Not interested in finding out about BA 297 or hearing about Russia and
just want to return to my home page.
Not interested in finding out about BA 297 or hearing about Russia and
just want to return to my home page.
My first impression of St. Petersburg is OLD. The control tower at the
airport looked like it had rust all over it, (was probably just the
brickwork but that was the impression. The tarmac had weeds growing out
of the edges, and there was an MI-8 hilicopter painted in nice Aeroflot
colors with the missile rails still on it. The airport itself only has 3
gates and not much traffic.
Flying into the city, it looks like the industrial plants are scattered
all over the city w/ no particular concentration of factories. They are
all huge. Equally huge are the housing tracts, all large multi block
apartment complexes that look like they are stuck in the 70's grimy, and
old. Carolyn made an interesting observation that I never would have picked
up on, none of the apartment blocks had any parking lots. Later we
discovered that one of the reasons they look so large is that they're
hollow in the middle. Almost all apartment buildings have a courtyard or
yard in the middle. All the rooms are build around it.
The ride to our apartment was about 30 minutes and it was just
interesting to see things as we drove by. The bus had no shocks (that
we could feel anyway).
On our apartment - The apartment that we're staying in
is pretty nice. It's a private apartment with whom Boris has worked our
an "arrangement". Boris is our Russian contact here. He runs the
Russian end of Heart to Heart (H2H). For $US 1,000, the owner, Olga,
lets us have it for 3 weeks. we give her the money and handle her phone
calls "Olga domaya nyet" (Russian for "Olga doesn't live here"), and we
never see her until it's time to leave. It has 2 bedrooms, a decent
kitchen, a couple of TV, etc. It will fit the 4 of us, but I don't know
about 6 (Kathy and Dana, another team sponsored by Haas). The building has no
elevator so we trudged up 5 flights of stairs with all of our bags.
There are 3 doors to navigate to get into our apartment. The first is the
front door to the 3 apartments in our alley. The second is a heavy duty
steel security door. The third is normal with padding for sound
proofing. All the buildings look old and seem to be made of prepoured
concrete.
After we settled in and took a needed nap, we finally hooked up with Dr.
Hardy (our client and the chief cardiologist at Children's Hospital,
Oakland) for dinner. Looks like he's buying for the next few days.
Pretty weak (by western standards) fare,
bread, shredded carrots, cold beef and potatoes. From what I'm told,
Russia is no haven for vegetarians (we keep on running into potatoes
though). After that we all went to the Finnish 24 hr supermarket (very
thin and long). With kitchen and utensils, we should be able to make all
of our own breakfasts and save lot of money.
Dr Hardy has been a great host. Not only did he give us a lot of info
before leaving and make it possible to access more, he is really taking
good care of us. Part of it is that he's already doing it for the rest
of the H2H team and it's easy to fit us in. Tomorrow were going an
extensive bus tour of St. Petersburg - Hermitage - the fortress -
Catherine's Palace - etc then a dinner party at the home of the first
patient's grandmother's place. It will be interesting to compare our
place with theirs. Sunday we go to brunch, the Summer Palace and shopping.
Time to go to bed. The time difference is 11 hours and we've been
flying since 0700. I'm really burned. Unfortunately, we had some visitors
from downstairs tonight. Apparently, water had been flooding into their
apartment from "one of the upper floors (ours) and they wanted to know what
the cause was. The only one who spoke English was the guy from #20. If
he hadn't been there, I don't know what we would have done. They looked
around for a couple of minutes then came back with the remainder of the
neighbors at 2330. I let them in because the last thing I want to do is be
uncooperative. We don't need to make enemies on day #1, and I didn't
want to compromise anything with Olga. Of course Karen and Carolyn were
in a dead sleep by then an never woke up, leaving me to deal with 6 irate
Russians, a cat, and a dog.
They never did find the cause of the water. Good for them, I wasn't going
to volunteer the reason. Let's just say that the toilet kept on flushing so
I tried to turn off one of the water valves. Later on, I put the valve back
where it was originally. When they were looking behind the toilet tank and
pulled out a showerhead looking thing, I had my "oh shit" for the day. I
can only imagine what they would have said if they had pulled out the
shower head and it had still been running. teaching point
- Don't mess with any wiring or plumbing in a foreign country unless you
are absolutely sure of what everything is hooked up to. Hopefully we'll
never see them again. I'm going to bed. What a day. Welcome to Russia.
5/18 Woke up at 0430. If this keeps up, I'm dead. I
don't think I can make 3 weeks on 4-5 hours a night. I woke up this
morning partially because of jet lag but also because the sun comes up
that early. We're almost into the period they call the "White Nights".
Because St. Petersburg is at such a high latitude (60 degrees =
Anchorage, AK) it doesn't get dark until 2330 or so and the sun rises
early. Last night, Dana and Kathy finally went home at 2245 and it
looked like it was 1800 in Berkeley.
Turns out we brought a lot of good stuff with us. The duct tape was
really useful as was the Gerber. Never leave home without it. If I had
known how nice our apartment was going to be, I would have brought my
French press and coffee. Karen brought our the printer too which has
been really useful. I suppose we could have brought out a microwave,
but that would have required a 1600W transformer and those are really heavy.
Today was a hell of day. We ate breakfast, then met the group at the
Hotel Moskva at 0900 then it was off running for the rest of the day.
The Lonely Planet Guide recommends 10 sites that no one should miss. We
saw 5 of them today: the Hermitage, Peter and Paul Fortress, St. Issac's
Cathedral, Smolney Cathedral, and Alexander Nevsky Monastery. Tomorrow
we see the Summer Palace, Church of the Resurrection, and shop. While we
were at the Hermitage, we saw a crowd forming to hear a performance. Turns
out the mayor of St. Petersburg was using some music acts to gather the
crowd for a political rally.
