Happy holidays...

Dear friends & family,

I wish you all Merry Christmas, Frohe Weihnachten, Frohi Wiehnachte, Happy New Year and of course Happy Muharram (محرم ), a peaceful time with your families and beloved! I know, my wishes come early but it might be my last internet acces for some time: today was the last day at university and the plan is to leave for Tallin on Monday!
Christmas athmosphere in Питер:

Well, you can imagine that this kind of x-mas decoration has not stimulated my Christmas mood yet ;-) Still I think we start decorating our flat a little bit tonight (thanks for the first contributions like the cute santa clause) and get a little x-mas tree tomorrow. Tomorrow a Swiss/French expat CHEESE fondue plausch is planned and on Sunday the lost souls of the exchange student group will have dinner together.

The past weeks since I have come back from Moscow were kind of busy due to university: fucking statistix (again!) a and consulting project for METRO Cash & Carry in Russia. Ok I do not want to complain too much as I had time for visiting Tsarskoye Selo(Царское Село)(finally!!!), some nice dinners and of course a party here and there.

It was also the time of saying good-bye: some students have left Russia before the holidays as they won't do any exams here (cheers to Agnes & Radek, it was a pleasure...). So we decided to do the "notorious last party in Nico & Thomas place": last Friday we had a good party with a great mix of people. Fortunately it did not turn out to be the worst case scenario but still involved some cleaning. Anyway, it was great fun, thanx to our wonderful guests.

Enough for now! Although Christmas is not the time I hang out with my friends these coming days will make me miss you and of course all my family too: Schmatz as Mami, Papi und mis Brüderhärzli!

Zurich meets Moscow

After two of the ZH boys left Pieter, Jens and me got ready for our "business" trip to Moscow. But first we had a lunch with the Swiss council to discuss the business development of a swiss company in Pieter. Lunch was great but took forever so we nearly missed the train to Moscow... 4pm we finally catch the train and have a nap after lack of sleep over the whole weekend!
Monday, 27th of November, 9.30pm: we arrive in Moscow! A little dream becomes true... we have been talking so much about a trip to the capital of the Russian Federation and now we are here! The next three days Jens spends having meetings all over the city and I do hardcore sightseeing, the highlights are:

Tuesday:
In the morning I join Jens to see the only drug rehabilitation clinic in Moscow, a very strange experience as our translator is one of the patients. In the afternoon: Red Square and Kremlin from the outside... there I also have the funniest story with the Russian police so far: because I do not have my train ticket with me (that would prove my arrival in Moscow, as I have to register in all Russian cities after 3 business days) I am supposed to pay a fine of at least 1000 Rubel! But Andreij, the police officer, does not want to steal my rare time for sightseeing. Therefor I get a "student discount" of 50% and the fine goes directly in his pocket ;-) For dinner first time Uzbek food, delicious!

Wednesday:
Mainly dedicated to my visit to the Kremlin. Entering this place you can really feel the power that is located there! Impressive is the atmosphere in the evening while standing on one of the bridges over the Moskva: all the traffic is stucked as car column after car column (with flashing blue light of course) rushes out of the Kremlin to bring the important people home. For dinner first time Ukrainian food, very heavy!

Thursday:
In the morning an audience with the Swiss ambassador and the head of the Swiss economic mission, Jens has his business chat, I can make a good contact for my Master thesis (that should be started soon!!!). Afternoon: sculptures parc ("The Graveyard to Fallen Monuments") and the New Tretyakov Gallery (fantastic pop and pop-sovjet art). By night we tried Moscow nightlife: we started with an Indian dinner @ Tandoor, fantastic as we also had the whole place for ourselves! We continued the bar hopping and clubbing according to the recommendations of a Dutch expat but were a little disappointed... we expected that the weekend would start in 12 Mio. citizens city on a Thursday but most places were empty. We ended up in Propaganda what was cool but not overwhelming... may be we are just a little bit spoiled ;-)

Moscow we will be back!

Zurich meets Pieter

Thursday night, November 30. Jens and Nico arrive in Pieter... the next the day another ZH-boy: Philipp. I had many expectations to fulfill but I think we had unforgetable what we call "buebeferie" that can be translated as "boys-nights-out"... Thursday night a warm welcome the Russian way: blini, red caviar and of course vodka. Nightlife in Metro and Gribodoeva. Friday a proper decadent dinner in the house of architects where we had a fantastic Russian meal in a very Russian environment. Saturday a first attempt for sightseeing: we did a 1,5h walk around the city so the boys could see the main sights at least from the outside. Dinner in a hunter restaurant with Dawina and Ludwig... again a proper Russian experience including wasted guys dancing, free wine to the whole restaurant (offered by one of the drunken guys dancing )and finally crashing the entrance door's windows with the fist ;-) also first time bear and elk meat for me, can not recommend it! Party @ Decadence. Sunday dedicated to some more culture: we saw the Don Quichote ballet @ the Marinskij. A very nice & relaxing end of the weekend.


