Today I have had more Russian language lessons. Vladimir has taught me some Russian sentences. Mostly sayings. He has given me the odd one before, and now I repeated one to him and he thought it was pronounced very well and said: now you are ready for the next one. They were mostly sayings about work, and how you should not avoid work, but just do it. Quite useful.

We work very closely with our Russian colleagues here on the Oden. Sharing our work space and time just like any of the others. On every station I deploy the pump I also give water to Alexander. Our filtration system with vacuum pumps are every night used by Oleg, and Vladimir works with his sampling opposite of my desk every night for a few hours for example.

There is a bit of a language barrier between us, but many are surprisingly easy to talk to despite a lower language skill. We also try different languages for a certain word when we sometimes do not understand each other. At times even the Swedish and Russian words are very similar. It is a great mish-mash of internationality. It is highly educational both language and culture wise. Be open, that´s a piece of advice.

Picture of some of the Russian colleagues: Igor, Anatoly, Ksenia, Denis, Vladimir, Denis.