Friday, 13 May (Continued Organizational Visits):

Because of some miscommunications (my fault) I had to tell people to be ready by 8:15 instead of 9:15. Today was not a bus day and we were using the Metro to get about the city (which although faster, has its own challenges--very very warm and crowded). The day was much cooler than it has been since our arrival and it looked like it was going to rain on us at any minute.

We made our way to Shell (yesterday we heard about consumer products with Coke) to hear about the natural resources business in Russia. Russia is a critical player in this area and has immense reserves of oil and gas and so cannot be ignored. The first photo is of Sasha speaking to us about Shell Oil internationally. We heard from four different presentors on various aspects of Shell and it provided a nice perspective and private sector alignment with comments we heard yesterday at the US Embassy.

After the presentation with Shell, we went to one of Shawn McKenna's restaurants in Moscow (Starlite Diner). Shawn is unbelievably supportive of the Maine Business School, its students and its programs. He is a graduate and spends two weeks out of every month in Russia. He treated the entire group to a literal feast (this is 18 people as Sasha joined us as well). The second photo is Ms. Wicks drinking an enormous drink of some kind with strawberries. At the restaurant they have created a huge (and I mean huge, 3 hamburgers, chile, bacon, cheese, jalpenos and more) named "The Big Shawn Burger" and two of our group (remaining unnamed but in the 3rd and 4th photo) attempted the feat. One actually did it and scarfed the whole thing down. The 5th photo is of a "small dessert" that was ordered. Even though 6 or 7 folks assisted, they were unable to eat it all.

After our meal, we staggered upstairs to a recently opened restaurant by Shawn entitled "Chicago Prime" for a presentation by his ace marketing, jack of all trades, Jenia (6th photo) who gave us the perspective of a small organization in the restaurant sector. Jenia has lived all over the world (including the US and she has a special affinity for Kentucky). After her presentation we regrouped outside for a group photo.

Although we started earlier today, we also ended earlier. Some of our group went to Arbat street in the evening (see:
http://www.moscow-life.com/moscow/arbat) for just general sightseeing.

Tomorrow we go to the Tretyakov Gallery (http://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/en/) in the morning and then take the 26+ hour overnight sleeper train to Syktyvkar--so there will be a pause in the updates as the train does not have WIFI service.
In Syktyvkar is where we will enjoy the experience of home stays and a more personal contact with young Russians outside of the large cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

I hope you find these comments helpful and informative as we wind our way across Russia.

J.