Thank you for coming boys! And of course thank you for the whiskey & the chocolate...

My trip to Helsinki in pictures

1. Salmon farm, 2. Breakfast @ salmon farm, 3. Kaisaniemenlahti, 4. Helsinki from the Torni hotel, 5. Helsinki from the Torni hotel, 6. Having a fantastic view on Helsinki while taking a sh**, 7. The dark side of Helsinki, 8. The Uspenski Cathedral, 9. Helsinki cathedral, 10. The Uspenski Cathedral, 11. Inside the Uspenski Cathedral, 12. The Johanneksenpuisto Kirkko, 13. Inside the Johanneksenpuisto Kirkko, 14. Inside the Johanneksenpuisto Kirkko, 15. Savoy bar, 16. Helsinki cathedral by night, 17. Helsinki through a trash bin, 18. The Uspenski Cathedral by night, 19. Finnish street art, 20. In Kaivopuisto - view on Harakka, 21. In Kaivopuisto, 22. In Kaivopuisto, 23. Helsinki through a trash bin, 24. Fantastic Finnish anti-smoking advertising, 25. Shopping in Helsinki

My girlfriend in Pieter

Last week I spend a romantic week in Pieter with my girlfriend... we did plenty of stuff I have not done before! Highlights were:

• Concert at the Yussupow Palace: the palace orchestra played and danced in the various rooms of the palace... it was just great and I had my second tour through the palace (again in Russian...)
• Madame Butterfly @ the Mariinsky: opera performance with a simple but very impressive set.
• like 5 times Indian food at the two only Indian restaurants in Pieter: Tandoor and Tandoori Nights. Located next to each other and like 300m from my home... we just could not get enough ot their great choice of food.
• Romantic DVD evenings... you can get DVD's for like 2 EUR in Saint-Petersburg! The challenge is to pick the ones that really are in English.

Big kisses to my lady...

First snow in Pieter

I was preparing my statistics exam (yeah I know the same shit again...) as Nico, my flatmate came home and convinced me to go out and see the first snow:

It was breathtaking: we were all alone on the square in front of the Hermitage and it snowed like hell! Now I need to get proper winter clothes :-). We wanted to celebrate this event the Russian way: Vodka and Blini with red caviar. Problem: no caviar, no blini and even no vodka as Mr. Putin established a new law that prohibits shops to sell hard stuff from 11pm to 6am... in Russia, can you believe that?

Adaption is the key

Well, we have some problems with the water in our flat:

Actually I thought the purpose of taking a shower is to get clean ;-) but on the other hand there are rumours which say that exactly this way Abramovich and other Russian oligarchs made their first million: black gold coming out of the tap! I am developing plans to collect it...

Statistics sucks

The previous weekend was party as usual, nothing interesting to mention. On Sunday I attended the «Афиша» music festival. The highlight was Cold Cut from the UK: good electronic music and fantastic video animation!
Last week I spend most of my time doing my statistics home assignment. My killer course, like twice as much work as for the rest of the courses together... I expected to learn about different statistic tools but NO, I have to fresh-up my (non-existing) statistic skills! Wednesday night was the farewell party of Andreas, a fellow student from St. Gallen, who spend some time here to study Russian. It was once again in our favourite bar: die Kneipe. A German place (Münchner Weisswürste etc.) run by Claudio, a Swiss guy from Davos. They have an own in-house brewery and produce fantastic beer! The location next to the Saint-Petersburg State University main building attracts many students (actually the beer promotions from Monday to Wednesday).
After handing in my statistic assignment on Thursday night we decided to do a little party: We spend the night in Datcha, a cozy bar in downtown Pieter. Friday night once again some guests in our place and Saturday relaxing... both days of the weekend were dedicated to in- and outdoor sightseeing: field of Mars, Summer Garden, Aurora battle ship, Kunstkamera, navy museum, Yussupow palace etc. (my excitement of taking pix resulted in 500 shots, see a selection on Flickr).

there is a price for having fun

For me it is having a cold for the past couple of days... to be honest, fair enough! It was a lot of fun so I don't mind too much ;-)