For the three of us, we were nodding off at dinner. It's a little past
2300 now and that will make it almost 90 hours on 4 hours of sleep plus
what I got on the plane (not much). On the plus side, my ability to
read Russian has improved dramatically. teaching point
- One of the best things you can do to prepare yourself for a trip to
Russia is to learn the alphabet and how to pronounce words. Current
exchange rate 1$US = 5000 Rubles.
5/19 The night of sleep felt sooooo good. Today we had
breakfast at an all you can eat breakfast buffet at the Europa Hotel
(only $243 a night for a single). The smoked salmon was great and the
caviar was interesting. It's a really nice buffet and great just to be
able to eat all you wanted.
Lots of small private farm plots. Roads suck in general.
There are potholes everywhere and every drive we take is an experience. Very
heavy uniformed presence.
Pushkin (Catherine II's Summer Palace) - gaudy. I've never seen people
shop so much. Everywhere we go, the H2H people (the ladies) seem to
have to stop at every stand we see.
Pavlosk (Paul's Summer Palace) - smaller but nicer because it's not as
gaudy. After you've seen a couple of palaces, they all begin to look
the same. I had the same experience in Europe.
We finally go down to the bazaar where everyone could shop their hearts
out. For a while, I wasn't sure we were going to make it with all the
side shopping stops we were making. The bus just about fried me with
the heat outside, the CO, and the heat vent under my leg. All the tours
this weekend cost a grand total of $30. That's admission fees, the bus
for 2 days, a tour guide, and all the food.
Had a business dinner with Dr Hardy. Went pretty well and I think we
have a good start on the project. Have to make sure that we're on the
same sheet of music with Dana and Cathy. Tomorrow we actually start.
I'm excited. Have to run a process check on the group. Want to make
sure I'm not being too anal or structured.
A few stories about the Metro. Kathy fell and got one of her legs
caught between the tracks and the train. The doors on the Metro close
really quickly, and you don't want to get caught between them. Luckily
Chris was right behind her and was able to grab her and pull her out.
Just a lesson to be learned. After dinner, we were taking the Metro back
and Carolyn and I were joking about getting on the Metro and not
recognizing anyone -- realizing that you had gotten on the wrong train.
We were talking about how much knowing German has helped to read Russian
when we looked around and didn't see anyone else from our group. So we
quickly ran back up the ramp and found everyone else.
First Impressions
5/16-5/17 The trip to Russia. Uneventful, slept a
little. On the Delta flight to Atlanta, we though on of their money saving
measures was to only feed half the plane (random, on that flight the left
side). Seems they're a little short of stewardesses (short two on that
flight). I don't plan on flying Delta any time soon. It's too bad, a few
years ago they were pretty good. The flight to Frankfurt was just long. We
only had a 90 minute layover in Frankfurt. Too bad, it would have been fun
to see Frankfurt again.
Russian Hospitality
Once we finished with the whirlwind tour of the Hermitage (modern art in
15 minutes - we'll go back later), we went off to the dinner party.
This blew away all of my expectations. The people were warm and
friendly, there was an incredible amount of food and drink (which for the
sake of 297 we were forced to partake in) and singing, toasts, and
dancing. I can't believe how much liquor they (the party) put down. We
had potato salad (w/ celery, peas, carrots, green onion, and dill),
meatloaf, boiled potatoes, potatoes with shredded chicken, pickled
veggies, ground turkey and a cabbage pie for dessert. Of course there
was the required toasting and then the Russians began to sing. They
would sing a song then we had to reciprocate. We couldn't think of any.
Then EVERYONE took to the dance floor. I would never have expected to
see this in the States. These people opened their homes to 30 some
people (tight fit), stuffed us, then we all had a great time singing and
dancing. It was a nice change. Everyone says the Russians are pretty
stern but when they invite you home, they want to have a good time.
Grandpa was starting to get a little frisky with some of the girls.
Apartment was about 600 square feet. We also had dinner with
another Russian family, this time in Moscow
The whole Heart to Heart team (except for Dr Hardy himself
| Some sample prices to date: | |
|---|---|
| Yogurt | 3,000 R |
| 1 litre of water | 5,000 R |
| Ride on the metro | 1,200 R |
| Box of Musli | 14,500 R |
| Loaf of bread | 2,250 R |
| Bottle of champagne | 35,000 R |
| Pkg of copier paper | 40-50,000 R |
| Ticket to Moscow | 120,000 R |
| USA Today | 15,000 R |
On the Police (Militsia) - The uniformed presence here both
military and police is overwhelming. They are everywhere. It seems that the
military gets deputized to help keep the peace. Another thing about the
security here isn't so much that there's a lot of it but they all travel in
large groups. There is an awful lot of camouflage around here. I don't
think I've seen any two soldiers (in camouflage) dressed alike. That might
explain a lot of the casualties in Chechnya.
A lot of the police here wear bulletproof vests. They do in the States also
but not as obvious. I asked Alexei about it and he said that being a
policeman is very dangerous, both because some are corrupt but also because
the people don't like them. There are four types of uniformed security
here: 1) the OMOH, riot police, these letters can be found on their
shoulder patched. They are hated by the people so I am told. There was
a concert near the Herimitage the first weekend we were there and the
newspapers said the OMOH were dragging people out of the crowd who were
too "rowdy". 2) the Militsia, the regular police, they wear black
uniforms and wear "militsia" in Cyrillic on their shoulders. 3) the
military, who mostly police their own. and 4) private security. They
vary in levels of professionalism. Most of the ones I saw were
delivering money to the various banks and exchange offices.
