We arrived on Thursday each with 3 pieces of luggage and our bicycles. Our driver from the airport got a flat tire before we made it to our hotel. Welcome to Russia! I was reprimanded at the airport by a security guard for trying to take a picture of a sign written in Russian and English. That was the moment that I finally believed that after 5 months of talking about this opportunity, it had finally materialised. The airport, buy the way, resembles the Fairmont/Labrador City airport much more than something suitable for an international city of 5 million people.
We walked to the office from downtown for our first day of work, about 40 minutes, when we never managed to meet the colleague at breakfast who was also staying at our hotel. And let me tell you that it's not so easy to look for someone you don't know: I got a lot of weird looks from men when I was going around asking people "Are you Lee?" The reason he didn't show up at breakfast was because they were out with the clients until 4 am... 66 people work at the office here - 68 including Matvei and myself. About a dozen are expats and the rest are Russian. I have a feeling that I will be in a good environment to learn Russian!!
Our first day of work (Friday) ended with a cruise on the Neva River, where there was dinner, some dancing, and of course, vodka. It was a great way to get to know our colleagues and get a great view of the city! It was something else to get off the boat and the sun was still shining bright in the sky (the photo was actually taken at 10:30 pm!!) . And yes, there was indeed vodka on the boat - and it IS that much better than the stuff we get in Canada.
We spent Saturday shopping for apartments - quite the culture shock!! Here the common areas are the responsibility of the city, which essentially means that no one looks after them. So to access most Russian apartments, you leave the noisy, bustling streets to step into an interior courtyard that is unexpectedly quiet. Once you are buzzed in through the heavy metallic door, you come in to the stairwell, which is often dark and musty smelling. There are sometimes elevators, but some are so small that I can't see more than a single person fitting in then. So goes the alternative: the stairs. Lots and lots of small stairs. They are usually rough concrete and the electrical boxes are exposed on the walls. There are some buildings that have renovated stairwells and proper elevators, but those are few and far between. Once through the 8 foot tall door the apartment, it is amazing to see some of the real estate gems hidden there. Moday we moved out of the hotel into what will become the "company apartment" in St-Petersburg: it's across the street from the office and is a 2-bedroom, 2-bedroom place in a new, beautiful building. Our CEO will be here in September and the office manager wants someone to live there before he arrives so that we can figure out what is missing in the place.
