Smile to the world...

Khan Academy - revolutionalising education...

2011-12-04T12:06:00.000+01:00

...and making life-long learning truly possible.

Khan Academy is a private initiative of Salman Khan who used to work in financial sector but discovered that he can actually create some social value instead (this is his own words, not my judgement). :) Now, he and his team have created hundreds of educational videos on topics ranging from algebra and geometry to arts and history. Only the microphone and the virtual chalkboard are used for creating these videos. Each of them is about 10-20 minutes long, being a perfect duration to digest information, stop for a while, think and discuss - and watch the next video on the subsequent topic, if interested.

My wife and me have recently watched series of videos on biology, refreshing our long-forgotten knowledge from the high-school, as well as on money and banking. Khan Academy is an amazing way to spend the free time with your family - be it your partner or your kids.

I definitely agree with Salman Khan - videos are a powerful tool to acquire knowledge. I have, for instance, watched videos on YouTube and similar to learn some specific details of repairing bicycle or cooking. I also used video in my own course for students - and intend to use it even more.

The teacher as a leader

2011-10-17T23:13:00.001+02:00

I am in the middle of my first semester as a business school teacher. After seven classes conducted, one large assignment graded, numerous meetings, emails and phone calls with the students, partners and guest lecturers, after reading and preparing material several evenings every week during past few months I feel that I have learned tremendously lot.

One of the most important a-ha moments has been - which I always suspected but never felt that well on my own skin before - that the good teacher really needs to be a good leader. The set of skills required for both roles is undoubtedly very similar. Well, the teacher is the leader of his/her course. But what I refer to here is a good teacher.

I am surely just on my way towards qualifying as a good teacher. But I am extremely thankful for the leadership experience my involvement in AIESEC has given to me. I can't imagine how hard it would be for me to bare the responsibility of teaching without having led several teams and organisations first. Here are but some of the lessons about leadership skills in teaching I have learnt so far:

Lesson #1: There are different styles of teaching, just like there are different styles of leadership. One can choose to be autocratic teacher and exercise one's authority by scaring students off by unforeseen exercises and unexpected difficult questions. Many leaders exercise their authority mostly by fear (of being laid off, of being given too much work and so on). One can choose to be democratic and involving instead - both as a teacher and as a leader.

Lesson #2: Presentation skills are crucial both in teaching as well as in leadership. I have seen too many times professors - and managers - who talk long without noticing (or without being willing to notice?) that their audience is mentally not with them. (I have surely fallen into this trap some times too). However, both students in the class as well as people in the organisations appreciate clear and motivating communication on the topics relevant for them.

Lesson #3: Involving is important in both teaching as well as leadership. It seems to me that many teachers and organisation leaders who have mastered the oral skills think that motivating words alone can move the mountains. However, both the learning curve and effectiveness of work becomes higher when students/members of organisations have a stake in the process. Discussion, group-solving, team-circles - all that works as great methods both in the classroom as well as in the offices.

Lesson #4: Everyone appreciates good feedback. I have given detailed feedback to all groups of students who submitted their assignments to me. After that, several of them wrote in the assessment sheets that I collect in the end of each class that it was the very first time someone at school has given them a real feedback (not just the grade) on the effort they made. There are far too many employees in the business world who get feedback on their work just too seldom too.

Lesson #5: Structured approach and skilful guidance are crucial in both business classes as well as in the business organisations. My students appreciated when I managed to be clear and well-organised, while they got confused when I did not provide good enough guidelines in the process. Every team expects clarity and structure from its leader too.

I am sure that this list will be filled up with more lessons like that. These are just very few initial thoughts I have now. All I want is that all these lessons will help me to become (and constantly challenge me as) both a good teacher and a good leader.

Started my university teaching career

2011-09-15T21:21:00.002+02:00

A couple of days ago I had my third class as a lecturer at BI Norwegian Business School (Handelshøyskolen BI). This is something I have been thinking - and sometimes dreaming - about for several years.

In summer I was invited to be responsible for the course "Organisation of New Venture" for Bachelor in Entrepreneurship students. This is a very exciting, yet humbling task. It is a big personal challenge for me too. Despite my long-term involvement as a trainer for several years (first in AIESEC, then for Youth in Action in Estonia and in Norway), I have never been a teacher in formal education before. An additional challenge is that this course is... in Norwegian and all the students are Norwegians. My Norwegian is far from perfect, although I use it on everyday basis.

The building of BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo

Despite these difficulties that I could foresee, I nevertheless took this responsibility - and I am the teacher at the course for around 40 students during this autumn semester (until the end of the year). As this course only takes place once a week late afternoon, I can just as well combine it with my primary work (and with occasional freelance training courses I deliver for Aktiv Ungdom).

Why did I agree? Well, first of all, as mentioned in the beginning of the post, this is something I was imagining to do after some time anyway - I just did not think I was to start precisely now. Higher education, teaching and facilitating are the areas I have been interested in for years. I enjoy contributing to enhancing the knowledge of people and I feel comfortable doing it.

On the other hand, BI Norwegian Business School (or simply BI as it is known in Norway) is among the best business schools in Scandinavia and being part of it on the faculty's side is a great honour for me.

Last but not least, the purpose and the structure of the course have been very appealing to me. The students must start their own student venture in groups during the course - and we cooperate with Junior Achievement in this process. Several organisations such as NHO (Norwegian Employees' Organisation), JCI (mentorship programme),and Oslo City Government (guest lectures) are involved. Besides, I engage several acting entrepreneurs in this process. Thus, I am acting as a facilitator of the course connecting students to different people from the professional world - and support their learning journey by providing a theoretical framework as well as concrete tools to assist them.

I feel I have to be on top of duties every week I meet the students - not an easy task when one is confronted with a heterogeneous and demanding bunch of ambitious young people. It is time-consuming too - as with any teaching assignments, one needs to do quite a lot of work "behind the scenes", before and after the classes. Well, I have evenings and weekends for that whenever I need to... :)

Trip to the western coast of Norway - Geirangerfjorden

2011-08-07T22:45:00.002+02:00

The last weekend I had chance to visit the Western coast of Norway again - this time the famous Geirangerfjord. The small town of Geiranger was a sort of the tourist nightmare - plenty of cruise ship travellers from Germany and England. But the moment we went farther from the town towards the nature, I started to truly enjoy the trip. Me and my wife (I got married this summer) walked the way from 0 to 550 meters above the sea on medium-challenging hiking path.

The new Gartner hiking boots proved to be a good investment (as well as tent from Helsport and the air-mattresses from artiach). We put up a tent on the picturesque hill from which we had a magnificent view on the fjord. An amazing place to have a self-cooked dinner and breakfast in the nature!

We were also lucky with the weather. The western coast of Norway is famous for its rainy climate. Yet we did not experience any rain and in the second half of the second day we even had a sun.

All in all, it was a very fulfilling trip - the best during this year so far.

A proper response to terror

2011-07-24T20:36:00.000+02:00

"Om én mann kan vise så mye hat, tenk hvor mye kjærlighet vi alle kan vise sammen", en AUF-jente, sitert av statsministeren Jens Stoltenberg.

"If one man can show so much hatred, think how much love we all can show together", one AUF girl, cited by prime minister (of Norway) Jens Stoltenberg.

Why business schools do not teach importance of business partners?

2011-05-28T17:31:00.000+02:00

My current primary job is about establishing and developing business partnerships in different countries of Europe in CyberWatcher, a provider of technology for web monitoring and business intelligence. It means that our partners use this technology to enhance offerings for their potential and actual clients.

For me it means the tight cooperation with our partners - if they succeed, we succeed too. It's a classical win-win situation. But it is normally quite a long and complicated process - both parties need to win mutual respect and trust - and then work hard in order to maintain it.

Interestingly, I don't remember learning about the option of business partnerships as one way to develop a company in the business school's curriculum. It simply is not the part of a regular business theory. Competition - yes. Supply chain - having suppliers, customers and so on - yes. Franchise - yes.

But building a product/service offering together with another company in a specific market, sharing both inputs and outcomes of such cooperation - this is something a normal "inside-the-box" business manager is apparently not supposed to learn about. I have learnt it from the practice - and see the tangible benefits of such work.

Põhjala paradoks – kui jätkussutlik on Skandinaavia mudel?

2011-05-19T23:04:00.001+02:00

- For the readers who don't understand Estonian - this is an article I wrote about Scandinavian model of society - its roots, its main features, challenges and possibilities of "exporting" it elsewhere. It is something I have been very interested myself in and which I hope will help me to eventually bring Estonia closer to Nordics. I would like to give my gratitude to the interesting people who agreed to find time to talk to me and share their thoughts on the Scandinavian societal system - Kathrine Aspaas, Knut Sogner, Jon Erik Dølvik and Vidar Lindefjeld. -

Eestis ei ole kellegi jaoks saladus Põhjamaade suhteline ja absoluutne edu majanduses, ühiskonna arengu tasemes, turvalisuses ja paljus muuski. Kõikvõimalikes edetabelites, mis seavad maailmariike ritta ühel või teisel alusel, on Põhjamaad alati eespool.

Kõige levinum viis, mismoodi mõõta riigi heaolu, on sisemajanduse kodutoodang (SKT) elaniku kohta. Rahvusvahelise Valuutafondi poolt 2010. aastal avaldatud andmete järgi asus Norra teisel kohal, Taani viiendal, Rootsi seitsmendal, Soome 14. ja Island 20. kohal.

Kui aga vaadata nii-öelda „pehmeid“ näitajaid, siis olukord ei ole kuigi erinev. Ajakirja Forbes andmetel, mis põhinevad Gallup World Poll'i küsitlusel, on neljas Põhjala riigis kõige õnnelikumad inimesed maailmas. Üksteise järgi on esineljakus Taani, Soome, Norra ja Rootsi. Island asus selles 2010. aastal avaldatud nimekirjas 23. kohal, mis peegeldab riiki hiljuti räsinud finantskriisi.

Põhjala paradoks

Enamus ei vaevagi ennast statistikaga. Piisab vaid käia Skandinaavias ja veenduda, et teed on tõepoolest seal siledad, majad korralikud, loodus hästi hoitud ja inimesed üldiselt oma eluga rahul.

Millel põhineb Põhjala edu? Ja kui kaua veel see saab niimoodi kesta? Kõrged maksud, suur riigisektor, helded sotsiaaltoetused – see kõik on ju vastuolus enamike majandusõpikutega Eestis, mis põhinevad angloameerika liberalismi ideedel? Kas mõne aasta pärast ei ole Põhjamaad sunnitud oma lähenemist muuta?

Jonnakad põhjamaalased taguvad aga oma rauda. Viimasel Davosi kohtumisel, kuhu koguneb maailma poliitiline ja majanduslik eliit, esitasid viis põhjamaa riigipead Põhjala mudelit kui elujõulist alternatiivi teistele. Nad rääkisid veendunult, et see mudel soodustab innovatsiooni ja tõstab riikide konkurentsivõimet.

Vaevaline teekond harmoonilise ühiskonnani

Põhjamaade üks tugevamaid aluseid on ühiskonnas valitsev võrdsuse printsiip, ütleb Norra tööandjate assotsiatsiooni vanemnõunik Vidar Lindefjeld. Ta tuletab meelde, et kuni 20. sajandi alguseni olid Norra ja teised Skandinaavia riigid vaesed maad, kus puudusid suured käärid rahva sees. Norras oma aadelkond puudus, Rootsis ja Taanis oli aadlike mõjuvõim võrreldes Mandri-Euroopaga hulga väiksem. Pärisorjust sellisel kujul nagu see oli Saksamaal või Venemaal ei olnud Põhjalas kunagi. „Ühiskonnas oli juba sajandeid tagasi teatud sotsiaalne homogeensus, kus talunik oli linnakodanikuga üsna võrdses seisus,“ selgitab Lindefjeld.

Kuid ainuüksi ühtekuuluvustundest ei piisa, et veenda inimesi, et heaolu jaotamine kõikide vahel on positiivne, ning panna neid maksma kõrged maksud. BI Norra Kommertskõrgkooli majandusajaloo professor Knut Sogner tuletab meelde, et eelmise sajandi alguses oli ka Põhjamaades vabrikute omanike ja tööliste vahel tõsine vastasseis. Töölised töötasid väga palju, kuid said viletsat palka, nende elamistingimused olid armetud. Oli tõsine revolutsioonide oht nagu Venemaal.

Samal ajal võtsid Põhjamaad aktiivselt osa rahvusvahelisest kaubandusest. Sogneri sõnul olid need maad lausa sõltuvad ekspordist. „1920.-1930. aastate majanduskriisid sundisid erinevad pooled oma relvad maha matma,“ ütleb Sogner ja lisab, et probleemid rahvusvahelises majanduses olid lihtsalt niivõrd tõsised, et sisemised konfliktid pidi ühel või teisel viisil lahendama. Tööandjad vajasid stabiilsust kodumaal, et suuta oma kaupa jätkuvalt eksportida, samal ajal mõistsid töölised, et nad saavad teenida rohkem kui nad ei streigi.

Sellest ajast peale on kollektiivsed palga- ja muud läbirääkimised muutunud Põhjamaades pigem reegliks. Seda soodustab ka ametiühingute jätkuvalt tugev positsioon ühiskonnas. Sõltumatu uuringite sihtasutuse Fafo teadusdirektor Jon Erik Dølvik toob näite, et Norras on tänapäeval 53% kõikidest töövõtjatest ametiühingute liikmed. „Chicago School [Chicago koolkond majandusteaduses, mis põhineb liberaalsetel vaadetel ja mille austajaks peetakse muuhulgas Mart Laari] väidab selle kohta: „It can't work!“. Kuid nad ei võta arvesse, et ametiühingud Skandinaavias on palju paindlikumad kui kontinentaaleuroopas,“ selgitab Dølvik.

Töövõtjate paindlikkus võlgneb aga Knut Sogneri sõnul sellele, et ametiühingute esindajad istuvad ettevõtete juhatuses. „Seetõttu teavad töövõtjad, et kui firmal läheb halvasti, siis ei ole tõepoolest tööandjal raha, et suuremat palka maksta. Tulemusena panustavad tööandjad firma pikaajalisse edusse, kuna näevad, et selle edu kajastub ka nende palkadele,“ väidab tema.

Avatus maailmale viib kõrgete palkadeni

Endises sotsialistlikus leeris olid ametiühingud samuti tugevad. Kuid erinevalt Nõukogude Liidust ja selle sateliitriikidest võtavad Põhjamaad globaalsest kapitalismist maksimumi. Sogneri sõnul on ekspordisektor kõigis Põhjala riikides olnud traditsiooniliselt väga suur. „Rahvusvaheliselt avatud tööstus viib aga selleni, et palgad ei saa olla väga kõrged ja töövõtjad peavad seega tööandjatega koostööd tegema,“ järeldab Sogner.

Jon Erik Dølvik on sellega nõus. Tema väitel on kõrged tasud Skandinaavias käinud kaasas kõrgenenud produktiivsusega. Samas on see alati olnud ettevaatlik tõus – töövõtjad on mõistnud, et liiga kiire palkade kasv viib nende ettevõtted ja lausa terved tööstused riigist välja.

Tasakaalustatud liidrid

Põhjamaade üks eriomadusi peitub Vidar Lindefjeldi väitel võimueliidi poliitilises tahtes jaotada rikkust ja heaolu. Õiglase valitsemise traditsioon ulatub tema sõnul keskajasse, kui taani ja rootsi kuningad austasid oma alamate teatavat autonoomiat.

Selle ilminguid on Knut Sogneri sõnul olnud näha ka Põhjamaade uusimas ajaloos. Tänu laialdastele sotsiaalsetele kokkuleppetele muutusid eelmise sajandi esimesel poolel demokraatlikumaks nii kodanlusparteid kui ka tööliste erakonnad. Sotsialistidest said sotsiaaldemokraadid. Viimased olid Skandinaavias võimul valdava osa 20. sajandi teisest poolest. Kuid samas märgivad nii Sogner kui Dølvik, et erakapitali esindav opositsioon oli kogu aeg väga tugev ja sotsiaaldemokraadid pidid oponentide vaateid arvesse võtma. Selline tasakaalustatud süsteem on nende sõnul osaliselt põhjuseks, et korruptsiooni tase Põhjalas on üsna madal – ühel jõul ei lastud kunagi olla ainudomineeriv.

Endise majandusajakirjaniku, nüüdse ettevõtja ja kirjaniku Kathrine Aspaase sõnul on Skandinaavia õnn peitnud selles, et seal ei ole poliitikud kunagi olnud Berlusconi tüüpi. See aga on Aspaase väitel omakorda tugevdanud lojaalsustunnet riigi suhtes ja usaldust poliitikute vastu.

„Inimene on hea“

Aspaas jätkab, et nii-nimetatud Põhjala mudel on inimkeskne. „Enamus kultuuridest ja religioonidest näeb inimestes pahupoolt: et nad on patused, nad on sündinud häbiga. Põhjala mudel kultiveerib aga positiivset nägemust inimestest: et nemad on loovad ja iseseisvad,“ ütleb Aspaas. Kui süsteem eeldab selle liikmetelt eelkõige kurja, siis vajab igaüks käske ja tugevat võimu. Põhjamaade mudel põhineb Aspaase sõnul aga printsiibil, et inimesed ei oota, et keegi ütleks neile kogu aeg, mida tuleb teha.

Positiivne hoiak inimese kui indiviidi suhtes väljendub muuhulgas tunnustuses, et naised ja mehed on võrdväärsed, ütleb Aspaas. See aga tagab olukorda kui kõigi inimeste potentsiaal on kõige paremini ära kasutatud. Jon Erik Dølvik on selle arvamusega nõus. Tema sõnul avaldub naiste ressurside hea kasutus muuhulgas korralikus lasteaedade süsteemis, mis võimaldab naistel kauem osaleda tööelus.

Dølvik väidab, et põhjamaalased on võrdlemisi koostööaldid ja teistest indiviididest lugupidavad tänu tugevale kodanikuühiskonnale. Osavõtt spordiorganisatsioonides, kultuuriklubides ja kõikvõimalikes seltsides on Põhjalas olnud traditsiooniliselt väga kõrge. Dølvik selgitab selle olulisust näitega enda elust: „Ma mängin vabal ajal jalgpalli. Olen pikka aega kuulunud ühte kohalikku jalgpalliklubisse. Ja seal on ju kõik koos – kõrge ja madala haridusega... ma saan koos tegutseda väga erinevate inimestega.“

Muutuma sundivad väljakutsed

Kuid kõik ei ole sugugi roosiline. Vidar Lindefjeld räägib, et viimastel aastatel esitavad inimesed Norras üha suuremaid nõudmisi avalikule sektorile. Tema sõnul on põhjamaalased oma heaoluga väga harjunud ja ootavad, et riik teeks nende eest üha rohkem ära. Jon Erik Dølvik on selle arvamusega nõus: „Helde heaoluriik töötab vaid siis kui paljud on tööl. Kuid hiljutine tendents on see, et vanemate inimeste, sotsiaalabi saajate ja halvasti integreeritute inimeste hulk kasvab.“ Põhjala mudelit seavad küsimuse alla Knut Sogneri sõnul ka muutuvad väärtused nooremate inimeste seas: individualiseerimine, tugevam eneserealiseerimise tahe.

Dølviku sõnul ei saaks Põhjala mudel muutumata kujul kindlasti kaua kesta, sest väljakutsed on tõsised. Tema väitel on selge, et poliitikud ja teised peavad kohanduma, riigi poliitika peab uuenema, aga see on juba toimumas. Knut Sogner märgib samuti, et Põhjala mudeli üks tugevus on just selle paindlikkus. Ta toob näite, et viimasel kolmekümnel aastal on Skandinaavia majandust iseloomustanud liberaliseerimislaine, samal ajal kui teatud sotsiaaldemokraatlikud põhimõtted nagu võrdusprintsiip on jätkuvalt jäänud väga tugevaks.

Kõige tugevam sõltub tugevuselt teisest

Eestist vaadates tundub vahel ikkagi kummaline, miks inimesed on nõus maksma kõrgeid makse ja andma osa oma tulust ära selliste inimeste toetamiseks, kes on selles ise tihtipeale süüdi. Jon Erik Dølviku sõnul ei ole pärast paljusid aastaid kollektiivset sundi üllatav, et Eesti ühiskonnas valitsevad individualistlikud väärtused ning skeptilisus võimude suhtes. Kuid ta märgib: „Parimad on sõltuvad paremuselt teistest. Muidu langeb terve tase. See on nagu spordis, nagu jalgpallis. Kui on olemas vaid üks tugev meeskond, siis ajapikku muutub ka see rahvusvaheliselt nõrgaks, kuna ta ei saa oma keskkonnas dünaamiliselt areneda.“

Dølvik näeb liigses liberaalmajanduslikus korras Eesti-suguste väikeste riikide jaoks selget ohtu. Ta selgitab, miks ei tasu alati kopeerida USA mudelit: „Eesti jaoks on raske kultiveerida „American Dream'i“. Reaalsus on see, et kui ühiskonnas propageeritakse põhimõtet „The Winner Takes It All“, siis need vähesed, kes suudavad palju kapitali teenida, investeerivad seda teenitud kapitali suures osas välismaale, sest väikses riigis napib suuri tulusid toovaid projekte. Tulemusena ei võida ühiskond sellest midagi.“

Põhjala-taolise heaoluriigi vastu suunatud kriitikat oleks kõige loogilisem otsida kapitalistide seas. Kuid Norra Tööandjate Assotsiatsiooni esindaja Vidar Lindefjeld ütleb, et Põhjala mudel on vaatamata teatud kuritarvitamisele üksikindiviidide poolt väga mõistlik lahendus. Tema sõnul on Põhjala mudeli tugevus eelkõige selle stabiilsuses, mida hindavad kõrgelt ka tööandjad. „Ka Skandinaavias on palju rikkaid inimesi nagu igal pool. Kuid samal ajal on terve ühiskond saanud osa sellest rikkusest,“ väidab tema. Rääkides suhtelisest rikkusest esitab Lindefjeld muigades retoorilise küsimuse: „Kui sina teenid kümme miljonit eurot aastas ja mina teenin „vaid“ ühe – kas see teeb mind siis vähemõnnelikuks?“

Põhjala mudeli ekspordist välismaale

Kuigi põhjamaalased on vajadusel valmis oma ühiskonnamudeli eeliseid kaua ja põhjalikult kirjeldama, on nad üsna ettevaatlikud võimaluse suhtes seda mujale eksportida ja teisi õpetama hakata. Knut Sogneri sõnul ei ole lihtne õppida hoiakuid. Ta väidab, et oluline eeldus Põhjala mudeliks on sotsiaalse usalduse tugevus ühiskonnas, mille ülesehitamine võtab väga kaua aega.

