Moscow-Kaliningrad-Vilnius-Siauliai-Vilnius-Moscow

Today I came back from Energy conference in Lithuania! At last! It was quite a long way to Lithuania (through Kalinigrad) and quite a difficult from it.

Chairing AIESEC IS in Kaliningrad was a personal challenge. Quite few people know and saw me expressing my emotions, being active and energetic – and it’s is true that I usually do not behave like this, but here I had to behave like this, I had to get out of my comfort zone and to jump and shout all around, approach people and start conversations…. After the conference I felt exhausted, but the most pleasant thing was that I enjoyed most of this kind of behavior, especially communication with every delegate, coz every one of them was a great personality!

After the conference and post-meeting, walk around Kilinigrad, watching “Mechenosets” and eating sushi with Kalinigrad EBs, I was in a bus heading for Vilnius.

Vilnius was amazing – quite and calm – just what I needed for recover after AIESEC IS. I managed to visit almost all the sightseeing place in the Old Town and then got to the bus to Siauliai, the town where we had the conference.


At the bus station I was met by two handsome guys – OCP and OCVP Logistics, who brought me to the hostel where we had pre-meeting.

In faci team we had ppl from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, Ukraine, Turkey, Czech Rep., Hong Kong, Slovenia and R&K of course :-). Our conference manager was so much caring and the chair so much energetic and they were the people who ensure our learning process. That was a great team, a team that shared one vision, a team where everyone was highly committed to what we did and incredibly responsible for what we did.



The conference itself was a success – I have NEVER seen so much energy and passion in the plenary, I have NEVER seen delegates who party till 5 a.m. and then are on time for morning plenary that starts at 8:45. I have NEVER seen so many people dressing up for the parties and I have NEVER seen so many people hugging each other.

And people were enjoying so much in almost terrible conditions: instead of the venue there was a school, just a simple school. We slept in sleeping bags in class rooms, tried not to go to showers and toilets quite often, coz they were quite unpleasant. So my understanding of proper conditions was challenges. As well as my understanding about approach to work was also challenged. Here in R&K (especially in MC) we try to spend as less time as possible for different discussions and meetings, but there sometime I got mad because of half an hour wasted on sharing opinions about some tiny details. But that was good, that was actually what I was looking for – to experience another approach and another perspective.

At this conference I also experienced what it means to be an international faci, and this is the knowledge I will use while organizing out next LDS to let our international facis feel as much comfortable as it’s possible and to feel like at home here in R&K.

After the conference was over we (faci team) went to a bar where we had some traditional meal. And here where some sad story starts – most of us got sick after we ate this food, one girl even was taken to the hospital. As for me I felt not well only in the morning and the same day I had to go back to Vilnius and then to Moscow – that quite difficult, but I survived :-) So definitely I will keep only good memories from this conference.

Ira