Thursday, February 6, 2014
The trip to DHL Saratov
So the book saga continues.....
I am in an office where everybody speaks very good English, but they do most of the talking to each other in Russian. This is good for me as I try to pick up little pieces of the language. I hear Natalia on the phone and I'm pretty sure I'm part of the discussion. She gets off the phone and says....there is car waiting to take you to DHL, it is on the other side of town, and Masha will go to help you. I'm a bit flustered, had no idea this was going to happen this quickly; I need to withdraw some money(all the ATMs were out of order on the way to work), and I was pretty sure I need to bring ALL pertinent information with me(pretty good chance the DHL office here did not have a record of my correspondence etc.,) So I 'm riffling through my stack of papers---I must put all things in one easy place, right? We are out the door and into the parking lot. We see the car, no driver---I sort of assume Masha is driving maybe? No No No she says. I don't drive. I can totally see her point. I wouldn't drive here under ANY circumstances. The driver come around the corner. Boom we are in the car and off. Masha wears her seat belt!. We hit an ATM. I pull out some cash....off we go again. It is snowing. Kind of beautiful, warmer than usual, gray, but sort of muffled day. Dangerous to drive in, but our guy is a pro.
I realize we are headed toward Volga river. Then the road North under the big bridge where I'd walked the Sunday before. We drive through some really cool parts of town....there is a little beach on the river(wrong time of year). We drive through what I think must be a version of early 20th Century Russia; little wooden houses, some very old, like a little country town but in the middle of a pretty big(900,000) city. Hillsides, very rural in places. Then past the airport and into an industrial area--photos to follow soon--lots of businesses. we see the DHL office.(we've been driving for 20-25 minutes) Masha and I jump out. We get up to a metal door. There is a little white typed note taped to the door. Something to the effect that the office has moved. Masha says something about how it would have been nice to have put this on the website!
Masha, incidentally has been to America, and in fact lived in Rehoboth, Delaware for a few months. My wife and I have good friends in Rehoboth, (the honorable William Moss, one of the town's more enjoyable characters) and go there all the time. I sit here I wonder if we'd ever passed Masha on the street or something. Like Viktor said to me on the train, this is a small world....
The driver knows where the next address is. This guy is all business. 10-15 more minutes, another part of town. Nice mix of old and new Russia, like Chimayo, New Mexico meets Tyson's, Virginia.
We are at the new DHL office. Masha(Maria) rolls up to the desk, there are two very efficient and nice girls doing their thing. I have the appropriate addresses, dimensions of the boxes, and weights...42 Kilos total. Masha needs to call the office to provide the Moscow Fulbright phone number. I pay a rather steep amount of cash for this, but I consider this to be very important. Books people, are one of the most wonderful things about us humans. They transform us. They give us immeasurable happiness. I want to share some of my books with Russia. I am getting close.
We are back out the door into the snow and soon we are coming back down Moscovskaya Ulitza and back to the Institute. Perhaps we will see our books soon? I forgot to say that the DHL Saratov office says they will be delivered to the Institute, contrary to what I was told by email.
This morning Masha told me that DHL was unable to reach the Moscow Fulbright office with the phone number we had given them. We provided the official number again, and business hours.
Today was my first class. Three hours long. These young people have stamina. Nice young people.
As most of my students know---the first day with me can be a bit overwhelming. Lots of things for them to think about. I shall describe that in some detail soon. Pictures to follow.
I am in an office where everybody speaks very good English, but they do most of the talking to each other in Russian. This is good for me as I try to pick up little pieces of the language. I hear Natalia on the phone and I'm pretty sure I'm part of the discussion. She gets off the phone and says....there is car waiting to take you to DHL, it is on the other side of town, and Masha will go to help you. I'm a bit flustered, had no idea this was going to happen this quickly; I need to withdraw some money(all the ATMs were out of order on the way to work), and I was pretty sure I need to bring ALL pertinent information with me(pretty good chance the DHL office here did not have a record of my correspondence etc.,) So I 'm riffling through my stack of papers---I must put all things in one easy place, right? We are out the door and into the parking lot. We see the car, no driver---I sort of assume Masha is driving maybe? No No No she says. I don't drive. I can totally see her point. I wouldn't drive here under ANY circumstances. The driver come around the corner. Boom we are in the car and off. Masha wears her seat belt!. We hit an ATM. I pull out some cash....off we go again. It is snowing. Kind of beautiful, warmer than usual, gray, but sort of muffled day. Dangerous to drive in, but our guy is a pro.
I realize we are headed toward Volga river. Then the road North under the big bridge where I'd walked the Sunday before. We drive through some really cool parts of town....there is a little beach on the river(wrong time of year). We drive through what I think must be a version of early 20th Century Russia; little wooden houses, some very old, like a little country town but in the middle of a pretty big(900,000) city. Hillsides, very rural in places. Then past the airport and into an industrial area--photos to follow soon--lots of businesses. we see the DHL office.(we've been driving for 20-25 minutes) Masha and I jump out. We get up to a metal door. There is a little white typed note taped to the door. Something to the effect that the office has moved. Masha says something about how it would have been nice to have put this on the website!
Masha, incidentally has been to America, and in fact lived in Rehoboth, Delaware for a few months. My wife and I have good friends in Rehoboth, (the honorable William Moss, one of the town's more enjoyable characters) and go there all the time. I sit here I wonder if we'd ever passed Masha on the street or something. Like Viktor said to me on the train, this is a small world....
The driver knows where the next address is. This guy is all business. 10-15 more minutes, another part of town. Nice mix of old and new Russia, like Chimayo, New Mexico meets Tyson's, Virginia.
