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...

Me and Croatia surprising each other

Today is 9th of November. Outside is +19 degrees. Sun is shining. It is amazing for a guy from Estonia. Croatia si still surprasing me.

I am also trying to surprise Croatia by learning its lnaguage. I bought a book of Croatian and now learn it in the evenings when I have time. Local people appreciate it and express sincere interest in a guy from some country of ex-USSR (there are just slight differences for the most of Croats between Estonia, Lithuania and Ukraine). It is great basis for communication and establishing realationship with native people.

This is something that I have learnt about being long time abroad - no matter how good you and local people are in English, it is necessary to posses some knowledge of local language. Especially if you are staying in this country for more than just one month.

One more thing about being abroad that I have learnt. Although I lived 5 months in Germany, still I am re-discovering what many other AIESEC interns, AIESECars and other people have said to me: while being abroad, apart of your family, friends and general environment (lingual, social, cultural) that you are used to, you are able to reflect more on yourself and thus grow as a person.

Third thing that I knew in theory and what I experienced once while living in Germany for 5 months is that the hardest time abroad is around 4 months after leaving your country. You are so much fascinated about new realities anymore, you are less surprised by the new things than in the beginning and, what more important, you are getting tired of every-day-meet-new-people experience. I experienced it around one-two weeks ago. It was almost exactly 4 months after I left Estonia.

What is helping? Calls to your friends or family back home? It is definetely pleasant, but usually it just makes situation worse, because after talking to them you miss them even more. The real solution is lot of activity and less being alone.

For me such solution has been AIESEC. I has been responsible for the recruitment of new members here and worked on it quite a lot, while also preparing facilitation in Local Training Seminar. I just got to know that I have been selected as a facilitator for Croatian National Motivational Seminar which will take place in 1,5 weeks. So, no time for being bored :)

Besides AIESEC, I have been practising in academic area. As the local university does not provide students with lot of internationalism, i got idea to get in touch with some professors and ask them, if I can give some short lecture about Estonian macroeconomics (macroeconomics is generally subject that I really like and have studied along with my main studies). In this way I could also promote local AIESEC to both professors and students that they can see what kind of cool international people is AIESEC bringing here :)

I gave one lecture last week and have one more this week. It is really interesting, as Estonian and Croatian economies have lot of things in common, but at the same time we kind of are a little bit ahead. Therefore, local students seemed to be interested and we had intense discussions around those topics.

During those discussions, during AIESEC seminars and elsewhere, while speaking to local young people I have noticed that they are generally not too optimistic about their perspectives in Croatia and the future of their country (despite the fact that I have not seen more patriotic nation than Croatians!). Maybe I do not remember it so well anymore, but it seems to me that Estonian young people are more optimistic about it.

One more note - local parties are great. One of the things that Croats are really good in, are the parties. They now how to have fun. And this is pleasant discovery for me :)

Generally, I feel grateful to my parents, AIESEC and my own will that I came here and getting all this incredible experience. Croatia was my dream destination before. And I do not regret a single moment here.

La vita e bella!

What does it mean to be famous in Split

I have never been so famous as I am in Split now. :)

AIESEC in Split is organizng EuroCo - big conference with the delegates from all around Europe (http://www.efst.hr/aiesec/euroco2005/). They are stressing on the promotion of AIESEC through this conference. There was traditional Global Village this Monday, where all delegates were representing their countries - food, drinks, booklets etc. The event was happening outside in the very centre of Split on the main square near the sea and it was open to all intreseted people. We had big stage, music and many people participating there.

I had luck to be host of this event - it was interesting experience to be on the stage in front of hundreds of people outside and speak to them.

Besides that fact EuroCo and AIESEC found great promotion in media thanks to good external relations job. And local AIESEC was presenting me as their "foreign specialist from Estonia". I gave interviews to the local radio station, television and newspaper. I pretty much enjoyed to be interviewed, especially after I showed my "amazing" capabilities to speak Croatian (I am learning Croatian now and was trying to speak at elast partly Croatian during the interviews). Hope, I impressed them :)

Nevertheless I must admit that no-one has asked for my signature in the town or wanted to take a picture with me yet :(

This conference is taking palce in small town outside Split (around 60 km from Split) and I have been travelling to the parties of it each evening there and morning back since Monday. Meanwhile I have been working in AIESEC office during the days in Split. Now, while writing this post, I feel quite exhausted after 3-nights long marathon of sleeping 2-3 hours during the night and partying with the foreign delegates. We decided to take a break and not to go there today. But me and my colleagues from AIESEC Split will definetely be kings of the dance floor on Friday and Saturday nights ;)

But as like as parties and fun is just certain part of AIESEC, so is my life here. I have quite big responsibility in my work here - I became main responsible for the recruitment of new members and it means that I have to manage my own team (6 people). It is quite tough sometimes, as I don´t know many simple and banal things - where can I print out something, how can I agree to have room for the meeting, who should be contact person for what etc. But challenges just make you more enthusiastic about what you are doing. Besides it is great to feel that people take you seriously and believe that you can bring real value to them. It is different from when you are going for internship to some company, where you are just a young guy who does not know anything yet.

Are there many possibilities when a 23-years old person comes to the foreign country and is being given big responsibility and his own team? Thanks to AIESEC I have this possibility.

Members of LC Split take me as one among themselves already. Interesting that I deserved love and appreciation of locals thanks to the fact that I have been drinking a lot on the party two weeks ago. One gets nickname "The King" in Split after one gets drunk here. :)

It was pleasant to see again Viljo, Herdis and Liisa who came to this conference as well, to be host for them and show them Split around. And we were swimming in the sea last Sunday (16th of October)!