Finally got to see Gostiny Dvor, a large department store in the heart
of St. Petersburg. I walked downtown to find some office supplies and
had little luck. Anyway, the store is really big, the little stores are
arranged in 2 floors around a central core. Each lady has a little store
that she is in charge of. There is a shoe section, clothes section,
etc. What I found to be odd was that stores had overlapping merchandise
but it didn't seem like they were competing. At least it didn't seem like it
because they were all lounging against their counters waiting for
someone to buy. The one store I did go to had no concept of customer
service. I would have killed for an Office Depot.
5/25 Yesterday was the big interview day. We had
appointments to talk with the head of finance, the director of the
hospital, the chief engineer, and Vadim, the head of Cardiology. The
work in the stockroom continues. We got a lot of
really good information including some of their cost breakdowns. The
conversation with the chief engineer revealed (we think) an interesting
lack of communications between Toshiba (Moscow) and Toshiba
(Amsterdam). Apparently, the hospital keeps on going to Toshiba (Moscow)
for technical information which they don't get because Moscow tells them
there is no contract. There is a contract which answers a lot of their
questions but it is between Chris and Toshiba (Amsterdam). It doesn't
sound like the two Toshiba groups have talked to each other.
Just a note: Alexei has been great here. It really helps to have a
native speaker on the team. However, that doesn't mean that we don't
need interpreters. Although, Alexei can translate,
it's very tiring to do so. It also cuts him out of the
conversation. If they speak in Russian, it's faster and probably easier
on Alexei, but it cuts us out of the conversation and puts everything on
Alexei's shoulders too.
When we finished for the day, Karen and I went to a wine tasting. This
project is turning out to be a lot different than I expected. There is
a charity here called Peter's Children. They collect money, supplies,
and local corporate sponsorship to help
improve facilities for children in the various hospitals and children's
homes. They hosted a wine tasting last night at the Nevsky Palace (very
nice) for $20 a head. They had 9 different Russian wines (champagnes,
Moldavian, Georgian, etc) available for tasting. Actually 8 and a ninth
mystery wine. There was also the option to have a second glass of your
favorite. The event was aimed primarily at the western expatriate (expat)
community and it seems like it's pretty tight out here.
We had e-mail for a while. Alexei had spliced his laptop into the phone
line and accessed his old account in Vladivostok through St.
Petersburg. I think we were paying $1.50 per hour for access and $1.50
for every 64K we sent. Yesterday we got cut off. We'll see on Monday if
we can get access again. Sure was nice to able to send and receive. We
still have access, but we have to call through Moscow. Not sure that's
worth it, maybe only for a quick download.
Today was another of those lazy Saturdays. We all slept in late, then
got on a river boat for an hour to cruise the Neva River. Following
that we (me, Karen, Carolyn, Dana, and Kathy) walked around a bit then
went to the Russian Museum. It was pretty
nice and one of the few exhibits that had explanations in English also.
After the museum, everyone was hungry so we went to a place called
Metekhi which serves Georgian fare. This was a great restaurant (very
close to the circus). There were 5 of us
eating and our total bill including drinks and stuffing ourselves was
110,000 rubles ($US 22). We had some fried chicken with sauce, a bean
made of bean paste made with onions and dill, eggplant, and some salad.
It was good tasting and quick. After ordering, the food was ready.
Alexei didn't go with us today but before he left the apartment, he got
on e-mail and downloaded all the new mail. That's a story in itself.
When the three of us got home, we found the disk with all the e-mail
that Alexei had downloaded. So there we
are, three of us huddled around a laptop seeing who got mail. Reminds
me of mailcall in the Army. Anyway, we'd call up a file, find out whose
it was, then pass the laptop to them so they could read their mail.
Then we'd start all over. It's just funny how dependent we've all become
on e-mail and computers.
We finally saw some of the crime around here. We were walking back from
the metro stop (Vosstania Ploshad) when we saw two young men get out of
a nice car and grab two other guys. There was no violence, but by the
way the two men were led off to be "talked" to, you could pretty much
guess what was going on. That aside, I don't think there is any more
crime here than you would find in any big western city
5/26 We went back to the Hermitage today. The last
visit was kind of hurried and we all wanted a more leisurely visit. The
museum is huge. We spent half a day there and even that was rushed.
Several times on my way back to our meeting place, I would get lost and
end up discovering new exhibits that I hadn't seen before.
That night, we settled down to do some work. One of the issues was to
have Alexei download all the information he gathered about how the
Russians calculate the cost of an cardiac intervention. They have two
forms of payment here. For major/complicated procedures, the city pays
for the whole thing. For tests and simple procedures, insurance pays
for it. There is separate accounting for in-city patients and those from
outside of St. Petersburg. For in-city patients, since the city pays
for all of them, the total costs of the cardiac section is totaled and
averaged over 140 cases, all that the city will pay for in a year.
At one time the hospital was owed money by city so there was no money
for food. The hospital had to solicit insurance companies and banks to
borrow money for food. Usual rate is 10000 R/day of stay. Apparently,
the hospital owes the city money for utilities but the city owes money
for procedures so the hospital just doesn't pay the utilities. It's
confusing to me too.
It started raining today. It's funny, if it had rained from day 1, it
would have been what I expected, but the weather here has been so nice
that the rain is kind of a bummer.
5/27 Had my first cold shower today. It was very
cold. So far the hot water situation has been good but every now and
then the hot water just cuts off. Today is just never came on. I'm
just glad that it's summer here and not winter.
