EVS volunteer diary

Narva, 16. 10. 2009

 AUTUMN IN ESTONIA

(1. 9. – 15. 10. 2009)

After the so called “hot” summer came less “hot” autumn. This means, that for me, it was much, much colder than in Slovenia. Well, in September the weather was quite nice actually, if we compare it to weather this days. It was still sunny quite a lot of times and it was possible to go out without a coat.

Well, in the beginning of September I visited Tartu second time with my journalist friend from Jõhvi and I liked it again very much. It was a nice trip, and as we went by car, we also saw Kallaste village where Old believers live, and also beach in Kauksi. In Tartu we checked few museums and drink a coffee on main square. In the mid of September, actually to be precise, on 14th of September I had birthday. For this occasion I invited all members of VITATEAM and also some other friends to a little celebration at my apartment. I served some typical Slovenian food Jota (cabbage, potatoes and Slovenian sausage + different spices of course) with bread, zaseka (pork fat produced in special way) with bread and potica (sweets with walnuts). We were drinking Slovenian medica (strong drink with honey), Slovenian wine (Teran) and Estonian vodka. Well, Slovenia is not really producer of any good vodka after all. We are more proud on our wines. Actually I also put some recipes of typical Slovenian food on our web site, so you can find them also here www.vitateam.ee/en/volunteering/new-111/new-114.html . I hope you will enjoy cooking :-))) After trying all the food we went to bowl in Astri. It was really nice time (but I didn’t win, damn). Next weekend we tried something less modern and more traditional, sauna in a hotel in Ust Narva.
Soon after sauna weekend, in the evening of 22nd of September I went by bus first to Tallinn and later in the middle of the night to Riga, Latvia. There I participated in seminar called “Make it happen”. This was international seminar where 16 participants from different countries gathered to prepare new projects connected with Youth in Action program. We created two groups, one was preparing “cleaning action” in Greece, and my group prepared project “Feeling democracy” that we plane to realize in autumn next year in Spain. Interesting on seminar was our cultural presentation with food and drinks. I was actually presenting Estonia, as I was the only participant from Estonia :-))), but I also helped girl from Slovenia to present Slovenia. As we were working most of the time we saw Riga only on last day for few hours. It is a very nice city with a lot of old buildings and I need to go there once again to check all the interesting places I missed this time. After sightseeing we checked also night clubs in Riga and student festival in Arena. There was interesting that the most active persons out of approximately 10.000 people were us, although we did not understand Latvian language very good ;-) Because of lack of sleeping trip to Estonia was more sleeping than looking to countryside one.
You can imagine that I was only checking my e-mail box for the next few days and try to make it up on my work. Next weekend we had presentation of our organization in Astri, and a week after we helped to realize games in Olgina kolkhoz. There was very funny, as every person had to explain its game to different competing groups. At my game/task group had to go through tunnel and after that write names of plants on all letters of Russian alphabet. So, as I could not remember how to say plants in Russian I said to them only fruits and vegetables. And actually no group managed to finish this task. Funny :-)))

Aha, after a month of break (September) I started to have Russian lectures again, with Russian teacher – and she does not understand English. So, we checked book Азбука from the 1st grade of primary school. For me it is very interesting, as the book is from Soviet Union and there are pictures of Lenin inside, and the thematic of book is for children. I kind of remembered my chilidhood some 20 years ago. Anyhow, now I am studing Russian again, so if you have any questions for me, about life in Estonia, life in Slovenia or anything at all you can write me an e-mail and I will (try) to answer you in Russian :-)))

Have a nice time and try to enjoy every sunray this days

Žiga Šubic

Narva, 2. 10. 2009

SUMMER IN ESTONIA
(13. 7. – 31. 8. 2009)

First of all I must say, that summer here looks very different from summer I am used to. Degrees are usually up to 25 degrees, some days degree or two higher. It was raining almost every second day, so you do not sweat because of heat, but because of humidity. Almost like in tropic forest :-)))
After my arrival from Moscow I found myself in summer Narva. People were mostly on their dachas or on summer vacation, and city looked quite empty. Also my VITATEAM comrades almost vanished to vacation or Tallinn, so I had enough time to gather my thoughts from Moscow and arrange all the things connected with my seminar there.

