Quote of the day from Professional skills seminar

....when talking about face control in organizations, the teacher said:

How many ugly persons you see here at GSOM?

Living in the dormitory is so COOL

The winter is coming and you can feel it. Wind is getting colder, trees are starting to drop the leafs, it's getting dark earlier and earlier. For the last few days you have been able to feel the upcoming winter also in the dormitory. We have been without hot water now for about 48 hours straight. Okay, it's not the end of the world but still it would be quite nice to be able to take a good shower every now and then. Also, doing the dishes is a bit more easier when you don't have to freeze your hands.

To add to this situation, we window in our room seems to be leaking air. It has been quite cold in the past few mornings which really doesn't make it easier to leave your bed. And the Internet is still not working for Lauri or me in our room (4.5 weeks without a Internet in your own room, could you manage?). Seriously. I bet the next thing we are going to lose is the electricity. Stone age, here we come!

Cookies.

I dont feel like writing too much at the moment, but here is some updates. This week I have been

• playing this stupid EIS Simulator Game for Technology management class. Its useless, pointless and it has nothing to do with technology management. The idea of the simulator is to manage change in an organization and plaaplaaplaa. I dont recommend the software.
  
• Eating sushi. Again. During the last 10 days I have been eating sushi like 4 times.
  
• running out of a bar because of some kind of teargas or something. Quite an unexpected way to leave a party...
  
• Watching live football at Petrovskiy stadium. Zenit vs CSKA Moscow, 2-0. Pictures will follow later on.
• at a housewarming party.
• without an internet in the dormitory. Which is not a suprise at all...
  

Well that was unexpected but definitely fun

Yesterday I came back to the dormitory at 10 pm planning to rest a bit and also study some Russian. My plans quickly evaporated because of really unexpected event. My flatmates and I heard a knock from our door which we of course answered. On the other side of the door there was about 8-9 Russian students asking if they could come to our apartment to have a little party. That's not anything unusual actually, but the next part is - we didn't even know them. At all. So there they were standing on the other side of the door with wine, vodka, borsch, blinis and other traditional Russian dishes. Being the social gentlemen that we are, we of course invited them in and had a really fun evening.

The thing is that this kind of stuff doesn't happen anywhere else. Seriously. How often have you been in a similar situation or heard from your friends same kind of story? I bet never. This country continues to amaze me like Finnish "humor" amazes all other nationalities. Even hungry hungarians.

Sixth flatmate

Yesterday marked another chapter in our life at Karabliy. We got another flatmate to our spacious and lovely apartment. The coolest thing about the newcomer is that it has 6 legs and is a tough guy overall. Yup, we saw a cockroach in our kitchen.

Okay, it has to be admitted that it is not the cleanest kitchen in the world but still meeting a cockroach is a bit... abnormal for a Finn. Of course we can do something about the situation, but the "funny" thing is about cockroaches is to my understanding, that it doesn't matter that much whether or not your place is clean because if your neighbourgs live in a dump the cockroaches can still appear.

Some might consider this cheap

Living here in St.Pete is so much cheaper than in Finland. Here is a couple of examples of prices.

- One trip by metro costs 20 rubles (about 44 cents), by bus 18 rubles and my marshutka (minibus) 22-26 rubles.

- Pack of cigarettes costs about 27-45 rubles, depending on the label.

- 1 kilo of potatoes costs about 10 rubles in the nearby store

- 2 litres of Pepsi is about 50 rubles (1,11 euros)

- 1 can half a litre can of Baltika 7 (popular beer) is about 25 rubles (55 cents)

- Prices of one bottle of Vodka varies from 60 rubles upwards. You can get a decent bottle (0.7l) for 200 rubles (4,44 euros)

- 1 kilo of bananas = 29 rubles

And the list goes on. I'm not complaining!

Introduction to Organizational behavior

We MITIM-students needed to choose an introduction course to one of the following subjects: finance, accounting, marketing or organizational behavior. Like many of my coursemates, I decided to go for the OB. Previously I've taken three or four courses about marketing so I didn't feel like listening to stuff about 4 P's again and even though finance & accounting are important subjects they are not my cup of tea (or чаи, like they say here in Russia). The OB course was pretty intensive, we had classes every weekday from 1 o'clock to 4 o'clock and then some minicases to be prepared for next days lesson.