Ka Dølvik on skeptiline Põhjala mudeli kiire ülevõtmise suhtes, sest see on tema sõnul olnud Skandinaavias saja aasta arengu tulemus. Balti riikides teeb tema väitel asja keeruliseks see, et töövõtjate organisatsioonid on üsna nõrgad: „Ametiühingud diskrediteerisid end nõukogude ajal ja usaldus nende vastu ei ole taastunud.“ Samuti on Eesti alustanud 1990.aastate alguses hoopis teisest stardipositsioonist. „Balti riigid olid ilma korraliku sisemise struktuurita, mis reguleeriks tööelu riigi sees, kui nad astusid rahvusvahelisse konkurentsi kohe pärast iseseisvuse taastamist. Norral ja teistel Skandinaavia riikidel oli mitme kümnendi jooksul taoline struktuur ennem olnud,“ selgitab Dølvik.

Samal ajal möönab tema, et baltimaalastel on palju ühist Põhjala inimestega. Kui lähiajalugu kõrvale jätta, siis on paljud teised eeldused Balti riikides tegelikult olemas. Küsimus on vaid ühiskonna valmiduses ja tahtes.

Who is more popular - Osama bin Laden or Kate Middleton?

2011-05-12T12:12:00.000+02:00

We did a short fun media analysis in the company I work for - CyberWatcher. The question was: which of the two events - the recent royal wedding in the UK or the death of bin Laden - attracted more media attention in selected countries.

The answer varies from country to country and can be found at CyberWatcher blog.

Here is one example of media coverage of Osama bin Laden versus Kate Middleton in Germany:

Impressions from the business trip to Slovenia

2011-03-28T23:14:00.000+02:00

Last week I had chance to visit Slovenia again. It was a two-days business trip this time. The trip was successful in business terms, but it was interesting to see Ljubljana again and compare it to my impressions from 2005, from more than five years ago.

Well, I must say that I feel quite the same about the country. It's a beautiful land with nice compact capital. Its people are hard-working yet also relaxed. Slovenian mentality in general is close to me.

As five years ago, I found quite many similarities between Estonia and Slovenia:

Small country, small nation;
Economically and socially most successful country of its kind (ex-USSR and ex-Yugoslavia respectively);
Despite that success, people are complaining about the standards of leaving, preferring to compare themselves to Finland or Switzerland, rather than to the countries with similar history;
Beautiful old town in the capital, surrounded by grey ugly buildings from Communist era (luckily, many of them have gotten a lift-up in the recent years).

These observations are quite superficial, as I have not spent too much time in Slovenia. One obvious difference is climate. While in Tallinn and Oslo it was between -2 and -5, snow laying down everywhere and me trying not to fall down on slippery roads, there was around +10 in Ljubljana, first flowers visible in parks and first days without the jacket experienced by me.

All in all, Slovenia is definitely one of few countries I could imagine myself living if I was to choose freely.

Visualising Norwegian international trade and investments

2011-03-16T21:48:00.003+01:00

I prepared a presentation for my Norwegian class today. It is about Norwegian foreign trade and investment flows with abroad.

Having acquired statistical data from Statistical Bureau of Norway, I did a little bit of data-mining and then created quite nice visualisations of who Norway trades with, which countries Norway invests and who invests in Norway. I am known fan of visualising complicated things to make them more comprehensible. This time I used great technology developed by Hans Rosling an his team which was later bought by Google and made usable for everyone having their own Google account and knowing how to use Google Docs.

The beauty of these visualisations is that it allows to notice progression, the speed with which both international trade and international investments have grown in the past 10-12 years. It also allows to easily recognise proportions of importance of particular countries for Norway in economical terms.

Particular results which are visible there:

Economically, the most important are Norway's North European neighbours - Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, UK, the Netherlands (one cannot get away from USA, of course, either).
China's growth as one of the largest importers of the goods during past decade is impressive
Norway has been investing a lot into Belgium. What is the explanation behind it?..

In order to get the full overview of the time dynamics, one needs to press the "Play" button in the graphs below (down-left corner of a graph).

Flow of international trade in Norway 1999-2010

Flow of international investments in Norway 1998-2009

My article in ekspress.ee - Higher salary is not necessarily good reason for emigrating

2011-01-31T23:34:00.000+01:00

Today, ekspress.ee, an on-line version of an Estonian weekly, published my opinion article based on my blog post from the past, modified, edited and adjusted. It presents very elementary economic analysis of the situation when two countries have very different levels of average salaries. My argument is that the higher salary abroad is not necessarily a good economic ground for emigrating (yet I don't claim that emigrating is something negative per se).

A graduate with a Master's degree!

2011-01-04T19:20:00.007+01:00

One of the last memorable moments from the end of 2010 was my graduation ceremony at BI Norwegian School of Management where I pursued my Master's degree for the last two years.

Enlightening books and some very good professors (not all of them) coupled with my interest in a business subject on theoretical level resulted in much better understanding of the area. Academic results were good. I am satisfied with these two years :)

Let's see whether and (and if yes then) when I will enter academia again. Now I am focusing on achieving success in international business and on mastering Norwegian language (along with some projects I am contributing to

Visiting the fjords area in the Western Norway

2010-11-12T22:57:00.015+01:00

Almost exactly one month ago I had an incredible luck to visit a fantastic area of the fjords in the Western Norway. That is the region where my friend Sveinung comes from - who was kind enough to invite me and Sergio, the common friend of ours to visit his home area.

Only now I sat down to write a little bit about it and put out a few pictures from this trip.

We spent there just three days. Very intensive days these were!

Day 1: Sailing in the fjord

Day 2: Wind-surfing in the ocean

(the first time in my life I was surfing - I almost manage to stand up on the board) :)

Day 3: Climbing a mountain next to the bay where we had surfed the day before

I must admit that I enjoyed climbing the most - I love mountains, I love hiking atop of them.

And, once again, I realized how incredibly beautiful is the nature of Norway.

SINA is recruting mentors in Estonia

2010-10-26T23:14:00.004+02:00

There is one great social initiative in Estonia which some of my friends are actively involved in. It's called "SINA" ("YOU"). It helps active young people aged 13-19 to come up with and drive the social entrepreneurship ideas. One can become a mentor for such groups of young people.

SINA is recruiting new mentors now. Any proactive Estonian people who want to contribute their time to the work with talented teenagers are welcome to apply - more information in Estonian is on the website of the programme.

Talents back home or six economic reasons for not emigrating

2010-10-19T22:21:00.015+02:00

Recently, there came another small positive news from Estonia. Initiated by some proactive people there, a new project has been started some weeks ago. It's called "Talendid koju" (its slogan in English sounds as following: "Let's bring talents back to Estonia"). Its purpose is to facilitate exchange of information between the most outwards-oriented Estonian companies and organisations on one hand, and the talented young people of Estonian origin studying and/or working abroad. The objective is obvious: to make sure that many young people would actually come back to Estonia - those who are uncertain about the future in connection to their homeland.

A very good initiative in any case!

I don't know if I am really qualified to be called a "talent", but I am not yet going back to my homeland. The reason is... love :) My dear reason has come to Norway to study for two years in the Master programme at the very business school which I am graduating from. So, we have decided to stay for another two years in Norway.

Interestingly, many - both in Norway as well as in Estonia - find it so natural that people like me want to stay in Norway for a longer period of time (or even emigrate here)... Well, I love Norway - I am a total fan of this society - it's by far one of the best countries in the world to live. The overall standard of living is without any doubt higher here, the society is on the higher level of development, but...

...here are my six economic reasons why I don't plan to stay much longer in Norway (you never know though):

1) It's nice that there are high salaries in Norway. However, it's somewhat misleading without taking a look at the level of prices. They are prohibitively high in many cases. The average salary might be six times higher in Norway than in Estonia. At the same time, the food prices are 2-3 times, the apartment rents in the capital are 3-4 times, and the beer prices 4-5 times higher in Norway.

2) Well, someone can argue that the difference is still large. Yes, it is. It's especially nice to travel and shop around abroad when having incomes in Norway. But I wrote about the average prices here. As a foreigner, without previous connections and profound understanding of the society, with relatively poor command of the language, you are always naturally limited in (a) what you can achieve and (b) how fast you can achieve it. I have much more natural advantages in Estonia, not abroad. Thus, the probability that I will get higher than average incomes is also higher in Estonia - be it through the paid job or the venture revenues.

3) People don't usually take into consideration additional direct costs involved in the life abroad - costs of travelling home and back, long-distance calls, the need to buy some things you already have back home (which might be more expensive to bring).

4) Norway is a stable well-developed society. What is there to change? What is there to really contribute to? If I was to be happy with an average level of salary and bourgeois everyday security, that would be a good option. My ambitions are definitely higher. I want to feel that I can make THE difference. And it's much higher probability to make this difference in the country like Estonia or Kazakhstan. Thus, there is an opportunity cost translating into lowering personal ambitions when living abroad.

5) Perhaps most importantly, Estonia is the country that I feel the strong mental connection with. My parents and grand-grandparents were born there. I love to be there. I love Estonian nature and Estonian food. That's my place. No further explanation is needed. Thus, there are additional social and emotional costs involved in living abroad for an extensive period of time.

6) It's quite rare I can hear young people from different countries speaking about the responsibility towards their homeland. I feel that I bare this responsibility towards both the nation as a whole as well as my parents. Both have invested in me - with the financial means and otherwise. I feel the moral obligation to pay back - with my efforts, dedication and care.

Thus, taking into account all these costs and the moral reasoning, it's not at all so obvious that you are better off in another country which has higher standard of living than the one you were born to.

Cycling is my passion - 30 km every day

2010-09-12T21:53:00.008+02:00

Those who know me better are mostly aware of one of my ultimate passions - cycling. I sincerely believe that the bicycle has been one of the best inventions of the humankind.

I don't use a bicycle for working out. I use it for recreational purposes sometimes. But most of all, a bicycle is a means of transportation for me.

I used to cycle to and from the work/study locations in the different cities I happened to live before - Tartu, Tallinn, Brno and Berlin. The other cities were just not too suitable for biking (like Split with its narrow medieval streets or Almaty with its traffic jams and sometimes crazy driving culture).

This summer I bought a used bicycle (and the basic equipment) here in Oslo (at the picture on the left). Ever since (for almost two months by now) I have not used the public transportation nor any other means of transportation.

It has been a great exercise for me - I live in a totally different edge of the city from the location of my work. The distance is exactly 15 km one way, which means that I am cycling at least 30 km every working day. And the weekend is no different either - whenever I need to get somewhere more far away from my house than a walking distance. Oslo is situated in a very hilly area - thus, my way is always full of going up and down. I bought the water-proof jacket, the trousers and the cover for the shoes - thus, I am cycling in wind and rain as well.

...and I love it!

It takes me just 5-10 minutes more than the bus, yet I am not dependent on any bus schedules, I'm not wasting my time on commuting and I don't contribute to the traffic pollution. And I feel great both physically and mentally every day thanks to the regular physical exercise. I am planning to cycle as long as I can until the snow and ice will appear here in Oslo.

In addition, bicycle has been a great help for me in order to discover Oslo. I have got the detailed maps of the different parts of Oslo outlining interesting sightseeing spots in the city and around - sometimes, in totally unexpected locations. During the past weekends - when I felt like taking a rest from the studies and other duties - I took the bike, the maps and went to discover the city. By now, I can claim I know the city much better than many of its long-term inhabitants.

There is only one friend of mine of my age who, like me, doesn't have the driving license yet. That might sound strange for many. But I don't miss it. I have never had any special passion for cars. How long can I stay without one? Let's see. But for now I am bicycling and hope to continue with it until the old age. In fact, this is so important for me that I am certainly going to consider cycling opportunities as a transportation whenever choosing where to live and work (specific locations).

In general, I see it as one amazing advantage of the Norwegian society. People do a lot of sport here, they spend a great deal of time outside. While families in many other countries waste most of their weekends in the shopping malls and in front of TV, many Norwegian families go for hiking, sailing, fishing, cycling, skiing, and so on instead (of course, Norwegians shop around and watch TV too). I feel very comfortable with this aspect of the Norwegian society.

Cognitive model of entrepreneurship and its reflection in three Scandinavian graduate programmes

2010-09-05T10:27:00.011+02:00

This is the title of my Master thesis that I submitted few days ago as the finalising part of my studies at the MSc programme in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the BI Norwegian School of Management.

It is the result of several months of work. Me and my colleague Richard from Hong Kong spent a lot of time and effort doing this research and presenting it as a written report.

The topic focuses on the entrepreneurship education. The intriguing question has been: entrepreneurship, just like the talents of musicians, artists, teachers etc. is often considered to be more art than science. How to teach someone to become an entrepreneur? Is it possible anyway?

Borrowing methods from the field of human geography, we mapped out the very domain of entrepreneurship. Essentially, we constructed the map of entrepreneurship based on the stories of 36 entrepreneurs. Then we did the same for three different graduate programmes focusing on the entrepreneurship as a subject - and compared their cognitive models.

Hopefully, I will make a practical use of this research in the future - this is my intention anyway.

The full as well as summarised text of this work is available on request.

The model of entrepreneurship from the accounts of practitioners (click on it for a larger view)

The model of entrepreneurship in the clusters of meaning (click on it for a larger view)

I have done terrible mistakes

2010-08-08T21:13:00.007+02:00

I often think about it - and it troubles me. In order to get rid of at least part of such troubling thoughts, I'd write about them here. Public confession may make my feeling of guilt smaller.

What troubles me is that I have done terrible mistakes in my life. Well, everyone does them, and nobody is able to live a life without them. But what troubles me the most are those mistakes that have hurt other people. Sometimes it were people who used to be very close to me.

I used to behave in a selfish way.

I used to to say things simply out of vainness, because I enjoyed attention.

I used to be very careless to the feelings of people around me.

I was choosing not to tell some things out of pure self-interest.

I used to say things just because they made me feel I impressed someone, because I wanted to be perceived smart.

I used to behave in such ways for many years, and as long ago as in 2008-2009, after I had gone through tremendous self-discovery process of leadership and taking responsibility for other people.

I regret my behaviour. I regret what I did to some other, very good, people. I wish these people were in the same town as me now - I would just go and meet with them... and say: "I'm sorry". Even though they might not even remember what did I do to them.

A strong wish to do it was provoked by one particular radio documentary from BBC that I listened to a few weeks ago - a story of how a former prison guard at Guantanamo Bay detention centre sought reconciliation with two of his former prisoners. It turned out they were innocent people and were taken as prisoners by the U.S. force by mistake.

I have not been a prison guard, yet I know I did hurt the feelings of some good people. I hope such mistakes will mainly stay in the past (is it ever possible to avoid them?). I hope I will be a better person in the future.

Seven arguments against gay marriage

2010-07-07T22:45:00.011+02:00

1. Being homosexual is not natural. Hence, the gay marriage should not be allowed either.

2. Allowing gays to marry? Who's next? Dogs with other dogs? Cats with other cats? Paedophiles with minors?

3. A gay marriage is a bad, bad example for children. Promoting homosexuality in that way will turn more children to be gays.

4. Marriage has traditionally been one of the very sacred symbols of society and its cultural/spiritual values. We cannot allow these values to be ruined by legalizing the acts of sodomy.

5. Homosexuality is basically a sickness. We cannot allow sick people to marry because they are sick.

6. People claiming to be gay make it out of fashion or because they want to be different or because they had gotten a child trauma. These are no valid reasons to allow them to get married.

7. Gay couple cannot give a birth to a child. This is the main point for having the very institution of marriage. Why bother then?

--

I have just summed up the arguments that I have been hearing from many people throughout many years. And I still keep on hearing them.

Let me be clear on few things. First, I'm a heterosexual man and I am very happy about it. I've always liked girls, I've always been attracted to beautiful women.

Second, I know a lot of people who are gays.

Third, I support the legal ability of gay people to sign a partnership agreement, in case it allows them to be legally treated as people closely related to each other (it's important for the cases such as inheritance, having common property, and so on). I don't necessarily think it should be called "marriage" - rather a "partnership" in legal terms like in Norway.

Fourth, I don't necessarily enjoy watching two men passionately kissing - I don't want to be exposed to it when I choose not to. I wouldn't be participating in a gay parade (although I have nothing against it taking place). I think that the union between a man and a woman has to bear its primary meaning in the society and has to be promoted so - otherwise, we as humankind will die out. But what I am talking here about are the fundamental human rights of people that differ in their sexual orientation from the majority.

--

I decided to write about it after having attended a celebration party of two gay men who had signed a partnership agreement in Norway. They organised a party without calling it a wedding, although many elements of a traditional wedding were there. It was a great event. I enjoyed seeing people having chance to express their happiness without being feared that they will be prosecuted or terrorised for that

--

Now back to the most common arguments against the gay marriage.

1. Being homosexual is not natural. Hence, the gay marriage should not be allowed either.

Homosexuality has existed in humankind since we know it documented. Homosexuality has been reported numerous times among other species. A different type of sexuality is coined by nature. How can it be called "not natural" then?

2. Allowing gays to marry? Who's next? Dogs with other dogs? Cats with other cats? Paedophiles with minors?

Those who are making such comparisons miss one important point: unlike minors and animals, gay people have consciousness and are able to be responsible for their intentions and acts. Two adults who are mostly contributing to the wealth, development and creativity of society decide for themselves, being fully aware of the consequences of such act.

3. A gay marriage is a bad, bad example for children. Promoting homosexuality in that way will turn more children to be gays.

As I wrote earlier, there is no scientific proof that you can switch between a different type of sexuality, because you were told to do so. But there is a proof that a certain percentage of population is gay by default.

On the other hand, however exposed I would be to being a gay - no, thanks - I will not exchange my natural desire for women for anything else. I clearly remember my music teacher in the kindergarten. I was 5. She was around 30. I was in love and... wanted her to be my second mum (how else should have I imagined her to be in that age?). I don't think that my sentiment towards the music teacher would have somehow be influenced by the knowledge that there are two men or two women living together somewhere in a happy family.

4. Marriage has traditionally been one of the symbols of society and its cultural/spiritual values. We cannot allow these values to be ruined by legalizing the acts of sodomy.

It's funny to hear about the family values when, according to statistics, almost half of the marriages in the Western world end with divorce (I believe the percentage is smaller elsewhere primarily due to the strong social stigma related to a divorce). On the other hand, so many children are born into the families where parents are not married. Or - worse - into the situation when they get raised without a father. There have been cheating wives and alcoholic husbands for as long as we know human society. I don't believe the act of legalisation of gay marriage would somehow make the situation even worse...

5. Homosexuality is basically a sickness. We cannot allow sick people to marry because they are sick.

That's essentially the same as "naturalness" argument. It's a well-known rhetorical tactics - to call something you don't like "sick". And even if it is "sickness", shall we prohibit all other "sick" people to get married? HIV-positives, asthmatics - should they be doomed to stay single?

6. People claiming to be gay make it out of fashion or because they want to be different or because they had gotten a child trauma. These are no valid reasons to allow them to get married.

Once again - I don't know anyone who has chosen his or her sexuality. The people usually discover their sexuality, not choose it. A girl kissing another girl in a night club for fun doesn't equal with choosing your sexuality.

And if someone has turned to be a gay due to a child trauma? Well, that's the same as "sickness" argument - I don't think it's right to prohibit people to get married because they had traumatic childhood.

7. Gay couple cannot give a birth to a child. This is the main point for having the very institution of marriage. Why bother then?

Gays can't have children - that's true (in some places they can adopt children - and I'm not going to argue for or against this - that's another topic). However, as I mentioned earlier, there are more and more children being born into families where parents are not married. Thus, I don't see a clear correlation between marriage and having children.

Beautiful Estonian nature

2010-07-01T22:49:00.019+02:00

I spent a wonderful holiday in Estonia in June. One great part of it was a four-days-long hiking trip in South-Eastern Estonia with four friends of mine. We spent very quality time together - as we haven't seen each other for a long time - hope to be able to repeat such trips every year! We had a lot of fun, some good deep conversations and truly enjoyed the sights of beautiful nature around us.