After that I had a visit of friend from Slovenia, and we were together discovering new things about Narva, Ust Narva, Tallinn and some other parts of Estonia. It is interesting how many things you notice when you are in a role of “touristic guide”.  So in that week I discovered a lot of new things about Narva and people living here. We visited Kuramäe complex and took a “bath” in holly water“ :-))) Like me he also noticed, that people in Narva has some kind of addiction to paint different things over and over again. For example, in my apartment the floors are painted already few times, and also closets, chairs, and everything. At my country we usually leave things like they are, or if we think they are too old we simply change them. Anyhow, we did not only travel around and look at painted things, but we made a lot of paper work to change president in NGO in Slovenia, where my friend is a president now. So, we managed to get a new partner from abroad for VITATEAM.
After he left I was working in office and going to swim few times in Ust Narva. It was actually quite uninteresting working period and I used most of time reading books or watching television. I also visited Jõhvi Youth center on the Day of Youth on 12th of August and join activities that were happening there.
In the end of August I had another visit from Slovenia, my mum and her friend came to visit me. How sweat ;-))) So they brought a lot of Slovenia food (you know, mothers…), and they were cooking and shopping all the time. We walked from one part of Narva to another for a few days, and I showed them everything that is worth visiting. Actually I think I showed them everything that is here. Of course we were in Ust Narva and took a swim in sea on the end of August. We were pretty lucky actually, as one week later temperatures dropped to 10 degrees in the morning. We also visited Tartu and we all liked town. There is some special atmosphere in the air, when you arrive you understand why this small city is so alive and so important for Estonian culture and people. It is totally different from Narva or other cities in Estonia. In that time I decided, I have to visit it few more times while I am in Estonia.

Also Tallinn was interested for them, for me it is almost like Ljubljana in Slovenia, well known city. Although I have to admit, that I got lost couple of times in last few months, but I think I am getting better now.

Have a nice time

Žiga Šubic

 Narva, 27. 07. 2009

 SEMINAR in MOSCOW - Intercultural Dialogue in Youth Work through Russian
(20. 6. - 13. 7. 2009)

 A week after my arrival to Narva I was offered to participate on Intercultural Dialogue in Youth Work through Russian in Moscow. As I needed some Russian language skills and actually in that time there was not much of work to do in VITATEAM I decided to participate in this three weeks long seminar. Seminar was a mixture of Russian language classes and workshops connected with youth work.

On Saturday, 20^th of June I sat to the train going from Narva to Moscow. It was a night train, actually the only one going from Tallinn to Moscow. On my way there I also met girl goring from Estonia to Moscow to the seminar. Anyway, after sleeping on the seat (yes, I didn’t have bed, but just seat, heh) I arrived to Moscow in morning on Oktobijanska (before Leningradskaja) train station. It is really interesting when you come to the main hall on the train station, and you see there huge statue of comrade Lenin :-))) With Estonian girl we found metro and went to our dormitory. Of course this took some 3 hours, as we got lost 500 m from our hotel. After some sleeping we had dinner and our first meeting drinks in skyscraper close to our dormitory. There we realized that Moscow is really big city, with a lot of skyscrapers with 30 and more floors. Anyway, it should be big, as it has 13 million of inhabitants. People in Moscow were not so friendly as we imagined. They were complaining if we were talking on metro, and a lot of times they didn’t even answer when we asked them for the way. Interesting was, that there were a lot of foreign people, so non Russian origin in Moscow.
Our course was taking place on RUDN (People’s Friendship University - РОССИЙСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ ДРУЖБЫ НАРОДОВ). First day we were getting to know each other, and we had some tests where organizers found out to which group we belong. In evening we were separated into three different groups. One was beginner group (that was my one J), other was advanced group, and there was special group for Russian participants, where they were learning English Language. All together it was 27 of participants, out of which were 9 from Russia and 19 from EU countries. Next day we started seriously with our course. Usually we had Russian language course from 9.30-13.30, and in the afternoon from 15.30 – 18.30 we had workshops, or we went to excursion in different part of Moscow. In our workshops we had presentation of our countries, our Youth organizations, we had meetings between our organizations and with Russian NGOs, we had meeting with student youth council of RUDN, we were making our own projects with different organizations, and so on. When we didn’t have workshops we went to different excursions. We had night excursion in Moscow, boat excursion, we visited Kremlin, Duma, … On Saturdays we had all day excursions to Sergiev Posad and to Vladimir. Sundays were free, but we were usually sleeping half of the day, as we were visiting different kind of night clubs and come back early in morning. But we still managed to use our free time to visit center of Moscow and to go to different kind of museums, to Red square and Lenin’s mausoleum, go shopping to Vermisaze or just to walk around or drive with Moscow metro. There is much more to write about Moscow, but my article is already quite long. I can say only that, that I will definitely go to Moscow very soon :-)))

