Today was packed with talks on both main stream media and the blogosphere in Russia. While the country’s blogosphere is extremely huge – a count by yandex registers 12 million blogs – the internet is still of minor importance relative to Germany. This is also caused by the fact that only about 40% of the people have access to the net.

TV is still king in the information business. As Evgenij Mezdrikov quoted from a movie title, “if it was not on TV, it didn’t happen”. At the same time, online media outlets seem to lag behind in the adoption of new technology compared to Germany. According to Mezdrikov, allowing user comments and using multi media is still relatively new.

In fact, Russian journalism seems to be in a bad shape. Viktor Juketschev even announced to talk only about “the living parts” of the media landscape, i.e. the privately owned outlets. According to Mezdrikov, “media don’t produce facts”, but only distribute them. Investigate journalism is therefore hard to find.

One reason Mezdrikov gave is that the authorities in general act repellent towards journalistic requests, even though Russia’s freedom of information act is the only worldwide favoring media professionals over ordinary citizens. Officials are obligated to answer their requests within 7 days, while queue time for citizens is 30 days.

That was especially interesting for me because I recently attended a workshop on “Legal Leaks”, where we discussed the issue of privileges for journalists. There’s a very informative toolkit on using freedom of information requests in journalistic work.

Even though he highlighted their advantage of being eye witnesses, Mezdrikov agreed with me that citizen journalists cannot make up for professional investigative journalism. Viktor Juketschev later presented “Tak-tak-tak“, a “social network for civil rights” which aims to provide activists with a platform where to organize collaborative investigation and publication of issues of public interest. I am rather doubtful of its possible success, as activists lack both time and funding for bigger projects.

Elia Kabanov presented several cases of persecution of bloggers and journalists for their writing both on- and offline. Even though Russia has a bad reputation for press freedom due to a series of high profile murders of journalists, repression against bloggers is not as widespread as in other countries.

In some of the cases Kabanov spoke about, police intervention seems fungible, e.g. a fake amok threat. In general, sentences seemed quite harsh, even though prison sentences are rare. After all, local police seem to act independently, which means that there’s no national agenda for repression.

One reason for some of the arrests could be that “people think they can write everything”, as Kabanov said. In some people’s eyes, that includes threats, libel and publication of private data. Kabanov later talked very negatively about Russian blog comments, which he perceives as predominantly useless or even hateful, which could explain his argument.

On the other hand, there seem to be no examples of huge political campaigns driven by Russia’s blogosphere. I presented about Germany’s movement against internet filtering, which is sans analog in Russia. Blogs still need to bring issues to the attention of main stream media – especially TV – to make an impact, of which there are increasingly successful examples.

Or, as Elia Kabanov said, “100 years ago their was a saying, ‘the stone is the weapon of the proletariat’. Today, a blog is the best weapon of a free man.”

That moment it came to my mind that I already knew what I would leave behind. While I could go back and check the carpet under my chair for a third time, probably finding some small belonging I had previously overseen in the dark, I could not take the people with me that had made my stay in Novosibirsk such a great time.

The thought of writing a blog post starting with a sentence like this, “This time I already knew what I would leave behind”, seemed kitschy to me. Yet it is what I thought, and it has made me ponder if it is indeed true.

While I am not going to see the people were so nice to me for a long time, yes, probably forever, today we stay connected. I have befriended a handful of them on Facebook, followed some on Twitter, exchanged IM numbers. The forum has ended, but the communication endures.

The people I met in Novosibirsk were some of the most friendly I have ever had the pleasure to make the acquaintance of. I want to thank you all for a great time: Our coordinators Masha (don’t worry about your English!) and Anna, who were not only super nice, but also incredibly well organized, Svetja, who never got tired to (only while) entertaining us, our unexpected German translator Nastja, our English translators and everybody else who was involved in managing Interra 09.

I, too, want to thank those people I had the pleasure to talk to and discuss with. You allowed me to gain an insight into Russian society and especially its blogosphere and education system, two spheres I would never have explored without your help.

I also owe the Goethe Institut in Novosibirsk a debt of gratitude. It paid for my stay in Siberia, making it possibly for me to meet all the great people named above. And finally, I want to thank Marco, for being a great companion and making incredibly good photos of our adventures.