The food situation here isn't too bad. We eat out every now and then
and last night we made dinner. it's been really nice to have a kitchen
available Breakfast is still coffee and musli with yogurt. Three
weeks of it. Our biggest recurring need is water. The tap water in St.
Petersburg is undrinkable without boiling for 4-5 minutes so we have to
buy all the water we drink and wash with. The four of us go through
about 4 litres of water a day.
5/28 Dana and Kathy just left. They have been really
good to us too. It is nice to have someone else around to bounce ideas
off of. They had both been to St. Petersburg before and made good "tour
guides". They will also be missed. However, since they stayed the night
(after getting kicked out of the Hotel Moskva) I ended up on the
hardwood floor. While it actually wasn't too bad, the cold shower and
hard bed was kind of what I expected before coming out here.
I should explain what the e-mail situation so that everyone understands
the medley of mail, duplicates and spaghetti text. Our current set up
operates as follows: I type an e-mail in text, one of us tries to call
Moscow to connect to an e-mail server
(yesterday this took 2 hours), we send out an e-mail with the attached
file, download all received mail to the computer, shut down the
connection, then read our mail. Every now and then, we get told that
the e-mail account is no good. The first time we set up mail, we were
calling locally in St. Petersburg to access Vladivostok. When that shut
down, we tried calling Vladivostok through Moscow. However, when we
sent our files through it, the server UU encoded everything -- therefore
the spaghetti text. Now I think we have the system solved. Oh yes, the
day Dana and Kathy left, I gave her (Dana) a disk with all the mails we
had unsuccessfully sent. Those got sent out Wednesday morning.
Last night we had a final debriefing with both teams to share
information and sources. It brought up some interesting questions about
corruption in local healthcare and the politics. One topic we're
looking at is the costing and payment of a cath
procedure. Apparently for in-city and federal patients, there are rigid
guidelines detailing exactly where the money paid gets distributed too.
There are no such guidelines for out-city/insurance cases so the
hospital has a lot more say over where the money goes (i.e., other
departments, personal pockets, etc instead of to cardiology where the
work gets done). Vadim is in the process of getting Federal status for
the catheter lab as it will be the only dedicated pediatric catheter lab
in the country. This would make all of his cases Federal and the
hospital would lose a lot of flexibility over the money generated. This
is one source of tension between Anatoly and Vadim. Having the Federal
government pay for cases would also free Vadim from the funding
constraint imposed by the city and allow him to operate at capacity.
Currently, the city only funds 140 open heart cases a year and will
probably limit catheter case similarly. Note: Just
found out today (6/3) that catheter cases will be paid for by insurance
money which also means that the only limitation on caseload is what the
catheter lab can handle.
Using translators brings up another issue. When using translators, you
have to be cognizant that you're still speaking to the interviewee
albeit through someone else. Because I'm speaking directly to the
translator, I find myself asking him or her about the interviewee,
instead of asking questions directly. A lot of these people speak more
English than they let on and I imagine that it is more polite to speak
directly. There is also the matter of special technical language.
Even Alexei, whose English is good, has occasional problems with
translating medical terms. Remember, just because you have a native
speaker doesn't mean that you don't need a translator.
Some of the translators we used were simultaneous translators, meaning
that they would start to translate before the other person was finished
speaking. It was a little disconcerting at first, having to listen to
two people but you get used to it. The important thing to remember is
not to interrupt the translator until they are completely finished - it
breaks their train of concentration. This includes "what's" and other
simple questions. There are simultaneous and consecutive translators. The
simultaneous ones are more expensive of course. Agree before hand about
how you will handle interruptions and questions.
5/29 When you get to Russia, register your passport
immediately. You have 3 workings days to do it and failure to have it done
by the time you leave could cost you a fine of $50-200. Failure to pay the
fine means that you cannot leave Russia.
Got taken by Misha the driver yesterday. We thought the rate was
$5/hour, but he charged us $40 ($20 each way) when be got back from the
hospital. Alexei wasn't there so we couldn't argue about it. Needless
to say, we won't be using him again. The only plus side of the trip was
watching Karen sleep in the car. She can sleep through anything. We
were driving over some pretty rutted roads and major bumps but she never
woke up. Kept on bouncing around in the back seat but never stirred once.
Amazing.
It seems like all the road here have major potholes. I can't remember
any that I thought was in really good condition. In addition to the
potholes, there are no lanelines in the road and the drivers seem to
drive whereever they want. One common denominator is that pedestrians
certainly don't have the right of way (I realize this would be a hard
thing for a native Berkeleyan to understand). I can remember far too many
old ladies running across the street to get out or our way. The drivers
just assume that they're not going to stop, that you realize that, and
will get out of their way. The parking however, is great. You can park
anywhere in St. Petersburg. There doesn't seem to be any problem with
that.
On the plus side, our driver today, Yuri was great. He is $5/day and
worth it, you just have to get used to the sudden stops and the car
falling apart (the windshield wipers falling off during the rainstorm
comes to mind). How would I characterize his
driving? Aggressive comes to mind. Definately a risk seeker. Yuri has
been our driver for the last few days of our trip here and he's been
dependable and full of information. He drives on the side (in more ways
than one) and works as
with computer graphics during his regular job at a government film
studio. I think that he makes more by driving us around than he does at
his normal job. Most government jobs seem to pay really poorly. We had
another translator later on who was a doctor in another hospital. He
agreed to come across town, in the middle of his day, to translate for us.
Our first stop today was the Pokrov Hospital to see another cath lab.
