Gala Opening and Day 1 at the YTS

(Posted by Anusha)

Greetings!
Our first update on the Summit follows. This post is made up of fragments which were written at different times, so excuse the changes in tense please!



17th November 2010, 12:00pm Moscow time; 2:30 pm Indian Standard Time
We have reached the Moscow airport. The flight left Delhi airport at 8:10am, IST. We met the Bangladeshi, Bhutanese and Nepali contingents at Delhi, and are going with them toVladivostok. Right now Devanshu and one of the Nepalis, Kabita, have been stuck at Passport control for about 45 min- something is wrong with their visas. So the rest of us are waiting for that to get sorted out. The airport people here don't speak English and so we're totally cut off from those two without any idea of what the problem is exactly. Aarti (our WWF-India Co-ordinator, who is accompanying us) is trying to call the WWF Russia ppl to see if they can help. Outgoing calls on my phone, roaming, are Rs.150/min and incoming is 100/min!! Outgoing messages are 25/msg. My balance is now negative! :D I didn't even know that was possible for prepaid numbers!
All of us slept on the flight almost the whole way. It seems our veg meals didn't get booked, so the 3 of us had a chicken one minus the chicken dish- basically bread and a dessert.

18th November 2010, 1:15am Vladivostok Time, 8:45am IST
I am now going to post the rest of that story. What finally happened at the ariport was that Devanshu's Russian visa said he was Indonesian (we're Indian). And Kabita (from Nepal) had a visa saying she was 3 years younger than on her passport. The Russian consulates had evidently made a mistake in each of their visas. Fortunately, the airport officials and Aeroflot employees were kind and efficient enough to get NEW visas made for them both, on the spot. We made it in time for our flight from Moscow to Vladivostok. As we were flying, the on-board screens were flashing the temperature outside: -56 degrees F at an altitude of 30,000 ft. That made even the -15 we were told to expect in Vladivostok seem tolerable! We met the UK representatives at Moscow before boarding. So, there were totally 13 of us flying together from Moscow to Vladivostok for the Youth Tiger Summit.

We landed in Vladivostok with the outside temperature at -12 degrees Celsius (flight attendant's take on that- "fine weather"!!) at around 8am local time today, the 18th. We were met by a Ms.Olga from WWF, and a tv crew. After picking up our check-in bags, we all came by bus to our hotel, Hotel Sedanka. After being allotted rooms, we all received WWF cold-weather goodies- jackets, scarves, gloves, and a special 'designer-cap' for the ladies! Devanshu's roommate is Duncan, the YTS ambassador from the UK. My roommate's Dannee, also from the UK. After resting a bit, we went for lunch.
At 2.15 pm, we started on a tour to Vladivostok, as the town is some way away from our hotel. We first wound through traffic to visit the bank and exchange our money. We ended up exchanging curriencies amongst ourselves- Laos, Thailand, India, Nepal, and China were excitedly bargaining for each others coins and notes, some lamenting that they hadn't brought more of their native currency.

At the bank's parking lot, running around to keep warm

From the bank, we went to the highest point in Vladivostok and took pictures. Here is a statue of the 2 men who invented the Russian alphabet. It seems they created it to translate the Bible, taking letters from Greek and Latin. As a result, the Russian alphabet seems like a lot of English, mixed with Greek and backwards-English.

Devanshu at Vladivostok's highest point Anusha attempting to push a porcelain snowball
We then entered a small souvenir shop and spent almost an hour there. By the time we were dragged out of there by our WWF-Russia hosts, there was no time to visit the main square as planned. On the bus, with the aid of traffic jams, I managed to pick up some of the Russian alphabet, with Dmitry (known informally as Dimaan) from Moscow graciously helping me translate letters from passing signboards. Devanshu slept. :)
We reached the hotel at 6, just in time for dinner. Following this was the most fun part of the day!
We put up our materials for display- brochures, posters and cds, whatever we had.

Our poster and brochures

Then were were told by WWF-Russia to form a circle... We stood and turned to the people next to us, and introduced ourselves. Next, each person had to introduce their partner to the group. This was fun, as after speaking for 10 minutes, most people had to look at their partner's name tags to read out their name. We found that many countries have names in their languages, and other 'English' names- one of the Chinese representatives, for example, is Cen Xue, but her English name is Winnie (as in Winnie the Pooh). On the other hand, there's Dawa from Bhutan. His name is just that, Dawa. First name, last name, everything combined. Fascinating, how different things are just across Asia. Introductions
After these introductions, we had a surprise visit from Pavel Fomenko, the Species Director of WWF-Russia and Sergei Aramilev, also of WWF-Russia. They were supposed to guide us on the field trips we will be going on. However, they must urgently go to investigate a tiger death elsewhere in the Primorsky region (which Vladivostok is a part of). This tiger is reported to have been shot five times, and killed. Hence, poaching, as with habitat fragmentation, is not an abstract concept. It really happens. Much too often.
When asked why he works to save tigers, Pavel narrated an anecdote. He took his son to the forest recently, and was able to show him a tiger pug mark. His son asked, "Is this what you are trying to protect?" Pavel says that the satisfaction he got, that he is working towards a future where his son can still see tiger in the wild, is worth it. Worth the 1400 irate poachers he has put behind bars, and worth facing 4 of them who were trying to kill him.
After this inspiring session, we were asked to prepare to speak about our countries in a general manner. Each pair of representatives prepared a small poster about their country, supplemented by pictures WWF-Russia had provided. We had the Taj Mahal, Udaypur, the Gateway to India, and a temple which (we think!) is in Mahabalipuram. This went off pretty well. We started with a Tamil song in the background, and me doing a Bharatanatyam (!!!) invocation. We then spoke about India's 500+ languages, her diversity and cultural heritage. Devanshu writing a greeting on the poster

It was great fun to see what the others had come up with. The Chinese sang a phrase of a song; the Russians got us to sing Karyoke of a famous Russian song with them; Dawa of Bhutan danced. The Malaysians presented, energetically, a timeline of Malaysia's development. Overall, though exhausting, the day was full of meeting new people and learning interesting things.

Tomorrow, or rather, later today (it is now 2:25 am on the 19th), we eat breakfast at 8 am. The real work starts at 9 am with the Gala opening. We will meet officials in the Primorsky province, and interact with the press. Later, there will be our presentations to the remaining countries.

Thank you for reading!