What to do if you suddenly have plenty of free time?

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

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

Great news from Holland!!

I am in Holland in one nice hotel somewhere between Amsterdam and Utrecht. I am on the IPM - International Presidents' Meeting of AIESEC. Here are outgoing and incoming presidents of more than 90 AIESEC countries in the world. I am representing Estonia as incoming president of AIESEC in Estonia.

Just some 1 hour ago there were directors of AIESEC International announced - the highest body of AIESEC globally. And one of them is my friend and just a nice person Mairi Jyriska!

She is just second Estonian who made it!

Mairi, you are truly the best! :)

On the first picture she is receving congratulations from Pinar, current President of AIESEC in Tukey (another AI Director along with Mairi who got elected) and newly elected President of AIESEC International Edyson Dos Santos. On the second there is just crowd :)

Split-Zagreb-Budapest-Warsaw-Riga-HOME

Today is my last day in Croatia. 3 days of travelling by trains and buses - and I am back home. In 7 months after not seing my family and my friends in Estonia.

Everyone who has lived abroad for such a long time would probably understand my feelings right now.

Deep sadness, because you are not sure, when you will see all these people again and whether you will experience moments at least a little bit similar to what you have experienced here...

Great happiness, because you will finally see your close people again...

Worries, whether you have said good-bye to everyone you wanted, whether you have finished everything you needed...

Hopes for your new period of life, because one has to re-start his life at home after 7 months being abroad...

My situation is even more complicated, because I haven't lived here as many other foreigners. I have noticed that majority of people who live in another country (also AIESEC interns) have relation to local people and local culture like in a zoo - "Look how nice it is! Let's take a picture!". Or "I don't understand those people at all...". Or "They are so funny, so great!"

I tried to behave differently from the very beginning. I started to learn the language, I read books about history and culture of Croatia. I tried to be with local people as much as possible in different social situations. Unlike German culture, Croatians are more reciprocal to the foreigners and it is easier to integrate into local culture. Maybe the fact that I am 3/4 Russian has helped me also - Croatians are Slavic.

Anyway, now I am not leaving just one nice country with interesting people. I am leaving country which embrased me with all its warmness, uniqueness, sometimes crazyness, but always friendliness.

It is hard to leave. It really is. But my dreams move on. So do I.

Today it is about -20 degrees during the day and about -30 degrees during the night in Estonia. I hope that despite such terrifying coldness (Split has +12 and sun right now!) my home-country will embrace its son back and will make me sure that there is nothing better than home.

I will come back to Split. As a tourist or entrepreneur, with family or alone, for 3 days or for 3 years - I am not sure yet. But I will.

I already thanked everyone whom I wanted in Croatia. But it won't be too much to do it again here - "Moj Bože! To je nemoguće! Hvala vam svima! Nikad nisam mogao zamislit da će bit ovako težko otić... Pa dobro, vidimo se uskoro!"

After trip to Serbia and Bosnia into the new year

Again I have not been posting here anything for several weeks and got criticized by some of my friends. What to do - my experience in Croatia has just been so intensive and interesting that it would be pity to spend valuable free time for sitting next to the computer. And there are some practical limitations also - I do not belong to the cast of people who have honour to own laptop. :)

I spent very nice Christmas with the family of one of my team-mates Ante. Generally sense of Christmas here in Croatia is not very different from back home - nice holidays to be spent with the close people from your family, eat a lot of tasty food, sleep long and wish all the best to each other. The differences are that 1) Christmas has deeper religious meaning for Croatians, as they are generally more religious; 2) it is generally less commercialised than in Estonia and far less than in Germany (although people say here that it is going to this direction too unfortunately).

Although I am not Catholic, I have been in the church with Ante for the Christmas Eve. It was my first Christmas Eve in the church. I spent it thinking about my year and my close people, majority of who have been far away from me at that moment.

In the end of December - beginning of January I fulfilled one of my dreams and went to the countries which have been destinations No.2 and 3 (after Croatia) for me for a long time already. I first landed with the bus to Belgrade, capital of Serbia&Montenegro. Belgrade has not impressed me a lot in terms of architecture - this city has been destroyed several times during past century only and nowadays consists mainly of grey building built during Socialism times. Older part is prettier, of course.

But I had luck to be with local people there. I met three great Serbs (Zoran, Ivana and Stevan) during my internship in Berlin this summer and we agreed back then yet that I am going to visit Serbia. Thanks to them and some local AIESECers, me and Jaan (friend from Estonia who made this trip together with me) had opportunity to experience great night-life and overall spirit of this city. We went out several times, we were eating and drinking local food - which is as tasty as everywhere on Balkan!

My New Year's Eve was in Novi Sad - big town on the North of Serbia. AIESEC in Novi Sad organized it. It was my first time spending New Year's Eve in the night club with 300-400 people, out of whom I knew before just 4-5. :) Like food, party was, of course, as great as everywhere on Balkan. It needed to be added that we just paid for the entrance and had unlimited supply of alcohol for the whole night. The wildness of party can be imagined.

After searching for after-party at 5 AM with one Croatian and one Montenegrin in the centre of Novi Sad, after eating some tasty fast food at 6AM, after knocking about 15 minutes on the door of the room in hostel I shared with Jaan, whose sense of hearing was disturbed by local supplies of alcohol, at 7AM, I finally went to sleep.

New Year started in very relaxed atmosphere. It was like that two next days which we spent in Novi Sad and Belgrade. Novi Sad is town which has old town in Hungarian style with nice small streets, great river Danube in the centre and beautiful fortress above it. But again - its main qualities lie rather in people and culture than in buildings.