The director there was very friendly and more than willing to tell us
about himself and the great support from Heart to Heart .... for 2
hours. Every time we tried to get back
(actually onto) the subject of catheters, he would just say "later ....
we talk about them later". Andre the cardiologist who preforms the
cathing at Pokrov was pretty friendly too and all to willing to talk
about Heart to Heart also. His asked us to
give "bolshoy privets" to all the doctors back here ... several times.
Then we tried to register our passports. On this matter, I am very
disappointed in Boris. They knew that we had 3 days to register our
passports and we kept on reminding them but they kept putting it off.
Now it falls on Alexei's shoulders to get it straightened out and that's
unfair. Anyway, the lady at the City Health Department (our sponsoring
organization) said she might be able to help us. I hope so. We might
have to cancel our trip to Moscow if we can't get our passports taken care of.
More on Food - Tonight's dinner was the cheese and
barley special. The barley half is a genuine Budvar beer, the original
Budweiser from Czechoslovakia, available for only 7000 R a bottle. The
cheese is just cheese on bread. The bread however is like playing bread
roulette. At the market, what Karen now calls the Cybermarket (for the
way it's spelled in Cyrillic), a loaf of bread is only 2300 R. The only
problem is that you can't tell what type of bread it is until you get home,
hence "bread roulette". Yesterday I got lucky - wheat bread, which went
well with the cheese. By the way, who were those well dressed gentlemen
in the store yesterday and where did they get the money to buy all the
expensive liqueurs? Checking in on an "investment"? Inquiring minds
want to know.
5/30 Anyway, the good news is that Alexei was able to
get our passports registered OK and we only had to pay a 300,00 ruble
fine ($6) each. Luckily the secretary at the City Health Board (our
sponsoring organization) knew somebody down
at the international police office (where we had to get our passports
registered) and was willing to help us out (she spent 3 hours down there
today). We owe her big time. I'm extremely grateful. That means that
we're going to Moscow on Friday. Yea! Alexei also arranged for car
($60 for the weekend) and an apartment (company apartment of a friend's
company). The tickets there cost us approximately $50 for the
roundtrip. While we're there, we'll also hook up with Tatiana (a
classmate) and try to see Lenin (wonder if he just lies there like Mao?),
the Kremlin (to see where "They" plotted from), the Pushkin Museum (more
art), and Izmailovsky Market (shopping for arts and crafts). By the
time we come back, we'll have a mere 3 days left here.
We heard from the two teams in Vietnam over e-mail. Isn't technology
great? Here's what they had to say:
Sender: hanoi!haas@netnam.org.vn@postbox.anu.edu.au
Michael --
Hey man! Greetings from Sandra, Matt, Sleepy and Manish - also from Jin,
Chris, David, and Scott. We're all in Hanoi right now and nicely set up at
the Eden hotel - 3 pcs, email and a cordless phone, baby! (we have more power
requirements than a 10 V families combined, i'm afraid). Anyway, things are
terrific. No one deathly ill yet ( a few minor, temp casualties) and only a
few malarial mosquito bites. When do you guys finish up and are you doing
anything after the job? We're trying to get to Tiomon island, off the coast
of malaysia for some scuba. If you want to reply to this message, type out
the address, and put my name in the header! Say hi to your team!- Sandra
Sounds like they're doing OK. We sent them back and e-mail and I'm sure
when everyone finally gets back, we'll all have a get together to share
pictures and swap lies.
Once we arrived in Moscow, we were met by Alexei's friend, Pavel who
took us back to the apartment. On the way back, we got a whirlwind
tour of Moscow and saw the bridge where the tanks were firing into the
White House during the '93 coup, the television tower they tried to take
over, the former KGB buildings, the Kremlin, and lots of other stuf.
Moscow seems like much more of a city than St. Petersburg. Driving
through St. Petersburg, you get the idea that it's big, but there isn't
any place (except the top of St. Issac's) that you can really see how large it
really is because it's flat and you're always surrounded by buildings.
Moscow is on more rolling terrain so you can see over the city in
certain places. Moscow is also more open that St. Petersburg - wider
boulevards, the same crazy drivers. Newer buildings too - these were
built in the 70's and 80's instead of the 40's and 50's.
6/1 Another cold shower. This time the apartment
building has no hot water. Oh well, I'm starting to get used to them
and the apartment is free. We started early, at 0800, stopped off at
the top of the highest hill in Moscow, right in front of Moscow
University. From there, you can pretty much see over the whole city,
the 7 Stalin skyscapers, the river.
The Kremlin is actually a complex that contains museums, churches, and
state buildings. I had always associated it with St. Basil's Cathedral
and didn't realize what it actually was. They have the Armoury where
the state jewels are kept, some very old churches (the Kremlin dates back
to the 14th century I think). There was a lot more to see there than I
had initially thought.
The monument to the unknown soldier is a very simple eternal flame. It
has no guards or honor guard but I was glad to see that no one had
defaced it either.
Armory. This is where the crown jewels of Russia are kept. Its like
the "Tower of London" of Russia.
Red Square is a little smaller than I had expected. From our point of
view, the Kremlin walls are to the right, St. Basil's is straight ahead
and the GUM department store is on the left. The actual square itself
isn't that big - I was expecting something on the order of Tiannamen
Square in Beijing. They were setting up for a rock concert at 1500 in
Red Square and the security was there too. Based on the trucks and
buses I counted (professional interest), I estimated 1,500 - 2,000 soldiers,
OMOH, and police. They certainly like their
security. The OMOH had their buses pulled right up to the edge of Red
Square where you could see the riot gear etc. I'm not sure that the
overkill was really that good of an idea.
