CBU Autumn school 2009 - Tampere

We knew already before starting studying in Tampere that we would have some weeks of courses altogether with our Russian colleagues. However, the fact that the first of these "schools" was to take place already in mid October did not really reach our minds. For this reasons, I do not even have any picture of those weeks, and all memories group together as they were a dream. Moreover for us, students from Tampere, there was not much of a change. Buildings were the same, almost same professors, the novelty were the twenty more Russian students in the class, which was overcrowded!

They were particularly intense weeks: many courses from the common curriculum, plus the personal ones, days really flew by. The most useful and demanding one (which will also haunt us for the whole next semester) was 'Theories and meta-theories of International Relations'. People like me had finally a firmer grip on the theoretical background of the discipline. Our coordinator asked us to possibly involve the Russian in other activities downtown, but we were ourselves freshers so we organised something in the few free-time we had: sauna evening with Politologit (Tampere's student association of political science), the most Finnish swimming in the lake Näsijärvi, with public sauna, evenings in pubs and clubs, and shopping in the center (they told us that some products are cheaper in Finland than in Russia!).

However, we were just starting to get to know each others, that the School was already over and our friends had to go back home, either by train or mini-bus. We were going to follow the same routes in the next years, trips which will be also much more documented with more pictures and impressions.