Bureaucracy--Russia's Bread and Butter

After an entire day of travel, what's the one thing that you really want to hear? Well, here's what I heard, "You're not actually going to be studying International Management (the major I signed up for), but actually Change Management (a completely different major)." That was my first introduction to Russian bureaucracy...To get anything done takes leagues of effort, and to undo that act...well forget about it. Everything that really should be automated takes a stamp from ten different individuals on different sides of Moscow. Another example is to get the student discount on a metro pass has taken me probably 6 stops at a completely random station across town, 3 signatures, and a month and counting of waiting time. Keep in mind, this is just for a single discount. We've actually talked about this very problem in some of my classes. Communism began a wonderful tradition of creating jobs just for the sake of creating a job. This leads to the creation of several layers of completely useless bureaucracy.

That being said, my Academy is one of the better ones in all of Russia. It has a great campus, and there's an entire office of people fighting on my side to make this easier. Today I had a meeting to decide on a way to help me learn Russian better. I now get to audit some economics classes that are taught in Russian, and have a personal tutor for an hour a week...all on Mother Russia's tab of course.

Here are a few pictures of my Academy...it's definitely the nicest campus I've ever seen in Russia. The purple sky happens when it's cloudy because there's a giant Gazprom (one of the largest oil companies) sign that lights up the sky.