At one edge of Red Square is Lenin's Musoleum. He lies in state there
just like Mao in Beijing. The long lines to see him are gone now as is
the changing of the guard, but the guards still enforce the quiet
inside. Along the same wall of the Kremlin are the graves and memorials
to the heros of the Soviet Union. A lot of the chairmen and other
important party officials, revolutionaries, and heros (Yuri Gagarian)
are actually buried in the walls. Alexei is a great tour guide. He was
able to walk us down the wall of memorials and explain who each person was.
St. Basil's Cathedral are the familiar onion domes that everyone
associates with Moscow. It was kind of strange actually seeing it for
the first time.
Leaving Red Square could only be done a two locations. We chose to
leave by the GUM department store but there was fenced off construction
down the middle of the street and they hadn't made any provisions for
people to cross from one side to the other. I suppose we could have kept
walking until we went around the construction but we "bribed" some of
the construction workers 10,000 R to let us through the fence. GUM
itself is like and enclosed mini-mall, a bunch of smaller stores all
under the same roof. We only took a quick walk through to get to the
car but it looked pretty nice.
Arbat Street starts with a McDonald's at one end. This too looks like
it was a lot more upscale than the ones back home. It had a line that
stretched out the door and into the street for quite a way. Arbat
Street is like the Zeil in Frankfurt, just a nice street to walk down, do
some shopping, get something to eat, etc.
While Pizza Hut has been around for some time, I guess that pizza is
still a new experience for the Russians. Patio Pizza was a more upscale
pizza place that we took Alexei and Pavel for their time and effort. It
had the first salad bar I've seen here but the bill for the 5 of us came
out to be $92. I know that Moscow is an expensive city to live in, but
I don't see how the Russians can afford it. Maybe there are just a lot
more New Russians (ones with money) than I realize.
The Pushkin Museum. Another art museum ... which was a nice change
after the Hermitage. The Pushkin had a nice collection of
Impressionist's art but was laid out much nicer than the Hermitage. The
lighting was pretty good and there were benches in the center of each
room so you could sit down and appreciated the painting. The Hermitage
had very poor lighting and the rooms themselves were so done up, they
were very hard on the senses. Just a total visual overload that
sometimes overwhelmed the works of art.
Finally saw a farmer's market. If I hadn't been taken there to buy
fruit to bring to Valodya's, I never would have found it on my own. I
was quite impressed, there was enough fresh fruit and vegetables to
equal a lot of the farmer's markets I've seen.
We took the bus home because we had all been drinking and Russia has
very strict DUI laws - you're not allowed to have any alcohol if you
drive - though you can bribe the policemen for $100 if you do get
caught. Anyway, it was the first night we had seen in 2 weeks.
6/2 On Russian Hospitality - We've been invited into
two Russian houses this trip and both times I've been overwhelmed at
their concept of hospitality. Valodya and Tania invited the four of us
plus Pavel to dinner and had the full spread of crystal, a table full of
food, caviar, vodka, champagne. Here we were, three strangers in their
house, yet they treated us like royalty. They stuffed us full of food,
offered us more to drink and eat than we could possibly take, and drove
us around all weekend. The Russians all seem to be very stern dour
people when you see them on the street, but once they invite you into
their house everything changes. Again, we had many toasts and singing.
This time we sang "Yesterday" and "Yellow Submarine" to the tune of
Volodya's guitar. If you ever get invited to a Russian's house, be
prepared with toasts and songs. Beatles songs are a good bet. I've
come to the conclusion that if you can sing two or three Beatles songs,
you're set, anywhere you go in the world.
Valodya is a friend of Alexei's from his university days and currently
is the finance director of a small bank. He did a short term in the
military but left after seven years. His wife, Tania, just finished her
residency (ICU) and is now looking for a job. As a resident, she was
earning $42-50/month. They have a cute little 8 year old girl, Masha,
and a cat, Vasil. Their apartment is also about 600 sq ft.
Just another note, when a Russian invites you to visit, they expect to
pay for everything. Pavel and Valodya gave us gifts, fed us, and tried
to pay for all sorts of things. It's something that should be expected.
One of the sights that Dana and Kathy recommended was the Izmailovsky
Market. None of the Muscovites (Pavel, Valodya, Alexei, nor Tatiana)
knew where it was or even that it was really there. If you want
souvenirs, this is the place to go. You can get just about anything you
want there from dolls to boxes to militaria to old stuff to night
vision. I saw some nice night vision systems for $180 but I couldn't
get a firm answer on whether or not I could bring it back into the
states. Bummer. I did find some nice boxes though and some other stuff
that would make nice presents.
When we tried to leave from the market, Valodya's car wouldn't start
because the battery was dead. We spent and hour or so finding someone
with jumper cables (2 "cables" with bare ends) and even after we did
that, the car still died so we had to go and buy a new battery ($50). I
went with Pavel and Alexei to buy a battery but they told me to stay in
the car because the transaction would go faster and cost less than in
they were seen with a foreigner.
I had always thought that Gorky Park was a park, not the amusement park
that it is. It sits right on the river and has a bunch of roller
coasters and other rides. Part of the park was cordoned off by more
security and it looked like they were sweeping for drugs. It's still a
pretty nice park and a pleasent place to take a walk and have lunch. No
one was brave enough to try the rides though - something about concerns
about safety standards.
The train ride back was pretty uneventful. I spent most of the return
trip asleep although the chairs are proportion just perfectly to make
them uncomfortable for me. There are only 3 days left.
6/3 Meeting with Mr Simahotsky. He is the person who
determines the amount of city support to the catheter lab. The meeting
actually went very well. He was full of information, very willing to
talk, and best of all, he was concise and to the point. This was in
marked contrast to the last interview we had at the other institute.
