All Russia Volunteering Conference 2013

Perm, Russia, 2013

Monday 25 November 2013

Was my thermal vest going to be warm enough or would the Russian wind cut through it like an icy blade? Well, I wasn’t going to fit anything else into my bulging suitcase, so I decided that if I were to freeze then maybe one day some explorer would find my preserved body and I would end up as a bizarre curiosity in a museum.

Why had I agreed, in a rash moment, to speak about volunteering in Wales at an all-Russia conference to be held in the easternmost city in Europe, nesting in the foothills of the Ural Mountains? I thought it would be an adventure and a challenge to my view of the Russians. My last dealings with them had been in the Soviet era, whilst I was working alongside the British Army in Germany, and travelling to and from Berlin through communist East Germany. They were dead-pan at those border checkpoints and the bristling guns were anything but reassuring. Would it still be the same?

On this Monday morning I thought it was just a very long way to travel. Manchester to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Moscow (with a six hour wait starting at a desolate 3.00am), Moscow to Perm, some 700 miles further east.

Passport? Yes. Visa? Yes. Travel tickets? Yes. Luggage? Yes. Jumped into the car and drove uneventfully to Manchester airport.

Tuesday 26 November

Morning

It was now 3.30am in a Moscow airport and I was in need of Borsch, the soup as traditional in Russia as fish and chips are in the UK. It looked delicious but was tepid and I don’t know how to complain in Russian so I just ate it quietly in a corner of the café whilst studying the Cyrillic alphabet. I was 3 years old again and virtually unable to read. The letters were just shapes on a page and I didn’t know how to say them. It reminded me of Greek. My fool’s guide told me how to say the letters so I gradually learned to read again. Oh dear, most of the words were in Russian so I didn’t understand them anyway. I finished my cold Borsch.

 

My borsch

Perm airport is about the size of Valley on Anglesey: small. I was collected, along with a magician from Spain, who was also speaking at the same conference, by the Russian minder of the volunteering ‘experts’, called Danil.

Afternoon

The Ural Hotel is large and sturdy and has been recently refurbished to make it more hospitable and less like a Spartan relic of the USSR. My room was as hot as a sauna but had a comfortable bed, which is what really matters along with good food. Lunch was still being served so I sat down at 3.30pm with the Spanish magician, who showed me a trick or two. Why was I here? Why was I still awake having missed a night’s sleep?

Evening

The ‘experts’ met the organisers at 7.30pm. I was told exactly what I would be doing over the next two days, as were those from other parts of eastern and western Europe. The people from London had been delayed in Moscow. I thought Danil said ‘detained’, but I checked and was reassured – particularly when they turned up later.

Early to bed.

The Ural Hotel

Wednesday 27 November

Morning

We had an audience of predominantly young people with some older Government and University lecturers too. I guess maybe 300 in total, but I wasn’t counting because it didn’t interest me much. I was more interested in the level of enthusiasm.

I did appreciate Tanya, this charming young woman who kept whispering in my ear. She very competently translated Russian to English, just for me, and she was busy.

  

Tanya - my translator

 I was up on stage with a number of other ‘experts’ waiting to speak about volunteering in our countries. I had to concentrate on the speeches.

Italy defined volunteering as we would. It’s done out of choice for the benefit of communities and for no financial reward. I could see the map of Italy showing where people volunteer most and how many there are. I have learned something.

Portugal and Croatia did much the same as Italy and the definition of volunteering was reassuringly similar. Good.

Other ‘experts’ said similar things and, as the last speaker, I realised that my time was eroded and I would have to cut my speech to the bone. Also, I wanted to spice things up a little. I leaned back for a little chat with Tanya. Sorted.

My turn. So, I told people where Wales is situated. Why should anyone in Perm know that already? I told them that our definition of volunteering is like everyone else’s and that I had numbers if they wanted them. Did they?  Nobody said yes, so I asked them who the most important person is in volunteering? Someone from the back called out ‘me’, which gave me the cue I needed to jump up and bring forward Tanya. She sat in my seat and told everyone what she gets out of her volunteering. She likes meeting new people, gets a buzz from doing something worthwhile for others and appreciates the chance to hone her English language skills. I then took over and reminded everyone of the importance of the volunteer, without whom there would be no volunteering. This went down well with the young people.

I said more about volunteering in Wales and highlighted the advent of Street Ambassadors in tackling low level environmental problems.

  

The conference room from the stage

I couldn’t quite believe the flattering celebrity status the ‘experts’ were given, not just by the organisers, but by the participants too. I was being photographed with groups of young people and individuals from all over Russia. Some of them were thrilled by Tanya’s stage debut. Good.

