The Dutchman

Today I finally went to my first day at the Institute for Information Freedom Development. Perhaps it hasn't seemed to you all like this day has been a long time coming, but to me it has felt like an eternity.

I was told to take my time getting there this morning, but I wasn't quite sure what that meant, so I decided to shoot for showing up around 10. When I got there a little after 10 (nervous that I was making a bad impression by showing up so late), it turned out I was one of the first people there. Nice. Their normal work day is 10-6, but people seemed to show up between 10 and 11 and leave when they need to. The atmosphere was pretty laid back and everyone was very friendly. There is one other intern, a guy named Michael, who is from the Netherlands. He has been there for about 7 months, but does not have a legal background and is looking for a real job. His girlfriend is Russian, so he decided to move here. It sounds like he's had a pretty rough time of it and may not stick it out in Russia much longer. I guess the winter was really cold and the job market is pretty poor, so he's giving himself until September to find something and then he's heading back to Belgium, where his family now lives. He was a nice guy, though, and seems like someone I'll be able to socialize with some.

Ivan Pavlov, who is the chairman of the board for the organization, had a little chat with me about things I could potentially do for them this summer. The Russian freedom of information act went into effect in January of this year, so one of the organization's current goals is to help people become aware of how they can use the law to protect their rights and interests. To pursue that end, he wants me to do research on the application of similar laws in other countries, and to identify cases that would provide good examples of the power that information can have, etc. The idea would be to write these case studies up and publish them in some kind of pamphlet form.

I struggled getting started on that project today because I was SO TIRED. I woke up at about 4:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep, even though I had stayed up until midnight. I'm hoping tonight is the night that I really sleep through the night. In an effort to not fall asleep as soon as I got back to my hostel, I went for a walk after leaving the Institute and eating dinner, so here are a couple of today's sights from around St. Petersburg.

This is the Alexandinskiy Theater, and that's a statute of Catherine the Great in front of it. I happened upon this little square as I walked down Nevskiy Prospekt.


And this is the Isaakievskiy Sobor (St. Isaac's Cathedral), one of the largest cathedrals in the world, though it was turned into a museum of atheism during the Soviet period, and remains a museum to this day (though an art museum now, not a museum of atheism).


Anyway. Day one is over, so from here on it should be smooth sailing.