Ural Region Youth Forum

After my time in Moscow, I flew to Tyumen. But, before I even had a chance to see the city, I was taken directly to a youth forum located 40 minutes outside of town. The forum basically consists of university students from the region and a number of experts who come to give presentations on topics such as politics, agriculture, and intercultural dialogue. Since my host contact, Pavel, was one of the primary organizers of the event, I was invited as an "expert." Even though I was registered as an expert in intercultural dialogue, I didn't have to actively participate. In fact, I didn't even receive my own name tag or schedule of events. I was pretty much just thrown into it. I sat in on a lot of presentations and met a few people. I met a few of my primary contacts/colleagues from Tyumen for the first time. I shared a room with Ken, who was actually the ETA in Tyumen a couple of years ago, and a real expert, Alexei, who is a graduate student from Moscow State University.

The forum only lasted a couple of days; unfortunately for me, this meant living out of a suitcase for a little while longer. On one of the evenings, the forum planned to take as many of the 300 or so participants that wanted to go on a bus tour through Tyumen. Our tour guide dressed in some sort of late 1800s or early 1900s getup and the tour had sort of a theatrical twist (which was a little hokey). We stopped at a home/museum of a well-known, wealthy merchant and made a few other stops. I was pretty tired and zoned out much of the information from the tour guide, but I did meet a guy from Krygyzstan and we had a good, long conversation that helped shake off some the rust from my Russian skills and his English skills. The city also recently finished a riverside walkway which looks like a great place for future strolls.

Over the last week, I've been getting used to a Russian way-of-life again. Like my last time in Russia, adapting to the diet appears to be a challenge. However, since I have my own kitchen, I am now in charge of my own diet. Hopefully, that will help ease me into my next year here. I do wish they would turn on the heat so I don't have to sleep in sweatpants. That might help too.