My authentic experiences

After our exciting introduction week, it was time to get back to the reality and attend the first lecture, which for most of us took place already on Monday.  A lot of us had chosen to take the course „Doing Business in Russia”. I knew that my home University (further CBS) didn’t accept this course for a guy who was here on an exchange last semester, but I was ready to take it in a vain so that I can get a better understanding of the business culture in Russia. In the first lecture, however, it became apparent to me that this class is not what I expected and I wanted to get out of it as soon as possible. But I still had a dilemma. Because from one hand it is only a three weeks long course, which MIGHT be accepted by my study board. From the contrary, since the decision regarding the acceptance might come when the course is already over, I could be risking at taking a boring course with an intensive group work for three weeks and not receiving any credit points for it. So I finally decided to drop out. Fortunately, I feel I have made the right decision because nobody from this course is happy neither about the content nor the professor. It is not even that much about the business in Russia, rather than it is about writing a business plan for made up product that could be sold in Russia. 

Consequently, until the middle of the March, I am not that busy anymore. Currently, I have only one course that is taking place on Mondays. It is called “New Product Management”. I would have chosen another one instead if I had known that I wouldn't be attending “Doing Business in Russia”. So honestly I am not super thrilled about this course either. Nevertheless, I ended up in a very fun group with two Czech girls that are also living in the dorms. So it has been very easy for us to arrange the group meetings so far. Unfortunately, during the last lecture, the situation changed a little, because the professor suddenly added a new member to our “Powerpuff Girls” group. He is a French guy who, unfortunately, is not living in the dorms with us. Anyways, hopefully, this change is for better and not for worse.

At the end of the first study week, I received the final decision on the credit pre-approval from my home University. Fortunately, they approved all the courses, including the mandatory electives. So I am super happy about it, and I will be doing five courses in total. Additionally, I have applied for two different Russian language courses that should count up for around 9 hours a week. However, I will have to miss some of the language courses during the week, because, my schedule in March and April looks like a complete madness. I am a bit worried about several overlaps, but I hope that the professors will be understanding and won’t decrease my grade because of the “poorer” attendance.

Since I have a flexible schedule until the middle of March, I am trying to spend as many hours as possible on researching for my master thesis. So far, I have a very interesting experience with the librarian at the University. She has been so sweet to me ever since I told her about my topic. She has been spending hours and even days for looking for the physical and online books and articles for me. So far I have not even searched anything myself. Unfortunately, it seems that these “privileged” days are over. But just to shout out “GSOM librarian” is the best! She is now even recognizing me in the hallways and saying hi because for almost the whole week I was like ”furniture” at the library. 

The first Russian classes have also just started. I will have a 3-hour class every Monday morning at my own host University, and two other 3-hour classes, probably on Wednesdays and Thursdays. It was funny to see how bureaucratic they can be when placing us at the right level (e.g. A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2). I mean, right before we came to Russia, all the non-beginners were asked to do a placement test, so they can better assess in which group we should be during the intro week's crash course. After the crash course, the same administration was asking us to go for a new placement test, plus a short interview when applying for the 3-hours class happening at the University. It took them exactly one week to come back with the final schedule, and needless to say, we were placed precisely at the same levels as in the crash course. Now comes the funniest part. The same administration is doing the placement tests for the 6-hour classes for the people who want to have additional lectures at the language center located around 20 minutes from our faculty. Fortunately, this time during my short interview where I requested to be placed at the level A2, I was finally exempted from the writing part. However, I was provided with three possible schedules for this course, and I spent around half an hour to decide which one fits my University schedule the best. When I chose the timetable that suits me the best, the administrator said to me that this course has already started and I should come already tomorrow. But before that, I should email to my teacher. After I had done that, I received a reply from the teacher that the course has not started yet, and that she is still forming the schedule. In the email, she listed the possible lecture times and asked me again to choose which of them fits me the best. Of course, none of those times were the same as in the list at the language center, so I totally wasted my time there. 

After washing my cloth #bureaucracy

My point is, nothing here seems to be aligned. No matter with what kind of thing I will be dealing with, everything will be written on paper by one person, then physically forwarded to the next person and so on. When I was doing the language assessment test at the center, the lady had piles and piles of papers, with the different levels and groups, and names of the student who were supposed to attend these groups. She was writing everything on these papers by hand. This is so inefficient. But things work this way everywhere. Also at our dorms. For instance, when I go and wash my cloth, I receive a paper written by hand. When I have collected three of these papers, I then have to go to entirely another building, God knows where to pay for this service. Then I have to obtain a new receipt from there and bring it back to the lady who washed my cloth at the dorms. I have to follow the same process when paying for the rent and even when I had to activate my entrance card at the dorms. And of course, it took almost two weeks until I received the student card from the University, which by the way is also written by hand. 

