Reflection

Near the Bolshoi Theatre

I do realize that your social media news feeds are overwhelmed with the year results and still I wrote this. The photos of pre-HNY St Petersburg and Moscow are included to ease the pain.

In the final post of 2018, I want to sum up not only the results of this year but to mention some points from the last several years. As you’ve probably noticed, I haven’t blogged often since 2017. I started this blog back in 2013 when I was a freelance translator. In 2015 I began working at a museum as a public relations specialist in international communications leaving it two years later for a PR agency (which was closed at the end of 2017 so I moved to another one – AGT). It was a transition from freelance to no free time. By the way, this blog helped a lot in getting yours truly hired.

The projects in both agencies were related – you guessed it – to Russia and Russian culture in particular. Moreover, these projects had much in common: they were non-political* digital cross-cultural communication programs.

Christmas tree near the Belorusskays metro station in Moscow — Christmas tree near the Belorusskaya metro station in Moscow

As obvious as it is, I’ve seen that Russian culture is very attractive to the wide international audience. It’s harder to grasp this simple fact from Russia(n perspective) than by witnessing a foreigner’s live reaction online or IRL. Presenting its best manifestations abroad (Russian Seasons case) or showing Russia directly (during the Follow Up Siberia tours) – the mostly positive feedback proves once again that the demand for Russian culture in its high, popular and everyday forms in different parts of the world is really huge and isn’t going anywhere.

I’ve also met many outstanding people from all around the world (Russia included!) – sports, travel and lifestyle bloggers, musicians, singers, athletes, journalists, writers, PR gurus, etc., and even became friends with some of them.