I'm really amazed at the level of access we have here. I don't think
there is anyone that we have needed to talk to that hasn't been
available and willing to talk with us.
6/4 Today we present what we've found to Anatoly and
Vadim. Dr Hardy didn't want us to actually leave them with anything and
there are no overheads so the presentation shouldn't be too tough.
We'll give Anatoly an overview of the costing and forecasting to give him
a warm and fuzzy without being too specific. Vadim will get a more
detailed presentation of forecasting and inventory.
Talk about surprises. When we went in to brief Anatoly, we were told
that the cath lab would not be the sole purview of the cardiology
department and would instead conduct cath procedures for all needs,
i.e., cerebral, renal, biliary, etc. In addition to that, he gave us his
figures that stated the demand for pediatric catheterization was 50 a
year. Our projections were a little different at 600+ per year. To top
it off, he said that he was stealing a doctor from another hospital to
run this new department. To say we were taken off guard is a huge
understatement. We had interviewed him on our first working day and he
gave no mention that the cath lab would be organized any different than
we expected --to fall under the cardiology group and conduct only
pediatric cath cases.
Anatoly is a coniver and I think that part of this is political
maneuvering to 1) limit the special treatment the cardiology department
is getting, 2) limit the influence of Heart to Heart, 3) show everyone
that he is still in control, or 4) all of the above. Vadim hadn't heard
about the decision only. Karen and Carolyn both said that his eyes got
wide and his jaw dropped when we brought the issue up. Normally, I
would have written that off as a lesson learned - to ask your secondary
clients if their vision of your project matches up with your primary
client's vision - except that we did that. We're going to brief Dr.
Hardy tonight and let him deal with it. I don't want to get myself in
the middle of this.
6/5 Our last day here. Alexei went down to the telephone
place to get a breakout of our phone charges. We were expecting maybe
$100 in calls and e-mail. The bill came out to be $436. A large part
was Alexei's personal calls to Vladivostok (at 3 times the rate he
thought it would be) and e-mail came out to be another $124 in calls to
Moscow. Ouch. We all thought that the rates would be $.30 or so to
Moscow but at peak hours it is $.90.
If I had to come out here again, I wouldn't bring any travellers checks
but would split my cash between $100 and $20 bills. Russia is not very
friendly to travellers checks or credit cards. I found very few places
who would exchange travellers checks and non that would take them in
payment. The number of places that would take credit cards in payment
were also scarce. Even the antique stores who carried big ticket items
would only take cash and then only rubles.
Another interesting thing is the 3 step method of payment. You go to a
store, identify what you want and how much. The lady at the counter
writes you a slip which you then bring to the cashier to pay. You then
take the receipt and pick your items up at the counter. It seems like a
very strange way of doing things.
6/6 Today we leave Russia. I don't know when I'll be
back but I'd definately like to come back. I think though that if I
come back, I will definately try to hook up with friends and contacts.
You can get around as a normal tourist but I think that it would be a
lot more difficult and expensive. The language is learnable but not
easy. It's too different from the other European languages.
Our flight leaves at 0630 which means that we're up at 0300. We finally
got a reservation on the hotel taxi after 4 attempts and it came right
on time. The flights have been okay but the flight from St Petersburg
to Frankfurt was full of American school kids who were really obnoxious.
It's too bad, some of them were decent but the rest of them were loud,
obnoxious, and discourteous. Not quite the impression that I'd like to
be making.
Now we've finally left Russia. I made it out without 1) losing the
travel advance money, 2) not losing or damaging the schools laptop
computer, and 3) not being arrested. I consider that to be a major
victory. We'll see in Atlanta if our caviar made it out. You are not
allowed to take caviar out of the country unless you buy it in a hard
currency store and can provide a receipt as proof. Of course, there
were none to be found in St Petersburg. So Yuri (bless his heart), took
us around until be found all the caviar we wanted to buy. The caviar
that we bought is of the red kind. When we were at Valodya's
house, he served red caviar on white bread that had been slathered
with butter. I was surprised at how good it was. While I don't
usually eat caviar, I've always seen it served up with all sorts of
garnishing and additions. I guess this is because it is more unusual
than in the states. If everything works out, I will bring back two cans.
Russia has been a really great experience. We came out to do a project
in a foreign land that none of us had operated in before and we managed
to sucessfully complete our mission, see a great deal of Russia given
the time and experience a lot of culture. The people were a lot
friendlier than I had initially imagined and Russian hospitality is
incredible. If Valodya and his family ever come to San Francisco, I
hope that I can return some of it. The country itself is full of
history and incredibly huge. I can't imagine ever seeing it all.
I liked St. Petersburg. It's a nice picturesque town with all the
canals and rivers that run through it. Definately come in the summer
though. I would have liked to spend more time sightseeing. The same
goes for Moscow. While we probably saw more than we would have ever seen
on our own, there was stil so much to see. So much more shopping that
could have been done. Oh well. At least I've been here once and now
know that I'd like to come back.
a. We had a team member that arrived 3 days later than the main
body. In the interim, it was difficult to stay in contact and we had to
work through several other people to pass messages and information.
This was in part because we had not agreed on times and methods to stay
in touch.
b. The day before we left, we hooked our printer to our laptop to test
it out and found that it wouldn't print. All that was needed was to
install the printer driver. If we hadn't done so, we would have brought
the printer to Russia for nothing. Later in the project, our
transformer blew a fuse and we didn't have a spare. It took several
days to find a replacement.
c. If for any reason our printer had failed while we were in Russia,
we would have had to rely on either finding another computer to print
from or lose the capability to print anything. Even if we had found a
computer, it might not have been running software that would have
supported our documents. If we had brought our print driver software,
all we would have needed to do is locate a printer.