We are at the new DHL office. Masha(Maria) rolls up to the desk, there are two very efficient and nice girls doing their thing. I have the appropriate addresses, dimensions of the boxes, and weights...42 Kilos total. Masha needs to call the office to provide the Moscow Fulbright phone number. I pay a rather steep amount of cash for this, but I consider this to be very important. Books people, are one of the most wonderful things about us humans. They transform us. They give us immeasurable happiness. I want to share some of my books with Russia. I am getting close.
We are back out the door into the snow and soon we are coming back down Moscovskaya Ulitza and back to the Institute. Perhaps we will see our books soon? I forgot to say that the DHL Saratov office says they will be delivered to the Institute, contrary to what I was told by email.
This morning Masha told me that DHL was unable to reach the Moscow Fulbright office with the phone number we had given them. We provided the official number again, and business hours.
Today was my first class. Three hours long. These young people have stamina. Nice young people.
As most of my students know---the first day with me can be a bit overwhelming. Lots of things for them to think about. I shall describe that in some detail soon. Pictures to follow.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Wednesday 2/5
I have been able to make some progress getting some of my personal library on the way to Saratov. This has involved some grueling steps, starting at my own home college, Northern Virginia Community College-Loudoun.
The Fulbright Program will ship your textbooks from the US Embassy in Washington DC to the US Embassy in Moscow(for free) through something called the diplomatic pouch. Nice-but there are a couple of catches. First, you cannot drop the books off at the Embassy in DC. They must be shipped by UPS, FEDEX, or USMail. Pixie Calderwood in the Loudoun Science division office was instrumental in helping me get this done and handled the logistics of this flawlessly---my Dean, Joe Agnich was extraordiarily helpful as well. I was advised that the diplomatic pouch could then take weeks or even months.
Monday FEB 1, I got a relatively surprising email from Marina Bezrukova the Fulbright Program Officer at IIE in Moscow. My books had arrived! Hooray!
Next catch---the Fulbright Scholar is responsible financially and/or physically for getting those books to whereever in Russia those who did not choose the popular Moscow/St. Petersburg postings. I wanted to teach in Russia and so requested that it be somewhere other than those places. So, how to get the books to Saratov. I could have somehow lugged 50 Kilos of books on the train from Moscow to Saratov(after picking them up in Moscow myself)---along with the 2 huge duffel bags I was already wrestling around. This would have been impossible. My poor carriage neighbor(remember Director Viktor L. Cheplyaev) would have been completely inconvienced---I was already hogging more than my share of space. I would have also required some sort of porter and I would prefer not to travel in Russia like an Englishman(no offense).
Thus I needed to find a way to ship them here to Saratov. Fedex---no. After 20 minutes filling out a quote on their website, I was informed that inracountry shipments in Russia "are not happening at this time".
DHL? I had had some good communication with a nice fellow, Vasily Papenko, earlier in December about this and so thought that for a substantial sum, I could see them in Saratov a few days later if and when they got to Moscow. After I receieved notice from Marina in Moscow, I tried to contact Vasiliy--who i think was the after-hours guy in DHL Moscow. No response from him---I think he may have moved to another job, so I filled out the online form for a quote and pick-up. This morning I got an email from DHL---they could do it, but I would need to personally go to their office here in Saratov, pay CASH(no credit cards), and that when they arrived here I would need to go back to that office to retrieve them.
I asked about the possibility of getting some assistance with this this morning in my office. Cue the problem solvers at The International Office at Stolypin Volga Region Institute of Administration. These women get things done. I shall describe this process in my next post.
The Fulbright Program will ship your textbooks from the US Embassy in Washington DC to the US Embassy in Moscow(for free) through something called the diplomatic pouch. Nice-but there are a couple of catches. First, you cannot drop the books off at the Embassy in DC. They must be shipped by UPS, FEDEX, or USMail. Pixie Calderwood in the Loudoun Science division office was instrumental in helping me get this done and handled the logistics of this flawlessly---my Dean, Joe Agnich was extraordiarily helpful as well. I was advised that the diplomatic pouch could then take weeks or even months.
Monday FEB 1, I got a relatively surprising email from Marina Bezrukova the Fulbright Program Officer at IIE in Moscow. My books had arrived! Hooray!
Next catch---the Fulbright Scholar is responsible financially and/or physically for getting those books to whereever in Russia those who did not choose the popular Moscow/St. Petersburg postings. I wanted to teach in Russia and so requested that it be somewhere other than those places. So, how to get the books to Saratov. I could have somehow lugged 50 Kilos of books on the train from Moscow to Saratov(after picking them up in Moscow myself)---along with the 2 huge duffel bags I was already wrestling around. This would have been impossible. My poor carriage neighbor(remember Director Viktor L. Cheplyaev) would have been completely inconvienced---I was already hogging more than my share of space. I would have also required some sort of porter and I would prefer not to travel in Russia like an Englishman(no offense).
Thus I needed to find a way to ship them here to Saratov. Fedex---no. After 20 minutes filling out a quote on their website, I was informed that inracountry shipments in Russia "are not happening at this time".
DHL? I had had some good communication with a nice fellow, Vasily Papenko, earlier in December about this and so thought that for a substantial sum, I could see them in Saratov a few days later if and when they got to Moscow. After I receieved notice from Marina in Moscow, I tried to contact Vasiliy--who i think was the after-hours guy in DHL Moscow. No response from him---I think he may have moved to another job, so I filled out the online form for a quote and pick-up. This morning I got an email from DHL---they could do it, but I would need to personally go to their office here in Saratov, pay CASH(no credit cards), and that when they arrived here I would need to go back to that office to retrieve them.
I asked about the possibility of getting some assistance with this this morning in my office. Cue the problem solvers at The International Office at Stolypin Volga Region Institute of Administration. These women get things done. I shall describe this process in my next post.
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