coming from Europe, you have a very tight-knit train network. If I’m traveling from Berlin to Vienna, I take the train because it’s the easiest.”

The pair said that in every town they had visited up to that point, two topics had come up consistently: ghosts and fentanyl.

“We don’t have such a big opioid or meth crisis,” Johannes said. “In the U.S. it seems like a pretty crazy epidemic right now, and that’s definitely not the same for Europe.”

“We did not know about it until we came here, that it was such a big problem,” Gerhard said.

Although many of the conversations Gerhard had with Americans were about their struggles, he had kind words to say about the people he had encountered.

“Everybody is nice to us,” he said.

“It’s quite different in Austria,” Johannes said. “It’s very hard to try to talk with people on the street. If you approach people on the street, they’re basically like ‘Do I know you?’ Here, people are very open to talking with you and having deeper conversations, and it feels more sincere than in the big cities. Here in the heartlands, it felt very earnest and welcoming.”

“It’s nice,” Gerhard said. “It’s interesting. We’ve met a lot of people and heard a lot of different stories. We could do not one documentary but three or four because every Vienna becomes more interesting the longer you stay. More stories are coming up. Unfortunately, we have 40 or 50 minutes (to tell them).”

“It is quite crazy,” Johannes said. “You go into these towns that are really small and go ‘Okay, what are we going to do here now? Where are the stories?’ And every minute you spend there, it opens up, and you have these really interesting lives and stories hidden behind the facades of small towns. Suddenly, you realize there are good stories and deep stories everywhere you go, even in the smallest towns.”