Here are some snapshots of what we saw around us:

Impressions from St.Gallen Symposium in Switzerland (vol.2)

2010-05-17T18:35:00.004+02:00

The part of the St.Gallen Symposium in Switzerland in the beginning of May was a debate involving some successful intelligent people from different areas - academia, social entrepreneurship, corporate life, government. The topic of the debate was "Choose your Future" - addressing the young people across the world who were participating at the Symposium. To make this interesting debate available outside the scope of participants of the event, it was hosted, recorded and later broadcast by the BBC World Service Radio on 15th of May.

Some young participants were chosen to speak up their views based on their questions to the panellists. I happened to be one of them. I expressed my view that young people who have education and intelligence too often don't think of the responsibility that they bear - instead being egocentric and comfortable with the little bubble of consumerism and other learned desires they treat as important.

The whole programme is available on the BBC website. My contribution to the debate is from around 41:15 till 43:00 and, again, from 45:30 till 46:45.

Impressions from St.Gallen Symposium in Switzerland

2010-05-10T22:10:00.013+02:00

I got a privilege to be part of 40th St.Gallen Symposium in Switzerland which took place on 6th-7th of May with the pre-programme on 4th-5th of May. This Symposium provides a platform for some young people from the best business schools across the world to meet with the prominent business leaders from across the globe. I got selected there to represent the BI Norwegian School of Management.

The topic of this year's Symposium (the topic is different every year) was "Entrepreneurs - Agents of Change" - relevant for both my studies, as well as for my academic and professional interests. The event was organized on a very professional level (around 300 students participated in organizing it, guided by the board of trustees). The line of speakers and workshops leaders was very impressive - the most high-profiled event I have attended so far. CEO of Nestle, Chairman of the Board of UBS, Chairman of the Board Deutsche Bank, the Managing Partner of McKinsey&Co, Chairman of the Board of BASF, Minister for the Economy of France, to name a few.

The most impressive for me were the stories from the European, American and Asian entrepreneurs - both of established successful businesses and those among young ambitious "leaders of tomorrow" (I was being labelled a "leader of tomorrow" as well). Very smart people, impressive conversations, good fun with some of the "leaders of tomorrow", new ideas and insights, yet another confirmation that I have a larger responsibility towards this world.

I took many notes during this symposium and decided to type in some of them here.

Global barometer (the survey among the "leaders of tomorrow")

99% of young leaders of tomorrow (400 respondents from across the globe) think that globalisation is good.

The Eastern Europeans are least proud of their countries across the globe. Only 35% are proud, while in total 85% of young leaders of tomorrow are proud of their countries.

Entrepreneurship

Suhas Gopinath (India) started his first business venture when he was 14 in an Internet cafe in Bangalore (he didn't have his own PC) – a freelancer which was dealing with the design of the websites. When he was 15, he first employed people, although his family was against him being involved in the business venture (they wanted him to learn in school properly). Later started with the e-commerce systems, e-systems for education, dealing with the systems that distinguish between real/fake medicine according to the bar code. He now employs several hundreds of people, being 23.
“One advantage with being a young entrepreneur is that you are not afraid of failure”

“Capital without capitalism”: everyone can start up a firm on a kitchen table with a laptop for $300 and have a global audience from the day 1. (Peter Dey, BBC business reporter).

Dr. Bert W. M. Twaiihoven (Switzerland/Holland), an entrepreneur who has established several companies:

“If you know what you don't know, you are a winner” - there must be people who can be better than you (managers, project leaders etc.)
Business plan – you are always too optimistic. The success of the technology business venture almost always takes at least 5 years. The first year is always unprofitable.
Reluctance to change among the people around you: “The only one on the world who likes change is the baby in the wet diapers”
He was 82 when giving the talk, but was doing a lot of sports with his wife, because it holds one to be healthy.

Angad Paul (GB), entrepreneur:

“Entrepreneur is the one who creates a long-term wealth, a long-term value”
“Entrepreneurs surround themselves with the people who are smarter than they are”
“Money is a measure, a by-product. It is a form of energy”

M. Shafik Gabi (Egypt), entrepreneur:

“Fortune favours bold and determined”
“Cash is the king, profit is an opinion”
“Don't be afraid to fail. If you will, you will fail”

Hiroshi Mikitami (Japan), entrepreneur:
“Everybody can become an entrepreneur. But only some can become successful entrepreneurs.”

Christian von Koenigsegg (Sweden), entrepreneur:

“I never wanted to build a business. I wanted to build the sports car. That's why I succeeded as an entrepreneur.”
“If Einstein has figured out how does the universe work while sitting in a cafe, I could have figured out how to build a car without an engineering background”
“You should only become an entrepreneur if you have a reason to do so. Ask yourself: Do I have something special to contribute? Am I ready to sacrifice?”

Mark C. Medish, U.S. Diplomat
“Entrepreneur is a combination of a great explorer and a great bullshitter”

Morten Lund (DK), co-investor of Skype, failed as a newspaper investor, multiple entrepreneur:

“Forget about the ideas. Ideas mean nothing. What matters is a team”
“Money comes from sales”
“There is no formula” - no unique recipe for success
“Vision is everything. But be sure you don't mess it hallucination with it”
“Network is the key” - learn to communicate
“Technology is the key”
"Try. Self-confidence every day."
Being positive. The power of minds.
Being crazy vs. the mainstream
"Go with your interests and hobbies"
“Look for good people. Good people will succeed with anything”
“Don't over-strategize”. Forget about BSC, McKinsey and similar
“Find people who you share values with”
“Try to stay in love”
“It's all your fault”. Don't blame the others
"7 out of 8 businesses die. So, don't jump into anything."
"Do branding."

Would we have had such a financial crisis if there would have been more female leaders around?

Christine Lagarde, Minister for the Economy, Industry and Employment of France (my absolute favourite governmental representative there):

“There are too many dark suits around. And not enough legs [in financial world]”.
“If Lehman Brothers had been “Lehman Sisters,” today’s economic crisis clearly would look quite different.”

Nature vs. Civilization - 1:0

2010-04-17T17:09:00.006+02:00

People around the world (at least in the territories that call themselves "civilized" world like Europe) are used to be in a driver's seat. We are used to be able to govern what is happening around us. You want to go on holiday? No problem - you book the ticket in the Internet, pay for it with your credit card, take a place - and you're there.

Not this time, however. I am one of those thousands unlucky ones who couldn't take off from or land to many airports across Northern and Central Europe due to eruption of the volcano in Iceland and subsequent spread of the ash from it. My flight from Oslo to Turkey could not happen today. My 1-week holiday has been cancelled and with it - a certain shared joy that I have been waiting for.

However, I have been surprisingly calm about it. After all, people are spoiled with the false belief that they can control everything. The Mother Nature is mightier than us and I - as a big admirer of the Nature on our planet - feel just humble about it.

A beautiful Internet ad

2010-03-14T22:41:00.002+01:00

I have recently stumbled upon a marketing campaign of clothes collection at YouTube. Rarely do I see such a beautiful advertisement meant for Internet - with a subtle humour and intelligence. And it is quite an interesting example of using the social media for marketing purposes.

When Estonia will be part of Scandinavia...

2010-02-26T23:17:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I had chance to participate in a reception organised by Estonian Embassy in Oslo that was devoted to Independence Day of Estonian Republic. There I met two interesting Norwegian businessmen who have commercial connections to Estonia. I had almost one-hour-long conversation with one of them. He remarkably said that he felt Estonia and Estonians were very Nordic in terms of mentality, work ethics, even appearance. Okey, maybe he flattered a bit because I am from Estonia.

On the other hand, unlike, say, 95% of Norwegians, he has been to many countries in Eastern Europe (he has been involved in businesses in Lithuania, Poland and Serbia, among others) and can actually make a difference between them. And I can too. Estonia, with its lowest level of corruption among ex-Communist states in Europe, high work ethics, disregard for hierarchy and low level of religious dogmatism has definitely a potential to be called a Nordic state.

Unfortunately, as said before, most of Norwegians don't really make a difference and call it all Eastern Europe, as if it were one homogeneous area where everyone speak Russian or variations of it. My Norwegian classmate (we studied together for 1,5 years by that time) said something to me in relation to Ukraine couple of weeks ago, having thought that I am from there (we have two classmates from Ukraine too).

However ignorant it seems, it is understandable too. It's easy for people to simplify (i.e. how many Estonians can make any reasonable difference between different African states?). And especially as one can read in Norwegian media (I started to read Norwegian newspapers) crime news time-to-time where my compatriots are mentioned in relation to some thefts or other minor crimes. Of course, they are referred to as "Estonians and members of larger Eastern European bands".

The things take time to change. The Soviet time brought about a lot of miseries to my country, and it will still take some decades to reach the level of Scandinavian countries.

In any case, I will be very happy to be able to contribute to Estonia becoming increasingly more Nordic. That is my dream for Estonia.

A personal leadership message from Steve Jobs

2010-02-09T23:03:00.006+01:00

Thanks to an assignment at my university I watched a commencement speech of Steve Jobs at Stanford University in June 2005. Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Inc., the co-creator of Macintosh computer, Pixar Animation Studio, iPod, iPhone, and, more recently, iPad.

A truly inspiring speech from a person who is hard not to respect for his achievements.

Few quotes from his speech:

"...the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

"I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

The end of my first entrepreneurial venture

2010-01-19T23:09:00.006+01:00

In January 2009 Marko, Viljo and me launched a small entrepreneurial venture offering eco-tours to Croatia and Kazakhstan in Estonia - Reisid Vabadusse. In December 2009 we decided to close the project. The main reasons? The inability to get together sufficient amount of groups for the tours due to the economic downturn, more-difficult-than-planned business model and changes in regulation (higher obligation of deposits for tourism companies that is difficult for us to handle).

A combination of these factors made us believe that the venture shouldn't survive its first year. As it was a testing year anyway, it was quite rational decision for us.

The blog related to ecotourism and tourism in general will be continued.

So, what would my personal income statement related to this venture be?

Outflows:

Around 2500 EEK (ca. 150 EUR) of investment not returned
Many hours of work together with my devoted partners

Inflows:

Experience in preparing, starting up and driving own business venture - everything from writing a business plan to marketing and sales
Good understanding of tourism and travel industry
Personal entrepreneurial lessons (e.g. importance of well thought-through operational plan)
Great moments of synergy and fun experienced together with two positive and reliable people

All in all, it does not look all that bad for a first venture. There are new ideas in relation to Reisid Vabadusse too.

Life-changing technology

2009-12-11T23:08:00.002+01:00

We can often read and hear that technology has changed our lives. And it indeed has. But how about changing the very way we sense the outside world?

Norway is the best place to live in the world

2009-11-06T20:06:00.016+01:00

According to the annual UN human development index, Norway is indeed the best country to live in. The index takes into account life expectancy, literacy rate, school enrolment rate and the country economy.

What I as a foreigner having lived for longer than one month in four different countries before and living now in Norway can say about it? Is it really the best place to live?

Below are my personal reflections on that matter which I have gather throughout past 15 months of living here, talking to different people (both Norwegians and foreigners like myself), reading books and articles about it.

Why it is (arguably) not good to live in Norway?

The weather can be depressive at times. Not so much sun, long and dark winters, much rain - hardly fitting an image of paradise.
People may not seem that friendly and talkative, hard to get friends.
People (especially young ones) may seem not being able to have fun without getting utterly wasted and losing their human dignity.
If you are an entrepreneur, be ready to be taxed heavily. Not the country to get very rich easily.

As for me, well, I am not very much influenced by the weather. In fact, I like Nordic/Baltic kind of weather much more than the one in South - I cannot really stand the heat. And I don't mind rain/snow at all.

Coming from Estonia, I do not expect to call a guy I know for couple of days a "friend". Besides, Norwegians are, as a matter of fact, much more helpful than many others.

I do not usually miss going to the parties, so as for humble opinion, people can get as drunk as they like unless they harm the others.

One cannot get very reach in Norway easily indeed. On the other hand, it's hard to get very poor here too - I am going to come to this one next.

Why is it good to live in Norway?

Whatever work you do - shop assistant, waiter, bus driver - you are paid as much as to be able to afford quite a decent life. And I mean it - every Norwegian can afford to go on a vacation abroad at least once a year, everyone can eat healthy and diverse food, everyone is able to have a nice apartment. If there are some poor people here, they are poor by choice.
Great social security - health insurance, unemployment 'safety net', pensions for older people and for people with disabilities - everything is in place and is available for everyone to use.
Nice green cities without excessive traffic jams or high air pollution.
Good education available for everyone - the level of education is rated among the highest in the developed countries by the OECD.
Stable economy not generating high levels of unemployment. Now, in the midst of economic recession, Norway has unemployment between 2,5 and 3 per cent (for comparison, average in Europe around 6-7%, in USA around 10%).
Equal opportunities for all members of society (no society can be completely equal, of course - that's nonsense) - women get roughly the same wage as men, homosexuality is not considered a disease, being a non-Norwegian descendant is neither shameful nor disadvantageous.
There is a lot of beautiful, unspoiled nature that is taken care of.

Anyone reading this blog post can perhaps understand what is my opinion on whether it is good to live in Norway...

If I was to dig a little bit deeper...

...what are the reasons of Norway being arguably the best country to live in?

This list is a subjective, yet is based on careful observations and analysis.

In my opinion, the most important, the social trust. I can indeed trust people here. I am not afraid of theft or cheating as much as anywhere else I have lived so far. That minimizes such phenomena as corruption or discredit towards the others.
Norwegians behave (in by far the most of the cases) in a sober and sensible way. No rush, no excessive emotions, people listen to the others. It prevents many dangerous situations and allows for a careful analysis and good planning.
Respect for a human life and basic human rights. Unless you behave against the norms of society (criminal, drug-addict etc), you can expect your human dignity to be untouched.
Quite innovative nation which strives for constant improvements. It has its traits of conservatism, but just exactly as much as needed to preserve social norms and values.
Effective economic and social model based on consensus. No major quarrels in politics, no big disasters in the economy (in comparison to elsewhere).
Somewhat luck. The discovery of the oil in the North Sea in the 1970s has definitely helped. However, even when adjusting economic performance for all non-oil&gas related activities, Norway still has one of the most effective economy in Europe.

The list can probably go on further...

...but what are the conclusions?

When having expressed such thoughts of mine here in Norway, I was accused to be over-optimistic in these respects. Well, I say - do not do mistake - I am not claiming Norway is a perfect country. But Norway is definitely the best country in many respects from what I have seen so far.

One indication: from conversations with my class-mates of non-Norwegian origin I've understood that virtually all of them would like to stay in Norway after the graduation.

Will I be one of them? Never say never. But it does not belong to my best-case scenario as for now. :)

P.S. All photos here are from my own collection - all made in Oslo and Oslo area.

What dreaming means to me...

2009-10-15T21:19:00.003+02:00

...one can read about it in the October edition of the magazine for young entrepreneurs in Estonian.

Short summary in English: big dreams are powerful. They make you strive for more. They make you innovate. They must be the very core of what you are and what you do. That's what I have discovered throughout my life so far.

Working at CyberWatcher

2009-09-11T16:19:00.005+02:00

Although my main purpose of coming to Norway was and still is studying, I am happy to say that the second main output of my activities here is my work at CyberWatcher.

I have a good working atmosphere - relaxed working style, yet concrete and down-to-earth tasks and expectations.

I have great colleagues too - smart, easy-going and very collaborative (I love Scandinavian working culture!).

Last but not least, I have very interesting working tasks. Being responsible for the market of Central and Eastern Europe, I am running sales and marketing campaign with companies in the fields of media monitoring, media intelligence and market research. As I believe in our products and I see the real value coming from them for other companies, it's really fun to do this job. Especially taking into account the geographical scope of my activities - so far, I have been in constant communication with companies from Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Estonia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Will be adding more to this list. :)

It's great to learn in practice advanced ways of doing sales - no matter how good product or service one has, it must find its customers. Moreover, it's great to learn in practice what does it mean - to constantly deliver a business value to other companies and to provide them support in it.

Summer in Kazakhstan

2009-08-19T22:17:00.013+02:00

I have not posted here anything for a while. The reason has been that I did not want to :) I had an excellent summer - finishing up my first (out of two) year of Master studies in Oslo, spending two weeks in Estonia with the friends and with the family, then going for five weeks to Kazakhstan, followed by a short stop in Estonia and small trip to Lithuanian sea-coast with Siim and Peep.

Now I am back to Norway, but I would say a couple of words about my visit to Kazakhstan again. It was an interesting feeling to come back to the country (and to the city - Almaty) where I had spent one year of my life in 2007-2008. It seemed so different, yet so close and so familiar. After first couple of days of re-integration, I started to feel OK, just like a year ago. Not so many things have changed since 1-2 years ago. Perhaps the traffic in Almaty has become somewhat better due to much larger-than-before fines from the road polices.

Two things I have loved the most about Kazakhstan have fortunately not changed either. First, people who are dear to me. Second, breathtaking nature - mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes. I was lucky enough to be able to go to the mountains twice with one night spent in a tent. There are just some pictures here illustrating the beauty of this country.

Why will I vote in European Parliament elections

2009-05-22T22:11:00.005+02:00

In about two weeks from now there will be elections to the European Parliament. As Estonia is a part of the European Union and I am an Estonian citizen, I will vote as well to choose six representatives to the Parliament from my homeland. Although I am in Norway, Estonia is one of the few countries in the world (the only one?) which has introduced an option of national e-elections. I am going to use my electronic ID card plugged in to the computer, insert my personal passwords and give a digital signature for a political party that I prefer.

"Nothing depends on me anyway", "Politics is a dirty game", "They all are self-serving idiots out there in parliament", - quite often one can hear such opinions. And... people don't vote.

Why do I vote?

1. This is the purest expression of democracy. I have a choice. I have a right to vote. My choice matters. Huge amounts of people around the world don't have this privilege. I cannot allow myself not to use this privilege.

2. It is one of the fewest opportunities to express my political view, to give a vote for ideology that is consistent with my personal values.

3. I am a definite fan of the European Union. Entering the EU was in my opinion the best thing that happened to Estonia after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Estonia got into the context of European values and democratic principles, it got to actually contribute to European affairs. The EU project is very unique in the world - with its level of mutual agreements (which are anyway hard to achieve), with its freedoms to move, to sell, to work, to study abroad, with mutual dialogue. I can be confident that the war between the EU states is unimaginable - the latter is actually enough for me to be a definite supporter of a common European project.

I found a really great website which helps the European Union citizens to define their political views and correlate them to the parties that they can vote for (and to all other parties in the EU for curiosity): www.euprofiler.eu. I advise to go through this evaluation for everyone who is thinking about the voting.

I am looking for an intern

2009-05-14T21:51:00.003+02:00

When I was an active member of AIESEC, I set a goal for myself that in some year, instead of offering interns from abroad to the companies, I would take one. It is happening earlier than I expected :)

Indeed, we have decided in the company I work in (CyberWatcher) that an AIESEC intern would be helpful in executing our current strategy of conquering the markets of Central and Eastern Europe. I am assigned as a project manager for this. So, the code for the internship (all people who have gone through AIESEC experience know what does it mean) is TN-IN-NO-MC-2009-1302.

Looking forward for having AIESEC intern working with me!

Working with mediocrity

2009-04-07T20:59:00.003+02:00

After the last few years of working with mainly young enthusiastic AIESECers, I am in a somewhat different situation now. AIESEC members I worked with were there because they wanted to learn, to develop, and to do something useful. They may have lacked knowledge or experience due to their youth, but they had passion and willingness to do things in a good way (not all , but at least, majority of them).

Lately, I have been involved in the work for certain projects where I had to deal with people who did nothing more and nothing less than mediocre work. I clearly understand now that mediocrity is something I want to avoid dealing with as much as possible.

What does a mediocre person do (from my experience):

This person performs his/her task just up to the level what is said to be done, never more! No creativity whatsoever, just blind following of guidelines.

Real example from a meeting:
- Ohh, I was waiting for this meeting, good we have it.
I ask:
- So, why did you wait for this meeting? What do you think the purpose of this meeting is anyway?
Reply:
- Ehhh... because we need to have it.

This person claims that he/she "has not seen my email in the mailbox for last two days and has discovered it just now".

The rule of mediocrity: never take initiative, try to escape any tasks as much as possible. After most of the work is done by someone else, ask for face-saving: "Is there anything else I could help with?"

Real, but modified example of me asking:
- Why would you like to make a project in the food industry? Why are you interested in it?
Reply:
- Well, because I really like to eat! For example, I cooked a nice dinner yesterday.

...

Mediocrity is even worse than working with people with bad intentions. Bad people don't hide their bad intentions and it is therefore easy to get rid of them. But you can never say that mediocre person has been bad, because he/she has actually fulfilled the very minimum requirements or at least found good-sounding excuse not to have done it, which you are forced to believe.

I remember the days when I was a leader of different teams in AIESEC. I discovered that one of the best rules of management is focusing attention on those who are above mediocrity. I did not care much about the rest, although they were also the members of my teams. It brought results.

I actually made a rule for myself that I would eliminate mediocrity from my life. I simply try to get to environments and try to create my own environment where there is little space for that. I know it all may sound too harsh, but I just believe that I can spend my time and energy doing something good and useful for the people who put a real effort, who strive and want to learn.

Luckily, I have enough people like that in my life.

Simply beautiful

2009-03-28T23:31:00.008+01:00

Tribute to Viljo, a man who appreciates beauty in this world.