I actually quite liked the classes overall, except maybe the classes on Friday when the discussion was really boring for some reason. The professor in this class was good in my opinion and managed to keep students awake and active. Which is obviously good news for us, since the same professor is also teaching us about cross-cultural management and also at least some parts of knowledge management starting from October. After the classes there is still a couple of minor things to do, such as writing a self-reflection report and a mini-case analysis on some experience regarding OB that you've had in your life. Doesn't sound too bad and it shouldn't be too hard.

In the course it was quite interesting to follow the discussion. Or actually notice what kind of opinions and views other people had and what was the content of their comments. To me quite a lot of those comments were a bit generic and repeated the same issues which was a bit frustrating on few occasions. It seemed that some of the people just wanted to be active in the class and maybe impress the professor. Of course, there was also good and interesting comments and views to the subjects at hand.

как дела? что это?

I am on an intensive Russian course. Our group has 8 lessons (3hours twice a week) every week until the end of the year. Or it should be like that. Or maybe not. The problem is that we don't know for sure whether or not we have to pay something for the extra hours (normally these classes have only 4 lessons per week) and if we do, how much will it be.

The reasons why I signed up for this intensive class are very simple: you feel so helpless in here because you can not speak Russian and also I want to be able to speak Russian after I graduate from this program. Maybe not fluent, but conversational. At the moment we are still on this "how are you", "what is that"-level. I believe the situation is much better in a couple of months time.

Some practical problems you are facing without the knowledge of Russian:

- You are not able to buy meat from the shop unless it's prepacked. In Finland this is not a problem, but in our nearby market most of the meat and fish are behind a counter and you have to ask for it.

- You need someone with you every time you have to negotiate or if you are running some errands or bureaucratic stuff.

- You are not able to stop the marshutka (minibus). This may lead to you missing your stop :)

- etc etc.

Zenit St.Petersburg

I went with to see Zenit Vs. Rostov at Petrovskiy stadium last Sunday. The match was good overall and it was fun to be at the stadium. In events like those you remember why football should be watched live at the stadium instead of TV at home. The atmosphere is just something special when you are a part of the crowd with many thousands people just like you.

I was a bit suprised that the stadium was so "small", only about 24-25 thousand capasity. But they are builing a new one which will be twice the size of the new one, which is great. It should be complete next year, so there is another good reason to come back to St.Pete, if not to study then at least to visit. I will maybe post some picture of the match later on.

Internetless in St.Pete

Sorry that I haven't been able to update my blog that much. That is mainly because of missing internet connection at the dormitory. So yes, I still don't have any ability to connect to the Internet from my own laptop at the dormitory which is not the ideal situation. Makes it a bit hard to keep everyone updated. Please be patient! The problem is with 90% probability some hardware related problem in the room, so there is not that much I can do about it. A guy will come to see the situation maybe this week, maybe next week, maybe never...

Last week we had an intensive introduction course to organizational behavior. The course was okay, I have written a post of it on my computer and will post it later when I have the chance. Apart from the school things are okay. Still trying to learn Russian and hoping to be able to understand something that someone says in public. It just takes time.

I've spent quite a lot of time with the other exhance students living in our dormitory at Karabliy. It's somewhat weird for me that the Russian students are located in totally other parts of our dormitory than we "international" students. At the moment the GSOM Mitim-students are a other community than LUT Mitim-students, but hopefully the will mix soon. I still don't know that many Russian MITIM-students personally, just a couple. To erase this problem of separation we are planning to have some kind of MITIM-event some day this week to break the ice between us and for getting to know each other.

Introduction week @St.Pete

Sunday 23.8.

