I haven’t written anything here for a while… I was supposed to update day after day after my arrival to the capital. But oh well…
I had a great time and almost no free minutes to write…
On the 19th of May I went to Astana for the Astana Economic Forum. I also wanted to look for jobs before the forum itself, so I had time.
Everybody was instructed about the delegates and the events, and after that I went around for job interviews. Whole 2 days I was walking around the city,taking different buses, getting lost countless times before I found the offices. None of the companies had anything good for the moment (I might go to the capital in couple months to check on one of them though). But that all wasn’t the worse part. During the interview days (2 days) I got horrible blisters on my feet and could hardly walk. the day before my delegate’s arrival I realized that my right foot was so swollen that I couldn’t put on any shoes. I got extremely scared and started browsing about that (yes, browsing about stuff you don’t know without going to a doctor is kinda stupid, but it saved me after all). The stuff people wrote scared me even more, so I ran to a pharmacy. The pharmacist confirmed everything from the internet, and gave me 2 kinds of cream, antibiotics, and special bandages. I had 30 hours until the delegate’s plane was supposed to land, so I put all my force and super-powers to get my feet better. And oh, miracle! 24 hours were enough to make it all better. I was even able to put on the suiting shoes on heels to go meet the delegate.
As I was saying, browsing about the issue saved my feet and me 🙂 Now, moving to the Forum itself…
I worked as a coordinator/translator on Astana Economic Forum. I was put to help a delegate from Switzerland. Italian Swiss man from UBS. Dr. Massimiliano Castelli, or Max (that’s how he asked me to call him) came for the World Anticrisis Conference.
I was afraid that he could’ve been some excessively demanding angry person, but after I met him, the fears passed. He ended up being a great person to talk to accompany and talk to. I was trying to do my best to be a good coordinator, and I think I did a good job 🙂
During the panel sessions I was watching every speaker closely, trying to evaluate them like we did it on prof. Cohen’s Public Speaking at AUBG. It was really fun; there were both bad and good speakers. My delegate was a great public speaker, too. He was giving a speech on the situation of the markets. Listening to his speech was nice, it’s a pity no one asked additional questions, because I’d have loved to hear him more.
During the first conference day I met many interesting people like advisers to the governmental big shots, world famous politicians and economists.
Two most interesting guests of the forum who I met on a big dinner after the first day of the anti-crisis conference were Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Edward Luttwak. Those people truly left me surprised but smiling (and laughing, too), I still can’t forget the talks we had there 😀
People joking about economic stuff, arguing about wine, people in Kazakhstan, and the organization flaws of the forum… All that made me feel really great.
Although, I think I had a little bit too much of discussions on the topics of World Economy and anti-crisis measures during those 2 days.
The driver that we had during the forum was a very nice man as well. Calm, kind, and generous man with a good sense of humor. I think, he was the best driver that we could have.
After I saw my delegate off, I felt kind of sad. The forum had taken all my mind and realizing that it was over went a little hard on me. I really wanted it to continue for another week at least, just until I’d fall dead from being tired 😀
After coming back to Karaganda, I found out that people saw me on TV 😀
That was kind of expected, because there were at least 5 tv-channels shooting everything and everyone, but still, very nice to hear 🙂
Entering surroundings like that made me very distracted from what’s going on in the country and in my hometown. So, the first 2 days after my arrival home I had to get used again 😀
But, it was totally worth it, and I really hope I can find more events like that to work on.
Viktoria Moon 