As an additional point, if you're going to a developing country, try not
to make too many assumptions about what equipment will be available to you
in-country. We get so used to having everything readily available at
Haas that we sometimes forget that the same facilites and support don't
exist overseas except at extremely high cost.
d. When we left San Francisco, there were some minor problems with
tagging the destination of our bags. While all of our bags arrived in
St Petersburg on time, if there had been problems, all or our office
supplies would have been delayed with the bag they were in. This could
have added complications to our project if we had needed them.
e. The first night we were in our apartment,
the toilet kept flushing so we tried to adjust the water flow into the
toilet tank. Unfortunatley, the knobs were connected to a showerheadlike
fixture which directed all the water into the floor. That night, we had
a visit from our downstairs neighbors wondering why water was running
from the ceiling into their apartment.
f. All the signs in Russia are in Cyrillic. There are very few signs in
English and finding someone to ask questions or directions is hard.
However, there are many Russian words that are pronounced just like
their English counterparts -- once you learn how to sound out their alphabet.
g. When we tried to register our passports prior to our trip to Moscow,
we were told that we were late and should have registered them within 3
working days of arrival. The authorities told us that it would take 2-3
days to get them registered and a late fine of $50-200 would be levied
against each person.
h. Actually living with a working team means that you're together even
when you're not "on the job". This too requires a set of norms with
respect to washing dishes, keeping living areas clean, time to wake up,
whether people have to stay in groups, what to do with limited sets of
keys, etc. These are all issues that don't usually come up when you're
just working together.
i. When we finally settled our phone bill with the telephone office, it
came out to be $436, about triple what anyone expected. The main reason
for this were several calling rates that were much higher than we expected.
j. We eventually got an e-mail message from the teams in Vietnam but
weren't able to send a reply. There were probably other teams with
e-mail capability and it would have been nice to be able to talk across teams.
Other recommendations:
Recommend: Make yourself a small travel kit. A couple
of things that I've found to be useful are:
Using Translators
One of the more interesting aspects of this project is the whole new
layer of complexities that having a native speaker adds to the group
dynamics. I find that is so convenient and so easy to let Alexei do a
lot of the data gathering and interrelating
that I have to watch myself so that I don't let him do everything. The
use of a translator is a good example. At first we didn't use one and
Alexei translated for us. Two things happened. Either he translated
everything which resulted in him missing out on the conversation, or he
interviewed in Russian stopping periodically to update us, which was
quicker but left us out of the dialogue. Both cases were mentally
draining. In hindsight, we should have sat down and all agreed on how
we would use translators.
Reply-To: hanoi!haas@netnam.org.vn@postbox.anu.edu.au
Our Trip to Moscow
5/31 The first day of our Moscow excursion. $24 bought
us a one-way, 400 mile train ride in a 6-passenger compartment, a box
lunch, and a great view of the countryside. I had expected more of the
bench seat, fend for yourself type of ride. The view itself was
interesting - the area south of St. Petersburg is a big swamp, saw a
lot of dachas and villages. It's amazing how much like parts of the US
or Germany it looked like. As the countryside rolled past, I could also
see it all as a Squad Leader board, hex by hex.
Proof that we were really in Moscow. That's St Basil's Cathedral
behind us
The whole Haas Group. That's Tatiana #2 from the left and out hosts,
Pavel on the right, and Valodya standing next to Carolyn and myself
A last look at The Team -- of course, I am taking the picture
Lessons Learned
Now that our project is over, what have I learned as I look back?
Here's a brief list:
Recommend: When you have a member arriving at a later
time, be sure to establish the time, method, and means of
communications. Identifying one person back home to collect and
disseminate information can also be helpful.
Recommend: Test all equipment you plan to bring and
conduct an operational test. This ensures that you're not bringing any
paperweights. Assume that any fuses or bulbs, etc will fail at least
twice and bring the apporpriate spares. bonus point - DO
NOT plug the hair dryer into a small transformer. It makes them smell
really bad.
Recommend:
Bring driver software for printers. You
never know what equipment you will have available at your destination.
Recommend: Crosslevel all critical equipment and
supplies. That way, if a bag doesn't make it, all your office supplies
or transformer equipment isn't waiting there with it.
Recommend: Don't try to do any electrical or plumbing
work on the local appliances. You never know what is connected to what.
Recommend: Learning the alphabet in Russia is
essential. While the Cyrillic alphabet is very different from the Latin
alphabet it isn't too hard to learn. It at least lets you read where
you're going.
Recommend: Ensure that your passports are registered
immediately. Don't let anyone tell you that it's OK if they're not
registered in 3 days.
Recommend: If you know that you'll actually be living
together as a team, take some time to discuss and agree on these norms
and expectations. It may also help cut down on multiple people bringing
the same supplies.
Recommend: Find out for sure what the calling rates
are before you call. If in doubt, call the local telephone office.
Keeping a phone log will also help when you break out the individual
portions of the bill. On the phone log, identify the date, time, phone
number called, caller, and the length of the call.
Recommend:Identify a person at home who would be
willing to act as a clearinghouse for e-mail addresses and messages if
necessary. This way, experience, solutions, and stories can be shared.
Recommend: Get a money belt and cross level expense
cash. This ensures that if one person loses their money or gets robbed,
all the teams expense money isn't lost.
Bringing a small set of tools, comforts, and snacks will let you make do
with just about anything. Every now and then, a team will have to jury
rig, fix, or modify something to fit their needs. A tools will make it
easier to do that.
Here I am, ready to go into the catheter room
THE PROBLEM