One of the best activities when I get tired

2009-03-19T23:05:00.004+01:00

Today was one of those evenings when you become completely tired after an active day:
--> swimming pool in the early morning
--> working day with phone calls to three potential clients in Croatia (I loved to speak Croatian once again) and learning yet new things about cyber-business
--> few emails and some work on our tourism project (Reisid Vabadusse)
--> few emails and phone-calls to my friends who requested something from me
--> Skype conversation with the most beautiful girl in the world
--> Some readings for my school

When I get physically tired, I tend to become emotionally tired as well. If to let it be so and not to direct my mind, I may start to feel sorry for myself, to imagine that some of the things are worse than they really are.

One of the best solutions during such evenings (when I still don't want to go to sleep yet) has for me been reading blogs of my friends. They are listed in the right menu. I am grateful to some of my best friends who keep themselves close to me by communicating their thoughts and experiences in the web.

Internet is amazing. It keeps me close to my friends being so far away from me. I smile. :)

Interview with me published in Estonian magazine

2009-03-15T21:45:00.003+01:00

Recently I was contacted by the editor of the magazine of my university in Estonia which I graduated in 2005. They thought it would be a good idea to make an interview with me as one of their graduates.

University of Tartu has been one of the best things which happened in my professional life apart from AIESEC. Of course, I did not have any doubts and accepted the interview.

The interview is in Estonian and can be found here in online version of the magazine.

I talk there about what I did in Kazakhstan, say some words about Kazakhstan as a country. I share my thoughts on challenges in co-existence of Estonians and Russians in Estonia and on potential of Estonia as a state.

Reisid Vabadusse - my start-up enterprise

2009-02-23T17:43:00.005+01:00

Several months of preparation, discussions, meetings, negotiations, learning and planning... And here we are - Viljo, Marko and me - started our first company.

We aim to offer travelling to the destinations and to be hosted by people that would otherwise be hard to find. Authenticity, beautiful nature, interaction with local culture are the keywords. No hotels, no restaurants, no excursions with the big buses.

In the first year, we offer travel packages for Estonian market to Croatia and to Kazakhstan - the countries I have lived and I have friends and partners in. Both are the countries with amazing nature and with very hospitable people.

Three of us met and worked in AIESEC. Marko and Viljo are both dedicated, entrepreneurial, daring and hard-working people - I couldn't imagine better partners to start a project with.

If the enterprise will be successful during the next six months, we will enlarge the pool of destinations and variety of choices.

Reisid Vabadusse means something like "Travel into a Freedom" in Estonian.

Campaign has started. It is now possible to pursue own way to freedom.

Eesti ühiskonnast ja tolerantsusest

2009-01-24T18:45:00.006+01:00

Following text is related solely to Estonia and will therefore be in Estonian.

Lugesin täna tavapärasel viisil Postimehe online-versiooni. Valik lugude pealkirjadest:
"Itaalia saarel murdsid sajad migrandid laagrist välja"
"Homod pöörduvad inimõiguste kohtusse"
"Oisaar: islamistid loovad Eestis sidemeid"

Ja igale loole järgneb kümneid ja kümneid vaenu ja viha täis kommentaare. Peamised sõnumid: "Mustad ahju", "Homod ahju", "Moslemid ahju".

Imelikul kombel jäi see kord puudu mõnest artiklist sõnumiga "Venelased ahju".

Kas see on kollektiivne alaväärsuskompleks - nii meediakanalite toimetustel kui üldiselt Eesti ühiskonnal? "Meid on varem kiusatud, nüüd saame meie kord end peremehedena tunda ja kedagi meist erinevat sõimata"...

Eesti patrioodina teeb see mind muidugi kurvaks. Just seetõttu ei tahtnud seda kirjutada inglise keeles - kahju, kui välismaalastel tekib just selline pilt Eestist.

Olukord ei ole siiski üldsegi lootusetu. Esiteks on sellised reaktsioonid mõistetavad ja nendele on seletused olemad. Teiseks on õnneks Eestis siiski väga palju neid, kes ei pea vajalikuks oma lahendamata jäänud psühholoogilised, seksuaalsed või füüsilised probleemid ja kollektiivsest mälust saadud kompleksid teistsuguste inimeste peale välja valama.

All people are equal - thank you, AIESEC, for reminding it!

2009-01-21T21:23:00.008+01:00

I was a chair at national conference of AIESEC Norway about a week ago - meaning leading the whole process of conference, making sure everything runs smoothly, leading its flow. Apart from the nice feeling of having been back to AIESEC for a while and having done something useful for dozens of young people, I made one striking conclusion again - this conference was absolutely the same and the people here behaved in absolutely the same way as everywhere else at the national conferences which I have been to - in Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, Croatia, and Kazakhstan. They were dancing, laughing, joking, having troubles with their responsibilities, having dreams for a future just like any other AIESEC member in Kazakhstan or Croatia, for example.

Sure, people in Norway, as true Nordic nation, are somewaht less expressive and more calm... but essentially there is just no difference!

It may sound very trivial thing to say that all people are essentially the same... but after having spent about six months in Norway, I started to have a feeling that there is something about people in different countries. Why do Norwegians live a life that 90% of world's population cannot match in even a close way? How come this society is so well-organised, secure and peaceful (there are surely many problems here as well, but compared to most of other countries it's paradise in terms of social quality fo life)? Are people here somehow smarter or more developed?

AIESEC as international youth organisation is an excellent place to prove that people, once put in similar conditions, are no longer a product of their societies. They are individuals instead, who can perform, achieve and be successful, despite their ethnicity or nationality.

Bad luck and bad governance are probably two most prominent reasons for people to suffer in so many corners of the world...

"All men are created equal" - the U.S. Declaration of Independence proclaimed more than two centuries ago. I am not completely sure if it is so. But if there is any inherited mental difference between us, humans, it definitely does not lie in geographical place of birth. Human stupidity is universal. Luckily, compassion, care and determination to create a peace where others don't believe it happening are universal virtues too.

Here is one AIESEC alumnus who proves the latter sentence:

Why global financial crisis is good fo us?

2009-01-03T23:26:00.008+01:00

I had a blast New Year's eve with my girlfriend. Only me, her and enormous amount of fireworks everywhere seen from the upper floors of my dormitory in Oslo. Picturesque view it was!

There is a tradition in many countries for the top-person to deliver New Year's greetings to the people. I watched recorded speech of the President of Estonia, I read the speeches of the King of Norway and the President of Kazakhstan. They all had one obvious common trait in common - they all touched upon global financial and economic crisis as well as upon the need for national unity in order to overcome economic difficulties.

These days financial crisis (or economic crisis followed by it) is in the top list of the most discussed topics around the world. Many fears and many negative thoughts are expressed in relation to it.

There is indeed much trouble for people who have lost their money due to previously done risky investments, for people who are loosing their jobs, for small and large businesses which are losing their clients, for national governments which do not receive enough money with taxes to sustain necessary level of social services and so on and so forth.

Yet there is another side of the coin which is not that obvious. Taking an abstract side away from individual troubles and personal losses (which are hard to underestimate!) one can indeed find a number of positive sides about current economic outlooks.

1. A crisis cleans up a system. When we don't clean after ourselves in our apartment, the rubbish piles up. It may not worry us in the beginning if we are not all too aesthetes. Once it starts to smell badly, however - a crisis! - we move ourselves to clean up this mess and make our house tidy again.

Economic crisis wipes out inefficient corporate companies, shows clearly the holes in national and local financial governance, punishes people who have misused seemingly easy credit opportunities.

2. Growth is always followed by decline. Growth is not eternal. People and organisations tend to forget these two simple theses and become too careless. Living organisms grow, but then decline and die. Empires, states, organisations, religions all experience their growth and decline phases. Decline may well be followed by growth again, but this change is always there.

Investors putting their money into risky projects, people taking large loans, states expanding their national spending all have made these decisions taking into considerations that "my stock price / salary / tax revenue will continue to grow". Alternative scenario planning is always useful... Many have hopefully learnt at least that from current situation.

3. It's not wise to live beyond your means. People like to feel reach. They like expensive and shiny things.

People working in financial services have universally enjoyed the highest payments. If you work in the bank, investment company, trust fund etc, a very high personal bonus would be guaranteed. Yet financial services do not create any value - people there just move money around. And often this money is not simply moved from those who have money in excess to those in need for that, so that latter would pay interest to former (that should be the basic logic of finance world). In contrary, many smart people around the world spend days and nights playing on speculations, on risk perceptions and so on. Being straightforward, many people get paid a lot for doing something similar to a man going to casino.

Financial services' officers have indeed a very high responsibility. But don't engineers, scientists, doctors, journalists (you continue) have lesser responsibility than them?

Financial crisis has shaken this self-created money-creating-money-world. I am not naive to believe that many dwellers of this world have become poor thanks to that (ex-executives of infamous Lehmann Borther have gotten millions of USD as a compensation after the bankrupt). Yet probably many of them had to refuse from buying a yacht, a diamond or another expensive thingy making them a little bit more happy.

On the other hand, there were so many people all around the world miscalculating their ability to pay back the loans they have taken in order to have bigger house, another car, to consume more. I know personally people in Estonia who have taken a loan to buy something, then took another loan to cover payback of the first loan and so on... until they got in the real trouble with paying all of their debts back.

Island has been labeled a notorious victim of financial crisis. How about the data from 2006 which shows that Iceland has been of the biggest consumers of oil per capita in 2006 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7090664.stm)? One could indeed argue that Iceland is cold country which simply requires a lot of oil to heat up itself. People who have travelled to Reykjavik said that literally every household there had their own 4x4 Jeep or another huge truck (although most of them would go at most 2-3 times a year outside of the city)...

4. Crisis triggers entrepreneurial ideas and improvements. When everything is good and rosy, we don't seem to want to change something much. Difficult circumstances, on the other hand, push us to think in a creative way. Of course, this creativity may manifest itself in more creative ways to commit crime. But it also may mean improved effectiveness of existing companies, better calculation of personal expenditure and savings, new ways to do business.

5. Economic crisis pushes oil prices down. Oil prices have sunk dramatically over the course of October-December 2008 - more than twice. National economies don't simply need that much oil to sustain themselves in times of decline.

This is certainly bad for environmental reasons: cheap oil will not push humankind to think of new, environmentally-friendly sources of energy. Yet low prices of oil may make radical elements in governments in such oil-rich countries as Venezuela, Iran or Russia to think more before wasting money on populist nationalistic projects which are not sustainable for their own people and dangerous for other nations.

Happy New Year, with the crises or without them!

CyberWatcher - the company I am working for

2008-12-05T21:27:00.005+01:00

I am working in the company called CyberWatcher since the middle of October. It is the part-time job (15-20 hours a week) which allows me to study in university, develop professionally and have stable earnings. The latter is important when you live in one of the most expensive countries in the world :)

CyberWatcher is a small Norwegian company established by AIESEC alumni, Morten. AIESEC has actually connected two of us. I'm generally quite happy with the way I manage to capitalise on my AIESEC connections and my network (and it is just one part of what has AIESEC experience given to me!). Morten has established and is CEO of the company.

As the name of the company says, we watch the cyber-space there :) And that is actually pretty much concised business-model of the firm: any client who wants to be updated with certain news about certain things from certain online sources, can get such service from us.

Since the time I was studying Journalism and Communication in Estonia, I have been interested in information management as well as effective information and communication skills (in terms of organisations rather than individuals). The work in CyberWatcher gives me opportunity to learn about the ways people and organisations can have more effective information management thanks to certain software platform. What is good about our service is the fact that it can be implemented everywhere in the world by everyone who speaks English.

As I am not the man created to work in big organisations, I very much like the fact the company has nine employees in Norway together with me (in additions, few more people in Sweden and the United Kingdom). It gives me opportunity to work on different tasks and projects. In fact, I don't have any precise job title or job description. Latter would be rather a disturbant factor for a freedom-loving, independent and critical person like me :)

Another nice coincidence is that Morten, the head of the company, has graduated from the same business school I am enrolled in (BI Norwegian School of Management). He respects my studieds and my AIESEC experience and gives me quite a lot of freedom.

It is actually a working culture in Norway in general - people are not being pushed or overly supervised. My colleagues all come and go in different times of the day, in case of neccesity they work from home. I find it all very welcoming - this is one of many aspects why Norway is so well-developed and quite harmonic society (compared to vast majority of other countries), in my opinion.

Women will save the world

2008-11-14T21:28:00.011+01:00

I currently live in Norway, which is one of the wealthiest countries in the world - it has among the highest GDP per capita. Recent Global Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Forum reveals that Norway also leads the world in closing the gender gap between men and women. I live in the country which provides the most equal opportunities for women in social, political, economical and health terms.

Coincidence?

The report shows that by far not. Although not 1:1, there is a very clear evidence of correlation of prosperity of the nation and its ability to close the gap between men and women.

I have recently spoken to one smart Norwegian businessman/traveller/anthropologist (he has probably visited over 100 countries during his life) in his 50s. He said he did not believe the society was able to advance very much on the long run if women were not given opportunity to influence events there. Indeed, women save by nature - social welfare, state harmony, social security - all that is rather typical for females. Conquest, competition and risk - those are words rather typical for men. As one my male friend from Latvia put it in a straightforward way: while women care about agreement and harmony, men simply put their d***s on the tables and start to compare their size.

All in all, it is not that black and white, but I am a firm believer that no society will ever achieve a peace and harmony within itself and with the others unless women there are given opportunity to fully participate in the social, economic and political life of the country.

Interesting: Estonia has 37th rank, Kazakhstan 45th and Croatia 46th rank among 130 countries which have been assessed. Croatia dropped dramatically (I wonder where this drop is coming from?). Kazakhstan scores almost the best in this list among the countries with predominantly Muslim population, which is yet another example of how big potential this country has if things will be led in the right direction.

What I follow and what I don't

2008-10-28T21:57:00.003+01:00

Today I had chance to write an email to one very good person who is not afraid to think and act in different way. His question was:

"How hard was it to make the important decisions that brought you to places inside and outside yourself where you have never been before? How much insecurity and doubt did strike you before, during and after such a decision? And which factors lead to everything turning out well in the end?"

My answer was pretty much about following:

Don't follow the crowds. Crowds are stupid and ignorant, even if there is majority of them.

Don't follow simple solutions. Simplicity often cuts the way to larger paybacks and larger picture.

Follow smart people, people smarter and better (in something at least) than you.

Act and speak in such a way that others would eventually start to follow you (in something at least).

Follow your dream(-s). If you don't have one, make an effort to work on its creation.

More than anything else - follow your heart. If you believe you are ultimately a good person, your heart must be good advisor to you too.

I like to take the risk. A calculated risk, to be sure. Because if this risk is sustained with a confident belief and power of focusing, there is nothing unachievable, I believe. There are always doubts and reasons to say "no". In any case. But problems and personal miseries allow you to develop your empathy towards hundreds of millions of people who are suffering similar challenges.

One day it pays off.

How rich are you?

2008-10-19T22:17:00.006+02:00

I like intellectual challenges. I like especially the kinds that challenge your mental picture of the world and your own place in there.

And it is just excellent if such intellectual challenges are for a good reason.

We all have heard about highly unequal distribution of incomes in the world. But how comprehensive it really is?

And how rich every one of us really is?

How rich are you?

Well, you can find out your place in the Global Rich List.

A beautiful song from Kazakhstan

2008-10-02T23:47:00.001+02:00

...and beautiful video from beautiful country too.

I am an AIESECer!

2008-09-11T21:39:00.004+02:00

I am going to be popular among students in Estonia and in Kazakhstan. Big posters below will be distributed in universities there. It was nice to be recognized in this way by AIESECers who are organizing new members' recruitment at the moment.

Well, if my face and words would attract to AIESEC at least some proactive and amibitious young people in Estonia and in Kazakhstan, it won't be a waste of colour and paper. My mom will be proud of me anyway ;)

Feel stupid? Make most of it!

2008-09-06T14:20:00.011+02:00

It is great to feel stupid again. Because when I feel like that, I have the urge to do everything possible to eliminate this feeling. Usually the way to do it is through learning.

I am now in the period of my life when this learning is institutionalized. In other words, I spend a lot of time in the learning institution.

This institution is called BI Norwegian School of Management (Handelshøyskolen BI), where I am pursuing two-years degree of Master in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. One of the leading business schools in Scandinavia, one of the few private institutions of higher education in Norway has to manage to attract good students, while they have chance to get their education for free in any of Norwegian public schools. When one competes against others who have certain natural advantage, one has to be better in certain things.

I definitely feel that studying here. The school itself is very innovative and studying-friendly. I have never had that good conditions to study. The university building is one of the most beautiful and impressive I have seen in my life. I have access to all kind of business books and all kind of scientific databases around the world. Connections between university and business sphere are very strong and learning methods are very practical.

Coming back to feeling stupid - I have subjects such as Financial Management and Theories of Business and Economic Development, which are very intensive and require a lot of dedication. I have a bachelor degree in social sciences, therefore, I literally felt stupid in some classes. - I just didn't understand many things as they were said. This has led to many hours of reading, exercising, writing and thinking afterwards on my own and talking to my class-mates with previous financial education. Sometimes I have the feeling that I would be a great accountant, should I study like that for some time more :)

My first three weeks of studies have taught me enormously much about financial and business world. Interesting conclusion I have come to is that, in my opinion, it is a good idea to receive a business education after a social one (or maybe vice versa). Because, in fact, these two are like two different worlds.

Social paradigm of the world is all about humans, their behaviour, their interaction, institutions they create, societies and communities they participate in, policies and structures they think of to make the world easier to grasp.

Financial/business paradigm of the world (in its pure setting) is all about profits, earnings, rational investment, innovations to create more value.

And it is interesting to see that there are two distinct types of people who think in one or another paradigm. It is also interesting to ask yourself which of them is governing societies and the world as such. If you don't have money, you cannot build society or any kind of relationship, can you? Can anyone say for sure what kind of impact on societies have had people like Warren Buffett, one of the world's greatest investors?

Anyway, I am glad BI gives an opportunity to open up another paradigm of understanding the world.

Another interesting discovery is that it is really great to be a Master student after having lived and worked in different countries for three years without being enrolled in university. I feel I understand much better what I want and what I need from my studies. I can focus my attention on what truly interests me, not on what is "good to learn". I can judge the things being learnt in my classes from perspective of my past real-life experiences.

The soft-skills and the world-view which I have acquired thanks to AIESEC, are of a great importance. To work on presentation in a group, to drive fast conclusions, to hold a presentation in class, to have a broad perspective on learning material, to set clear objectives for your studies - I feel my AIESEC experience has helped me enormously to make all of that better and easier than if I would not have had AIESEC career behind me. Global perspective of thinking is another valuable asset I have acquired thanks to leading AIESEC chapters in Estonia and Kazakhstan, interacting with hundreds of young leaders from all around the globe.

I suppose I will fully grasp the importance of my AIESEC experience in years from now, after some more discoveries of how cool it is sometimes to feel yourself stupid ;)

"Hotel Rwanda" - for those who are not ignorant

2008-08-20T21:05:00.009+02:00

Lately, this blog is turning into movies' review diary. In general, I watch movies rather rarely. And if I watch some, I usually pick something worth doing that in order not to waste my time.

I like history. I admire brave people. There is one movie which speaks about both of it. "Hotel Rwanda" it is.

People are generally ignorant if they don't feel that something happening does not impact them in any way. That's how many events around us are perceived. Everyone is aware of the conflict in Iraq, because a world superpower USA and oil are involved there. Everyone is aware of the conflict in Georgia, because a wannabe superpower Russia and oil are involved there. And it seems like people (at least in what is considered to be West) are concerned about these events. They protest, they create different groups in the Facebook "Supporting X against Y" etc, which is good to some extent, because it shows their civic attitude.

But how many people protest or create groups in the Facebook against atrocities happening currently in Sudan, for example?

In 1994 a Central-African country Rwanda did not have major world superpower involved there. Neither did it have oil. According to estimations, more than 800.000 people were slaughtered during three months of 1994 during what is now referred as genocide. This seemed like another bad news from some failed state in Africa back then.

I remember working as a summer reporter in the biggest Estonian daily "Postimees" in 2004. I was then involved in foreign news department. Once my task was to write about 10th anniversary of genocide is Rwanda. I comprehensively researched the topic, wrote quite a good article which was supposed to become a main story in foreign news the next day. But few hours before giving materials to final editing the main editor approached me, apologized and said that I need to cut the story till just 4 paragraphs, because the main story will cover the visit of Estonian prime-minister to neighbouring Latvia. It stroke my mind then - I lost my chance to really show people what happened there because of their own ignorance...

And what happened is an extreme example of what can be result of hysterical nationalism and manipulation of people with the help of mass media. By 1994 there were two main ethical groups in Rwanda - Tutsi and Hutu, while the difference between these two was created by outsiders, former Belgian colonists, who divided people to two group according to their looks (length of nose) and gave different passports (along with different priviliges, while Tutsi got more of them in 20th century). So, basically, it was the same people speaking the same language who were divided into two groups.

Eextremely-minded nationalistic Hutus grabbed the military power in the country and started to strengthen anti-Tutsi sentiments in the beginning of 1990s . Mass media was used heavily for that. A special militia (killing force) was created and being trained. After some incident mass-killings started. Everyone who had a temple "Tutsi" in their passports would not escape the death, incuding small children. It was a true ethical cleansing. Around 70% of Tutsi living in Rwanda in that time were killed during these three months.

The movie "Hotel Rwanda" tells a story of one hotel manager, Hutu himself, who was married to Tutsi woman. Despite threat to himself and his family, he saved a few thousand Tutsis who could cover themselves in his hotel. I recalled "Schindler's List" when I watched this movie.

The movie is excellent. The actors' play is excellent. The story is amazing, yet scary. Because it was a reality.

