Every morning Misha Gurov swims 1,35 kilometers along the old defensive moat of the Swiss capital. But instead of trams and traffic jams, he is surrounded by swans, rare trout, and... hundreds of discarded cigarette butts. A story about how an unusual commute turned into an ecological mission.
Morning swim instead of transfers
For most Zurich residents, the commute to work is a predictable rhythm of Swiss trains and crowded trams. But for IT specialist Misha Gurov, the morning commute looks completely different: he puts on swimming trunks, packs his work clothes and laptop into a waterproof bag, and jumps into the water.
Having learned that some Swiss office workers commute by swimming, Misha initially considered this tradition "amazingly Swiss and a little crazy." However, after moving to Zurich in 2019, he decided to swap public transport for a swim along the Schanzengraben—the old city defensive moat.
"It's the best way to start the workday," Misha shares. "Sometimes I meet the sunrise at the lake before my swim or watch swans taking their morning baths. Sometimes several fish swim alongside me for dozens of meters—it's a truly special feeling of harmony."
Since the beginning of 2026 alone, he has swum more than 60 kilometers through the city's waters.
The hidden world beneath the feet of city residents
This summer, during a severe drought, the water level in the canal dropped critically. This made Misha look at his usual route in a new light. Armed with an underwater camera, he discovered a world that thousands of people hurrying across neighboring bridges ignore daily: the old stone walls of the moat, schools of fish, and dense algae.
"I realized that nature isn't necessarily somewhere far away, in the ocean or a tropical forest. Sometimes a whole world lives almost unnoticed right under the bridge that people cross every day," he says.
Among the underwater inhabitants, he managed to photograph a large fish. Later, specialists from the city's waste management and water protection department (ERZ) identified it as a rare brown trout. These fish are extremely demanding of their environment: they need clean, cool, and oxygen-rich water. Their presence is a reliable indicator of high water quality in the Schanzengraben.
How exactly Misha cleans the river:
- He collects cigarette butts by hand. This is the river's main enemy: in Switzerland, more than 6 billion cigarette butts are discarded annually, and their toxins are lethal to fish. Recently, Misha collected more than 500 butts in 30 minutes along a stretch of only 30 meters.
- He removes large debris from the water. When it is safe, he pulls bottles, packaging, and other waste out of the river directly during his swim.
- He records underwater videos. Using a camera, Misha documents the canal's inhabitants—for example, the rare brown trout, which needs clean, cold, and oxygen-rich water. He shows these footage to authorities and the public, proving that the ecosystem is alive and must be protected.
- He pressures the authorities. City services admitted to him that the canal is "too little swum by people" to justify the cost of cleaning. Misha launched petitions, demands stricter fines for littering (currently from 80 to 250 francs) and is preparing a symbolic action: to swim the entire canal in a helmet decorated with 1000 discarded cigarette butts.
"Keeping Switzerland clean is our shared responsibility," Misha summarizes. "The problem of trash cannot be solved only by the hands of cleaners, authorities, or individual volunteers. It will only work when everyone—people, communities, businesses, and authorities—starts doing their part."