You all made my time in Novosibirsk a very special experience. Thank you very much! And now, go get the sleep you all deserve

P.S. I realize this has become a pretty pathetical appraisal, but I just felt I had to give back at least some kind words to all those who were so friendly to me. Without this post, my travelogue would lack its true end. Because after all, it is true what Confucius has said: “Forget hurts, but never forget amicabilities.”

This sentence instantly popped up in my head when I heard Vera speak during our debate on “Blogs and Education”. She argued with fervor for learning the unnecessary, defending its ability to induce the creation of something beautiful against all materialistic circumcisions of the education system.

Although she is a VIP in the Russian blogosphere and a print-published poetess, of all the discussants, Vera seemed the most humble. Her contributions came as interjections or short anecdotes, brought forward in a calm voice, bearing an aesthetic that stood, fragile, but impressive, against all cold-hearted materialism.

On my last evening in Novosibirsk, I got the opportunity to find another proof that “Vera Polozkova cares about aesthetics”. Again it was Svetja that opened an unexpected door for us – this time not only of her car, but also of a reading by Vera in a private flat.

These underground readings, we were told, meant practically the only way for young people to come together apart from state-controlled events during the communist era. In those days, the poems read were often highly political and critical of the society. Today, the tradition is still held up by students, even though a civil society has formed in Russia.

When we got to the flat on a higher floor of a giant, anonymous apartment building, we encountered a scenery like I have never seen one before and do not dare hoping to find in Germany one day. The living room was packed with students, only slightly older than myself, sitting on couches, chairs and the floor, calmly looking at Vera. Her voice was somewhere between lightly chatting and serious lecture as she was reading a poem, her mimics accompanying the story in an emotional manner, sometimes lightly open, sometimes austerely withdrawn, sometimes dreamily moony.

Anastasia would provide me with summaries of the poems’ content. “If I say it, it sounds stupid, but from her it’s amazing,” she would often tell me, obviously impressed trying to explain the greatness of an ordinary story recited in the right words.

What’s a poetry evening if you don’t understand the poetry, you might ask. And all I can answer is: It’s impressive. There was the atmosphere in this room, ascending from the feeling of all the students to experience something great, something worthy. Something the value of which can only be measured in poetry itself. And there was Vera herself, sitting on a couch, reading from a notebook or even an iPhone, a guru amidst her believers, who for a moment had the air of a higher aesthetic. An aesthetic that is not just words, but rhymes and sounds and mimics, an aesthetic that is universal.

On Friday, Marco had already interviewed Ilia Kabanov. While at first planned as an interview on youth participation, the talk soon shifted to freedom of expression in Russia. “At the moment we are safe. But we don’t know what will be tomorrow”, Kabanov summed up the feelings of Russian bloggers.

In other words, this sentence popped up in the discussion as well. While there are cases in which bloggers have had quarrels with the authorities, up to now they could always get out of it safely – except for Savva Terentyev, who received a one-year suspended sentence for promoting the public burning of policemen (well, you could also say it was the punishment for extraordinary public stupidity). But as there are plenty of laws that limit freedom of speech in Russia, the bloggers have to live with the constant threat of being targeted by the authorities in future.

Right at the beginning of the discussion, both me and Ilia Staheev lashed out against all efforts to regulate the blogosphere. This provoked an incident that was both funny and useful. One woman, introduced to me as a professor from one of Russia’s best journalism academies in Moscow, angrily stood up to respond to our claims. My translator summed up the woman’s stance in just one sentence: “Why are you against the state?”

Indeed, neither Ilia nor me are against the state. I had spoken about how the social web means that for the first time there is a truly democratic media sphere, and how this makes it unacceptable that any authority may regulate the blogosphere from above. But obviously, the views expressed by us bloggers were far to liberal for this old school journalist. After speaking up a second time, lashing out against bloggers, she left the room – not without asking not to discuss her stances.

While this is a truly childish behavior, the incident was indeed a lucky one for us. As Ilia later told me, “if we didn’t have this woman in the audience we would have to invite such people”. Which is, as I’ve experienced quite regularly, nearly impossible.

To me, it is especially interesting that the woman as a journalist spoke out so broadly in support of the state. Should not journalism be independent from political authorities? In fact, if it is not, we can’t deem it anything else than propaganda. So why did she say so?

