The Spring is Coming

Yet another extreme experience…

Coming back home at half past one a.m. I had to realize, that water started to run from the ceilings… the flooring was all wet. At 3 a.m. the emergency agency answered our calling attempts to tell us, they will inform the necessary people at 9 a.m… At 6 a.m. after the neighbors both below us, and the one below them also called, this time promising an humble reward, an emergency crew of two people came, by the way, mentioning they represent 50% of the agency’s man power, having more than 70 requests for this evening all around the city..

Distance Working

INTRODUCTION

This short article will be an attempt to describe the challenges I experienced so far, working for the eLearning Team of the Berlin School of Economics and Law from Sankt Petersburg, Russia. In this context, three main aspects will be closely examined: infrastructural obstacles, “the distance factor” – increased complexity and remoteness from the team, as well as the need of coping with working in a new life dynamics.

Qrkiy Mir (Яркий Мир) photo studios

“Qrkiy Mir” (Яркий Мир) is a chain of photo studios in St. Petersburg and I wouldn’t recommend going there alone, If you are not confident in your knowledge of the Russian language.

The Otta clinic (клиника Отта)

I went to the Otta clinic, recommended by Friederike to get the AIDS test done. Finding it, wasn’t so easy for I forgot to google its location. Sadly, knowing only the name didn’t help so much. A couple of unsuccessful attempts to locate its position by asking random people on the street, resulted in offending one lady in a respectable age, promoting some excursions. For I couldn’t hear her clearly I asked, her as politely, as I could to repeat the name of the street, where the clinic is located. She than turned around with aversion, explaining that she has already told me. I really couldn’t understand her behavior. Now as I think about it, she may thought I am joking with her, or that I am trying to get her into a “trap” – her the excursion selling agent. I smiled, I don’t know why, I actually found the situation more funny than ridiculous (:

Registering at FINEC and extending your Russian visa (1/2)

Registering at FINEC is a piece of cake in comparison to the extension of your visa. However, both challenges are intertwined and may also, as well be observed as one – an extremely time consuming process! A great amount of patience and self-control is required. Waiting is the credo!

This article is the first of the two-part series and illustrates the preparation and the registration process, as experienced by myself. The second article presents a registration guide, created on the ground of information, sadly I did not possess, as I had to register.

Inter-cultural Differences

The time goes by… the more I experience, the less time is left for creating… and there is just so much to write about… I have the feeling the last entry in this blog will be published long after I’ve left Saint-Petersburg… (:

This post, however will stress on the most important thing I learned here so far… inevitably intertwined with the fact I am starting to “understand” the “new” world around me…

This article is the first completed after I finished my exchange year. Most of the informations presented I wrote on 24.09.2009 – exactly one year ago. The new infos will be presented in green.

You could be everyone…

It feels so refreshing…

new country, new city, new language, new culture, new mentality, new people, new habits, new weather, new daily routine, new problems, new solutions, new visions, new impressions, new dreams…

a new life!

How to get a Russian visa (3/3)?

APPLYING FOR THE VISA AT THE RUSSIAN CONSULATE

On the first Wednesday after getting my invitation I went to the embassy with all papers prepared – it was also the first week of June. The whole procedure was supposed to take ca. 4 weeks. I hoped there wouldn’t be so many people applying for a visa at that time of the year and I was lucky – mine was done in one week. Moreover Wednesday is that kind of day, where not so many people find the time for such tasks – the most chose Mondays or Fridays. Therefore again, if it suits you I strongly recommend applying on Wednesday in the first week of June.

How to get a Russian visa (2/3)?

THE VISA APPLICATION FORM

After receiving the official invitation (e.g. from your university) one has to fill out the visa application form. Therefore I used the guidelines from visum.de and of course the references from the consulate. The first source emphasizes the content and the second the printing of the application form, and correctly gluing the picture. I must honestly confess, both information sources weren’t elaborate enough and I still had many doubts about some particular points.

Therefore, I had 6 different versions of the application form, including one, where only the basic data was filled in. This is something I recommend to everyone: a semi-blank form with a spare photo and glue in the bag, when applying for a visa. The idea of two times going and waiting at the consulate didn’t seem very teasing therefore the preparation time was considerable.

How to get a Russian visa (1/3)?

There are fundamentally two things one needs in order to get a Russian visa in Berlin: patience, and a smile (:

The rest is more or less a good preparation of all the necessary papers. For there were many unclear things to me I decided to write this article, for all who may encounter similar problems.