So, after our farewell party and relaxing next day on Sunday, 12^th of July I caught metro and come to Leningradskaja train station and come back to Narva. Of course on border first Russian control checked me for 15 minutes and after that also Estonian control the same. After that I arrived in Narva at 5 in morning, and go back home to sleep :-)))

 Have fun

 Žiga Šubic

Narva, 12. 06. 2009

FIRST MONTH
(15. 5. - 20. 6. 2009)

Hello to everyone that is reading this page :-))) My name is Žiga Šubic, and in the middle of May I started to work in VITATEAM in Narva as EVS (European Voluntary Service) volunteer. Ah yes, I am from Slovenia, so I am volunteer from abroad (for those who don't know where is Slovenia, check “News” on our web site. I am sure we will have some more presentations about Slovenia). My journey started in November 2008 when I attended information meeting about EVS. In January 2009 I went to my sending organization and start looking for open positions in different countries. On the end I decided for VITATEAM in Narva. I took this decision as I wanted to work in organization connected with youth and youth work. When you go to volunteer position abroad you are suppose to learn language of that region, and Russian seemed very interesting to me as well :-))) Anyway, in the end of April my position in VITATEAM was approved, so we made final steps and on 15thof May I left Slovenia.

So, I found out myself in Tallinn airport, half asleep (as I left from my home at 4 in the morning), and then I saw girl with my name on paper waiting for me. So, first think she had to tell me after we sat in her car was, that she just got her driving license and that she doesn’t actually know how to ride a car. I thought, well, here we go again :-))) Anyway on the end nothing happened. No crash accident, no hot blood, nothing at all. After giving me information about many reports, including this diary that I have to make from time to time :-))) , she put me on bus and sent me to Narva. Then I started to look around and I noticed, Tallinn actually look pretty much the same as I imagined northern cities. Well, but still a bit different, or I could say a lot different as Ljubljana (You do not know where it is? Come to Slovenia presentation ;-)))  ). After arrival to Narva I was taken to apartment with look of 60s :-))) , where I live all alone. In the next few days guys (well, actually all of them, except one guy, are girls) showed me around Narva and they introduced me to VITATEAM activities. It is funny that people here are much like people in Slovenia. I mean physically and by behavior. The biggest difference is, that in Slovenia you are almost each day in some cafeteria, restaurant or bar drinking or eating out. Here this is not so common. Also cafeterias and bars are in Slovenia everywhere, here you must know where they are to find them. I almost forgot, we also went to have picnic in Ust Narva, and I really liked seaside there. It looks really beautiful. I just hope that weather will be nice some time, so there will be opportunity to swim. Talking about weather, from my point of view until now, with exception of few days, it was really bad. Well, I am staying optimist and I hope it will become better. When I am talking to weather, I really had problems first two weeks living here. First I got ill. Then I had a lot of problems with sleeping, as the night was only for few hours per day-now it is even less. But now I got used to it already (ok, and I have triple curtains, hehe). Now I am working in VITATEAM, arranging web site (you cannot say you do not know it, as you are just looking at it :-)))  ), making presentations of Slovenia (the one you must visit), sometimes EVS presentation, and helping with other running activities and projects.

Well, as my dinner is already finished, I will go to eat, and I will save other thoughts I have for some other time. So, those that stayed and read article to the end now know, this will be a continuous story, some kind of blog. And now, look trough the window. Is it raining outside? If Yes, than go and read a book or in case of night, go to sleep. If No, go outside and enjoy the life, do not spend all day in front of stupid computer :-)))

Till next time

 Žiga Šubic