The Wrap Up

Wow. And already it is time to pack. I met many heroes in the past two weeks. Here are 12 of them:


It is not a walk in the park to fight for human rights in Russia these days. Even less if you are part of a social minority OR if you keep pushing a topic that the government constantly tries to brush under the carpet. Tomorrow is the final half-day session of the training and then my job is done - for here and now at least. Lots of work still ahead.

The thought that already tomorrow i will leave my hotel room, take the overnight train back to Moscow and then transfer to the plane that will bring me back to Berlin on Monday does make me sentimental. Russian conditioning worked well on me: without thinking do i now throw the toilet paper into a bin on the side instead of into the toilet bowl; at the green traffic light i look cautiously left, right, left, right, left, right, left before i may cross the street, so no Russian car hits me at incredible speed; i bought myself some black leaf tea to add to my collection of herbal ones; my bowels got used to digesting kapusta, kapusta, and even more капуста; i learned to pick from the side dishes to make an extraordinary veggie meal; it no longer annoys me when people excuse themselves for but another cigarette break (although every non-smoker i meet still feels like hitting the lottery); the amount of verbs in my active Russian vocabulary has at least doubled; and i will simply MISS the daily bliny on my plate or winking at Russian Cyrillic transcriptions:


Only the Russian techno pop played in bistros and restaurants i cannot and even refuse to get used to -- i eat way! too! fast! with all that beat around.

Hotel rooms should always come with a kitchenette, but i made friends with an extraordinary travel companion. May i present Malysh:

If Malysh weighs 300 g then he is heavy. He boils any cup o' tea fast and reliably. Malysh and i will go on many more business trips together, so we hope. Thanks to him, plus morning and night yoga, warm-wrap-up-over-night-sweating, and other home remedies i so far successfully fought the breakout of a lurking cold -- despite the cold and wet weather, too little hours of sleep, often cold feet.

So grateful am i. That my work brought me here. To the city i love and that had been waiting full of love for me all these years.