Finally the big day came. About 5 o'clock the alarm rang and woke me for the last time in Finland in months. I finished packing, ate something little and put the bags in the car. After 6 o'clock my father and I started our journey to St.Petersburg via Lappeenranta. As agreed earlier, we would pick Lauri and continue the trip to Russia. Everything went smoothly until the border. I was actually quite surprised in the border that it was that "easy" to get through it. Only few documents and some waiting (around 1.5 hours to get through from Finnish and Russian customs) and thats it.

First the landscape didn't change that much in Russia. Pretty much exactly the same than in Finland, except for the alphabets of course. But soon it started changing. The nature was obviously pretty much the same than in Finland, but the roads and especially the behavior in traffic changed really much. You could see 3-4 cars driving side by side... in a two lane highway. Also, there was a lot of cars parked next to the road. The owners where probably in the forest picking up some berries or mushrooms. The trip from the border to our dormitory at Shevchenko took about 3-4 hours, even though it was only a bit more than 100 kilometres. We were stuck in the traffic many times and the biggest problems were in St.Petersburg. We tried to drive to Vasilevskyi island, but couldn't get here because of Zenit St.Petersburg was having a match nearby the bridge and a lot of streets were closed because of that. Eventually we arrived to the dormitory where our buddy was to meet us. We got our room key and heard unfortunate news: we could only stay in this dormitory for one night and would have to move to another (crappier) dorm! Not the news we were wanting to hear.

After dropping off the stuff we went to exchange some money, get Russian sim cards for our mobiles etc. Our buddy was really helpful and nice. Thank you! Later in the night we went a couple of floors higher in the dorm to meet other exchange students. A lot of new faces and names to remember. The atmosphere was really nice and relaxed which was great. Overall, I felt really excited and optimistic in the night before I fell asleep. The land of the Ladas will definitely offer some really nice memories :)

Monday 25.8.

The first day of introduction week. In the morning we gathered in the lobby of the dormitory where a couple of Russian buddies picked us up and took us to GSOM. There was a welcome speech by some of the administrative people for all the international students. We received some material about St.Pete and some forms to fill out. Of course the forms were mostly in Russian or needed to be filled in Russian. The funniest/weirdest piece of paper was definitely the autobiography - everyone really had to write about their selves, their family and their jobs. Well, when in Rome... We also went on a brief tour in the GSOM library and had our first Russian classes. что ето? etc. We also went to get our Internet connections which should work tomorrow. Somehow I doubt that....

After the administrative and bureaucratic stuff there was a guided tour organized for us around St.Petersburg. Lots of sights, wayyy too fast speaking tour guide, a little bear, too hot bus (quite many students fell asleep in the bus, because it was so warm in there and the air was stale) and some stupid tourist pictures. Everything you expect from a tour really :) I came back to the dormitory around 9 o'clock with some student colleagues, so it was definitely a long day for us.

Tuesday 26.8.

The beginning of Tuesday was quite similar to Monday - first to GSOM (this time without buddies) where we had Russian classes. кто ето? скажйте пожалуста, что ето ? etc. Good lessons overall, I think. After the lessons we haggled with some more bureaucratic stuff and had a really quick business lunch. Afterwards we went to Baltika brewery where we had a guided tour by this nice guy who told how they make beer. He seemed to know a loooooot about beer. And also judging by his appearance not all of the knowledge has come from books... The Baltika trip was crowned with a tasting session where we had a chance to taste different beers made by the brewery.

Later in the night when we arrived at the dormitory there was a surprise waiting for us. Our student fellows told us that we can not get in because our cards for the door do not work anymore. We couldn't go and solve the situation with the ladies in the office, because none of us spoke any Russian and they do not speak English. Which is really nice considering that there lives so many foreigners in the building.. After a bit of haggle we managed to find a student who could speak Russian and solved the situation. We heard yesterday that the students in our MITIM program will most likely has to move to another dorm during this week. No one is looking forward to that, but if that needs to be done, then it needs to be done. Already I have noticed some kind of change in my way of dealing with new situations. It seems that I am more able to just sit back and relax and think about the situation before starting to worry about it.

Wednesday 27.8.

