Our Team
Kateryna Rietz-Rakul
Head of the Representative Office of the Ukrainian Institute in Germany
Kateryna Rietz-Rakul studied English and American Studies in Lviv and Berlin and graduated with a PhD in contemporary literature. She is an interpreter, translator, author and cultural manager. Kateryna lives and works in Berlin. Previously, she was co-founder of APES, a curatorial collective in Berlin. Kateryna Rietz-Rakul has contributed for numerous international art magazines and published several books, including a city guide to the Berlin cultural scene, Berlin Contemporary Art.
As a cultural manager, Kateryna Rietz-Rakul is co-founder of KUL’TURA e.V., which promotes international cooperation between creatives from Ukraine and other countries.
Маriya Zoryk
Communication Manager
PR and communication manager of the cultural projects, organizer of the film festivals, podcaster.
Mariya completed her Master’s degree as a DAAD fellow in Literature and Media Studies at Otto Friedrich University in Bamberg. As a PR specialist, she worked for the festivals such as “Bamberg Short Film Festival”, Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin as well as Tanzwerkstatt Europa and Tanzplattform Deutschland in Munich. In 2022 she started the aid initiative “Bamberg helps Ukraine” and was awarded the Special Culture Prize of the City of Bamberg for Ukrainian artists.
In her free time she talks about migration life in the podcast “Fremdgehen”, rides a racing bike and takes analog photography.
Vitalina Buran
Project Mananger
Project manager in the field of education and culture, translator and interpreter in German and English.
Vitalina first graduated in philology from the National Taras Shevchenko University in Kyiv. Later she moved to Frankfurt an der Oder for further studies, where she completed her Master’s degree in “Languages, Communications and Cultures in Europe” and, in parallel, completed a one-year internship at the Ukrainian Embassy in Berlin. Since 2017 she worked as a project assistant for the Bildungswerk der Wirtschaft in Berlin and Brandenburg in areas of event organization and project evaluation.
Vitalina is a multilingual translator and enjoys translating for various NGOs, cultural events and international education projects.
Sophie Bergmann
Administration
Sophie Bergmann studied cultural and social sciences in Germany and Scotland. She also completed further training in fundraising for culture and international cooperation.
She supports the Ukrainian Institute Germany in administration since 2023.
Photo: Lisa Vlasenko