It is obligatory watching for everyone interested in history and everyone not willing to be ignorant.

Singing Revolution (Laulev revolutsioon) in Estonia - a thing to be proud about

2008-08-17T19:56:00.006+02:00

I am critical about some things in Estonia as my country (as any critically-minded person is about his or her society). And normally I don't like to boost with the words like "Estonia is the best" etc. But, among others, there is one thing which makes me proud about my home-land and which is worth to learn from. It is so-called Singing Revolution in the end of 1980s.

These thoughts came again to my mind while I was watching the movie with this name in July. Me and my colleague Kristi showed this movie to foreign volunteers who came for their service to Estonia (it was a part of their cultural preparation during the training me and Kristi did for them). I watched this movie for the first time then.

Singing Revolution is the term characterizing the chain of events which eventually led to national re-awakening of Estonians and break-up from the USSR in 1991. But the way people expressed their wish for independence, their desire to build their own country was not military. People did not use guns or any kind of violence. They were singing. About Estonia, about the nature, about their families, about the weather, about the sea, about their country. In the peak moments of the time of Singing Revolution there were more than one hundred thousand people singing together. This brought unity and focus to Estonians (as well as to Latvians and Lithuanians, where similar events were happening simultaneously) who managed to proclaim their independence from Soviet Union.

The good things about this movie is that it is done by Americans, not Estonians. Americans managed to stick to the facts and videos available from this time, while staying objective. And the final result is excellent - everyone feeling part of this country would not probably be left cold after watching this movie. It is emotionally very intensive movie, which shows how something very desirable for more than 1 million people has been happening.

Having been in Bosnia I know what can it lead to when people take guns, start to kill, destroy, rape and wound. Unfortunately, that is precisely what is still happening in many parts of the world. Why cannot all revolutions be singing?

"Singing Revolution / Laulev revolutsioon" is obligatory watching for all Estonians, all people interested in the history of Estonia, all people interested in the history of 21st century and in international relations.

Next steps, next dreams...

2008-06-27T18:28:00.004+02:00

I am back in Estonia since couple of days ago. My one-year-long journey to Kazakhstan has ended for now.

It is great to be back home, to see my family, my friends, my hometown.

What next?

Realizing next dreams!

In two days I am having a welcome party with my AIESEC Estonia friends in Tallinn. I am really looking forward to see them all.

In five days I am going to travel around Estonia and Latvia with one person dear to me for almost two weeks. That will be like one long beautiful dream.

In three weeks I am going to deliver training for young people who came to Estonia as volunteers - will try to impact their world-view and their understanding of Estonia. I love to do it every time I can.

In four weeks I am going back to Split, the most beautiful city I have ever been to! I was waiting for 2,5 years for this moment - to see all my old friends, to recall all nice memories, to do the things I have not managed to do there last time. Just couple of hours ago I got to know that I was selected as a chair of International Summer Program in Split, which AIESEC Split is organising. They invited me there. Another dream is coming true :)

I will take a short break after that and then - back to Oslo! The next long journey is going to start. I got accepted to Master studies in BI Norwegian School of Management, which is one of the best business-schools in Northern Europe. I am going to study Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a very exciting subject.

It was my goal since 1,5 years ago - to go to study in Master programme in business-related subject in some very good school. I am realizing my goals again :)

The world is beautiful. And I am capitalizing on its beauty as much as I can ;)

Finished my term in Kazakhstan

2008-06-18T05:41:00.008+02:00

Since couple of days ago I am not the President of AIESEC in Kazakhstan any more. Since couple of days ago I do not have particular role in AIESEC any more. There are still quite some things to finalize, but nevertheless – a huge period of my life is coming to the end. I am becoming AIESEC alumni. 5 years, which were given to this organisation, were just amazing years of my life.

The ones who have not been members of AIESEC, can't fully understand me. But hundreds of my good friends all around the world can surely connect themselves very well with what I am writing about. I will be AIESECer till the end of my life, continuing to strive for better world inside and around me, while not being idealistic dreamer, but being executor, leader and initiator of positive change.

A change agent.

Yeah. It's me. Nice to meet you all. :)

I am extremely happy that I was given chance to finish my AIESEC career while having been the first President of independent AIESEC in Kazakhstan, a new expansion country in global AIESEC network. It was very hard time for me in the beginning, but the more I stayed in Kazakhsan, the more I loved the job I was doing and the country I was living in.

I may write more about Kazakhstan in the future, but what I truly value about this country is people. Despite all big problems Kazakhstan is facing (corruption, ecology, weak governance, highly unequal distribution of incomes), there is so much beauty in local people.

Part of this beauty was my work with new Initiative Groups. Since a few years ago I got an idea that organisation like AIESEC should be represented everywhere to give equal opportunity for all young people of my age. I can proudly say that I contributed quite a lot to this vision of mine during my last year in AIESEC. I established (with the help of certain people) four Initiative Groups in four cities where there has never been AIESEC before. Kostanay, Astana, Pavlodar and Oskemen - all these cities got Initiative Groups of AIESEC.

Work with bright young people who are eager to learn, eager to work, eager to do something useful for themselves and for their community in cities outside of Almaty, where there are so little opportunities for young people - that was probably the best part of my being President of AIESEC in Kazakhstan. Very open, nice, hospitable people not only showed their cities and nature around to me, they have also shown part of their soul. There can hardly be anything else as amazing as that.

As for my other job - managing National PR Association of Kazakhstan, this task is coming to the end too. Yesterday I had the final meeting with the Board of Association. They expressed their satisfaction with my work and I expressed my gratefulness for them trusting a guy from Estonia to be given very responsible task to accomplish.

I am grateful for another amazing year of my life. I am grateful for opportunity to live in highly dynamic interesting society. I am grateful for having experienced the hardest times of my life which have taught me to appreciate small things. I am grateful to all kind people of Kazakhstan who have made this year an exceptional time for me. I am grateful for having gotten some very dear people for me.

Kazakhstan has become another important country for me. Estonia, Croatia and Kazakhstan are three country I am strongly associating myself with.

I will be in Estonia on 23rd of June.

I am going to come back here in Kazakhstan. That's for sure.

Initiative Group Kostanay

Initiative Group Astana

Initiative Group Pavlodar

Initiative Group Oskemen

The best promotion for Estonia

2008-05-09T06:09:00.007+02:00

In Almaty me and other AIESECers have organized nice tradition - since about 6-7 months ago we are meeting virtually every Sunday evening at my place and having "Cinema Club". We are watching art-house and just good non-mainstream movies.

Last Sunday, when Jaan was still there, we were watching Estonian movie "Klass" ("Class") from Ilmar Raag. The movie is about school violence. It is dynamic, aggressive and scary movie. Definitely the best Estonian movie I have seen since we got independence back in 1991. Actually, it was one of the best movies I have seen during these past 6-7 months of having "Cinema Club" every Sunday.

None of my Kazakhstani friends left untouched by this movie. It was shocking, it was hard, but it was excellent!

Later on, out of curiosity, I spoke to some other people, read some materials in Internet and discovered that it actually became quite popular among many people in several countries, including Russia, which Estonia does not have good relations with. I've heard and read opinions like "I don't know anything about Estonia except that they removed this monument, but after this movie I got interested in this small country".

"Klass" is not shiny out-of-tourist-magazine-welcome-to-Estonia-movie. It is not meant to be PR for Estonia. But it definitely is. And it has brought more fame for our small country than much of what has been done with intention to do so.

Conclusion: Estonia's biggest asset is talented people like Eri Klas, Neeme Järvi and Ilmar Raag. And we need to continue to create environment, where such people can create and be recognized. I know Ilmar Raag personally from the times when he gave lectures at my alma mater in Tartu. After this movie I started to respect him even more. Thanks to people like him it is a good feeling to represent Estonia abroad.

Non-controversial beauty of nature in Kazakhstan

2008-05-01T13:48:00.009+02:00

I have been for 10 months in Kazakhstan!

It is a controversial country for me - it has many positive as well as negative sides. Its cities are controversial for me - I have not seen any which would pretend to be anyhow charming (although for example Almaty has its positive sides as well).

As all Europeans who come to Kazakhstan say - things made by man here are not that interesting...

Model of Kazakhstan's society is controversial as well - many things are hard to get used to for European.

And behaviour of people and their relations towards each other, towards state and towards environment is controversial as well.

However, one thing cannot be controversial for anyone - Kazakhstan is very beautiful country in terms of its nature. Its vast territory (9th largest country in the world) contains such a great variety of natural beauty!

Luckily, me and my friend Jaan had chance to prove it once again for ourselves - both of us took a vacation (Jaan came here from Estonia, I love you, Air Baltic!) and went for a week to Southern Kazakhstan. We spent 6 wonderful days in Sairam, Lenger, Kaskasu, Aksu-Zhabagly, having visited two National parks.

We had chance to experience network of CBT (community-based tourism) when rural communities of people organize network and facilities t provide tourism services - accommodation, food, excursions, guides. Its value lies in the fact that one has chance to spend time with people living there. One feels more like a guest, rather than a client. It was great opportunity to experience hospitality and traditions of Kazakh and Russian-Kazakh families we stayed with.

Photo album with photos of amazing nature from this trip can be found here:
picasaweb.google.com/deniss.rutsheikov

AIESEC in Kazakhstan

2008-03-05T19:44:00.000+01:00

To manage my life or to live it?

2008-03-05T19:09:00.006+01:00

I am in the period of my life when I don't simply live. I manage.

Of couse, everyone of us manages his/her own life and all parts which constitute it. I have done it eversince I became completely independent from my parents - both regarding decision-making and finances - since about five years ago.

But now I feel that it's far too easy to forget to simply live.

I am the manager of AIESEC country, responsible for one Local Committee and three extension Local Committees - all in four different cities, responsible for the team of four people, responsible for my organisation within international network, responsible for the budget and all financial transactions.

I am the manager of National PR Association of Kazakhstan, responsible for execution of all the work planned for it, responsible for financial transactions and all activities happening there.

I am the manager of part of one business idea with few of my friends. This part of this idea lies solely on me, there is no-one else able to manage it at the moment.

I am the manager of my house - there is no home-owner or some higher institution to say anything to, I have to pay all the bills, clean everything, repair all inconsistencies, communicate with all communal service providers myself.

I am the manager of my food consumption - three times a day, seven days a week I need to prepare something for me to eat, there is no-one to provide me with any food.

I am the manager of my body - being currently sick, I have to take care of myself, while buying and consuming all medicine stuff which I consider as relevant for intake.

I am the manager of my relationships - all people somehow dear to me, expect me to take a role of the manager of the relationships, because I have unconsciously agreed on this role. I need to fulfill these expectations.

But I don't give up. I don't intend to turn my life into practice of management theories, although I need to use their lessons in order to... to manage all of that...

I attended my last big AIESEC conference as a delegate, International Presidents Meeting in Macedonia in the end of February. Interesting observation: there were at least four people who have known me since at least a year ago and who said I looked somehow sad, somehow too calm.

No, I am not sad. It just confirms that I don't show up that much energy and enthusiasm as I used to - I believe I have been known for that in AIESEC for a long time.

My experience in Kazakhstan has changed me. Indeed, I became more pragmatic, less naive, more realistic, more calm.

Nevertheless, although I may not seem that energetic and optimistic anymore, I have not lost my desire to live my life. Not to manage it.

Because everything I do right now - AIESEC, PR Association, business idea development etc - it all makes sence. It all is a part of making my life and surroundings a better place.

All my relationships make sense too. They all are a part of my own universe and I am a part of their universes, because I want to belong there.

My life makes sense. My life is beautiful. And I need to write it here in order not to forget its true meaning.

Beauty next to me

2008-01-05T12:31:00.000+01:00

Beuaty has always played an important role in my life. There just should be beauty around me. And Almaty surely has it around - mountains! And I have beauty next to me...

One thing I realized once again is that I love winter. I mean real winter, with a lot of snow. I prefer it to hot summer.

New Year's eve and Christmas in Almaty were actually cool. I spent them with local aiesecers. We had a lot of fun...

New year was marked with the new job I've got. I am starting to contribute to development of PR market in Kazakhstan in addition to what I am doing in AIESEC. I will need to combine two jobs, but the life will become much more exciting instead! ;)

It is great to spend one year of my life in Kazakhstan because...

2007-12-07T06:53:00.000+01:00

Having re-read my few previous postings, I’ve noticed that I sound rather negative in them. To not confuse anyone and myself, I would just say that my experience in Kazakhstan in unique and I would not change it for anything else at this moment of my life.

It is indeed hard, sometimes harder than I thought it would be. But as one writer said – “Our best teacher is the one called Life”. And I completely agree with that. Life has brought indeed quite many lessons into my life during past five months.

How to lead the processes in an organisation in conditions of lacking any kind of resources?

What does it mean to build an ideology of an organisation?

How does it feel when you need to be an example for others in times of emotional exhaustion of yourself?

How to manage relationship of key people of an organisation, who don’t care about each other, are having past conflicts in mind, and you are in the middle of it all?

How to combine dealing with establishment of hundreds of small details, while not losing the focus?

How to be able to find lots of information by yourself in a foreign country without getting upset that things are moving far too slowly?

How to build trust to yourself on behalf of people whose trust you need?

How to see beauty around you in conditions when you can’t accept ugliness of certain constant actions of others?

This is the list of some lessons I have got during recent months. I am grateful for that.

Now I feel like I want to share the things which I like and appreciate about Kazakhstan, because there can be impression from my previous posts that I don’t feel myself very comfortable in this country. Although there are things here which I honestly dislike and I don’t see myself living here in the long run (like in any other country except Estonia, which is still my home and there I plan to be), I find that Kazakhstan has many things making it worth spending one year of my life here.

Kazakhstan and its people are quite tolerant towards different nationalities, religions, diverse outlooks. Kazakhstan has around 130 nationalities and they all live in peace. That is one thing local people are proud about. As nationalism and ethical/religious chauvinism is the thing I probably hate the most in this world, I appreciate Kazakhstan in this sense. Unlike almost all post-Soviet countries (including Estonia, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Tajikistan, Moldova and others), Kazakhstan has not had any serious internal conflicts on ethical or religious ground. I believe there is quite a lot to learn from Kazakhstan in this sense.

Internal tolerance is reflected in peaceful external relations of a state. Kazakhstan has good relations with Russia, China, EU, Turkey, even USA. The country is not building its foreign policy on having explicit or implicit enemies (like many states including Estonia or Russia unfortunately do).

If one wants to experience complete freedom and amazing unity with the Nature, he/she must come to Kazakhstan. Its steppes, deserts, mountains, wonderful lakes and rivers all constitute amazing space to be with your thoughts and with yourself. Enormous territory of the country offers many amazing spots to be discovered…

There are a lot of well-educated, smart people who care about their country and about its people. One great thing is that some of such people I know are AIESEC members and AIESEC alumni.

Although with some local specifics, there are quite favourable conditions for doing business in Kazakhstan. If you have entrepreneurial spirit, your own head and knowing right people, you may be able to make good profits out of many untaken spots.

Probably single the most important reason why it is worth to spend one year of my life here is that by now I’ve got few people who became my friends, whom I trust and who I care about.

Am I culturally sensitive (part 2)?

2007-11-21T10:47:00.001+01:00

I have decided to write another posting as a response to the comment to the previous one, which Oksana, a great girl originally from Ukraine leading young AIESEC in Jordan, left there. What she wrote was following:

As much as I respect the contribution that we are making to societies
other than ours, who said that it is OUR Societies that are perfectly right?
Who said that it is our societies where people are all so sustainable,
honest, governments are so truthful and we are moving in the right
direction?

Let's us not feel like missionaries but trying to pursue better life in
the ways that traditional society treasures.

I had same thoughts a year ago, Dennis, when I came to Jordan, and I
totally went through this questioning and disappointments.

But one thing I learned - let us not define what the progress is and
let us not be missionaries.

Hope this does not sound too negative of a post! I've just gotten a bit
fed up with missionaries of ex-pats here in Jordan.

Thank you, Oksana, for challenging words! I have thought over the same things recently.

Firstly, I don't think that everything in MY society (in Estonia) is ideally perfect. There are several big problems which really upset and piss me off there and I am ready to contribute to their solving (I believe I have done it already). But it's not the point.

I have been asking myself while thinking about all these things in Kazakhstan I don't like - isn't it just some Western values and principles I am trying to impose on another society?

However, then other questions came to my mind:
- Is the respect for environment purely Western value?
- Is the respect for another human purely Western value?
- Is the honesty and transparency in your actions purely Western value?

The vast majority of local students, if you ask them, would say that they'd prefer to study abroad, if they have chance to do so.

A standard salary for a bank clerk is about USD 1000.
No-one knows how many thousands of dollars do top managers receive.
An average eldery pension is about USD 150 (an average, not a minimum)
One litre of milk costs USD 1-1,5.
One pack of cigaretes costs USD 0,5-1

Is it purely Western education when I don't think that it is OK to have huge shiny houses from glas and plenty of miserable buildings with dirty kids just next to them?

And who said that the progress is a necessarily good thing? For me buidling big houses, buying huge cars, attending fancy night-clubs and cocktail-bars is not a progress. That's unfortunately, what many young people in transitional societies like Estonia or Kazakhstan consider as a progress.

Some of the nicest people I have met here in Kazakhstan are from smaller towns and villages, which have preserved their traditional way of life. The problem is that thanks to the Soviet past, thanks to sovietization of this wonderful country, there is not much of traditions left here. That's probably the main difference from Jordan.

Do I feel myself a missionaire? Definetely not. I did not come here neither to develop Kazakhstan, nor its people. I came here to do a job I consider necessary for EVERY society in the world. Importance of education and leadership cannot be underestimated in any country, be it Japan, Egypt of Armenia. I did not come here to teach anyone how to live their lives. I came in order to learn from the country's people, habits, successes and problems and influence events happening around me.

I don't do anything particularly different from what I did in Estonia or Croatia before. I have simply changed the environment for one year. And I am happy I have done it.

And lastly, I may dislike some habits and customs which surround me. I may dislike the way many people behave around me. I may even dislike physical surroundings of the city I live in.

But I have not lost the love for people. I love people in Kazakhstan as much as I love them in Estonia, Germany and Croatia. I love my new friends here.

5, 10, 25 years after my experience in Kazakhstan ends, I will remember the people I have worked and felt joy with. I will remember the moments of discovery and moments of A-ha me and my colleagues have experienced together.

The life is beautiful. We are the ones who make it beautiful.

Am I culturally sensitive?

2007-11-05T13:37:00.001+01:00

My organisation AIESEC has cultural sensitivity as one of its ideological pillars. I studied Intercultural Communication as a part of Masters Programme in Germany for four months. I have lived abroad in several countries and I am having friends all over the world. I have delivered much training on coping with cultural shock, on cultural tolerance and intercultural communication.

And despite all of that, I am not fully culturally sensitive. Or could one be 100% culturally sensitive? Could one accept all the things, which are a norm in another country/culture, but not in yours? What if these different things are contradicting with your personal values?

These thought struck me for the first time in Egypt this year. And now I am experiencing these feelings again in Kazakhstan.

I am realizing how much European I am and how much alien are many things happening in countries like Egypt or Kazakhstan for me.

Interestingly, I am not seeking simply for something new and interesting in the new countries, like few years before. I am looking more for opportunities of sustainable development of society as a whole; I am interested why people are poor, angry, criminal, and unhappy in these countries. Maybe that’s why I am noticing more other things I have not been noticing before?

People don’t care about their environment. People don’t care about society. People don’t have any trust in governance. The biggest value of people is making more money, having better houses and cars, no matter at what expense. People don’t care about the wellness of the others, as long as it does not deal with the member of their own family/clan. People may well lie and cheat, if they will get financial profit out of that. People are rude to each other. People are corrupt.

If someone says that these things are just the way this culture and this society live, do I have to tolerate it? If I would simply stay and watch it all happening, would that be culturally sensitive?

Experiencing this kind of attitude and this kind of behaviour almost every day pisses me off. And I know that I am foreigner, I am not the one, who should do something about it. Sometimes I am thinking about why am I doing something for the sake of another society, if society itself does not make efforts to improve? Why am I spending my time, energy and health among the people, who are rude, arrogant and not caring about the others?

Besides, it has been a while since I have experienced shortage of money like during last month. It happened that I needed to spend some more money on things I had not intended to. And AIESEC Kazakshtan is still in financial difficulties. I am recalling the early times of university in Tartu, when I was spending only on the very necessary food.

I might surely have better implication for my mental and physical resources. But there are two things, which keep me emotionally alive and bound to my mission (besides obvious things like the promise given to AIESEC and myself, contract with the company I am working part-time for and expectations of others towards me):

People. As any other country in the world, Kazakhstan has many great people. There are plenty of young people, who are thinking about wellness of their society, who are kind and hard working. They are ambitious, yet caring. They need organisations like AIESEC and their country needs them. My talks to this new generation in their 18-26 reassures me that this country may well have a bright future, because there are people, whose understanding of the world was not ruined by Soviet ideology, who are seeing the world out of Kazakhstan, who are realizing importance of sustainability in their actions. These are my colleagues. These are my Kazakh family.

Nature. Diverse and colourful landscapes, stunning views and spaces breathing out freedom and peacefulness – it is amazing to experience that all. As a person coming from Estonia (the Estonians are a nation quite close to the nature), I highly value these moments, when I can be alone with higher powers of nature. There are some picture below I took while hiking in different places during last two months.

...Charyn canyon...

...Near Ust-Kamenogorsk in North-Eastern Kazakhstan...

