Six months in Yakutia

One beautiful winter day in Yakutia came Finn Pekka Viljakainen (Pekka Viljakainen), a millionaire and an expert in the field of information technology, who is also the Advisor to the Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev. Now he travels to Russia and, like a preacher, spreading the good news of startups.

Viljakainen spoke at a startup conference in Yakutsk, and his words seem to have been answered. In the ranks of the audience, there were many young students who dream of a career in entrepreneurship. Viljakainen encouraged them to think globally and not to hire relatives, that can indeed be regarded in Russia as an important Council.

I Viljakainen asked to tell more about the Siberian startups.

“My mother read your articles and is afraid that I will have to use the toilet here outside in 50-degree frost,” he said.

Well, okay, let’s talk a little bit about the other Siberia.

In the first place, not at all in Siberia, the toilet on the street. Of course, baboutmost of the inhabitants of the Yakut villages uses such toilets, but city toilets in the room. We in the village also there is one place with such toilets.

And now startups, which in Siberia really is. Some of them, as in Finland, belong to the field of computer games. For example, here, in Yakutia, there are brothers Ushnitsky, computer games which Seekers Notes and Secret Society − became popular all over the world.

Across Siberia built industrial parks. In Yakutsk it is planned to create innovative Technopark “Land of Olonkho”. Olonkho — Yakut national epic. If Finns were Yakut-consciousness, then in Helsinki would Technopark “Kalevala”.

How young entrepreneurs can provide the growth of Siberia?

At the conference in Yakutsk was awarded the project of two young people who want to start the production of means for protection of wood. The participants of the second project work on combining passes and SIM cards. The third is engaged in laboratory, using graphene technology for led lighting.

Yakutia startups need is not as pressing as other regions of the country. Here from the bowels of the earth to extract oil, gas, diamonds, gold and other natural resources. Yakutsk is an expensive city. Since winter here lasts seven months, we have to spend a lot on heating. Products and various goods brought from afar. But why even boots kamus standing here 500 euros for a couple, although deer here — hundreds of thousands?

“They are expensive because all that makes the Yakuts, is expensive,” laughs the young Yakut, a history teacher.

Now he is also engaged in business: in his spare time began to organize competitions in archery at the Mall.

That was half of our years in Siberia, the time has come for summing up the subtotals. How good Siberians have we become?

Children are in trouble, because there is talk in two languages: in Russian and in Yakut. Our second-grader has advanced the study of the Russian language, but still shy to speak. Fixture linguistically was not as easy as I imagined.

The school fees is intermittently: the last time a center of education was closed for three weeks because of a flu epidemic. I would like to hear some of the specialist: does this make sense? Many fall ill immediately after the quarantine.

Younger children go to kindergarten. They make drawings on the model, learn to walk in March, competing in the long jump and play the harp, the national instrument. Children in the group so much that crying baby calm, saying that you can not cry.

In the village we are still considered cranks. One woman said that we frighten her, because she doesn’t know that you can speak to us. Nobody invited us to visit. Probably because nobody wants to be the hero of one of my articles.

Knowledge of the Russian language is not enough for full communication needs of the Yakut language. We began to teach us at least something useful to Finnish: a grammatical structure of the languages is the same. Conversation laconic: on the question of how things are going, I answer “Miha swag” that is “nothing”.

With basic questions and cold we do well. It’s great that don’t have to worry about whether tomorrow frost. Ahead of him is a couple of months!

Thanks to Siberia, my wife and I learned a lot about themselves and about each other. But more on that another time.

Or not.

Professionally Siberia — a real Paradise. Work has forced me, for example, to play a frozen zombie in the film and examine in Korea cloned dogs. Now I rent an office in the municipal building. It is decorated with the flags of Russia and Yakutia, and the walls stare Vladimir Putin and the head of Yakutia Egor Borisov, bears the title “Il Darkhan”, preserved in the Republic since the XVII century. Work here needs to go to cheer.

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