Comments on: Visiting Russia

By: world traveller

world traveller — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 06:03:13 +0000

thank you so much for your insightful commentary. my 15 yr old daughter and i will travel to both cities in Russia this summer and was not exactly sure what to expect. We will also be visiting some other countries in Europe but is particularly excited about the many landmarks we will be able to withness firsthand. Thanks especially for the info on prices, that is especially useful.

By: Russian Visa

Russian Visa — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 07:06:11 +0000

Your article is much more informatics for all of the visitor or tourist. I am very happy to read it. This is really very nice. Thank you for it.

By: Vitaliy

Vitaliy — Thu, 15 May 2008 03:43:12 +0000

Sorry for “citizens” and “much”

By: Vitaliy

Vitaliy — Thu, 15 May 2008 03:38:58 +0000

Moscow is most definitely *not* Russia, cause institute of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propiska divide even Moskow citisens to legal and illegal citisens. So legal citisens have mutch higher salary then “illegaly” residented, it is actual for all kinds of job, even for banks employees such as financial analitics.

By: Ukrnet

Ukrnet — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:01:28 +0000

Russia it’s good, we would like to see you in Ukrain

By: Anton Antich

Anton Antich — Mon, 12 May 2008 11:17:59 +0000

Oh, almost forgot, Moscow is most definitely *not* Russia.

By: Anton Antich

Anton Antich — Mon, 12 May 2008 11:15:17 +0000

Ed, I came across this post while reading my russian blog-roll and found it quite interesting as an outsider’s view. A couple of small comments:

- It’s surprising where you have seen the “civilian police” – never noticed anything like that in “big quantities”
- Depending on what you call “middle-class” there’s some. In Moscow, there are quite a lot of people (western companies’ employees, large Russian companies’ middle-managers, some govt employees) earning $50K+ per year, which could be counted as middle-class.
- Apple is virtually unnoticable, but on each trip to the US I get orders for 2-3 iPhones from various people around

As for the business part, I’ve spent about 5 years in offshore outsourcing near-golden years and after the dotcom bust (1999-2004) and then switched to internal vendor sales into Russia – and never yet had a reason to regret. I agree with your notion that Russia is not an obvious outsourcing destination now at all: salaries are high (in Moscow sometimes higher than in Europe / US for certain good professionals), education system severely lags behind industry demands, english-language knowledge and management talent is still scarce – despite of what you’ve seen during your presentations. At the same time, domestic IT market is growing high double-digits, software and IT-services part is booming last year and in the mid-term, etc – all this adds up to Russia moving higher up the foodchain from outsourcing towards creating own IP and selling it worldwide.

By: ed

ed — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:37:33 +0000

Walker,

To see more about who I am, visit http://www.yourdon.com/?loc=aboutme

By: ed

ed — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:35:59 +0000

Susan,

Yes, a few Russians have already added comments; and I told everyone in my presentations that they should check the blog to see what I thought of their country…

By: ed

ed — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:34:30 +0000

David,

The MacBook Air worked perfectly; no complaints at all. And it was VERY nice to have a machine so lightweight and portable; instead of lugging my “main” briefcase everywhere, with 20 pounds of junk (i.e., my entire “portable office”), I traveled to several meetings and presentations with a much smaller notebook case whose total weight was about 3 pounds…

By: Igor Maznitsa

Igor Maznitsa — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:53:10 +0000

Thank you very much for your article, your opinion about Russian outsourcing is very interesting.

By: Suki Fuller

Suki Fuller — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:21:19 +0000

Ed, Thank you for such a thoughtful and insightful reflection of your visit to Russia. It was interesting to gain a perspective viewpoint from someone who as a youth lived thru the indoctrination of the “cold War” mentality. This insight will add another dimension of understanding both professionally and personally for my peers who have yet to travel to Russia. I have passed along the link and hopefully they shall add comments also.