...Near Almaty...

About being arrested in Kazakhstan and about simple leaders

2007-10-02T10:36:00.000+02:00

I have not written here anything for a long time. The situation with internet did not improve anyhow - I still don't have it at home / in the office.

About International Congress and holidays in Turkey

In the end of August I went to Turkey for almost three weeks. There was International Congress of AIESEC in Istanbul for a little bit more than two weeks. The internationalism of International Congress - more than 100 nationalities represented - is amazing. Even more amazing is the fact that all of these people are young leaders in their own communities, so a lot of them are quite exceptional individuals. I had several interesting talks. I noticed once again that I am not content with the role of following the process. I like to lead it. It was a little but unusual to spend almost two weeks without explicit role for yourself, but just being one of many.

t was also a little bit unusual to represent Kazakhstan, not Estonia at international conference. I think I managed it well (you can see me on the picture in Kazakh national clothes along with Mari and Kadi from Estonia).

Unloyal to my organisation to say, but the holidays after the conference were perhaps even better experience for me than the conference itself.

I went to Cesme, a resort town next to Izmir, for three days. I spent these days with a good friend of mine - Andim, a Turkish girl I met in Berlin, when we both were interns there. She is extremely intelligent young lady, but also funny, nice and kind person. I wish the world would have more people like her...

Holidays in Cesme was a classical holiday-time - taking sun, going to the beach, swimming in the sea, good food, ice-creams, boat-trips, excursions. It was wonderful. Just doing nothing. Three days was enough, though. It is just not in my nature to spend too much time doing nothing.

After that I went to Izmir, where I was hosted for few days by Riza - former President of AIESEC in Izmir, we were working together in Russian conference this summer. As I predicted, I liked Izmir, this town next to the sea-cost very much. It reminded me a little bit of Split in Croatia and Alexandria in Egypt (though I have a feeling that nothing can ever be as beautiful as Split for me).

That was the second time I visited Turkey. And second time I realized that I like this country. I hope the internal situation in the country will improve and it will become ready to get a membership of EU in some years. Europe needs Turkey and Turkey needs Europe, otherwise Muslim fundamentalism and Turkish nationalism will keep on strengthening there.

About services in Kazakhstan

Service area in Kazakhstan is simply bad. I did not like Egyptian way of servicing either, where people are ready to jump on you just for the sake of servicing you (and getting money for that, of course) -it was just way too annoying. But Kazakhstan has another extreme - Soviet-like attitude "I don't really care whether you will spend your money here or not, you probably don't have choice anyway. And besides - why are you interrupting me from reading the newspaper and eating my peanuts?"

Kusjuures Eestis on ka palju ilminguid sellisest teeninduskultuurist, kuid siin riigis on see kordades hullem. Inimesed lihtsalt ei oska teenindada. Nad ei viitsi teha midagi ekstra, et kliendil oleks hea - alates poe sisekujundusest l6petades viisakusega.

But that's not the fault of servicemen. The clients are often extremely arrogant. I witnessed few times already when people were actually quarrelling in the shops simply because of not caring about each other at all.

That's another side of these societies, which call themselves hospitable: if you are a friend or a relative, you will be given literally everything in order to make your stay as good as possible; but if you happen to be a stranger, why should anyone care about you?

About being arrested in Kazakhstan

The date before I am writing this posting was the day I spent under arrest (exactly 24 hours). That was an interesting experience... It happened, when I went to Northern Kazakhstan in order to visit three cities during two weeks with a purpose to establish AIESEC there.

In the first city, the capital Astana, I succeeded. There were several dozens of people recruited, I held many meetings and presentations. Guys started to work.

From there, I went to another city, Ust-Kamenogorks, by train. No-one told me that this train will cross the territory of Russia of about 40-50 kilometers (the railroad was built during Soviet time, when there was no border inbetween).

In other circumstances it would be enough. But not when you are crossing the national border between Kazakhstan and Russia. So, I was taken off the train by Kazakh border and customs soldiers (somehow, I feel good that it was not Russians, as my experience with Russian border and customs has never been a pleasant one).

I spent 24 hours under arrest, occasionally going out with one officer for having food in local canteen and for visiting toilet outside. I was sleeping just on my clothes on the tables, which I put together - not the most comfortable way of sleeping...

The Kazakh soldiers were actually pleasant people, they had every right to keep me there. They were rather bored in this tiny dirty village, where they worked, so presence of Estonian working in Kazakhstan and traveling around the country was rather amusing for them. We have talked about all kind of topics and finally they released me.

Freedom is like the air we breathe - you can understand a true value of it, only once you are staying without it...

I was kept in the chamber with two guys, who had been taken off the train one day earlier. One of them was a Kyrgyz guy in his 40s, who is actually a citizen of Russia, but went back to Kyrgyzstan, committed some crime there and was put to jail for two years. Another one is a 59-years-old Russian guy, who had worked illegally in Kazakhstan for four years already.

Not the nicest company to spend 24 hours, one may think.

Add to this that in the very train I was taken off from, I was sitting together with six members of one Gipsy family - a dad, a mom and four children, who all shouted, played with all possible things in the train and needed a constant attention.

To be honest, I enjoyed this trip with Gipsy family - they were nice, though poor people, with whom we shared our food.

And I enjoyed staying together with these two older men next to me. There was just such a situation, when all three of us, under different circumstances, got together into one room. It was very uniting.

The men had experienced the things I have never been through myself. As we had plenty of time to stay together with, we talked and talked and talked (to be more precise, two men mainly talked and I was mainly asking)... Kyrgyz guy managed to buy a vodka through one of the soldiers - two men were drinking, I took couple of shots for solidarity as well.

One of them - this second Russian guy - impressed me a lot with his life-story. I created a new term to call people like him - a simple leader.

About a simple leader Sergey

Sergey - that's how the man is called - was born in 1952 in one small village. When he turned 14, he decided to start to live independently from his parents. His father approved the wish of his son, saying that he is free to do everything in his life which won't put his family to be ashamed of him.

Sergey went to bigger town nearby his village and went to study a technical specialty of tractor driver. After he graduated, he decided to travel around, having just sixteen years of live passed. During next years he traveled all around Soviet Union - starting from the most northern areas of Russia, ending with Caucasian mountains of Chechnya, doing all kind of possible jobs.

Then he married for the first time. His wife was cheating him, spending family's money on herself and her lover. Sergey left a house to his former wife and went to the army.

Sergey was a tall, strong man, who got an attention of recruiting officers. He got "a special task", true purpose of which he got to know just few years later...

He was sent to Navy in northern seas of Soviet Union. He served his duty on the atomic submarines, being an underwater engineer - meaning that he repaired submarines under the water. The job was dangerous and atomic submarines were, understandably, a secrete place to work. Sergey was earning much more than the ordinary soldiers.

Once their submarine heard S.O.S. signals from a ship in neutral waters. It was U.S. ship. Sergey and his team rescued the ship from some underground plants, which prohibited ship to move on. Americans invited Sergey and his team to their ship. It was the very end of 1970s, high-time of Cold War.

Sergey saw VHS and porn movie for the first time. He was describing amusement of American soldiers, when they were looking at Soviet man in his late 20s, who saw porn movie for the first time in his life. Then Sergey was teaching Americans to drink Russian vodka. Of course, they did not learn it :) Grateful Americans gave Sergey and his team 1000 USD each.

1000 USD in the end of 1970s in USSR - it was more than a dream. In addition, a good salary Sergey got from his dangerous post in the Navy. After 1,5 years serving in the Navy he got vacations and went home. He flied home through Moscow and went to the special shop, where you could buy stuff only for foreign currency. A stuff, which was not available for an ordinary Soviet citizen. Sergey spent all his Dollars for presents for his parents and other close relatives. Giving these presents out was one of the happiest moments in his life, he said.

In the middle of vacations, once, when Sergey came back home in the evening, he saw his parents wearing black and being sadder than usually. They just got the news that Sergey is being sent to Afghanistan with a special task. That was the task he was recruited and prepared in the submarine for.

He spent four years, fighting a war in Afghanistan, needless war, as Sergey told. Sergey crashed 27 guns of enemy. He got several awards. Once he rescued fifty-two young 18-19-years-old Soviet boys, who were just sent there from their homes. They were sent to very dangerous cave by one officer, who knew that they will most probably get killed. Sergey came there alone, called helicopter and crashed the enemy. He got injured and did not hear anything for one month. After he came back from hospital, the first thing he did, was going to this officer, who sent young boys to the cave, and throwing the full glass of water against the officer. Sergey missed, he said.

The consequences of that could be severe - the officer had higher rank than Sergey. Sergey was rescued by a Colonel, who knew about his bravery. Sergey said about the whole story and the officer was dismissed.

Sergey described how he and his men distributed food among the locals and how he let go several captured Afghanis, whose only fault was that Talibani men came to their village and gave them two choices: whether they will join their army or Talibani will kill all their families, rape their mothers, wives and daughters and burn down their houses.

Then Sergey suddenly cursed (the only time I heard him cursing) on Soviet officials and the war and started to count, how many friends did he lose in Afghanistan. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13... I saw the tears on his face... Sergey, Kyrgyz man and me took a shot of vodka each in complete silence. We did not talk for some mintes at all. Something magical was in this moments of silence...

After Sergey came back from the army, he got married with Tatyana, who accompanied the man for whole his life eversince. He got to know Taytana through a friend and said that the very moment he saw her was the "moment of truth" for him - he knew he was going to marry her.

Sergey did a lot of different jobs. His favourite one was driving a tractor in fields. He said that unlike many other men, he treated his tractor as a part of his own. Sergey won several prizes as the best tractor-driver in the area. His secret was, he said, that he spoke with his machine, he knew every part of it and every mood of it.

Four years ago, Sergey went to Almaty, because of better salaries there. By that time he had three children already. Sergey and Tatyana are workers in Almaty - they renovate apartments. Sergey tells he can do basically everything - from electricity till walls in the toilets. He said he has to refuse from many jobs - so big is the demand for his services. He showed me all kind of tools he had with him - he was going to Russia to repair the apartment of his elder daughter.

Sergey said that all the money he is earning (and he is earning quite a lot, he said), he sends back to Russia for his three children and six grandchildren. He said he has enough money for a travel, for necessary clothes and for food. The rest is going to his family.

When I asked, what is Sergey especially proud about his life, he said that he never lied to anyone.

A simple leader is simply honest.

What kind of the world do we perceive?

2007-08-08T14:57:00.002+02:00

I was eight days off to Russia, somewhere near Moscow for an AIESEC conference. I was chair at the conference there.

One of the reasons I accepted the invitation to become a chair there in a quite busy period of work in KZ was the fact that my homeland Estonia and Russia have a way too bad relations right now. And I don't want to be one of these millions of people, who get brainwashed by the media and politicians, observe everything what is happening and start to HATE.

What I am going to write here, is hard to accept for many. For one simple reason. They have never spoken to the intelligent people from the OTHER side.

Actually, people in Estonia don't start to hate, the whole programme of socialization of Estonian citizen is constantly telling you: "Russia is bad. Russia is dangerous. Russians are the biggest threat for us. We have been suffering from them so many years. But we are small proud nation. They are bad, bad, bad..."

Young Russians are being programmed in a similiar way: "We have been suffering from everyone so many times throughout the history. But we are proud great nation. We have THE victory. We won the Second World War. We saved the humankind. And now we are surrounded by small ugly states, which wish only bad for us. All of those Latvias, Estonias, Polands, Georgias - they are bad, bad, bad...."

I am not telling that there is no truth in that. But the fact is that it is only part of the truth.

Take the mass media, for example. Russian mass media has long pictured non-friendly states in the fashion, which is useful for them. Estonia is a small ugly neo-Fascist state, which discriminates Russians, is licking the a** of United States and does not respect any values, which are important for Russians. And that's all!

Just try to enter word "Estonia" in the search engine of any Russian news-website. Will you find there anything about Estonian progress in innovation, in economics, improvements in social life? No. I did not find almost any positive news from Estonia. Any.

No wonder that when I came to Russia, I had to brake the stereotypes of many Russians. I had to say that the truth, which is presented to them, is indeed the truth most of the times. But the problem is that it is part of the truth.

Indeed, Estonians don't consider Soviet victory over Nazis in the WWII as a purely positive. Indeed, Soviet army liberated Estonia from Nazis. But do the mass media tell that Soviet army occupied Estonia for the years and years? Do they tell that the whole WWII was a big tragedy for Estonian nation, where some people had to take one side and some other? Do they tell that Communists made as many (or even more) atrocities in Estonia as Nazis did? Do they tell about my family, which suffered from Soviets much more than from Nazis during the WWII?

Indeed, many Estonians fought for Nazis. Indeed, many Estonians fought against Soviet army. But do the mass media tell that during 3,5 years of Nazi occupation, young Estonian men had to join Nazi army, simply because they had eligible age? Do they tell that simple people were just misillusionised and their only wish was to re-establish Estonian Republic?

Indeed, the life of local Russians in independent Estonia is generally harder than it was in Soviet Union. Indeed, local Russians must know Estonian in order to succeed in the society. But do the Russian mass media tell that Estonia is independent state, and it is normal for independent state to call one of the languages a dominant one? Can anyone imagine a citizen of Russia from Udmurtia, Chrekessiya or Bashkiriya, who does not speak Russian at all and is succeeding in Russia?

These were the topics I discussed with Russian AIESEC and non-AIESEC students (there was a conference for all students of Moscow as well). I am proud that thanks to me at least 150 of young Russians from all around the country started to see Estonia and the world around them in a different way. I am proud that Estonia is no longer an enemy for them, but an interesting country to visit, instead. I am proud that I met great intelligent young Russian people, who are not afraid to think with their own head and some of whom I can truly call my soul-mates.

Me with the facilitators' team of the AIESEC conference in Russia

K6igile eestlastele - kui v2ga tahaks ma, et paljud teist saaksid viibida koos minuga seal konverentsil. Ehk muutuks paljude inimeste pilt venelasest kui r2uskavast, l2rmakast ja tylikast olendist. Ehk saakiste r22kida t6siselt intelligentsete, talendikate, oma peaga m6tlevate noortega, kes tunnistavad, et nende maal on probleeme nagu ka k6ikjal mujalgi, kes soovivad, et Venemaa oleks suurriik, aga seda mitte teiste riikide arvel.

I was writing about the half-truth presented by Russian media about Estonia. But the picture about Russia being created by Estonian media is no different! What I am reading from Estonian online newspapers - Russia as authoritarian dangerous state, which is threatening everyone, which has many problems as corruption, alcoholism, does not know about democracy at all and does not care about its own citizen. That's it.

Of course, most of all is truth to some extent. But is that Russia? How about economic development's influence on this country? How about cultural and scientific achievements, which this great nation is constantly bringing to the world?

Anyway, sometimes I just get dissapointed, when I am reading Estonian online newspapers. Recently I talked to one Polish, living in Central Asia. She said she is a big patriot of her Poland and therefore she prefers not to read Polish newspapers, while living abroad. I understand her. The picture I get about Estonia is quite sad one.

Riik, kus inimesed ei m6tlegi millelegi muule, kui ohtudele. Ohud, mis tulenevad Venemaalt ja Vene spioonidelt. Ohud, mis on seotud majandusekrahhiga, mis tuleb homme-ylehomme. Ohud, mis tulenevad kinnisvaramullist. Ohud, mis on seotud Savisaare ja valelike 2rimeestega. Ohud, mis tulenevad inflatsioonist. Ohud, mis tulenevad Eesti kroonist. Ohud, mis tulenevad eurost. Ohud, mis tulenevad k6ikidest teistest, peale meie.

Tekib kysimus - kes on "meie"? Symbioos paljudest ohtudest?

That's the main reason why I, graduate of Media and Communication, decided that I am not going to work in mass media. I don't want to create a world of conflicts. I will be creating a world, how I and millions of other people want to see it. And my conversations and the whole conference in Russia was just one important step in this direction.

By the way, Russian nature - as nature everywhere - is very beautiful. The river next to the venue of the conference was amazing. Especially, during the evenings.

Beauty of the mountains

2007-07-26T15:56:00.002+02:00

Mountains - this is something, which makes the heart of every Estonian beating faster, when he sees them. There is no mountains in Estonia. And that is one of the greatest thing, which I love about Almaty - mountains.

Almaty: the city, where I am going to spend one year

2007-07-18T14:56:00.001+02:00

What is actually Kazakhstan?

Kazakhstan is the ninth-largest country in the world by area, but it is only the 62nd country in population. The population in 2006 is estimated at 15,300,000. Kazakhstan is the largest landlocked country in the world.

The economic development of the country has been rapid recently. GDP growth constantly exceeded 9% since 2000. So, similiar to Estonia. One of missions is to find out, what is such growth based on.

What is actually Almaty?

Like in many other countries in the world, the capital and the rest of teh country are two different worlds.

Officially, the capital of the country is Astana in the centre of the country. Almaty was the capital before the mid-1990s. Almaty people call the city "Southern capital". So far, it is still financial and business centre of Kazakhstan and the whole central Asia.

Big part of oil incomes (Kazakhstan has vast natural resources, including petrolium and natural gas) flows in to Almaty. One can truly see it. The city is booming. Young people are fashionable. I have never seen so many expensive clothes trends of boutiques like in Almaty. I have neved seen so many expensive cars like in Almaty.

K6ik need, kes arvavad, et kogu Kesk-Aasia on mingi m6ttetult vaene regioon, oleksid v2ga yllatunud, avastades, et Almaty meenutab m6nda rikast USA v6i L22ne-Euroopa linna teatud Aasia omap2raga. See muidugi kajastub ka hindades. Almaty on 30. linn maailmas oma kalliduse poolest.

Economic development has some negative sides as well. Like in big Chinese coastal cities, the main issue here is environment. There are many cars and terrible traffic jams. Almaty is situated in the valley, which makes the circulation of teh air just minor here.

That all compensates with the fact that Almaty is very green city. Indeed, in Soviet times it was known as the garden-city. There are plenty of green alleys, parks and gardens everywhere. I truly enjoy it.

The best part of this city for me are neighbouring mountains. They are simply amazing. Me and Viljo had chance to get proof of that during three-days trip to the mountains next to it. Although it was raining and tehre was not that much sun, the views were breathtaking.

Matk m2gedesse on v2ga eriline syndmus. Nagu kunagi ytles yks my s6ber Slovakkiast, ei l2he halb inimene m2gedesse. T6epoolest, 6hk on seal nii puhas ja loodus nii imeline, et k6ik tumedad m6tted lihtsalt kaovad 2ra ja j22b vaid meelerahu.

How I am doing?

So far, I live in one-room apartment, which is cool. The AIESEC work will be definetely challenging, but that's why I came here. In general, I am doing great, because there are some great people around me here. That's enough to feel happy.

My trip by train from Tallinn to Almaty

2007-07-18T13:34:00.002+02:00

Yeah! Finally I got a chance to sit a little bit longer in internet.

After about 5 days travel by train from Tallinn through Moscow to Almaty, after two weeks of integration and solving a lot of practical issues I can say that I more or less settled down.

The trip by train Tallinn-Moscow-Almaty

Every time I said to the locals that I came by train and spent 5 nights in the train, they were really surprised :) They didn't know anyone, who would have done the same. That was actually cool trip! Me and Viljo enjoyed it!

Farewell at Balti Jaam was nice. Some important for me people came to see me for teh last time during this year.

Train from Tallinn to Moscow was quite decent. A couple aged about 50 shared a compartment (kupee eesti keeles) with us. Me and Viljo celebrated our first evening in restaurant-wagon by drinking some Baltika beer.

Crossing the Estonian-Russian border got me a little bit sentimenthal. Probably, I won't see my homeland for one year. A lot of different thought in my head before I got sleep...

We arrived in Moscow and were happily picked up by Nastya from AIESEC Russia. We walked around in Moscow for about a day. We saw famout Red Square and Kremlin. I got impression from Moscow, which I had expected - it is too big, too crowded, too noisy. Too everything. Probably after living there for a while, I would start to like some things there. But so far, no intensions to go there for a longer period.

Jalutades Moskvas, m6istad p6him6ttelist erinevust Eesti ja Venemaa vahel - suurus. K6ik on v2ga suur, imposantne ja muljet avaldada sooviv. Iga hoone, park v6i tee karjub sulle n2kku: "Vaata kui suur ja uhke ma olen!" Sama karjuvad ka loendamatud mustad maasturid t2navatel.

The train Moscow-Almaty was different from previous one. Less decent, so to say. More of 1970s style. The major difference for us was that we were not in a separate compartment, but in platzkart, instead. It means that there is a big wagon, which has separating walls inbetween the sections, but no doors. So, you really had to get to know your neighbours. Me and Viljo discovered restaurant-wagon and celebrated the first evening in our new home for 3 upcoming days and 4 nights. We celebrated it with the first Kazakh beer I ever tried.

During the first night we discovered the whole "beauty" of sitting in the wagon without a conditioner. It was hot. During the day worse. The more south we went, the hotter it got.

Towns in Russia, where we stopped, looked all the same - railway stations, many kiosks, lazily walking people around enjoying summer sun, gray brick or wooden houses with blue windows.

Important moment for us was crossing Volga river. I always dreamt to see Volga - the biggest river in Europe. And it was impressive. Huge, broad, endless massive of water. Tartu Emaj6gi tunduks v2ikse ojana v6rreldes sellega. Me and Viljo celebrated seeing such an impressive picture by having few shots of vodka with borsh in restaurant-wagon.

