I’m in the city of Novosibirsk now. The local people call it “Novosib”. My business trip is going well so far. I’ve already started researching the possibility of becoming partners with local businesses. I’ve met with several c...

I’m in the city of Novosibirsk now. The local people call it “Novosib”. My business trip is going well so far. I’ve already started researching the possibility of becoming partners with local businesses. I’ve met with several companies, and I can say that we’ll have to take some risks if we want to work with them. The important thing is to build a good relationship so that we can trust our new business partners. Thankfully I make friends easily, and I’ve been staying away from arguments so far. There is great potential here, but we’ll have to be careful with how we try and use it. It’s a good thing that they have good public transport in Novosibirsk and cabs are not very expensive anyway; it would be impossible to walk in such a big city though the sidewalks are wide and clean enough. The area of the city is huge. It is built on two sides of the Ob. River. I’m staying on the left side, but the center of the city is on the right. I cross the river each day, and the bridge is so long! You can see for miles in each direction. The city is quite young and modern. There is even a subway system here (it’s called the “metro” in Russia). The subway must be helpful in winter especially. I cannot imagine a long line of people waiting at the bus stop for half an hour when it’s -40F. The city is the transportation center for all of Siberia. Everywhere here I see trucks on the roads, and boats going up and down the river. And of course this is a major stop for the railroad. Novosibirsk was built in order to develop science in Russia, so there is very good university here, including a special “science town”. There are a lot of scientists and engineers in Novosibirsk. I think that this is the right city to find talented computer programmers and researchers. We should invest more time and money into developing business here. Pack your suitcase impression, I’m sure. Yours sincerely, Ernest Fisher