First whole week in Petro

This week I had the first really good days here in Petrozavodsk. I must admit that the first week was quite hard. Nothing was working out the way it was supposed to and I barely knew what was going to happen the next day. I don't know why the общежитие (dormitory) shocked me at first, I had quite a good an idea what it was going to be like, after all. I guess I feel a little old to be living like this, under surveillance. Friday night the администрация (administration) of the dormitory came in to check whether we had any alcohol in our rooms. Of course me and a few other exchange students living here were right in the middle of watching the olympics and drinking beer. I have a feeling we might have our first warning coming. Not that we even knew you're not allowed to have any alcohol in the общежитие. Also, you can not get in the dormitory between 1 am and 6 am. If you go out, you have to make it till the next morning. Which is what we did on Friday.

Student dorm

Our first real night in Petrozavodsk was jus great. Living in a "small" city like this (more than 250 000 inhabitants) with not too many foreigners means that people are interested in you. And they want to come and talk with you. Apparently it's something that always happens when you go out. It happens during the daytime as well, people stop you and ask you were you're from, want to switch phone numbers etc. I think it's lovely. It's definitely one of the reasons I wanted to come to a smaller city, instead of going to St. Petersburg or Moscow. At some point some young Russians joined our group and were really interested in us. In the morning went to a café to eat something before taking the trolleybus home. The Russians who'd joined us insisted to pay. They themselves hadn't even eaten anything, they just drank a few beers. They wouldn't take no for an answer, although we tried to refuse. In the end we were left feeling very guilty for these local people, practically teenagers, having paid for us. Apparently another thing you'd better get used to when living in Russia. 

The shelter "Преодоление" (Overcoming)

I've continued my social work training at the local shelter for homeless people. Although calling it 'training' is an exaggeration, 'observing' would be more accurate. Although I haven't done much so far, it's really interesting to be there. Just to see the homeless people come and go, follow the workers do their thing and read the files of the homeless. Which by the way doesn't seem too right, I mean surely you shouldn't give a random foreigner documents filled with personal details. Oh well, это Россия, it's Russia. (Common phrase here to explain all kinds of odd things and happenings.) The shelter is surprisingly tidy and in a good condition. From what I've understood, it's mainly a night shelter and the occupants aren't allowed to be there during the day. I think the people there are granted a certain amount of nights at a time. During the day time, new people come in and wait to talk with a social worker. First thing they then start to sort out is their documents. In Russia, people need all kinds of documents, the most important ones are passport (there's a domestic passport and an international one) and a registration document. 

The shelter is an interesting mix for bureaucratic formality and informality. It seems strange how the office areas and the shower room are located right next to one another. The homeless are always addressed to with polite language but workers might still joke with them. For example, a guy was yelling from the shower that he needs a pair of underwear. A worker then yelled "Somebody get this guy a g-string!"

Besides the training, I've also started going to lectures. Which wasn't as easy as you'd think. The only way to find out which courses are provided and when they're held is by checking out the university notice board. I already did that the previous week and wrote down the courses that seemed interesting. I figured all I had to do then was to show up in the right place the right time. But that would be too easy! Of course the timetable was changed. I went to the university two times last week just to find out that the course didn't exist anymore or the time had been changed. On Friday, I at last managed to attend to lectures. These were two courses held in Russian, the other one is Russia in global politics and the other one is called Modern Russian politics. Both of these were held in the same way. A teacher would come in the classroom (these were classrooms instead of lecture halls), sit down and start talking. No power points, no over-head projectors, no hand-outs, nothing. The students would then make notes in their notebooks. No one had a laptop. I saw a few people do something with tablets before lecture but they put them in their bags and took out their notebooks when the teacher started talking. Of course going to lectures in Russian is hugely challenging but I assume to learn a lot that way. I managed to follow which topic the teachers were currently talking about but didn't understand much about what was actually being said about these topics. 

Things here are done so differently to home. It's best never to assume that something will be easy and simple to work out. There is an upside to this: the feeling of accomplishment when you actually get something done. At home, managing to find your way to a lecture wouldn't be much of an achievement. Here, the fact that I found my way to two on Friday made my day.