Today we visited Russian brewery company called Baltika. We had a chance to hear how beer is made and also see the process. Our tour guide really knew a lot about beer and was really polite and nice. Maybe the most memorable part of the visit was the tasting event where we had the chance to taste different kinds of beers that Baltika bottles. Overall the trip was great and gave us some insight on the beer market in Russia.

After the trip we went to HIV test which meant a lot of cuing. Few hours later all the members of our group had been tested. After that a quick lunch at the cafe nearby and then to x-ray. Yes, you read it correctly x-ray. We needed to get our chests checked for tuberculosis for what ever reason. So we had to cue again. I think I am getting really good at cuing because I have been doing it a lot. But definitely the biggest hassle today was the move from Shevchenko to Karabliy (it's not the whole name of the place, it's just too hard to spell :D). Again, we waited. A lot. About 3.5 hours to get the keys to our new dorm. After that, quickly to the old dorm to pack our things and then move to Karabliy. We were here at 11 o'clock in the evening. The apartments have 2 rooms, one for 2 people and one for 3. I am in the 3 person room with a Finn and a Frenchman, the other room is occupied by a Czech and Dutchman. The guys are cool and I believe we will have lots of fun living in here. We live on the 16th floor and have a view to Gulf of Finland. That's cool :)

Thursday 28.8.

Some Russian lessons and a guest lecture from Citibank at the university. I was waaaaayyy too tired to concentrate on anything. I am in desperate need of a good night sleep. Hopefully I'll get to sleep in the coming days. I guess that because of the tiredness, I have lost a bit of my English ability and I feel a bit awkward. I am sure it will pass soon. In the afternoon we visited St.Peter and Paul fortress. Really nice place with some interesting artifacts. I will post pictures from these numerous trips a bit later. It was quite funny to see the conditions in the prison there. To us living in the dormitory the conditions there seemed better than what we have :) When we came from the fortress and were planning on heading home it started raining really bad. I mean really bad. Well, they don't call St.Petersburg the Venice of the north for no reason..

Friday 29.8.

A trip to Coca-Cola company. Well, actually a trip to Coca-Cola Hellenic which is a bottler of Coca-Cola. We travelled to there for about two hours, first by metro and then by bus. They gave this reaaally generic presentation about their business and then answered some questions. Nothing you couldn't figure out yourself. Then we had a tour at the factory and also tasted some of their products which were really exotic for us. I've never heard about those brands before - Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta. I guess they were some local products... And not as good as Pepsi. (I guy actually had a Pepsi bottle with him at the tour. For what ever reason the Coca-Cola people didn't like it when he drank some Pepsi in their facilities.) Overall the trip was a real waste of time. Later on some late Russian lessons before heading back to the dormitory. Few beers, some vodka, few beers at the pub nearby, some more beers and vodka at the dorm.

Saturday 30.8.

Today we went to visit Peterhof. The place was really gorgeous. There is nothing like it in Finland and I bet that there is not that many places in the world that are like Peterhof. Many fountains, lots of trees and park. The worse thing about it was the amount of people - because it was a really nice day it was full with tourists from Russia and other countries. I liked the overall vibe of the place - it was really peaceful and tranquil. Chilling in that kind of atmosphere was just what the doctor ordered after a very hectic week.

In the evening I went clubbing for a first time here in St.Pete. A lot of us exchange students went to this place called Punch which is supposedly quite popular among foreign students. I liked the place a lot, the combination in there worked quite well I think. One of the funniest things in the club was the action in the dance floor. Russian people started forming these dancing circles (form a circle, one by one you go to the middle of it and dance) at one point and it looked quite funny. So we took the idea and started doing the same also and even though it sounds and probably also looks stupid, it was so much fun. We came back to the dormitory at 6.30 in the morning, so it was a it was a really long evening. But totally worth it.

(Oh. I did Conans string dance for the first time in months or maybe even years. I got to start doing it again more regularly.)

Updates from St.Pete

Finally I have access to Internet from my own computer. I am now writing from GSOM, hopefully I will also have Internet access on the dormitory also later tonight. I have written these next posts during the introduction week. The posts are pretty diary-like, so I have divided them by days. So off we go...