As I said later in the discussion, it is not the state that has to fear bloggers, and neither does media. Simply because we are the state, and we are the media. But elites do. And so, when supporting the state’s role in regulating the blogosphere, saying it was keeping up the order, I think the woman was defending her own position as a part of the journalistic elite.

There is a famous quote by German journalist Paul Sethe: “Press freedom is the freedom of 200 rich people to spread their opinion”. It is the fear of those 200 people that this old school journalist expressed: The fear that they will loose a freedom that is based on a monopoly. And indeed the blogosphere as a part of the democratization of media will lead to a downfall of journalistic elites, just as grassroots democracy would, if implemented appropriately, mean the end to political elites. But anybody who deems freedom of expression worth more than their individual power – and I can’t imagine a good journalist who doesn’t do so – will welcome this change.

From there on, the discussion decreased more and more to become what I would rather describe as a speech by Anton Nossik. The organizers spoke of him as “the most important Russian blogger”. Maybe that’s true. But certainly he would be a great hakawati. Talking for what seemed hours, switching from one topic to the other, lining up anecdotes like pearls on a necklace, Anton lectured audience and discussants. While there was little to say to contradict his positions, intellectual brilliance doesn’t make up for good manners.

In fact, the discussion desperately needed a moderator. That’s especially true because Marco and me always had to wait for the translation (the whole discussion, just as all other events, was held in Russian), making it impossible for us to interject the other participants.

After all, I was rather disappointed of the discussion, especially since most of it was none. Additionally, huge parts of the talk dealt with topics such as the subjectivity of statements deemed offensive. I had hoped for a debate that would center more on the relationship between political and economical powers and bloggers and deal with the measures that bloggers can use to defend themselves against censorship and repression.

Our discussion with Russian bloggers on social media and education also carried a great opportunity to talk to some young Russians about their educational experiences. School time is far shorter here than in Germany, where we have up to 13 years of school education:

“For Russian children the serious side of life begins at age six or seven. Those who enter school only with seven years just have to go to elementary school for three years. Following up to this is, without a change of school, the fifth grade at a secondary school [...]. What’s happening to the fourth grade? It’s only attended by those pupils who have been schooled in at age six.

With the ninth grade the secondary school in Russia ends and with it compulsory education. Most students continue to attend school after passing their exams. Either at a general-education school where after the eleventh they receive a diploma that entitles them to apply for university. Or they move on to a technical school [...] where they receive vocational training and a diploma of equal value after three years.”
– from: Meißner, Barbara and Reuther, Henrike: Glasok

That’s why one of the bloggers we met, who was schooled in when she was just five years old, could attend university at age fifteen. But even those who go to school from on the age of six or seven will be able to go to university when they are seventeen years old. I was the second youngest student in my class and still I had just turned nineteen when I got my Abitur, so this seems quite strange to me.

My first thought when i learned about the low age of Russian high school graduates was how they feel deciding about their future. One girl I talked to told my that she would soon finish her master’s degree in economics and that she “totally didn’t [knew] what to do”. In fact, she explained, many young Russians just take up studies that promise a fast financial gain.

That may also be rooted in their situation. As the girl told me, it is very uncommon to take some time off after graduating from high school. Therefore, young Russians only have about three months to transition from school to university. This change is often combined with a move to a new city as well. One of the bloggers explained to us how some youth who are coming from a small town located in the stark vastness of Siberia enter what seems like a different world when they enroll at a university in some of the bigger cities.

After all, I am happy to have had my 13 years of school in Germany, even though it was often boring and at several times I wished that I had the opportunity to focus more on my interests. But when I finished my eleventh grade, the best time at school was still waiting for me. I had just found blogging then and had also become politically active within the previous months, two experiences that since then have shaped much of my view on the world. At the time when Russian youth have to decide what to do with their lives, I had just started to explore my possibilities.

Marco and me are primarily here for the second edition of Novoblogika, a Siberian bloggers’ gathering. When the event took place for the first time in spring this year, it saw a couple of participants from Germany, among them Markus Beckedahl.

We first met with the Russian bloggers on Thursday evening to introduce each other. The meeting was followed by a session on multimedia in internet mass media, held by RIA Novosti’s deputy editor Nataliya Loseva. I attended the session, but left after around half of it. On the one hand because it was just too hot in the room (something I would never have expected: that I would complain about the heat in Siberia) and admittedly because I was quite tired after the short night following our ride to Tomsk.