Student card #bureaucracy

Furthermore, when I went to sign up for a gym, I had to sign the contract in one room, then I had to go to pay in another room and the picture for the gym card I could only take the next day in the third place. Well, that is their process. Also, since the card is being made in another place, I will only receive it in two weeks or so. So now, whenever I go to the gym, I have to show my contract instead. 

Another paperwork experience I had, when I wanted to print something at school. So to do so, I have to put money on my library card at the bookstore downstairs, which is opened on Tuesdays and Thursdays only. Since I had to print two pages on Friday,  I had to use the guest login for printing two pages instead. When I was done, the librarian wrote a receipt of 6 RUB (0.1 EUR), which I could only pay at the bookstore next week. The librarian, of course, expected the finalized receipt brought back to her again. Nonsense. I could continue writing about these sort of experiences forever, but I think I have created the picture of the enormous bureaucracy that is going on here. But at the end of the day I am laughing about it because finally, I am getting this super authentic Russian experience that I was so much looking for. 

The receipt from librarian #bureaucracy

Nonetheless, as I have mentioned before, I have signed up for a gym membership. There is a great gym right next to our dorms. At first, this place was not giving us any discounts, and the only choice that we had was signing up for a six-month period for around 27’000 RUB (435 EUR). But our awesome buddy team negotiated the deal for us, so now we are paying for four months membership around 15’000 RUB (240 EUR). And even though it is close to double what I paid in Denmark, it is worth it. I really like the gym here, because it is so big and modern. It has many classes, including some unusual ones such as air yoga, strip dance, swimming class and all kinds of aqua aerobics. Moreover, there is also a pool, Jacuzzi, and Turkish and Russian saunas. 

I like that so far it seems that everywhere in Russia, even in my gym, there is a cloakroom for the jackets. In this gym, there are also these plastic disposable covers that people have to put on their outdoor shoes, to keep the floors clean, which I haven't seen either in Latvia or Denmark. There have been times when I almost forgot taking them off, though. Our membership also allows us to get a middle-size towel each time when we go there. It is very convenient, as I can either use it for the gym, sauna or just as the towel for the shower. And finally, even though that is not that relevant to me, this gym is family-friendly. I can see that there are even classes and machines for little kids and their moms. Fortunately, everything is located in a strategic way that these kids don't bother anyone.

We are now quite many people from dorms going to this gym, so it is a pretty fun way how to spend time together as well. I have not yet tried any of the “unusual” classes, but the ones that I have been to, I liked, except maybe the very first one. Raphaelle, Olga and I went to this class called “Pilates Matwork”. It started about 10 minutes later, and everyone else in this class was seniors. By the way, many old people come to this gym as well. I am positively surprised about their spirit and ambition. Anyways, this class was weird because the trainer didn’t do anything himself. He was wearing crocs, and he was dressed like he just came off the couch. Moreover, he was only wondering around us three “making sure” we are doing the exercises correctly. It was, of course, very sweet of him, until his touching became super awkward. Needless to say, we have never returned to this class. Girls stayed for the next class as well, and they said that the guy there looked exactly like the first one, except he never took out his hands from the pockets and he stayed still at one point throughout the class just shouting out the orders. 

Zenit vs. CSKA #basketball

Fortunately, all the next classes that we tried were opposite to the first experiences. They were run by women, who begun on time and who were doing both – showing the exercises and making sure that we are doing them right. My absolute favorite trainer is called Maria, who is just so hyperactive that it is almost funny to watch her. Actually, all the instructors and the participants are very talkative here. This is another cultural difference that I have observed here. Russians are much more open, confident and talkative than, for instance, people in Latvia and Denmark. 

Zenit vs. CSKA #basketball

Besides the University and gym, I have also participated in the events organized by our buddy team this week. On Thursday we went to the basketball game between St. Petersburg Zenit and CSKA Moscow. It was a very exciting game to watch with a lot of local fans cheering all around us. Since we had pretty good seats, we could surely experience the atmosphere. It has been particularly exciting for me because, in the Zenit team, there was playing a Latvian guy named Janis Timma. The craziest part is that we were peers in the same high school. The World is so small. Moreover, I could be truly proud in front of the others because Janis was sort of the best player there. And Zenit won, so again, it was a great game.

