In the midst of the cold winter of 2012, I started the IMARES program at the charming pink palace on Gagarinskaya, and until today I have daily reminders of my time spend in St. Petersburg. I am still in touch with a great group of fellow students, now living and working all over the world. Our courses were very interactive, and with students from very different geographic and ideological backgrounds, that meant we had intense discussions about the Russian political discourse in past and present.
Aside from our studies in the EUSP building we also had a trips to the Hermitage, to Novgorod and a two-week seminar at the Kazan State University. These excursions and changes of scenery offered unique new insights to the study materials. EUSP is a progressive graduate school that nurtures critical thinking, encouraged by the mix of Russian and international staff with global academic experience. After finishing the program, I stayed in St. Petersburg, first as a trainee at the Dutch Consulate General and then with an international business consultancy firm for two more years advising foreign companies on starting operations in Russia, during which I kept in touch and visited many university events.
After leaving Russia, I joined a publishing firm as business journalist with postings in Malaysia, Kuwait and now as project director for an annual economic publication in Indonesia. The ability to process and filter information quickly and to ask the right questions is certainly something that I developed during the IMARES program.