After the biking we visited Igor at home and he showed us pictures of his visit to St. Petersburg in May. This city is so beautiful! It would be a pity not to go there once, hopefully I will have some time this September. It may be that the bank lets me leave one week earlier… Honestly, I am no use to the bank; I don’t think it should bother them. On Monday I will have to change my work place again, I don’t know where I will sit then. It doesn’t really matter, I don’t get any work, and they don’t allow me access to internet or the internal network or software. This means I don’t even have a computer…
I got a telephone number of a Russian teacher, and I hope that I can take some lessons.

As I’m not the only trainee in Sberbank, I asked the other two trainees what they work and if they have the same problems like me.
Philippe is computer engineer and works in the department for internal network. He was told to reproduce the html code for the internal network. So actually he doesn’t do anything useful to the bank but repeats work that is already done. Anyways he is quite happy because he learns a lot. Philippe, Melissa and Marie-Eve will leave on Wednesday.
Nabil had about 5 meetings with his boss (he is here for 4 weeks now), where they discussed what Nabil could work. They try to find something, however until now he doesn’t have anything to do. He takes his laptop to the office and writes a paper for his university in France.
The local AIESEC committee did not really care when I told them about the situation. They are happy to have foreign trainees here and blame Sberbank for the bad quality of the traineeship, because Sberbank accepted non Russian-speaking trainees. Hm hm, what should I say… I have enough AIESEC experience to kick their ass if I want. On the other hand, I’m having actually a good time here and I use the time at work to learn Russian and to connect to non-AIESEC people.

The Datcha is a small house outside of the city. The building and equipment is usually very basic, without central heating and toilet. Lots of Russians have a Datcha, where they spend their weekends and holidays and grow vegetables in the garden. Quite a lot of old women try to earn some money in addition to their poor pension by selling vegetables and fruits of their garden (cucumbers, tomatoes, raspberries etc) on the street. They come in the morning, carrying heavy bags full of vegetable, and return when they sold everything or when it’s evening. Usually I buy at these old women and not at the professional traders, because they are friendly and honest. You get a plastic cup with 5 dl raspberries for about 1.25 CHF.

So I’m eating fruits, cornflakes, pasta and rice. Until now I did not buy meat and I don’t want to do so in the future, because on the market the hygienic situation is awful. Nevertheless I’m convinced that you could eat most of this meat without suffering from diarrhea, but when you are there and see this place, you like to become a short-term vegetarian. The meat market is situated in the market hall, a long passage through the whole building. Right and left there are the stands with meat and fish. The sellers have stone tables on which they present their selection. On a wire above the tables hang chicken, rabbits, dried fish etc. The salesman wears usually short trousers and is not well-groomed; his clothes are soaked with blood. Behind the fix installed stone tables there are big pieces of wood on which the merchant chops the animals, blood runs down to the floor. Of course there is no cooling system and no refrigerator. The buyers touch the meat to test the quality, and the seller takes money and gives out meat with bare hands. Ah, and don’t forget the smell of fish and blood.
I hope I didn’t spoil you appetite! ;-)

The only time I eat some meat is for lunch. In the building where I work, there is no cafeteria like in the central building where Philippe and Nabil work. But there is this woman who cooks at home, transports the food to the bank and sells it to us. We get a plastic plate with hot food for 25 Rubles, that’s about 1.25 CHF. Usually mashed potatoes, cucumber salad and some cooked (soft) meat, it’s ok. On Thursdays (fish day) and when we want to have a change we buy some bread and cakes for lunch. About cakes: At work we eat cakes every day. Very nice, there is a Russian and a ‘German’ cakes shop very close to us. A nice piece of cake is 0.60 CHF. Yes, I will probably get fat here without eating meat… ;-)

Here is a picture from our tour with a party boat. Very loud music, 2 hours on the Volga, dancing on the upper deck, talking on the lower deck, splendid!