Strakhovania!

Gesundheit.

No, actually, that's the Russian word for Insurance. Wooo.

Well, I have lots of time today because I was going to try and send a fax back to PSU, but our person wasn't in the office so I'll have to try again later. I left lunch early to do that, so now I've got about twenty minutes here. Yay!

Yesterday the fates conspired to make me too late to use the computer in the morning (but my kitty was there, so I did get to feed him, so it's not all bad) and then we were informed that we had to stay put at lunch until it was time to leave for the excursion, so we were STUCK.

And you can imagine how thrilled we were to be confined to the cafe while we waited, with bated breath, for a tour of... (drumroll please).... an insurance company!

Yeah. We were all positive it was going to the thrill of our young lives. It was related to our Tuesday lecture on health care, however, so we were pretty much required to attend.

Perhaps I was the only one to feel the cloud pass over the sun when our spry young guide informed us that we were going to walk instead of taking a bus, since it was "very far- I mean close! Very close! And it's pretty, there's a park."

To Russians, Freudian slips aside, 'very close' is anything within about thirty blocks, and they neglected to mention that the park was full of stairs. (Having recently been permanently deprived of my elevator, I have grown to appreciate flat spaces.) I was also almost mown down by a truck that refused to stop for us in the back roads, and instead chose to lurch three or four feet at a time towards us while we scrambled out of the way- I was literally inches from his bumper. Then he passed us and proceeded to tailgate the one other car in sight and honk manically.

We arrived at the insurance company, finally- after passing THREE OTHER insurance companies, just for good measure- and I held out for the elevator while everyone else huffed up four flights of stairs. We were all herded into the company break room to await our guides who were, it turned out, the director and partners of the company, as pleased as punch to have us touring their firm.

After a fairly eye-watering talk on the structure of insurance, the interesting part started- one of the senior partners, bursting with pride, ferried us all over the place and dragged out expert after expert to say hi to us and make chitchat. He showed us EVERYTHING, obviously proud of their accomplishments. It was a very successful Western type of company, and they were right to be proud- after perestroika, there were NO insurance companies in Russia- in the soviet union there were only two. This company was founded 17 years ago, which means that it's been around basically as long as private insurance has existed in Russia. The owner brought back suitcases of materials from the US, which he translated himself, and then set out to creat the modern business model from scratch.

Have you ever read a fantasy or scifi book in which a bunch of magical creatures/cavemen/aliens decide to join the corporate world and do everything by the book? This was that. They were incredibly proud of their break room kitchenette (unheard of in Russia) and their motivational posters, especially one involving two lists- the qualities required in employees, and those undesirable. I was intrigued to see that one of the desirable qualities was 'democracy,' but it was the last one on the list. Hmm.

So we ran up and down stairs- pausing only briefly for the senior partner to throw his chewing gum out the window- and disrupted the workings of the poor pale grunts in IT and made the head economist, who talked like Kermit the Frog, come out and talk to us, and looked at photos of the kids' sports teams they'd bought uniforms for, and the ancient veterans they had given big sacks of vodka and jam to, and other good works, as well as the head of the company winning at darts at a company picnic.

Finally we all crammed into the head of the company's office, and all admired his tchochkes and hardwood floor, then all squeezed into a big, sheepishly smiling group so he could have his picture taken with all of us. I have a feeling that the next tour, if there ever is another tour, will get to look at us on the wall, next to the befuddled veterans and kids playing soccer.

I didn't take them up on their mutliple offers to photograph the riveting hallways of their building, but it was a very nice place, and had lots of windows and fairly cheerful looking employees, so over all it was very fun just to meet all of the people.

Then I went home and slept, slept, slept. We're all out of our mind with fatigue. Now I shall bid thee adeu, and race away because this week we get to sing Russian songs again, and I wouldn't miss it for the world!