Customer is always... wrong!

This customer-friendly slogan coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge often is miles away from the harsh reality. Today I've had one more chance to prove it.

This morning my younger sister had to send some documents by the regular mail. Like the majority of young people nowadays (including myself) she does not actually visit the post-office every day which appears to be a pretty logical thing to do with e-mails, faxes, scanners and other great achievements of humanity.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvJ3Z6GYy1xr8cTbGqo_3eWc2-tzCdBNFU5YMu3AG8Se7WWDAc0EYKbODdXr6lz-TXjr8CnnDfoR7vBBGDzo6rsITiMFKzJXbr9vc3o_ejfbhRPrpzruStvdygEwellwvHsjyTacYhQ6rh/s1600-h/260px-PostRus.jpg

Knowing the particularities of the Russian postal system, it's even more understandable why people would use its services as seldom as possible. Letters delivered a month later than expected or not delivered at all, packages lost somewhere on the way between the cities, postal workers whose behaviour with customers I would euphemistically prefer to call not so amiable... All this scares potential clients away from the Russian postal service in a much more efficient way than any Royal Mail strikes would ever do.

So my sibling was unlucky enough not to have any alternative to visiting the grim and unfriendly post-office. While she was filling in the blanc she realised that there were new requirements. Being a not so frequent post-office visitor she politely asked a postal worker to help her. Since it was not a New Year postcard but important papers it was crucial that she do everything very accurately.

There were several postal workers: one of them just shrugged away her request and all the others explained the requirements in a different way. Finally the senior worker who she addressed as the last resort displayed open hostility to her. She said that people who have no idea how the postal system works shouldn't be using its services, and that her colleagues had already wasted their time explaining to her the simplest things several times.

To make this long story shorter, my sister had to rely solely on her idea of how the things should be done in this ever changing bureaucratic system, and filled in the form according to her understanding. Now the best thing to do would be to hope for the best! Logically, she did everything in a proper way but in some matters logic is just not applicable...

Moscow metro prices

When I come back home I always find some unpleasant surprises. And this time wasn’t different. I was going to my friend and thought that it’s easier to go by underground. Everything seemed the same: crowds, beggars, dogs and rude cashier. I wanted to buy a two-ways ticket and as I was in Moscow last time in September I remembered that this ticket was 44 roubles, but now angry lady shouted that it became more than 50 now.

When I met my friend she listened to my angry speech about increase of prices and fall of salaries. She smiled and said that it’s Russian New Year tradition to change prices in underground. “Soon it will be cheaper to buy a car”.

It was very true I just forgot that when I was a student we were joking on how they changed prices in winter. My sister, who is now a last year student in Russia, thinks that it’s easy to check inflation with help of student underground ticket. “Just look, five years ago student ticket was 75 roubles and now it’s 350! So it became 5 times higher! Same with prices”.

I know that it’s Russian tradition to find advantages in bad situations, but I prefer to check inflation with Bloomberg help. And what’s about underground, I wish it would stay with its main duty – be the cheapest transport for citizens.

Increasing speed of life

"There's more to life than increasing its speed", Makhatma Gandi said once. And I can't agree with him more.

What is our life now other than a caleidoscope of events that are changing one another with speed rival to speed of light? We are moving faster, eating faster, even speaking so fast that we can't understand each other?
http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=articles&sub=Speed%20of%20Life%20-%20Part%20One

Are you afraid of being alone?

I have so often felt a sudden and strong urge to spend some time alone that I've almost got used to this feeling. It happened not only when I was feeling miserable. It could happen also when I felt happy with myself and those around me. I just needed to get away.

These situations were usually not beneficial for my relationships. My friends felt abandoned and offended, and complained of my lack of interest in them. I felt guilty and scared about this strange desire to have more space but I just couldn't help it. And everytime the most irritating thing was that I could find no plausible excuse for it.

