No Heat...

Anyone who knows me well is aware of how I don't like to be hot. I often would turn the heat down very far in the winter, open windows, and other measures to ensure that I was not too hot. Some people would walk around bundled up in sweatshirts in my apartment but I would stick to shorts and t-shirt still.

I reached a new level here in Moscow though. The heat is controlled centrally by the government (surprise) and they turn it on and off at specific times during the year. As it's radiator heat I can't set the temperature in my apartment but I knew it was hot. I decided I would just turn off the radiators and get the heat from the other apartments in the building as that likely would have kept it above freezing which is warm enough for me to sleep.

This all seemed like a great idea, until I got a message from my landlord today to see if I did anything with the radiators in my apartment and if I wouldn't mind if she checked them out. Apparently by turning them off where I did I effectively shut off the heat to the apartments above and below me. I did this last week and she was out of town as well and there was some correspondence in the building asking people to check for this because there were complaints of no heat. Leave it to the only American in the building to shut off the heat...

I was told that to regulate the temperature I should just open the windows. This will seem like a great idea when it's in the 20's and I have my windows open, with the heat pumping away, wasting natural gas which is free for Russia and it's only leverage to bargain with the West.

Yakutsk (Siberia)

Yakutsk is considered to be the coldest city in the world. Built on permafrost it's got about 200,000 people, but it's in such a small area as it's all Soviet housing blocks so it was quite interesting to see. For more details on Yakutsk I found this website which is pretty interesting: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/yakutsk-journey-to-the-coldest-city-on-earth-771503.html

True to the name of the blog I arrived in Yakutsk, Russia on Monday morning. I flew 7 hours East of Moscow in coach with a six hour time zone difference. Upon landing in Yakutsk we got off the plane on the tarmac and had to shuffle across snow and ice to a bus which took us about 100 meters to the airport exit - there's no where to walk to the baggage claim. We found our driver at 6am in the pitch black and got to sit in an old Soviet van which looked like a VW Bus until the bags were transferred to the baggage claim which was a separate unheated building. There was only one door in and out of the baggage claim and everyone had to show their baggage coupon and compare it to the ticket on the bag in order to get out the same door people were trying to get in while only one person was performing this check - chaos of course.

The van then took us along ice covered roads at approximately 30 km/h to our hotel which is quite amazing, I never would have expected one this nice in the middle of nowhere Siberia but that is not the case at all. (http://www.alrosa-hotels.ru/en/hotels/poljarnay_zvezda/)

After the first day of work we went to a restaurant in another hotel which we were told has Yakutian national meals. On the menu I saw a meat platter which was noted to be a national dish - upon arrival it was cold pieces of meat, pretty much corned beef, salami, and jumbo - needless to say I wasn't too impressed with the national dish.

On the last day of the trip we went to a restaurant recommended at the hotel that would also be a cool place to spend a Friday night apparently. When we got there it had a steep cover charge according to my staff, and it wasn't worth it so we decided to go somewhere else. It was quite cold when we were waiting outside for our cab and it didn't seem as if it were coming so we got in a car with two guys in there twenties as they offered a ride. It seemed as it they were driving us somewhere shady to take our money. We tried to get out at a light but realized the doors were locked and the guys up front said that everything was OK and they were taking us where promised. I really had no idea, and didn't trust them, but it was also in single digits outside, so it wasn't as if I could have walked back to the hotel, I couldn't call another cab (don't speak Russian, or know the phone number), so we were pretty much stuck and hoped that the beer guzzling (while driving, almost like Guinea) driver took us where promised. Eventually we did arrive to a bowling complex, and got inside, ordered some food and beer and bowled a few games. I wouldn't argue that I "fit in" everywhere I go in Moscow, but certainly more-so than in Yakutsk as most people looked more Chinese than Europea although this should have been expected based on the location of the city.

I've included some pictures of Yakutsk below, I wouldn't recommend going for any tourist activities. I didn't take these pictures they are just pulled from the internet, but it's about what it looked like.

Moscow Zoo

I went to the Moscow Zoo one weekend to walk around as I didn’t have much to do on a Saturday morning. It’s a huge zoo right in the middle of town with apartment buildings surrounding it. There were lots of families walking around and I was certainly out of place but it was definitely interesting to be there. I was really surprised with some of the animals there such as squirrels and raccoons, and the fact that people found them fascinating. At home I could walk through Phillips Park near Carrick High School and see about 50 squirrels running all over the place, and there they were, in a cage at the zoo. The water wasn’t very clean in for the aqua exhibits, but I guess in the wild it doesn’t look like swimming pool water either. People seemed to have no problem feeding anything to the camels, even garbage from what I could gather. I have a few pictures included below but unfortunately it was difficult to get good ones.

Zoo entranceThe raccoon

Camels up close
Shocking, the lion was hiding somewhere...
Polar bear exhibit - I should see these in my backyard pretty soon

Training in Turkey

I got to spend a week in Antalya, Turkey for training at an all-inclusive resort on the Mediterranean. This training was the Technology and Entertainment group of PwC-Moscow (I work in Energy, Utilities & Mining) and also included former Soviet Union nations such as the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia, etc. It was a great opportunity to meet people from all over the region and I made some new friends at this training, but most were expatriates – all expatriates seem to mix together wherever I go, whether in Guinea or Russia. This training could have been more effective if performed over three days in Moscow, but who’s going to complain about a trip to a beach resort at the end of September?

There were many interesting things to note at this training such as people wearing sandals, shorts, jeans, t-shirts to training. A partner at my table was playing solitaire on her iPhone while another partner was instructing a session. There was heavy drinking through all staff levels, up through partner, even on week nights at a club at the site (I witnessed someone pass out on a couch by the speakers). I did have a couple hangovers, and went swimming in the Mediterranean Sea a couple nights after the club, but was up every morning at 7 to eat breakfast by myself and check my emails and the news in our ever slumping economy.

One day at training there was a team building event in the afternoon where the dress code was “beach casual.” (Sorry guys – I forgot to take my camera to this.) It was unbelievable what people were wearing and no one in HR at the US Firm would have let this happen, and it was surely a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen.

Anyway, enjoy some of the pictures below and the link to the hotel.

http://www.antalyaresorts.com/listingview.php?listingID=9

Me and some new friends at the club at the hotel.
There was a Pirates night on Friday night in which dressing up as a pirate was encouraged and it had a pirates theme - it was very bizarre. They had belly dancers (two of them were men) and other strange things going on.
I didn't want to dress like a pirate, but I did have some Pittsburgh Pirates gear in Moscow so I thought I'd be slick because technically I did dress up if any partners were keeping track.
One of the team building events was to try to cross this floating bridge in the pool. As you can see, Speedos are not frowned upon. (Again - I didn't take my camera, these pictures were taken by a girl.)
Tug of war in Speedos - there are girls in the background if you look closely.

A joust as part of the team building.

Unattractive women jousting - they were probably from Kazakhstan and not Moscow.