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!