Looking at Volga river, I rememberd about my feeling in being in Moscow - everything is biiiiig. Kazakhstan is similiar. And that is seen in mentality of people. It is different from Estonia. While Estonians generally (with some nasty exceptions) care about every piece of their small land, Russians and Kazakhs just feel that there is so much of it.

One example of it is one small incident, which happened to me in the train. Generally, people are okey with throwing the garbage out of the windows. The garbage bin in our wagon got full and I told about it to our provodnik (person, working in the train, rongisaatja). He asked me rhetorically: "What do you think, where do I throw out the garbage from this bin? Isn't it easier for both of us, if you will throw your bottle from the window right now?". I saved my bottle until the next train station.

The Russian-Kazakh border was interesting. We crossed it three times. The railway was built in Soviet time, when there was no borders inbetween. So, it happened that the road crossed the border three times. We were checked and asked different questions four times (twice at the first border). Russian bordergards were serious and straightforward, Kazakh borderguards were humourous and friendly.

Huvitav seik oli see, et mina ja Viljo v6tsime osa salakaubaveost. Rongisaatja nimelt palus k6igil, kes l2hevad Moskvast Almatysse v6tta 4-6 tykki mingeid riideid enda kottidesse. Meie Viljoga saime uusi, ilmselt kusagilt Moskva turu pealt ostetud teksasid ja s2rke. Pidime ytlema, kui keegi kysib, et need on kingitused. Yks vene naine tegi selle peale nalja, et kui avastatakse, et k6igil on samad s2rgid ja teksad kottides, siis ytleme, et ostsime sama turu peal :) Keegi ei leidnud midagi. Rongisaatjad (kaks kasahhi rahvusest meest) said ilmselt m6ned tenged (kohalik valuuta) enda tasku.

After about 6-7 hours of the borders we finally entered Kazakhstan. Me and Viljo celebrated it with the beer in restaurant-wagon.

People in the train are generally friendly and helpful. That's interesting phenomena, when you travel together with the same people in closed room for a long time - after a while you become like one big family. Our neighbours were one Russian couple in their 60s. They were really nice. People tend to help each other, share their food, share some stories.

Cool thing about the stations in Russia and especially Kazakhstan is that there is small business flourising, when big train like our is coming (ours had something like 30 wagons). People know the time in advance and prepare drinks, food and all possible and impossible stuff to sell. Some men and women come to the train at one station, travel few hours and walk through the wagons offering stuff from fake jewelry till ice-cream.

The prices were really cheap. Much cheaper than in restaurant-wagon. We were constantly buying different delicious fruits from them. After a while me and Viljo celebrated it with a beer bought from some grannies at some train station.

Impression from Kazakh landscape - it is huge. :) The steppes were interesting to see in the beginning, but became too monotonous after a while. But when the train started to go through mountainous valley, we both became gluied to the windows. Amazing views! The woman next to us laughed that boys from Pribaltika are really excited (she had some good friend in Latvia, who had told her that Baltics don't have any mountains). She was right...

Some of the auls (Kazakh villages), we saw from the window, looked really poor. Mud-hut, couple of horses amd endless steppes around. Nothing to compare with Almaty...

One great thing about travelling in the train is, of course, drinking tea there. It is like a holy process, which you enjoy. Because you don't have anywhere to hurry up to. :) I think I drank the best tea in my life in this train. I am not kidding.

By our fourth night in the train me and Viljo started to get used to being hot. You are just sweating all the time. It becomes your normal physical state :) We were excited about our soon-to-be-arrival and celebrated it with the bottle of Vana Tallinn, which we had with us. We shared some with our neighbours, who got good memories (elder people know Vana Tallinn from Soviet times).

0,5 liitrit kodumaist jooki palavas rongis keset Kasahstani - see oli uskumatult hea tunne. Elu on jummmala ilus! Vahel on vaja vaid v2ga v2hest, et 6nnelik olla...

And then we saw Almaty. Yeah! The city was waiting for its new son, who will rock there one year! That's how I can describe excitement I had, when I arrived in Almaty...

Pictures of Prague

2007-06-22T19:30:00.001+02:00

Prague - one of my favourite cities in Europe.

Once I will get back there for a longer time!

Another period of my life is starting

2007-06-22T17:45:00.001+02:00

Current state

I have not posted anything here for a while. I had quite busy time last few months...

My life so far in terms of changing the places:

1982-1999: childhood and teenage years in small town Valga
2000-2003 August: university in Tartu (1)
2003 September-2004 January: university and work in Germany
2004 February-2005 May: university in Tartu (2)
2005 June-2005 August: internship in Germany
2005 September-2006 January: AIESEC work in Croatia
2006 February-2007 June: AIESEC and Youth in Action work in Estonia

The last period described is coming to an end. The new one is starting.

I had my birthday yesterday - 21st of June. Quite often has my birthday been during the time, when some important changes happened in my life - 1997: graduating from secondary school, 2000: graduating from high school, 2005: graduating from university.

Now another big change is happening.

I gave over my work in AIESEC in Estonia (http://www.aiesec.ee/) to my successor Marjam - the person, who has become my good friend and truly soul mate. The new leadership team of AIESEC in Estonia is very strong - I believe that we will strengthen ourselves both internally and externally as a leading youth organisation in Estonia. I am satisfied with my year. Me and my team have achieved a lot. I worked with amazing people for something I truly believe in, for something I could tremendously develop myself in.

I have also finished my work as a trainer in Youth in Action (Euroopa Noored - euroopa.noored.ee). I had chance to design and conduct professional trainings for different kind of Estonian young people of different ages. My colleagues there are amazingly dedicated people, who really CARE about youth work in Estonia.

During this year I truly lived my vision - provoking internal and external smiles in myself and people around me. There is a plenty of ways I ahve done it. I just feel peace in my mind. I am happy person, because I did something meanigful.

New period of my life

On 28th of June I am taking train from Tallinn to Moscow and from there - to Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan. I will spend one year in this country, where I am going to lead local chapter of AIESEC, being the first leader of this organisation in the country. I will need to create the stable base for organisation to function in order to provide young people of Kazakhstan with opportunities to discover their potential and develop themselves.

Apart of that, I will be working for Koger&Partnerid (http://www.koger.ee/), Estonian real estate developing and building company. I am going to conduct marketing research for the company.

Thus, I will continue to work in NGO sector, but will also contribute to business development. That will be another step to be related to two areas of my passion: 1) connecting business and NGO sector, 2) organisational activities' expansion abroad.

Abroad in June

After the end of my term as President of AIESEC in Estonia, I went for a week to Rotterdam (AIESEC global Steering Team meeting) and to Prague (CEE regional AIESEC Presidents meeting) in June.

That kind of meetings broaden the horizons and challenge your worldview, that's for sure! You have opportunity to have in-depth discussions with smart young people from different nationalities, who share your passion. Short list of some discussion topics I have had with my colleagues from other AIESEC countries:

Tourism industry in Tanzania
Future of Serbia
Need for certain kind of young people in Russia
Political and societal challenges for modern Turkey
Possible solutions for tensions between Baltics and Russia
Corruption in Africa and in Europe

Besides that, I simply had great fun with some of my good friends from another countries - Ioana, Vlada, Gaspar, Evca, Nastja, Karina and others.

I am really happy that I had chance to visit one of my favourite cities in Europe again - Prague. I love this city and I really want to live there for some short period of time! Maybe I will come to make business there once...

My friends in AIESEC

Thanks to AIESEC I have got the friends for my whole life, I am sure of that. Those are the people, whom I know both in work and fun. I can always rely on them, because we have simply done so many things together... And I am sure that they will be successful people, some of the true leaders. Looking right now at the people like Siim, Priit, Marjam, Kristi, Mari, Marko, Siim, Viljo, Mairi, Kadi, Maris, Jaan, Evelyn, Kristi etc etc etc, I am simply sure that this is the generation, which will leave their footprint after them.

I really want to meet all my AIESEC friends in 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years and see whether we have fulfilled our dreams and where are we heading.

My friends in AIESEC did amazing present for me - I got photo-camera (I lost my previous one at IPM in Egypt) at our last national conference. That was a present from all members of AIESEC in Estonia. As kind of recognition for what I have done. That was amazing feeling.

I had amazing feeling also yesterday in my 2in1 party: farewell and birthday party. So many cool people came to congratulate me! I am grateful for what kind of friends I have here.

Long trip to Kazakhstan

One of my dreams for the last few years has been to travel by Trans-Siberian train through whole Russia until the very Eastern part of Russia - Sahalin and Kamchatka. I am going to partly fulfill this dream the next week - me and and my friend Viljo are going to travel by train about four days through half of Russia and Kazakhstan. I have never been so long in the train. I have almost not been to Russia, except of my homeland Petserimaa (ex-Estonian area, which now belongs to Russia).

I am eager to see this huge country, where part of my roots is coming from.

I am very eager to have this adventurous trip.

I m very eager to start my one-year-long journey in Kazakhstan.

Future of this blog

This blog will be the main channel of my communication towards all my friends around the world and to myself after a while. I am going to update it 1-3 times a month, will also open a page for uploading the photos. Sometimes I am going to write in Estonian, because I need language practice :)

White flower / valge tulp / белый тюльпан

2007-05-07T11:31:00.000+02:00

Eestis elavate inimeste minevik on erinev, kuid tulevik on ühine. Me ei usu seda juttu, et eestlased ja venelased ei või omavahel läbi saada. Me ei taha vihata!

Kui oled nõus, saada see kiri edasi nii oma eestlastest kui ka venelastest sõpradele.

Teeme ettepaneku viia vastastikku tähtsatesse kohtadesse valgeid tulpe, või kui neid saada pole, siis teisi valgeid lilli, nelke, roose või kasvõi lumikellukesi. Iga valge lill loeb! Igas lillepoes on valgeid lilli!

20 noort eestlast ja venelast
http://whitetulips2007.blogspot.com/

-----

Прошлое живущих в Эстонии людей разное, но у нас общее будущее. Эстонцы и русские могут быть в хороших отношениях. Мы не хотим ненавидеть!

Если ты тоже так думаешь, то отправь это письмо как своим русским, так и эстонским друзьям.

Предлагаем возложить к значимым для всех нас местам белые тюльпаны, а если их нет, то другие белые цветы. Любой белый цветок важен! Белые цветы есть в каждом цветочном магазине!

20 представителей эстонской и русской молодежи
http://whitetulips2007.blogspot.com/

Beauty of the mind versus stupidity in the streets

2007-04-29T22:26:00.001+02:00

While I was enjoying beauties of my favourite town in Estonia - Tartu, while I was relaxing during the hiking trip to the swamps, hundreds of mainly Russian-speaking youngsters were crashing the shops, houses, kiosks and fighting with police in the centre of Tallinn. Supposedly because of the monument on the picture below.

It all started because of the monument. The situation has never been so bad at the streets of independent Estonia. Alcohol sales are forbidden. Mass gatherings are forbidden. Estonian embassy in Russia does not work. Russian officials threaten Estonia. Everyone is anxious and nervous about what is going to happen at 1st and 9th of May.

The monument is a Soviet-time memorial for Soviet soldiers who were fighting against German Fascists during World War II. The noble cause, indeed. So is it seen by ethnic Russians in Estonia - as many other Russians around the world. There is at least one person in almost every Russian family, who was killed in the war against Fascists during 1941-1945.

Soviet soldiers liberated Estonia from Germans fascists. And occupied Estonia for another 45 years. So is it seen by ethnic Estonians. There is at least one person in almost every Estonian family, who was deported to Siberia by Soviet Communists (in major part by Russians) in 1941 and 1946-1949.

So, the monument for Soviet soldiers symbolizes heroes and legends for some and occupation and repression for the others. Big difference indeed.

The understanding of what happened in 1940s and later on is as different.

Estonians and Russians get different history, they get different mentality.

The gap between them is widening even more by mass-media.

Estonian media, presenting what is happening around the monument, concentrates mainly on what damage it has been to Estonia and how big threat does violent Russian minority, backed by Russian official agenda, present to Estonia.

Russian television, which actually is propaganda machine, completely loyal to Kremlin (and being the most important source of information for Estonian Russians), presents what has happened, as yet another repression of local Russians by Estonian state, which drives neo-Fascist agenda and uses violent force against Russians.

The gap is widening.

Diplomatic relations between Estonia and Russia have hardly been tenser than at the moment. Some fiercest Russian nationalists among officials in Russia propose using force against Estonia.

Relations between Estonians and Estonian Russians are as bad as back in the beginning of 1990s.

It's sad to see that people deaf. Deaf to each other. They are deaf as millions of their predecessors throughout the whole nasty history of manhood.

People just allow themselves to go along with provocations of some hysterical nationalists, with irresponsible TV-reporters, with feeling of belonging to the mass. They prefer that to the dialogue and understanding of the real reasons behind some actions.

Many local Russians don't understand that the very presence of the monument in the heart of Tallinn symbolizes all the tortures and repressions done by Soviet Communists on the soil of Estonia.

Many Estonians don't understand that Russians suffer because of lack of concrete identity. Many of them don't really belong neither to Estonian, nor to Russian state. Instead of integration, we can see marginalization, resulting in violence in the streets.

That's the same as the feeling of a shy man, who is not really loved by women and cannot get along with any woman for 15 years. One day this man cannot hold whole negative energy inside him. He rapes a woman.

Who is guilty in this case? Surely, man, who commits crime? But doesn't part of the guilt lie on society itself, which has excluded man from its pleasures?

I, Deniss Rutšeikov, originating from Petserimaa , a piece of land formerly belonging both to Estonia and to Russia, coming from mixed Setu-Russian origin, being raised in Russian-speaking family, being educated in Russian-speaking high-school and Estonian-speaking university, a chief of one the leading youth organisations in Estonia, a citizen of Estonian Republic, claim that there is no nation, which is guilty in anything. There are no "good" or "bad" nations. There is just lack of education resulting in stupid actions.

I believe in humans. I believe in beauty of their minds. I hope for another "singing revolution" like in Estonia of 1989-1991. Rather than for another former Yugoslavia in 1991-1995. Rather than Chechnya in 1994-2004. Rather than Northern Ireland in 1963-1998. Rather than Somalia at the moment. Rather than Sri Lanka at the moment. Rather than all of these atrocities done by stupidity, not by the beauty of the mind.

Hiking trip to the swamps

2007-04-29T21:46:00.001+02:00

Last weekend me, Siim Säinas and one more guy from our homw-town Valga went to the 2-days hiking trip to the swamp area next to Peipsi Lake (Emajõue Suursoo Kaitseala).

Here are some visual highlights of the trip, which was both relaxing and impressive.

Modest, yet beautiful and surptising Estonian nature is something, which we are really proud of!

The total area of marshes and swamp forests is over fifth (around 22%) of Estonia's territory.

Me and old fishermen-boat

The old wooden house we spent a night in

Heroes of the nature :)

We know how to have fun - my team's crazy hair party!

2007-04-22T00:42:00.000+02:00

Yeahhh!

There is a plenty of things we don't know how to do in our team.

But if there is one, which unites all of us, it is that we know how to have fun! :)

We proved it last Friday night, when we hosted "MC Crazy Hair Party". The dress code of the party was simple - crazy hair :) Ms. Pärn and Ms. Toms made crazy haircuts for themselves, for MC boys and for some more aiesecers, who cam to us.

Results was astonishing, as it can be seen on some of the pictures. :)

Mr. Säinas and Mr. Rutšeikov meanwhile spent many hours on preparing glourious session called "How to fail miserably or in other words how to be a loser?".

We had plenary time, we had group work and some elements of competition.

And in the end - the old Chinese wisdom about how to be a true looser found and translated by Mr. Säinas and Mr. Rutšeikov:

How to be a true looser?

- Be a bitch.

- Kill small animals - don't care about anything.

- Tell others that they look ugly. Constantly.

- Speak about yourself. A lot.

- Take a lot of responsibilities and never finish them. Never.

- If you go out with your girlfriend, pretend that you forgot your wallet.

- Stink.

- Laugh at people. Especially when they fall down.

:)

The circle around the dream

2007-03-08T22:03:00.001+01:00

The picture on the left is the one I was using during my application for AIESEC International team 2007-2008. I both included it in my written application and used during verbal presentation.

That was the part of my personal brand as AIESEC International candidate. The picture is taken by Marina from Croatia, a former AIESEC-er and highly talented young photographer. This picture symbolizes a dream for me. A dream, which is caught by the person. His personal dream. There a circle around it. He knows, what is his dream now. He knows, why it is his dream. He knows how to get there.

AIESEC International team unites about 24 people from all around the world, who altogether lead AIESEC globally in 100 countries. That's where I was applying and didn't get selected.

My brand didn't work out. There is no circle around my dream right now. I lost election.

Previously, I was loosing mainly on personal level (a lot), but almost never on professional level. I was the best graduate of my high-school, the best-scoring applicant for my faculty, the best graduate of my course, I was leading the show for around 400 people in concert hall of Oslo when I was just 20, I was named the best new member of AIESEC in Tartu, I won all the AIESEC elections beforehand, I was named the best facilitator on AIESEC conference few times, I have gotten many job offers during past few years...

Finally, I got rejected. It's great, because I got to know once again that I have a lot ahead of me to develop. I am not perfect. And I am proud of that. I am proud to write it here. I am damn proud to have been AI Director candidate.

But did I lose? Yes, I lost elections, which I wanted to win. Yes, I lost my photo camera in Egypt, which I really liked and which was present from my parents.

Both of these things are on the same page for me right now. Those are not real losses. Those are the changes in the context, which I have to adapt for.

What is the real loss however, is when a person, somehow dear to you, just disappears. Me and many more people just lose this person forever. One car accident can kill so many dreams...

I feel anger now. And this anger motivates me. Usually, I am motivated by the positive energy. But right now, I have anger incorporated there. I know that it will pass, as I have just too many different emotions inside of me. I know that I will have peace in my mind and sould soon enough.

But right now I just feel that I want to achieve a lot during the rest of my term as a President of AIESEC in Estonia. I will make it the best year so far for my organisation and I will make everything possible that the next year will be even better.

I will make it for the sake of all losses I have experienced recently. All the losses, which make me stronger person.

Not anymore

2007-03-07T17:57:00.000+01:00

No jokes. No adventures. No joy. No new experiences. No life. Not anymore.

She just disappeared. Vanished.

With her 20 years of life she left a trace in the lives of many. She would leave even more. But not anymore.

We lost her. As the world is losing thousands like her every day. But we really care just about few ones. The ones, who are close to our hearts.

This time fate stroke one close to me.

But she is not the one I am thinking at the moment. There are two people, whom I would give the whole myself, if I just could. Her parents. What did they lose? The daughter, the part of them, the very reason to live. Where else to find such a reason?

My emotional self is suffering. Just before I lost a hope for the synergy of dreams. Now, some people lost not just a hope, they lost the very possible source of their dreams. Will there be any new dreams for them possible? I really hope so.

I promise that I will find out the new dreams for me. I will fight for realizing them. I will realize them for her, always remembering her.

Answering some questions

2007-01-10T21:41:00.001+01:00

Am I living my life as I want to? Are the things, which I am doing, relevant? Wouldn't it be smarter to do something else?

Those are some questions, which pop up to my mind time-to-time. I guess, everyone answers these questions for himself/herself sometimes.

Do you really work for such a salary? Wouldn'it be better to build up your career? Why don't you have time for us?

Those are some questions, which the other people have been asking me.

Recently I wrote two different e-mails to two completely different people. I would quote some parts of them, which ARE the answer to all of these questions.

"My personal vision, which I put into the words, is "Every day of my life, I want to make myself and other people around me smile. I want to make people having smile on their faces because they feel good, because they have a-ha moments, because they feel self-fulfillment. These smiles should be there because of my meaningful activities, my behaviour and my attitude. I follow my personal principles and never refuse of them in any kind of situation".

Working full-time in AIESEC gives me opportunity to put my vision into reality every day. I wake up at 7:15-8:15 and I feel good. Because I know that I am going to AIESEC office and I will be dealing with highly meaningful things. Meaningful for me and for the others."

And another one.

"I feel very empowered and thankful to the God or to the fate or to whatever/whoever that I am doing what I am doing. It's just as simple as it is."

Yesterday I had a meeting with one of our project managers, Kristi, who is managing project with budget over 1.000.000 EEK (more than 70.000 EUR). I am the final responsible for all this money.

The day before yesterday and today I had two meetings with two completely different people, who I am both mentor for. Being a mentor is amazing concept! One of these people pictures himself in the future as entrepreneur and respected specialist. Another one dreams about improving the world and helping as many as she can. Two different dreams. Two different ways. And I have privilige, I have luck, I have blessing to be the one, who is guiding both of them through it. Actually "guiding" means here nothing more than just listening and asking the right questions - no rocket science. But what can be more intime, more personal and more sacred than listening to the vision, dreams and fears of other person? I will repeat - I feel blessed having this opportunity.

Tomorrow I am going to my favourite town in Estonia - Tartu. I will have 7 meetings during one day. All of them are with the members of AIESEC in Tartu. All of them concern completely different topics. But all of them are very important. Am I not lucky having opportunity to have impact on 7 different people during one day?

Last Friday I met with one of our corporate partners represented by ambitious and successful CEO of one company. Having meeting with him for about one hour just re-assured me once more that Estonia has a lot of great people, who are driving our society and our economy.

During past few days I wrote and received e-mails from my colleagues from about 6 different countries, all of whom are leading their AIESEC national chapters. How many people in my age can say that they have colleagues in 96 countries of the world and they know more or less all 96 of them?