But on the other hand, the topic just didn’t seem of any importance to me: Multimedia is nothing that needs to be talked about. In fact, it is just the reality we are living with. While I’m not sure whether I caught everything she was saying since my translator didn’t translate simultaneously, it seemed to me as if Loseva was living in the times around the millennium. She talked about new media as it was regarded ten years ago before the internet’s ability to change our read culture to a read/write culture shifted the focus to social media.

I left the lecture after one and a half hours, when there was still an hour to come. At that point, Loseva started to talk about monetizing multimedia, making the point that up to now, multimedia would bring in money only for mobile content. I’ve never seen it that way: There’s no difficulty in monetizing multimedia content – the difficulty is to make money with content online.

Maybe the different ways of thinking – mine and Loseva’s – can be summarized in two quotes. While she was talking like “content is king”, I prefer Cory Doctorow’s view that “conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about.”

Friday we met again with the Russian bloggers, this time to discuss how blogs and other social media can be used for educational purposes. Despite the language barrier – they spoke Russian, we got an English translation – it was very interesting to talk to them.

We both share the experience that social media is used in education only due to the engagement of individual teachers. That’s especially true for high school education. The question for us is how social media can be brought to use in education on a broader level.

My point was that as for the first time the young generation has significantly more knowledge on a relevant topic than their elders the youth have to become teachers themselves. It is not to be expected from teachers of the older generations that they will not only accept, but understand social media well enough to be able to teach it.

That’s because social media is not just another medium. In fact it means a fundamental change in how communication has to be regarded. And while teachers can read up on a new topic, at least the majority will not adopt a new way of thinking.

That’s also rooted in the structure of the education system. The Russian bloggers made a point that the strong role of the state in dictating what is to be taught has a very positive side in that it ended the chaos of the nineties, when after the end of the USSR “every professor taught what he wanted to”. But it also means that the system is even less open for new ideas, not to speak of new ways of thinking.

From there on, our discussion moved to several topics, including the question of what value it is to learn and know “useless” information. At the end, the discussion over different education systems moved to Waldorf schools, so I had the chance to introduce the other participants to my former school form.

Talking about some singularities of Waldorf schools, such as the abandonment of marks, the diverse subjects that include a lot of handcrafting and arts and the focus on working on projects I think I could really make an impression on them. While I’ve never been fully satisfied with my school – after all, it wasn’t paradise – I think that these are very positive approaches that can serve as examples for other schools.

It is also interesting that Waldorf schools do not have headmasters, but are lead by the community of teachers. In a way, their administration is to regular schools what social media is to mass media: instead of hierarchy, there is discussion. Still, I think there is a need to implement concepts that lead away from authority to equality in the lessons as well.

While I’m not falling for the utopia that school could be like a decade-long barcamp, we need to think about educational concepts that suite our times. When social media eliminates broadcasting, when Wikipedia has a higher quality than the Encyclopedia Britannica, then we need to ask ourselves how educational institutions could take them as an example for the power of non-hierarchical organizations.

We (Marco & me -  don’t miss a look at his photos!) didn’t have much to do on our first day in Novosibirsk. The forum only started one day later, so Wednesday was the day for some introductions, badly needed sleep after the flights and a tour through the city.

Novosibirsk is a dusty city. I think that’s some of the first things I’ve noticed: There’s a slight layer of dust, rather brown than grey, on nearly everything. On the way from the airport we saw the huge industrial plants alongside the road, not unlike (but exceeding by far) those in my hometown Siegen, with which Novosibirsk shares its metallurgical coinage.

Later we got to see more of Novosibirsk. Our hotel is located right in the center, so we could walk to the opera house, where giant statues still remind of Russia’s communist history. A history that is nearly identical with Novosibirsk’s own. Founded only in 1893 during the construction of the Transsiberian Railway, the city has been built nearly absolutely under the communists’ reign.

I think that’s something you feel. Towering buildings domineer over the city’s streets. As we walk around, we encounter giant apartment buildings that look as if they’re slowly rotting to death. They stand in stark contrast to the opera house, built with the same megalomanic fervor, but nicely held in good shape. It spots a colossal, steely-glazing dome, canopying the country’s biggest stage.