• Friday: Blini @ Agnes & Sara's place, warm-up @ the irish, czech & danish gang's place and then cadillac club! For me the evening finished kinda early coz...
• ... Saturday early morning: I participate in a Russian music video clip shooting! We were shooting outside Pieter in an old parc. The whole clip was "Alice in the wonderland" style. You won't guess my role, see yourself (only for my flickr contacts - sorry). My first time on a video, movie whatever shooting so I had a lot of fun with the crew. Ok, my dress was also pretty entertaining for the crew members that didn't know me before. Saturday night I was all exhausted so I went to a nice Turkish place (I miss Turkish food) for dinner then straight to bed.
• Sunday 7am: Getting ready for the second day of shooting. This day was more tiring as the weather just sucked. Ok it made the atmosphere more real but I think most of the crew suffers a cold this week as it was raining all the time and kinda cold! I left the place in the afternoon to get ready for a meeting with the Swiss community of Saint-Petersburg. Actually it was a special occassion as Herr Bundesrat Blocher was visiting the city! Therefore the Swiss consulate organised a reception... and I could shake a Bundesrat's hand, what an honour!

Rest of the week: poker night, clubbing and of course studying... well, we had also various discussions about the current situation in Russia and the world, especially the killing of Anna Politkovskaya (see: "A Sobering Effect of Politkovskaya’s Killing" and "Politkovskaya Deserves Justice") , racism in Saint-Petersburg (for example "Students Tense After Hate Killing") and the reactions to the nuclear weapon test in North Korea.

Socialising

Friday night was dedicated to our official inauguration party. 20 official and at least the same amount of inofficial guests! It was a very funny night without to much collateral damage... ok a couple of glasses. We planned a kind of jazzy loungy style party but it ended up being hardcore drum'n'base at 3am. Pictures will follow soon...
Saturday night as I got out of the university (no no I was not studying but this is the only place I have internet acces at the moment...) I receive a message from Nicolas telling me that our landloards take us out for a classical concert to Peterhof. It was amazing: baroque music in on of the dancing halls of the palace. The last performance of a festival series organised by... one of our neighbours. On the way back we receive the invitation for the after-party / opening of the Sculptures restaurant in Pieter (some impressions...). There amazing jazz music, nice wine and plenty of people that see and want to be seen ;-). As the event only last till 1pm we decided to go to Decadance. The name of the club says everything about the place...
Sunday working, studying, relaxing and in the evening Andrea Boccheli was performing in front of the Hermitage. As it is next door I took a look. Nice concert but shitty weather.

My new flat in Pieter

Some impressions from the apartment Nicolas and me share...

Our kitchen, living room, party place... I feel like Jamie Oliver cooking here ;-)


Our toilet... The wallpapers are just lovely!

The larger bedroom... reminds me of my father's hunting room!

Highlight follows highlight

It was a very sunny weekend in Pieter so I kept exploring the city, see my impressions. On Saturday I received an invitation for the first Swiss-Russian Business Summit in St. Petersburg. At this point I realized - fuck - I did not bring a suit with me... and the summit should be at the Kempinski Hotel, one of the finest addresses in Saint-Petersburg. Well, Saturday night was dedicated to a hardcore shopping session ;-) a very exhausting experience: the shopping malls are just huge! The prices high and the quality shit (or not affordable). After 4 hours of running around I found some ok suit... I expected Pieter to be a shopping paradise but I was very wrong! Saturday night a call from Andrej and Sasha (at this time still only our potential landloards): "Thomas & Nicolas, you can move in on Sunday, we will pick you up at the dorms!" Finally we had our flat we were looking for for like 3 weeks... at the most central location possible (1 min. to the Admirality, 3 min. to the Hermitage...), a very cozy apartment! Soon I will do a photo story about it... so Sunday night was dedicated to a first inauguration party for a closed circle. It was fantastic! We had simple spaghetti and wodka shots on our roof top where you can see the St. Isaacs Cathedral... ok, Monday was therefore a wasted day.
Tuesday 26.09.2006: Swiss-Russian Business Summit. Networking, chatting & participation in workshops. Of course a fancy buffet at the end. This day I really realised how much current and future potential Russian's economy has...

