After a three hour taxi ride from the airport I finally arrived in Moscow. The huge capital accommodates over 9 million citizens, the same amount of population as in the whole of Sweden. You can image that I felt rather small and overwhelmed.
I’m here together with two colleagues who work with The Visby Program, Swedish Institute’s Baltic Sea Region Exchange Program. We’re in town for a few days to attend an international student fair presenting Swedish higher education to Russian students – Moscow International Education and Career Fair
Apart from the fair we also arranged an alumni meeting for Russian international students who returned to Russia after studies or research in Sweden. We held the seminar together with the Swedish embassy in Moscow. Some 50 alumni listened to presentations by the Swedish Radio’s correspondent in Moscow, representatives from the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Moscow and last but not least a Visby Program Alumnus and Phd. Dr researching on Export of Swedish music in the times of Web 2.0. Very interesting! These alumni meetings are truly valuable – to keep in touch with former international students and scholars, share experiences and thoughts about Sweden and foremost to create the possibility for networking. I can promise you that all of us, alumnus, SI and the embassy, felt inspired when leaving the RGGU Campus where we held the meeting.
As regards to Russian universities I and my colleague Markus went out sightseeing for an hour before the alumni meeting. After being amazed at the Kremlin we went to look at MGU, Moscow State University.
The picture say’s it all…
The impressive main building is 36 floors and 240 meters high (the tower).
What can I say everything is gigantic in Moscow. The metro system, the buildings, the streets. Everything…
Stay tuned I will update the blog with some pictures from the student fair. Btw did I mention that also the student fair is gigantic!?
