Hello!

I cant’ believe that just this morning I was in the office sitting in front of the computer. Now I’m sitting in a train heading from Budapest to Pecs. The trip from Moscow has been an entire adventure itself, so that I would like to share some of my impressions with you, starting from yesterday:

It seems that CSR is everywhere! Yesterday I went to cinema with another CSR Consultant, from EY. The movie started with a presentation for a pharmaceutical company’s management board. A PR Consultant was trying to convince them to distribute medicine free of charge “to change the world for the future”. This morning I bought GEO Magazine in Okhotny Ryad. And what do you think? It’s devoted to alternative energy sources. On the plane I was thinking about CSR in airlines, when I saw a video about what IATA thinks of CO2 emissions. Today airlines produce 2% of global CO2 emissions, but their goal is to reduce it to 0% by enhancing energy efficiency.

Hungary is so familiar! I’ve been surprised to see ailanthus, acacia, weeping willow and other trees that also grow in Ashgabat, my home town. Another surprise happened when I saw that cars in the Budapest Metro are made in Mytishi, Russia. They look exactly the same like in Moscow, but the stations are not so gorgeous, of course. When I went to Arena Plaza, the biggest shopping centre in Budapest to buy a local SIM card, I didn’t find much difference with Okhotny Ryad and other Moscow shops. Mexx, Zara, Springfield, etc. I even found the same pants I had bought in Moscow! What is the point of going abroad then? And when I was eating my chicken in a café, the people next to me were speaking Russian. Moreover, now on the train I’m sitting next to four Ukrainians going for the same conference.

People are happy! You might know that the Hungarians and the Estonians have common roots – they are Finno-Ugric nations. So, I expected that locals would be as quite and reserved as Estonians, but actually they are completely the opposite. There are so many smiling faces on the streets! Women are discussing something emotionally, children are laughing, and couples are kissing. It’s so great to see that people are satisfied with their lives! Even today I saw an Azerbaijani family with about 7 children. One of them was mentally handicapped and had to use a wheelchair, but the parents carried him smiling. In the Budapest subway I saw a couple of mature people. He was blind, but they were walking arm-in-arm smiling.

Hugs, Sasha