With some of the crowd from the  house party on Friday

On Friday, some French guys who are also renting an apartment in the city center were throwing a house party. It was a cool opportunity to bond a little more with the French people because most of them are only hanging out with each other. There are around 20 French people out of our group of 60 management students, and just a few exceptions, like for example my roomie Raphaelle, and two others hang out with other internationals. By the way, one interesting fact – almost all French people are super good at the beer pong. My roomie was winning all the games for us that evening. 

Our interpretation of selfie #pubcrawl

The next day, at around 18:00 already, we were going to a pub crawl organized by the buddy team. I think it has been my favorite night so far because I got to be in a super fun team that just went all in to win the night. Each group was visiting around five different pubs, where in each pub there were waiting a couple of buddies with games ready for us to play. After the games, we could try to get some extra points by for instance a lap dance, drinking the beer in one go, same gender kissing, crazy selfies and so on. Long story short – we DID win that night! Unfortunately, when we had to wake up next morning to go and visit the Catherin Palace, many of us, including Raphaelle and I couldn't make it. We were too exhausted from the night before, and for the first time, we had to skip one of the amazing activities organized for us. 

Karaoke #pubcrawl

Despite the very wet and cold weather, crazy bureaucracy, frequent hangovers and still existing cockroaches at our dorms, I still love it here. I could not have chosen a better city and school as my current exchange destination! 

Zazdarovja for that!

Intro Week

It was Friday morning when I took my flight to Russia. It happened exactly on the same day and time when the course registration for this semester opened. Since it is based on the first come first serve basis, I had to make sure I can get the classes that I want before I step my foot into the plane. So instead of spending the few last minutes left with Jonas and saying a proper goodbye to him, I had to use his help for a more efficient and speedy course registration process. 

With a stop in Amsterdam, my flight was long enough for me to start looking at the course timetable. I soon realised that the classes that I wanted and I felt CBS will accept were overlapping quite a bit. That made me a bit anxious because in my host University attendance is part of a grade. Anyways, my Russian buddy Sveta said that a small overlap is usually not a big deal as long as I discuss this matter with my professor. 

It was 17:30 when I landed in St. Petersburg’s airport and I were excited to meet Sveta. But I soon realised that I have no phone service, and because of that I couldn’t connect to wifi. Therefore there was no way that I could get in touch with Sveta in case if something happens. Well…something did happen, something that prolonged my exit for at least 30 minutes. My luggage got lost. At least it appeared that way because everyone from my plane had already left and the baggage carousel was empty. I was already filling in the claim for a lost luggage when suddenly the carousel started to work again, and my one luggage came out. What a relief! 

I rushed out with a hope that Sveta had not left me, so when I came out, I was happy to see three girls waving at me. None of them looked like Sveta though. It turned out that those where other students’ buddies. Unfortunately, something came up, and Sveta could not make it, but it was okay because the girls took good care of me. After 20 minutes a French girl Raphaelle arrived, and we took the taxi together to the dorms. 

When we arrived, I could see that we will be living in a real Russian style block house and with the same types of houses all around. At the registration office, a very nice lady asked if we would like to share a room, and we, of course, said yes. By that time, my buddy Sveta came, and I finally could meet her face to face. All the buddies around us were very helpful with translating the things that the lovely lady in a very clear Russian language was telling to us. So yes, that is true that people here rarely can speak English. For me, this is the perfect case scenario, because I am always challenged to speak no matter how broken my Russian is. And the ladies at the reception are so sweet that I almost want to keep talking to them. It is funny that they work here 24/7 as they have to collect and give out our room keys. There is only one key per room, so I never can take it with me. Another weird profession at this dorm is the security man, who press the button for letting us in and out through the entrance gate. These guys are super mean and they never smile. They don't even say hello. So the difference between the babushkas and deduskas in Russia is quite significant. 

When we arrived, I could see that we will be living in a real Russian style block house and with the same types of houses all around. At the registration office, a very nice lady asked if we would like to share a room, and we, of course, said yes. By that time, my buddy Sveta came, and I finally could meet her face to face. All the buddies around us were very helpful with translating the things that the lovely lady in a very clear Russian language was telling to us. So yes, that is true that people here rarely can speak English. For me, this is the perfect case scenario, because I am always challenged to speak no matter how broken my Russian is. And the ladies at the reception are so sweet that I almost want to keep talking to them. It is funny that they work here 24/7 as they have to collect and give out our room keys. There is only one key per room, so I never can take it with me. Another weird profession at this dorm is the security man, who press the button for letting us in and out through the entrance gate. These guys are super mean and they never smile. They don't even say hello. Once one of them was sleeping, and we could not wake him up, so we just had to pick up the gate and enter the dorms without him noticing that at all. Well, that is how our "babushkas" and "deduskas" are here. 