Meeting in Rotterdam in December was great. It is funny that I discovered once again that live music can touch me very much, if I really like it. After intensive meetings we went out to some cafes of pubs with my international colleagues in the evenings. Once we went to jazz-cafe and there were live-performances by amateur bands. It was hard to concentrate on conversations around - the music was so beautiful! At one moment I just sat down separately on the other table and listened to performances completely alone. Just me and the sounds of music. World is amazing place to live.

What does it mean to lead a team of 8 people, 4 out of which you see practically every day? It requires a lot of patience, gratitide, inneral strength and understanding. It is similar to growing a tree - you need to be patienet, grateful, strong and understanding in order to wait for the fruits for several years. You can destroy the tree by just one too strong hit. But you can enhance its growth by giving needed vitamines, needed power. The ones, who have been growing trees (I did it with my father long time ago) would probably understand me.

Me with people, who have a big meaning for me at this point of my life

Back from Slovakia, soon to Rotterdam

2006-11-28T22:06:00.000+01:00

Along with Mr. Bush's Air Force No.1, there was another plane landing about the same time in Tallinn airport yesterday late evening. It was a plane, which carried me back to Estonia.

I came back from Slovakia, where I was chair at their national conference.

I was chair before, but it was the biggest conference for me as a chair. And it was excellent! It was successful conference, where people were actually crying in the closing plenary. It was emotionally very high event.

And I had opportunity to influence it all - imagine that you are actually able to influence the mood, the energy, the learning process of around 120 people at the same time! I am thankful for such an experience. I am also thankful for the great chance to work with excellent people from our facilitators's team that me and Zuzka, a conference manager, were leading.

Faci team of Autumn Conference 2006 in Slovakia

One of the best moments there was an election of new President of AIESEC in Slovakia. They had three candidates. Three people, who dared to stand out from the others and say loud, what they had to say to everyone.

The right person got elected. And I was so proud seeing all three of them going for that, making speeches, answering questions. Because I went through similar experience about 9-10 months ago.

In about 1,5 weeks am going to Rotterdam, where I will be one of 10 people from all around the globe, who are going to work along with AIESEC International in Global Steering Team. We will be discussing global strategies and global solutions for all our nearly 100 countries in the network.

That's kind of experience, which few people in my age can have. That's kind of experience AIESEC is offering to me.

That everything is cool, of course. AIESEC is really great.

But today I called to my parents, because they have their wedding anniversary today. After 7 minutes of speaking to my mother I just realized once again - there is nothing more important right now in my life than my parents for me. People who raised me as I am. People, whom I owe everything I have.

When we feel like doing something good

2006-11-06T22:24:00.000+01:00

"Kui mõnikord tekib tunne, et tahaks teha midagi head, siis kasuta neid hetki"
("When sometimes you get the feeling that you want to do something good, use these moments")

This is the slogan of Heateo Sihtasutus (Charities Foundation) [www.heategu.ee] - Estonian non-for-profit organisation that attracts me very much with its mission and the means it executes its mission. Majority of its workers are AIESEC alumni.

Today I had chance to be present in roundtable of Estonian organisations which are dealing with development of leaders. AIESEC is one of the founding organisations (along with JCI, Junior Achievement, Rotary and Invicta) of the roundtable that I personally have big hopes in.

We spoke about how to transmit good idea to the society. Good idea like need for development of leadership skills in people of all ages.

Founder and head of Heateo Sihtasutus, Artur Taevere, inspired me with his understanding of things, his passion and his determination. He is just about 26, but he managed to make his NGO to be one of the best-known in Estonia with just 3,5 years by simply doing something good for the others.

He told that in order to transmit good idea to the others, you need four things (simple and obvious, but they tend to be forgotten far too often):
1) Good idea is not enough, you have to have one leader, who will execute the idea and who will have good nerve not to "jump out of the train"
2) Idea (message) should surprise, should have ahhaaa moment inside.
3) Idea should be important or deal with inescapable problem
4) Idea has to have external supporters

I will try not to forget these four simple rules, when I will start to execure my own good ideas in the future.

What if the first thing you want to do in the morning is to cry?

2006-10-24T09:24:00.001+02:00

What if you wake up in the morning and the very first thing you want to do - is to cry? Does it show that you are weak? Unhappy? Tired? Pessimistic? Depressed?..

That's exactly my morning today.

I came back to Estonia yesterday after spending 10 days in Macedonia facilitating international AIESEC conference for local committee presidents (EuroCo), which was fascinating and enrichning experience. Obviously, I have been tired after such an intensive time. In addition, I have a flu, sneezing and having light fever, as it was a bit cold in Macedonian hotel in some nights and I got cold.

So, I feel physically damaged.

But emotionally as well. I have some troubles in my beloved family. My MC team challenged me a lot during yesterday's evening meeting, where I realized once again that managing a team is damn complicated art and sometimes I am not the artist at his best. My personal life is complicated and thinking about it makes me sad.

Fortunately, I am alone in our "MC apartment" right now and I have possibility to let tears out, if I want. I have possibility to listen to my own music, which I need right now - music is extremely important factor in managing my mood for me.

But let's get back to the first question - what does it mean, if the first thing I want to do in the morning is to cry?

To be honest, I don't feel bad about it at all. I am not depressed, exhausted or whatsoever. I am atill full of energy, commitment and ideas.

I just have hard period. And I am glad that I am having mood like that time-to-time. It means that I am still human being, despite all. Human being who is able to feel and to express his feelings. I love it - if I want to cry, I do it. And I am not afraid of hiding that.

EuroCo was great experience - I managed my things pretty well and definetely influenced several people's lives. That's rewarding feeling.

I had luck to work along with some extremely interesting and just wonderful people. That's real luck, I repeat it again.

I spent 10 days in very beautiful surrondings, where I had chance to eat breakfast outside having view on fantastic lake and mountains. That's enormous beauty.

The view from the terrace of the hotel near Ohrid, Macedonia

I reassured my passions and my strengths. I connected even more to some people who are role-models for me. That's helping me with choosing the path for the future.

I am grateful to the life for all of that. I am grateful to the life for such mornings like today.

The life is good.

The life is beautiful.

I have fun!

2006-09-18T21:08:00.000+02:00

How many of us are using alarm clock to wake up? I guess, quite a vast majority...

What is our first thought, when we hear the sound of alarm? Something like "Oh, not again...", "Please, some few more minutes...", "Why do I have this lecture today so early?", "Right now I hate my boss even more...".

But how many of us think something like "All right! One more day full of challenges and new learning experiences!"?

There is no statistics about it, I guess. Anyway, I belong to the second group (with some days being exceptions, of course) :)

You must have fun. In whatever you do. That's so obvious.

However, recently I have had talks with several people of the same age (some of them my former class-mates, some of them former university-mates). We were talking about who is doing what etc.

Many of them have quite stable job, some of them have apartment, they attend sports or dances trainings in the evenings. They are O.K. But I have not noticed that they would mention having fun.

And that's why I have egocentrically used this information to boost my ego. Because I realized once more that I am damn happy, because I have so much fun! Constantly.

I admit, there is a lot of problems in my life, like in everyone's life. But hey, am I sleeping in the street, am I suffering from disease, am I so poor that I don't have money to have proper food, am I threatened to be killed because of civil war?! No, I am bloody not!

My AIESEC work and my Euroopa Noored work, my friends and my family, my readings and my thoughts, my Estonia and my world - there is so many possibilities to have fun everywhere!

Only thing needed for it - you have to find the right people to do it with.

One example is my AIESEC MC team. We know how to have fun. And that's what I love about my team. Estonian delegation rocked on IC (International Congress of AIESEC in Poland in the end of August). For example, guys were dressed like big Spounge Bobs and girls like Cat-Women on one party :)

I am the one on very left :)

IC was great experience. One of the best things was to see old friends, of course. My dear Split people - Andrijana, Irma and Vice - they woke me up at 3 am to say hello and drink something with me. I woke up and was really happy to see them again even so late :)

And I saw some great AIESEC people from LC TU Berlin - Lars, Seba and others - who accompanied me during my internship there. I have not seen them for exactly one year!

Not to menton my other friends and colleagues from all around the world, who I had chance to speak, dance and laugh with. That was a good fun ;)

Have fun!

2006-08-10T11:20:00.000+02:00

The countries I have visited in Europe:

Constant proving myself

2006-07-24T22:43:00.001+02:00

MAs President of AIESEC in Estonia (www.aiesec.ee), I have to prove myself, my abilities, my skills, my intelligence. Constantly. Every day.

Having around 70 members behind me, all of whom expect me to have answers to whatever questions they have; having very smart people in my team who are constantly challenging me as a team leader with their feedback, with their questions, with their comments, with their attitude; having external people for whom I am the face of the organisation and who may be sceptical about AIESEC at first…

It all puts quite a high pressure on a person. You just cannot afford yourself being weak, not knowing answers, being late, not fulfilling your promises.

At the same time, as a trainer in European Youth (euroopa.noored.ee) I have to prove myself as a person who is able to create learning room for whatever people I have in front of me – from 16 to 26 years old, from hyperactive to the ones who do not say anything, from positive optimists to big sceptics. All of these people are expecting professional training to be delivered. It is not AIESEC, where you can always say that you are still learning…

But I am used to prove myself. In fact, I have had to do it for a long time already.

Let’s take the high-school time. I had rather late physical development and started to grow just when I turned 16-17. So, I was the smallest and the skinniest boy in the class who had troubles with his health and was the weakest in the sports. I hated myself for it.

I went for athletics training. I did sports four times a week for three years. Once I became the first one who crossed the finish line in 1500 meter run in my class. It was THE achievement for me.

As I was small and skinny, the girls didn’t take me too seriously. I was just a funny nice guy for them. I was suffering because of that as any teenager in this age.

I went for classical dances trainings. I danced for 1 year and finally I could dance better than other boys in our high school.

I was a good pupil who got good marks. I had an image of good boy. I hated it. I started to be some kind of hooligan. When I was 16-17, I tried everything possible which is not for mentioning in this blog. Some guys from my former gang are in the prison for a long time at the moment…

But let’s look further – university time. As a guy whose home language is mainly Russian and who graduated Russian-speaking high-school, it was not that easy to study in university in Estonian and to be accepted in community, where general opinion about Russians is not always too positive.

I had to prove myself again. I studied Estonian grammar in addition in the evenings to be able to express myself better. Later on I worked in Estonian newspaper and news agency.

When I was 18, I could not speak English, as I didn’t study it in the high-school. But majority of the materials in my faculty were in English. I took additional courses and studied it in English.

I am able to keep my blog in English now :)

There are many more examples like that. I am sure everyone has had such moments.

But what unites all these moments for me is that I could prove that I CAN do it to the others and to myself.

I hope that I will be able to prove myself as a leader this time as well.

It is not easy though – constant trying, failing, succeeding, trying again…

But one thing is sure – applying for and getting position of AIESEC Estonia President’s has been one of the (THE?) most right choices in my life so far…

There's so much beauty in the worlds...

2006-05-31T22:19:00.001+02:00

"Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."
American Beauty

That's one of my favourite quote from one of my favourite movies ever.

Indeed, there is so much beauty around us. And people enjoy beauty. We want to look nice, we spend a lot of money and time on that. We would like to have good-looking partner, nice car, we enjoy watching beautiful people playing in movies etc.

It's strange, but despite all of that I very often feel that in most of the cases people just don't see and don't appreciate beauty around them. Do we often pay attention to the green colours of the trees around us, to the beauty of some shadow, to the beauty of sounds around us? It sound awkward, but isn't food on our plates sometimes just too beautiful to be eaten?

Take Eurovision Song Contest for example. Vast majority of my friends thinks that Eurovision is 1) commercial event which has nothing to do with culture; 2) contest of low-quality pop songs; 3) contest where politics and not real performance is involved.

I actually pretty much agree with them. And still I consider myself fan of Eurovision. Why? Isn't it great to see many beautiful people from whole Europe coming together not to discuss new policies of energy market, coming together not to compete in making proposals for new laws, but for singing. And there is always 3-4 songs out of all of them which I really like. Which are beautiful.

What I want to say, is that there is actually beauty everywhere, not just in places, where it is supposed to be. But how to see it everywhere, without taking drugs, for example?

I think, seeing beauty can be trained. That's what I do, actually. In the moments I feel bad, unrest or even stressed, I stop for a moment and make myself think - "OK, it is hard, but what is beautiful about it - about people I am dealing with, about this day/night, about life as such.

It is actually one of my several business ideas. To make trainings for people who want to be more successful, happier in their lives. It has become new direction in trainings in USA recently - "Positive psychology".

What do I want from the year 2006/2007?

2006-05-24T21:59:00.001+02:00

In AIESEC, as in university, the year starts in June-July. And ends in May-June.

So, my new year is starting. It is reasonable to have some thoughts about it.

I had time for that during AIESEC Estonia' executive boards transition week (MC transition), where old team delivered their knowledge to me and my team.

So, what do I expect from the year 2006/2007?

Very intensive life, full of different new experiences EVERY day
A lot of international co-operation and communication
Very intsensive team experience in AIESEC which will challenge my leadership skills
Consistent and intensive personal development through activities I do
Several personal, team and national successes both in AIESEC and outside
Most important - a lot of small happy moments, a lot of laugh and smiles for me and people who surround me

What are my personal goals for the upcoming year?

Be successful leader of organization by fulfilling all professional goals I have put for myself
Be successful trainer in European Youth by making many young people think more about what and why they do something in their lives
Have time for non-work and non-studies related reading
Have enough quality time for my family and my friends (both in Estonia and abroad)
Decide about my academic route and continue it by doing meaningful things
Constantly do sports
Significantly change way of thinking of as many people as I can resulting in "Thank you, Deniss"
Despite anything, always have peace in my mind and enjoy the life
Elaborate better ways to bring out and use positive energy of people
Have clear picture and goals for the next upcoming year

Will see, whether I will achieve these goals :) At least I will try hard.

Besides, there are some few other interesting things I would like to bring out here. It will be interesting to read them after, let's say 1, 2, 3 years and compare. During my reflection process I came up with following:

10 things which make me feel good

Achievement of the goal
Smile of another person thanks to me
Bicycle ride / jogging in the nature / swimming
Good tasy food :)
Positive feedback from a person whose opinion I care about
Feeling that I learnt something new and discovered new side of life
Hiking / being in the nature / going to the mountains
Waking up with a dear person
A-ha!- or wow!-effect, when I am reading good book or watching good movie
Sight or knowledge of people doing something good and beautiful

Somehow I believe that majority of these things are universal for evryone. But sometimes it is good to remind yourself about them.

And now, of course - 10 things which annoy me

Narrow-mindedness
Throwing garbage in the open spaces / nature
Bitching about other people behind their backs
Expressions of nationalism / chauvinism
Cruelty of people
Stressed and process-oriented people
Situations when people don't count with the others
Overly drunk women
Stupid TV shows, movies and articles in magazines, moreover - their popularity
People who let the others down by lying

Funny that all things which annoy me, are related to the people. Humankind is evil? No, but there is a lot of stupidity inside it which results in evil...

Anger on nationalism

2006-04-12T17:46:00.000+02:00

I just have to write it.

Someone told: "Don't think too much. Then life will seem easier". Indeed, sometimes you just start to think over something and realize how much s**t is there and then you regret that you started to touch this s**t in your thoughts, becuase it stinks...

I watch TV extremely rarely. It usually happens in few cases: 1) I watch the news; 2) I watch interesting documentary; 3) I watch movie I wanted to see for some time already; 4) I am so tired that my brain does not want to bother itself with something more demanding than switching the channels.

Few days ago mixture of 2) and 4) happened. I was watching one historic documentary about the tensions between Hinduists and Muslims in India. There were for example such facts brought our that during the separation of India and Pakistan from British empire in late-1940s over 1 million (!) people have been slaughtered in inter-ethic tensions. Ghandi was killed, because he believed that richness of India lies in its multiculturality, not superiority of Hinduism.

In 2002 (4 years ago that means!) thousands of extremist Hinduists destroyed the mosque built in 17th century, because they claimed that this is holy place for Hinduists. In turn, Muslims made an explosion in the train full of Hinduists and killed few hundreds people. In turn, Hinduists slaughtered few thousands Muslims in their houses... Whose turn next?

After this documentary has ended, I started to watch news on BBC. A bomb explotion in Baghdad. 60-70 Shi'a Muslims killed next to their mosque. Extremist Sunni Muslims were accused. Experts are afraid of Iraq stepping deeper and deeper into the ground of civil war.
When I was working in Berlin, I visited remains of Berlin wall. It is full of graffity of different painters from beginning of 1990s. One painting was especially memorable - people are destroying the wall brick-by-brick and there is a big slogan: "There won't be any walls anymore!".

Another news after Baghdad - report on building the beton wall which would physically separate Israelis and Palestinians. Jews don't want to let Muslims to explode bombs against them.

Very memorable has been visit to Bosnia few months ago - I got to know a lot about how Bosnian Serbs (Orthodox), Croats (Catholic) and Bosniaks (Muslims) slaughtered each other and destroyed their own country.

F**k nationalism! F**k the ones who use religion AGAINST someone else!
Having been brought up in multicultural environment - mixed origin of Russian and Setu (small nationality similar to Estonians), two languages to be used etc - I learned a lot about nationalism in my own country.

One Estonian Russian guy told me couple of years ago - "Estonians are just a small angry nation which cannot even be compared with great culture of Russians". F**k your chauvinism!

There are plenty of Estonians that I know who say something like - "I know few cool Russians, I had realations with Russian girl, I have good Russian neighbour. But all in all, I don't like this nation".

"I eat apples time-to-time. I like to eat oranges when I am ill. But all in all I don't like fruits." Similar? That's what I am saying - f**k narrow-mindedness!

Go to hell with your comments like "I am patriot of my country. I am proud of my nation." Have you ever tried to live and work in other country like local people do without judging them and comparing them to your environment? Have you ever called someone "friend" who does not share your native language? Have you ever loved someone who has not seen the same cartoons as you in the childhood? If not, f**k your damn patriotism and please don't tell me that you have right to call yourself like that!

Sometimes I just have to agree with John Lennon who dreamt: "Imagine there's no countries. And no religion too."

Anyway, I will continue to believe that love and mercy don't have borders. And I will continue to live according to these principles - to have business with, to be friend with, to love people notwithstanding the fact whether they are Jews, Arabs, Hinduists, white, black, pink, gays, small brothers of Mother Teresa or grandchildren of Jossif Stalin.

What to do if you suddenly have plenty of free time?

2006-04-08T12:16:00.001+02:00

I found another job for me. The one I really like and enjoy. I am working for European Youth (Euroopa Noored) which is European Union initiative to support young people in their desire to discover another cultures of Europe, to initiate and participate in youth-driven projects, to start and lead themselves international co-operation. I am working as a trainer/facilitator there.

Why do I enjoy the work? There are nice colleagues, international field of work, network with other active young people throughout Estonia and elsewehre, work with youth, organizing events and moderating them - all these keywords are important for me. But more than anything else - very simple - I believe in this mission. Developing European youth through supporting their own proactivity and through providing means for that.

A lot of similarities with AIESEC. In fact, I would have never applied for this job and I would have never been accepted there (there was quite tough competition, as I was told), if I would not have experience in AIESEC. And if to speak about the mission of European Youth - it reminds me once more WHY do I actually work for AIESEC.

Anyway, this work is part-time. My main responsibilties in AIESEC have not started yet (although I have quite many duties already). I don't study. I don't have one dear person to spend time with. That means that I have plenty of free time. OK, plenty in my case shouldn't mean plenty for the others. I am just used to be busy as much as possible :)

But it has its bright sides. It really does. Finally, I re-started my humble sport activities. But even better- finally, I have had time to read books. My first book about leadership, fiction about international relations and politics, fiction about Second World War, Henocide and half of the century after that in Ukraine, book about Estonia society development in post-Communist time. Hard topics, right? :) I just decided that if I don't have so much time to read books in general, I will spend this time very carefully and try to get as much value as I can.

In the second half of April I will go for about 1,5-2 weeks to the country I really like - Lithuania. I will participate in organizing of one big international AIESEC conference (ITC). Its project manager is friend of mine, and I could not leave misused the chance to work with him again on such event.

So, again some interesting events... And one more thing - I am still not-married, so all offers could be considered. ;)

At least 1,5 years in Estonia

2006-03-14T21:24:00.001+01:00

I have returned from my long journey which took more than 7 months.

What I am doing in Estonia? I applied and eventually got selected as President of AIESEC in Estonia for the period 2006-2007. My term is starting in June.

Why? There are many reasons. But mainly - I want to lead one of the most successful youth organization in Estonia and be part of the global team of one of the most successful youth organizations in the world. I feel that it will give me so much insight about working in the teams, about leadership, about organizational structure, about realizing which people I want to develop my career future with, about communication rules between people, between organizations and between countries. I feel that leading an organization of around 60-70 active young people will give so great platform to develop myself and help to develop the others.

What besides that? Some work, maybe continuing with the studies. I will see. Currently I am building up my life in Estonia again. It is not so easy after 7-8 mponths abroad. But if you really want to, nothing stops you in realizing your dreams.

And after returning home I have realized - "Eestis on ikkagi pagana hea elada!" :) (direct translation from Estonian - "All in all, it is damn good to live in Estonia!")

Still, the time in Berlin and especially in Croatia has been something very very unique for me. Especially all these people there...

Most probably I won't update this blog too often. But once in 2-4 weeks I will write something. Something like milestones in my life - what has happened, what job I have started with, whom did I marry etc