And the first week passed also with some extra-activity: evening on the Onega lake shore, football friendly match with other Finns living in Petrozavodsk (our Russian colleagues unfortunately did not like the idea .. we were overexcited by the first warm sun of the season!), visiting the Carelian branch of the Russian Academy of Science (RAS) and discussing with the experts on the socio-economic situation of the Republic (sadly enough it is not the best possible, like all Northern Russian areas, due also to the recentralization of the Russian regional policy. The RAS employees had indeed good receipts for relaunching the economy. The only obstacle: a real political will for the Federal level)
It was also very nice to see still the city covered in innumerate in posters celebrating the 65th "Day of the Victory", the end of the Patriotic War against the Nazi-fascists. Also in the National Theater there was an exhibition of photos remembering the Finnish occupation of the city, from 1941 until 1944. Moreover, the city center was a real building site: the Autonomous Republic of Carelia was soon to celebrate its 90 anniversary. President Medvedev was to visit the city in few weeks, and everywhere the building were painted anew and streets covered with a new asphalt (making the atmosphere even hotter, while temperatures were going to reach 30C)
It was also somwhow amazing to see many monuments and public buildings which display clearly the Soviet past of the country. It something that a foreigner would not realize until one actually sees them. You would think that thay would have been erased, since it is a painful past ... yet, in my opinion it was a good thing! They do not negate it, and do celebrate it, especially considering the 2nd World War and the millions of Russian who died (unfortunately I do not have a picture of the eternal flame, covered all around by flowers, it was a moving scene). Even considering the Soviet experience, in my opinion one should not forget the utopian/idealist it moved the people back then .. how it was misused it is another matter ..
Before leaving the other people of the Carelian International Summer school, we had altogether a trip to Kivach waterfall, some 200km north from Petrozavodsk. During the bus trip we saw some more of the Carelian contryside, some field forests and lakes, and we spotted one of the famous mono-industrial cities (Kondopoga), a common feature of the Soviet planned economy system, that are now facing enormous problems of re-structuring.
The second week was then dedicated on our specific CBU curriculum: a course on Finnish and EU-Russian Russian relations, following a feminist approach through the analysis of editorial cartoons, and another course on concentrating on the EU Baltic Strategy. The courses were held by our coordinator Dmitri Lanko and Mikko Vähä-Sipilä (in the photo, Dmitri and in the slides a picture of Anni Kangas, our coordinator from last autumn). The acme of the week was anyway the conclusion of the course "Foreign Policy Analysis", which kept all of us busy every third week preparing policy papers of different Russian and European institutions, concerning Iceland joining the EU. The final effort was a role game simulating the Russian policy-making process. Everyone was representing a Russian institution or association, spacing from the Murmansk fishermen's association up to the President of the Russian Federation (office held that day by our Erik!) The three hours of meetings and negotiations were indeed messy (a "bardak" for the Russian speakers) but judging by the final ovation by most of the parties, when the President stated his final decision on the matters, we worked pretty well!
Moreover, we had once again, thesis seminar sessions, where we could get some precious outsiders' opinions: we knew already almost by heart our group's developments, and at least personally I got many good advices.
At the end of the week, the weather was awesome, already summer over 30C, and we enjoyed the sun and warmth. We had outside the dormitory our "get-away party" (as Laura baptized it, and became our official denomination!) grilling shashliks ... summing it up, it was a great experience and we had a in-depth look in what I'd say it is a realer Russia than being in the big cities, such as S.Petersburg or Moscow. But our next stop, next autumn, would be exactly the "Russian window on Europe", S.Petersburg, the topic of the next posts!
No comments:
Post a Comment