We got a room on the 10th floor, and when we first entered it, I was shocked to see that it is the one for three people. Nevertheless, soon we learned that there won't come any third person and this big room is going to be only for two of us.  In these dorms, there are little apartments where two or three bedrooms share a bathroom and kitchen. So in our apartment, there are two other rooms, with one girl in each. Well, that was the situation at first. Both of these girls are Russians, and one of them doesn’t speak English at all. At first, they seemed to be very reserved and not interested in getting to know us, but later it changed. Now we all are on a WhatsUp group, and we talked about having a dinner together. On Wednesday morning, there arrived a new girl from Vietnam. She is now sharing a room with one of the Russian girls. She is a bit more social and surprisingly good at speaking Russian. One evening, she was sitting with Raphaelle and me in the kitchen, and we could not stop bothering her with questions regarding Raphaelle’s Russian homework. That is also the last time we actually talked to her. Maybe she is now trying to avoid us. 

Anyways, the apartment is super basic, and of course, the furniture and all the equipment are old and worn out, but for the price that we pay it is not a big deal. The monthly rent is RUB 4600 (EUR 75). But once we met a German girl here, who is living in the dorms where she pays only RUB 200 (EUR 3). She is living with Russian students only, and we learned that the Russian students who live at our dorms pay only RUB 1000 (EUR 16). So yes, it is super cheap here. We talked with Raphaelle that we will most likely just stay here. There is no point of moving to a private apartment and pay five times the price. The only downside here is that the other girls seem to be not very tidy. We were shocked to see how dirty the fridge was when we arrived.  On the other side, a cleaning lady is coming once a week, who cleans all the common areas in our apartment. And we can change our bedsheets once a week and get new ones for free. But back to the downsides...we have another issue – cockroaches. Fortunately, we only see them in the kitchen, which is probably because that is where the food is, so Raphaelle and I agreed that we would never bring any food with us in the bedroom. Unfortunately, I had to break this agreement when the cleaning lady came to wash the floors in the kitchen exactly at the moment when I had my breakfast. Since it seems that the cockroaches are only in our apartment, there will actually come a guy to spray some poison on them. Anyways, the funny thing is that if at first, we were freaking out, then now we are quite chilled about these little neighbours of ours. They are becoming a part of the family. Ha!

On Friday, right after we dropped our luggage in the room, we went to see the neighbourhood.  Thanks to our awesome buddies we got our local phone numbers, with basically unlimited internet and local public transport cards right away. Then we went to eat at the nearby restaurant, which was quite an experience. The restaurant was located on the 3rd floor of a supermarket. When we entered, it looked super fancy with a wardrobe man and golden decorations all around. Further in there was an eating area that seemed a bit more down to earth. The place looked like something between a fancy restaurant, disco club, and cheap bar. It was a fun first impression of Russian restaurants.

When we returned home, it was already midnight, and we begin preparing for going to bed. But then, of course, there had to be another major issue regarding my luggage. I could not open the lock, which is a three number combination. I was trying for one hour without any success, which was so weird because I knew the code. It just seemed that all of a sudden it has an another code. So finally, I had to look up a hacker video on YouTube, and surprisingly the tips for opening this three-digit lock worked. So in conclusion – I got to acquire my first survival skill in Russia. 

On Saturday we met up with more exchange students. Our buddies were taking us to make the x-ray, which is a requirement from the dorms here. Surprisingly this procedure went super-fast, even though we were going there so many people at once. Afterwards, we were divided into two groups, so buddies could better show us around the city. Later in the evening, we went out for a couple of beers in the local bars. It was a fun night with a good opportunity to meet more exchange students and see how the nightlife in Russia looks. And by the way, in Russia they also have Uber, so on my second night, I could already feel like a local. This feeling disappeared when Vadim, our driver, apparently couldn't find us, so calling him was a bit of a hassle. This time it was Oskari (Finnish guy) who tried to talk with him in Russian on the phone. All the Finnish people here knows some Russian, which at first was a bit of a surprise to me. 

On Sunday Raphaelle and I joined a group of exchange students that were going to shop different stuff for our dorms. The store "Lenta" is located around 1,5 km, so despite the cold, we all walked there. It was a pretty nice place with a large selection, and so many good deals all around. Unfortunately, at the cashier, it turned out that the sale’s price is only for those holding a membership card. So I ended up paying a fortune there.  Only good side here is that I had to spend around 20 minutes discussing my concerns with the shop’s administrator to understand that the reason for this high price is me not being a member. Since she didn’t speak any English, it was a great language lesson for me. 