One day when I was feeling particularly unhappy about it I decided to investigate this phenomenon. I had always been intrigued by the fact that there are two words in English frequently used for describing the state of being alone: loneliness and solitude. In Russian we have only one word for this notion, and its connotation is negative. I was pleased to discover that psychologically there can be two different states of being alone. Aloneness by itself is not necessarily a negative thing. It is all about our emotions about it that can turn it into either loneliness or solitude.

Loneliness and solitude - two words for the same thing?
Generally speaking, loneliness is unhappiness about being alone whereas solitude is happiness about being alone http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200308/what-is-solitude

If we go into details we can add that solitude is a voluntary seclusion and loneliness is a state of having to be alone. Solitude often enriches us spiritually and can help us to keep our creative juices flowing. It can be a refuge from daily pressures, a way of relaxation and even a source of inspiration. Solitude often helps to restore peace of mind and harmony after a troublesome or simply too eventful period.

Loneliness is a state in which one prefer to be given a choice. In contrast to solitude it is not pleasant and refreshing, it's disagreeable and depressing. Loneliness takes its toll on people who are prone to it. It lowers one's self-esteem and gives one a feeling of being unwanted, of not fitting in.

This classification helped me if not to explain to others but at least to understand the undercurrent reasons for needing space and to realise that it's not a vice but sometimes a vital necessity.

Most expensive cities in the world

http://www.overseaspropertymall.com/buying-property/10-most-expensive-cities-to-own-a-home/

Eternal Flame to burn elsewhere

The Eternal Flame at the Tob of the Unknown Soldier near the Kremlin Wall, in the Alexander Garden, is a symbol of Moscow and Russia to the same degree that the Saint Basil's Cathedral or the Spaskaya Tower at Red Square. Which is more, it is a symbol of strength of spirit, belief and patriotism that helped the Soviet soldiers fight the Nazi Germany. It reminds us of the suffering they had to go through, and it's impossible to imagine the heart of our capital wihtout it. But we'll have to do sofor the next two m=months during which time due to repair works the Eternal Fire will be relocated to the Poklonnaya Gora.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90853/6853298.html

Old films for New Year

It's been almost twenty years since Russian television proudly proclaimed its independence from the Soviet heritage. And it's not tired to emphasize the fact on every suitable occasion. But still every New Year's eve Russian television waves a white flag of surrender to the Soviet by broadcasting old and much loved Soviet films, songs - and TV viewers are taken back to 1960-70-s just by switching the TV button on.

It's not hard to make a detailed forecast of what would be on during New Year's night and a couple of following days. I've made bets on the contents of the TV programme just for the laughs of it. "Ironia sudby", "Charodei", "Kavkazskaya plennitsa", "Ivan Vasilievich menyaet professiu" -are the films no New Year passes by without. Even cartoons broadcast in this period of time as a rule were made a couple of decades earlier. A large number of singers popular in the Soviet times are invited to participate in New Year TV programmes and sing their 20-year old or older songs, and even young performers instead of singing their own songs often prefer to make remakes of the famous hits of previous decades for New Year's concerts.

That said, I don't mean to criticise Soviet film and music industry. On the contrary, just as the majority of the population of the country, I enjoy watching these films and listening to these songs for the millionth time. I just wonder how long is our television going to shamelessly exploit people's feelings of nostalgia and repose on its laurels? The funny thing is that with the rapid development of new filming technologies, with the government's and independent sponsors' financial support and an increasing number of young people willing to pursue careers in TV and film industry, one would normally expect a surge in creativity and an abundance of new concepts for programmes and films.

However, judging by its contents Russian television still prefers to cling to its glorious past. TV bosses realise that by making changes they could risk losing a considerable amount of their audience. But they don't see or just prefer to close their eyes to the inevitable. Time passes, and generations change. And teenagers nowadays simply don't understand the values of the old days, they have different needs. And they definitely are not going to be sold nostalgia for someone's youth. And if those in the TV industry don't tackle this problem soon they will risk losing it big time to the internet which already now poses a threat by giving its users the right to choose.