3 weeks in Pieter

The last weekend was my 3rd weekend in Pieter. Similar activities as on the past weekends... Friday we checked out another club: Metro Club. One of these huge, millions of floors party palaces. It was ok, well the burning Sambuca shots would have made any place cozy. Saturday I tried to get up as early as possible and checked out the park islands of Saint-Petersburg: Kirovskie ostrova and ostrava Elagin. It was a very nice day so many locals were "promener" in the parks. The most impressing experience was as we stopped at Krestovskij ostrov for a beer: There was a military band playing some classics and elderly people were going crazy. So cute... I mean elderly people have a tough time in Russia. The official pension is very low (I heard of about 30 to 100 EUR) and especially in Saint-Petersburg life is not that cheap. It was very good to see how they enjoyed themselves. After visiting the Buddhist temple of Saint-Petersburg (Дацан Гунзэчойнэй), Nicolas and me had another food adventure: grilled chicken on the street... yummy!
Saturday night finally the first flat inauguration party: Radek, Martin and Sean got a cool 3 bedroom place. The perfect party location... so of course I stayed till early morning. A less pleasant incident that happen that night was that a group of exchange students got into trouble with Russian fasiscts. Fortunately everyone is fine but we've got once again the warning not to walk around the city alone by night. Well, this is an advise one should follow in many places anyway... Sunday: The most sunny day since I have arrived in Pieter! Perfect day to see the Alexander Nevsky Monastery and the Smolny convent. The late afternoon was dedicated to chill-out on Nevsky Prospekt on the terrace of the Grand Hotel Europe (Гранд Отель Европа)...

русский язык (Russian language)

The day I arrived here it was clear that without at least some basic russian I would be lost... anyway, the main aim of my exchange was to learn Russian. Yes I know I kept telling "... you know, I speak Polish so it can't be that much of an effort to learn Russian, it is a slavic language too...blabla" Now I do laugh about myself, hehe haha!
I have like 25 hours Russian a week at the moment but still can't see too much of a progress... but I keep fighting... my teacher Xenia is such a patient person!
I can only recommend to everyone visiting Russia, learn at least the Cyrillic alphabet! Without it you are lost... though it is fun to be lost sometimes it gets very annoying after some time, trust me! Especially as from to the police to the cab drivers everyone tries hard to rip you off...

The exchange students crowd

Well, I am not the only foreign student here in St. Petersburg. Besides all the Chinese, Korean, Japanese language students there is a group of around 50 exchange students in my Master program. And as usual, there is a whole bunch of them that likes to party... a lot! As St. Petersburg's nightlife starts rather late (not as bad as Ibiza but still like 1.30am) we do have warm up parties in the dorm... cozy get-to-gether including Italian Pasta, Russian beer & wodka, French humour and Swiss chocolate!

The Russian soul

Умом Россию не понять,
Аршином общим не измерить:
У ней особенная стать –
В Россию можно только верить.

Ф. И. Тютчев (1866)

Russia is baffling to the mind
Not subject to the common measure
Her ways - of a peculiar kind
One only can have faith in Russia

Fjodor Iwanowitsch Tjutschew (1866)

Welcome to Санкт-Петербyрг

It has been now over 2 weeks that I started my adventure in the far east. This is how the city welcomed me...

But in the meanwhile the city and its people has shown me all its beauty!

I started my stay in St. Petersburg with a so called "introduction week". Yes I can imagine you smiling ;-) Well, the programme was very diverse...

• we started with a boat trip on the Neva where I took the pic above. I had no orientation and it was raining like hell so I did not enjoy that trip to much... at least our buddies took care of us in a very kind way!
• for the next 2 days introduction to some Russian culture: we visited two beer breweries... one of them (Baltika) actually the largest one in Europe, even bigger than Heineken & Carlsberg. And yes... we ended our visits with extensive degustations ;-) . As I said above it was an introduction to Russian culture not only because of the drinking but also because of changing drinking habits: beer's popularity increases dramatically in Russia. But don't worry - you still can get wodka everywhere - in millions of variations!
• Friday was dedicated to either an Hermitage visit or a trip to the Peter & Paul fortress. I dediced to go to the fortress and keep my Hermitage visits for the cold long winter days.
• Friday night first time clubbing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We went out in a huge group (like 50 people) so it was pretty annoying to get anywhere. Very sceptical we were queing in front of a shitty looking place... but then inside AMAZING Electro... Actually I haven't had any expectations about nightlife here, when then I was expecting tztztz Sovjet techno. But no, great sound, cool club and I discovered my new favourite shot: ice cold wodka on grenadine syrup and then a proper shot of tabasco! First it cools your stomach and then it burns down your throath ;-)
• Well experiences I described in the previous paragraph caused that I missed next day the trip to Petershof... what a fucking pitty, especially as it was such a beautiful day!

My first impressions...

Back to Istanbul

Before my exchange term in St. Petersburg I went back to the city I love so much: Istanbul. Spent there a couple of romantic days... eating, drinking, dancing, seightseeing and meeting friends. Many things changed but I was still touched by the strong soul of this amazing city! Istanbul I will be back soon...

Istanbul in pictures...