On the frozen Neva

The official welcoming and first school visit happened on Monday morning. It can take up to one hour to get to the University with the bus, even though it is only around 5 km away. The traffic jams are insane here. So, we are now using metro instead, which is a much faster way to get to school even though we have to walk quite a lot. Anyways, the day started with the registration at the office, which was followed by a welcome speech from different representatives of the University. First of all, I love the building of our University. It is so neat.  My favourite speech was from the lady that is coordinating our Russian language courses. She was so proud of this department that she began quoting different famous poets about the importance of learning the language. Well, her tactics worked on me, because after that I decided to sign up for the intensive Russian course (8 hours a week) in this semester. 

After the official part, we went on a city tour with a bus and a guide organised by our buddy team. It has been so cold here, that all the rivers have completely frozen down and people are just running over them like nothing. Yet, the weather is super sweet, as the sun has been shining and everything here is white. That I call a real winter! I think Russia is not a popular destination in winter, so seeing the city in this weather definitely is a unique experience. It is so charming.

All the exchange students together

After the city tour, we went out eating, and somehow Raphaelle and I ended up in a Finnish group. Here are so many Finnish people, and I love them. They are so funny and friendly. So far I think I have learned more about different Finnish traditions and culture than the Russian. Now we all agreed that they will make a tour to Helsinki one day, which is only 3 hours train ride from St. Petersburg. Cannot wait! Well, one thing is clear if you hang out with Finns, you will be drinking every night, and so far that is what we do here. Honestly, I don’t mind, except the fact that money seems to disappear too fast. Theoretically, everything appears to be very cheap, but when you go out, the prices for cocktails and beers are rather close to the Western level. 

On Tuesday we began the Russian language crash course. Everyone was divided into groups according to their level. We were six groups in total, and half of the groups had to begin their day at 9:00, while another half at 13:00. I was the lucky one who started at 13:00, but poor Raphaelle had to start at 9:00. So, of course, I didn’t really have to worry about how late I will stay up, while my roomie really suffered from this schedule. 

In my group, we were 12 people in total. Our teacher could only speak Russian. In the first lecture, which was 3 hours long I already learned some good stuff. So I am now very motivated to actually crack this language during the 5 months. I really have no shame talking Russian here. I even talked with the old lady in the cloakroom at the school. We talked so long that now we are friends. It turns out that in the 60s she had lived in Latvia, so now I say "Labrīt" to her every morning. She is so sweet.

Grand Maket Russia

The Russian crash course lasted for the whole week, including the Saturday. Yes, Saturdays here are workdays. Every day after the classes we did something interesting organised by the buddy team. For instance, on Tuesday we went to "Grand Maket Russia", which is a museum where we could see how the whole Russia looks like. It was pretty impressive because we could better understand which parts of Russia we really want to visit. 

On Wednesday we visited Hermitage. It is so large that it is estimated to take around 11 years for a person to see every single piece in there. We only had a 3 hours tour, but when we will receive our student IDs the entrance for us will be free of charge. 

"Royal Family" my team during the games night!

After the Hermitage, quite a large group of us went to the karaoke bar. At first, I was the cheerleader to other brave students that went up and sang, and I said I will not be going on the stage for sure. But after several beers and few vodka shots, they could not get me off the stage anymore. The night turned out to be super fun, and we left the place after 3 AM. So, when the next day I had to wake up for my Russian language course, I had such massive hangover that I barely could keep my head up at the lesson. Yet, I still took the chance to shine when I decided to quote Mikhail Lermontov’s poem "Парус". This is a poem that I learned by heart in the 8th grade, and since our teacher at that time was grading us with an A for every time we could quote this poem without any mistakes, I learned it so good that I still can remember it to this day. Anyway, Thursday was a long day for us, as, after the Russian course, we went to game night organised by the buddy team. Despite my state, it was a very fun evening. Everything was organised so well, and all the games that we played were really fun and interacting. 

Sveta and I at the house party

On Friday we had another excursion organised by the buddy team. This required us being outside and listening to the guide. It was so insanely cold that a lot of us actually got a bit sick. For this reason, almost nobody was going out that night as we had to get ready for the house party on Saturday. One of the Finnish, who rents 150 sqm apartment together with two French guys invited us to a party. I think at the end we were around 60-80 people there, so it became a very fun but definitely crowded party. 

Games after  10 shots of vodka

Next day already at 12:00 we were picked up from dorms to go to one suburb, where we had to participate in a vodka tasting event. We ended up tasting 6 to 10 different vodka shots. So the games that came after were very fun to play.  So this is basically how my first week went. Now it is time to get a bit more serious because the lectures are starting on Monday and the following weeks appear to be rather busy.