But we should get to see something different, too. We didn’t know though until we had supper. Being driven around in a bus, getting to hear lifeless facts and anecdotes that lacked all feeling, Marco and me were instantly sold for the proposal of our local all-around-helpful-person Svetja to lead us around by foot. We were accompanied by Anastasia, a Russian-born girl from Germany who’s just doing an internship at a local bilingual newspaper. Having her around was (and continues to be) really helpful since she’s always quick to translate for us. Without such I wouldn’t even get my cola, not to speak of being able to follow Svetja’s tales – she only speaks Russian and little English.

Alas, our city tour should take a rather surprising turn. Having said supper, Svetja had the idea to lead us around in – Tomsk. Seen from Novosibirsk, it’s the nearest big city. Seen from our German perspective, it’s a far off town, located 250 km from here – a 4 hours ride, that is. Complaints over our lack of sleep would not be accepted: “How old are you? 19? You can sleep when you’re 80!” So we instantly agreed to take the tour.

It was just a few minutes after 6 pm when we made that decision, but until we had spent a last visit to the hotel, taken up Svetja’s boyfriend and gotten a new rear-view mirror for the car it was more like 7:30 pm. As you might have figured out already, if you need four hours for a ride of 250 km, you’re not driving very fast.

The road that connects two of the most important cities in Siberia is slightly uneven at least. At some points, it’s verbatim a pain in the ass. Marco should even make this experience in a special way. Having his driver’s license with him, he was the only one who could replace our already tired driver Svetja. Well, at least we thought so.

When we’d driven half of the distance, Marco agreed to take over the steering wheel. The question for the allowed maximum speed soon proved to be unnecessary. “Although 90 km/h is the speed limit for overland rides, but it is rarely exceeded due to the roadway,” he writes. But we still got into trouble with the police. Marco had been driving for some time when we reached a police block. He handed his driver’s license to them, and then a discussion between our Russian companions and the police started. It was only after the police had left that Marco and me got to know about its reason: He didn’t have a translation of his German driver’s license. Only Svetja’s luck had avoided a fine (at least she said so). Having become cautious after this incident, she took over the wheel again.

We reached Tomsk shortly before midnight. But it’s a student’s city and we got to feel it. We’ve had incredibly good weather all the time, but then it was only 13° C. Still there were people out in the parks and on the streets where ever we went.

Tomsk is kind of a counterpart to Novosibirsk. For long it has been what Novosibirsk is now: Siberia’s most important city. Having been founded in the early 17th century, it is really old for Siberian circumstances. As we drove down the city’s main street, historical buildings lined up along our way. Each resembling a palace, most of them are home to one of Tomsk’s many institutes for higher education. You can tell I’d like to study in such buildings one day, and if it’s just for the looks.

At some points it was just too obvious how Novosibirsk’s socialist classicism had taken its inspiration from the architecture of its old neighbor city. But unlike Novosibirsk, Tomsk is, to say it in one word, neat. Looking up into the cloudless sky we could see the stars. In Novosibirsk, we were told, that’s impossible – the city’s too light. Looking down onto our feet, we could see what I think indicates the difference between the two cities best. In Tomsk, the pavement is not just intact and clean, but it’s also perfectly even. In Novosibirsk, little Simon – usually not lifting his feet too much – constantly stumbled over bricks sticking out of the sidewalk.

Tomsk is also much flatter – indeed, pointing at one higher building Svetja told us that without it, there would be none of that kind in the whole city. I think this contributes to the city’s atmosphere – to me, high rising towers often seem anonymous, even repelling. Tomsk’s buildings in the contrary are quite unique – also because they stem from different epochs. In Novosibirsk, we were told, old buildings are simply replaced by newer ones, while in Tomsk they receive special attention. And while I’m all for innovation and renewal, the old often has an aesthetic the new is lacking.

Our stay in Tomsk didn’t last long. We left after barely more than one hour, starting a ride that brought us back to Novosibirsk at half past five in the morning. Still, the city has made a lasting impression on me. The aesthetics of its building, the openness of its squares and the beauty of its river quay, nearly reminding of an ocean side make Tomsk one of the nicest cities I’ve been to. Svetja’s short turn to one of the uglier quarters of the town couldn’t change that impression.