Afternoon

The ‘experts’ had a round-table discussion answering questions asked by the nice man from the United Nations office in Moscow. Participants sat around the outside watching and listening. We now had general all-room translation so Tanya is having a break.

We talked about international volunteering and technology and communication and language barriers and so on.

Later, I was standing at a table with a WCVA banner behind me wondering why the contact details printed on it were those of my fellow ‘expert’ from Portugal. 

 

The WCVA Board

But a group of youngsters was now sweeping in my direction. They took celebrity-style photographs and asked me about volunteer camps in the UK which they could attend and whether there are good university links between the two countries. So I took email addresses and pledged to contact them on my return to Wales. I hope this won’t mean that GCHQ or MI6 starts to monitor my communications. Maybe they are already!

Celebrity style photographs

Thursday 28 November

Morning

I got up early and tried to control the shower temperature. It was a lost cause, so I had my first bath in years in rather brown looking water. I’m not sure if this was caused by dissolved minerals from the local mines or just rust in the tap, but I got on with it.

This morning I toured displays of a variety of volunteering projects from across Russia in order to decide which should win an award. Tanya was now hard at work translating what the presenters were saying to me about their activities.

Cossack volunteer project

I had to stop her so she could confirm that the Great Patriotic War was the Second World War. It was. I also asked her to explain what ‘patriotism’ would be within a menu of children’s activities on a play-scheme. Tanya said that children are introduced to war veterans and listen to their life and war stories. A loop video showed a proud elderly man, chest bursting with medals and large red stars, talking to a wide eyed young boy.

Tanya, hand on heart, told me they study ‘patriotism’ for the love of their motherland. It reminds me of America, which has a Veterans’ Day. We have Remembrance Sunday. This set me thinking that we should focus on living veterans and not solely those who made the ultimate sacrifice. I felt my hand creeping towards my heart but caught myself in time, remembering that I’m British.

I didn’t place any of the work with children, of which there was a lot, in top position. I chose a project which deploys volunteers as part of an emergency response team in order to save life and limb. Maybe these brave volunteers should be included in the play-scheme ‘patriotism’ option.

Afternoon

I was facilitating and was one of the presenters at a well attended three hour workshop on the roles of volunteer centres. I didn’t envy my Italian and Portuguese ‘expert’ colleagues who had to speak in English. Even less did I envy Irina and Sasha, the translators, who had to then turn everything into Russian. I wondered how much was being lost in double translation. At least the presenter from St Petersburg was able to use his native language, as was I.

We had a long and intriguing, if inconclusive, discussion about the degree to which volunteering needs to be permitted and supported in law. We in the UK have a long and independent volunteering tradition but this is not the case in many eastern European countries. There were some surprised faces when I pointed out that volunteering includes people who are engaged in campaigning for changes in Government policy and is not only about service provision and mutual support. The latest Greenpeace episode in Russia is a good example of such campaigning.

Evening

As I was leaving the conference a group of smiling young people from Irkutsk came over to hand out postcards and pictures of their Russian region near Mongolia. They had travelled for two and a half days on a train to Perm and were returning home the next day to minus 20 degrees. That’s cold. That’s commitment.

Danil, our host, took us to dinner and then to the local museum. It seems that various members of the old Russian royal family were murdered at Perm at the time of the communist revolution. More importantly, Sergei Diaghilev had strong connections here. He was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers stemmed. This took me back to my undergraduate studies. I was always rubbish at dance!

Sergei Diaghilev, founder of the Ballet Russes

Having kept the museum curator up late thanks to the inevitable need to translate everything and her need to tell us about every single exhibit, we all went back to the hotel and I packed for my early morning start.

Friday 29 October

It should have been an easy trip home. The problem was the snow in Moscow which covered the wings and fuselage of the plane and which had to be completely cleared before we could fly. This made us half an hour late.

I was hoping for a snooze as there is a 6 hour time difference between the UK and Perm, but I was out of luck. I had a very talkative Russian sitting next to me who confirmed that, in his view, Russia would have invaded Western Europe, if the cold war hadn’t prevented it, as communism was a world revolution. He was also very bothered by what he described as ‘tradesmen’ running Russia and he thought that old families with experience of power were much better placed to do it. I am not saying he is right or wrong but it was a novel perspective.

I missed the Amsterdam flight and caught a later one.

After my return

The Russian people were so friendly and such good hosts and I’m glad to be in touch with some of them by email, as I am with my fellow ‘experts’. I have dealt with the university links enquiry, so do let me know if you know anything about volunteer camps which could include Russians. I need to let Veronjika know.