Next destination - Sarajevo - surprised me and Jaan very positively. Probably, 90% of Estonian people who have heard about Sarajevo imagine it as post-war city in ruins which has land-mines everywhere. Partly, it is true - there are still some buildings in ruins and there are still many land-mines in the countryside around Sarajevo. But the city which has gone through the war just 10-15 years ago, it looked just too nice. Lovely narrow streets going up and down (Sarajevo is placed on many hills), amazing Orthodox and Catholic churches and Muslim mosques, Turkish-styled market-place, dynamic night-life... This mixture of the cultures is wonderful.

At the same time, the fact that inhabitants of Sarajevo are from three different faiths has cost a lot to the city... These wounds are still seen. And not only in ruins of buildings. Very symbolic is that all the buses which are coming from Serbia or Serbian-populated parts of Bosnia are driving to separate bus station which is on the outskirts of the city. Or the stories that people told us, when your religion and ethnicity DOES matter.

It is my last week in Split now. To describe my feelings - Dalmatia and Split is like a girl for me whom I met and fell in love with. 4 months living with beautiful girl, having adventures and working together with her, tasting and learning about the life together with her, visiting new places and learning new langauge together with her - very hard not to fall in love with her, huh? I am enjoying my last days here. Last days for this time.

Lonely tree in the mountains near Split

Christmas and New Year's Eve on Balkan

Although sun is shining brightly here for the last 4-5 days and I don't need warm jacket outside, the Christmas feeling is here!

Tomorrow, on the Catholic/Protestant Christmas Eve I am going to the family of Ante, one team-mate of mine who was so glad to invite me to spend Christmas together with his family. It will be in Sinj, a small town 20-30 km away from Split. I am grateful to him, because otherwise I would spend Christmas alone in my dormitory room :)

It reminds me the situation of 2 years ago, when I was studying in Germany and also could not go home for Christmas due to lack of money. My course-mate Chris from UK invited me to his family in Germany. It was very nice experience then...

And I have great plan for the New Year's Eve! I am going to spend it together with the friend Jaan who is coming to visit me from Estonia. Since last year we have tradition with Jaan to spend New Year's Eve together somewhere abroad. Last year we were in Vilnius, Lithuania.

This year we are going to Serbia. AIESEC in Novi Sad (in Vojvodina which is North of Serbia) is organizing big party with around 300-400 people. We are also going through Belgrade and Sarajevo in Bosnia&Herzegovina. I met some few Serbs when I was intern in Berlin this summer. Also I know some cool AIESEC people from Serbia because of EuroCo, international conference, held in Split in October. I have never been to Serbia. So, it will be definetely fun! :)

I wish all of those who are reading my posting peaceful Christmas time and new year full of events, happenings, people around you and most important - full of fullfilment of your dreams!

And one more thing - just here in Croatia I discovered how sexy I am actually ;) Take a look on the picture. :)

"Watch out who are you sleeping with"

The sentence in the title of this posting is the name of one song popular here in Balkan. It is energetic and nice song. I learnt it and have been extremely popular while singing it on Croatian National Conference of AIESEC last week :) One can see me on the picture while I am singing...

I recently got two letters from my mom. "Deniss, come home" - was the main point of boith of them, although she wrote about many other things as well, of course. I want to go home, but my Croatian dream is not over yet, thus I am staying, experiencing the warmest winter in my life... I will see the real snow and feel the real cold again in the end of January when I will be back to Estonia.

Remains of the war in Balkan

I have not updated my blog for a long time.

The main reason is that I am not able to use computer in the evenings and I have lot of other things to do during the day. Besides, there is so much interesting happening, so many great people around that I don't want to spend my time in the front of computer. Also, I am using my free time in internet for talking to friends, reading the newspapers from Estonia etc.

My work in AIESEC is still very interesting. One of the reasons is that I am about to launch one interesting and ambitious project (for AIESECars - P-Box) connected with the tourism. Split has a great potential for development of tourism and this area is constantly growing. I have met already with some important people who are dealing with that (president of Split Tourism Board, director of big hotel) and we are in the stage of developing.

Soooooo many people ask me all the time: "Deniss, when are you going home and don't you want to stay longer?". I have been proposed to work longer in AIESEC Croatia and eventually go to some higher position here...

Anyway, my home, my family, my friends, speaking Estonian and Russian languages - that all and many other things are calling me back home.

Tonight I am going for the national conference of AIESEC in Croatia for 5 days and it will be my first AIESEC conference held in hotel.

Remains of the war in Balkan

Croatia has been in the world news last few days. Ante Gotovina, Croatian general from the time of the civil war in 1991-1995 who is suspended for the war crimes during this time, was captured after 3-4 years being in run. He was the one leading Croatian troops against local Serbs.

International community treats him as war criminal. Majority of Croatians treat him as their national hero who saved independence of the country.

There was around 60.000 people in the centre of Split participating in demonstration for support of Ante Gotovina. Many of them are the ones, whose house was destroyed, relatives were killed, injured or were forced to emigrate around 10-15 years ago. Those people still don't even want to speak to any Serb or to read anything written in Cyrillic (Serbs use Cyrillic instead of Latin).

On Sunday I was in Mostar, second-largest town in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was heavily bombarded and was seized many times by different sides during the civil war. It is beautiful town with the world-known Old Bridge, the wonder of European architecture. The bridge was destroyed as well. Last year it was finally rebuilt as well as many houses in the town.

Still, there are many houses in ruins and about half of the ones preserved are with wholes from the bullets, grenades, mines etc. When we wanted to take a look on Mostar from the hill above it, there was a road to the hill. But this road did not have destination. On one point there was just big shield: "Attention! There is the landmines' field in the front".

But the remains of the war are even bigger inside of people. Mostar is divided into two parts by the river - Muslim part and Catholic part. Although these people speak the same language the wound of the war are so strong (when Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox were fighting with each other) that they prefer not to enter another part of the town...