Hispanic work experience with Russians. Part 2.
Work in the field of tourism.
I started working for a Russian travel agency after I met a Russian woman on a South American TV channel, where she was reporting on topics that took place in Russia, showing them in South America. She was a person who knew both sides of the world well. It seemed to me very useful to learn more about the mysterious Russian culture. Her excellent command of Spanish, English and French helped a lot, because it is extremely important for good communication, as there are differences where not understanding one word can lead to very uncomfortable situations.
So, in the field of tourism, I came across the experience of working with a Russian boss, I cannot say that she is a classic representative of Russia, but I will only tell you about my experience.
My mission was to provide logistical advice to a travel company that attracted Latin American tourists on a tour of Russia.
As part of this, I was responsible for all the promotion and contacts in South America.
My experience was very diverse, as I had to study many topics about Russia, consider history, art, culture and tourist places, which was interesting.
As for working with the Russian team, it was a little discouraging, because I could appreciate the great effort to implement the project at the very beginning and the long hours of programming to develop good content, but nevertheless there was little patience, and there were few opportunities for this. I was disappointed. Because they expected immediate results, and that was the reason for the failure of the project.
Added to this was the demotivation for the lack of quick achievements.
Eventually my motivation got bigger and I started to take responsibility for the project, but I found the boss’s dominant character in every activity and the desire to control everything.
Over time, I realized that in business terms, Russians love to have control over a project or business, I admit that they are highly trained people in the knowledge of their country and history, which makes it much easier to start any business. However, they are not very prepared for good economic management and economic balances, with somewhat slow and outdated systems for tracking economic profits and accounting.
I don’t have specific information, but another curious thing is that I realized that the Russian tax system charges high interest rates, so the Russians always try to minimize this.
It is very important to consider adherence to deadlines when completing activities, as a Russian boss can show you the harshest side of him if you do not do what you planned.
Usually, the method of working with Russians is horizontal (when the boss listens to the ideas of the team and is not a dictator), although there are hierarchical roles in the dynamics of the work, these roles are not imposed and everything works well enough, because you do not feel your boss is possessive and controlled. attitude in their activities.
In this case, it was not like that. But my boss didn’t have the typical Russian qualities I’ve met before. Sometimes there was no timetable for her, when she just had an idea and she, wanting to clarify something, called to immediately request something. You need to have a strong character in order not to become a slave. Because, in other cases of cooperation, I noticed that the Russians have an understanding when something is impossible, and they are ready to wait, but they assign you a certain date and time so that you can complete the task.
In this particular case, the company fully exploited Russian tourist stereotypes and what attracts people to this particular country. Personally, it was more interesting for me to get acquainted with more non-tourist and little-known places in Russia. But if you want money, then this is the right way. Unfortunately, these stereotypes have created very misconceptions about Russia among Latinos. Like the fact that there is always snow. that Russians are cold and not susceptible to tourists, they drink vodka all the time, and so on.
Finally, the project ended due to the demotivation of my boss, her temper became more and more irritable, because she wanted to get a lot of money with minimal effort, which I got tired of and ended up leaving the project, also coupled with the fact that Russian salaries were not very good and the boss always tried to negotiate to pay less.
Russia is a huge country, but with many social inequalities, in the private sphere of work it is more tangible in terms of wages, and in this sense I could understand that wages in South America are better, and here the worker is more protected by law, which gives more safety at work. My experience has been associated with constant uncertainty about the continuity of this work. But the fact is that Russia is a very large market, in order to take on some new and exotic project you need to do a good market research.
You have to consider a certain degree of patriotism that Russians have. This also applies to their own social networks, such as VK, which are not so popular in the rest of the world, and this is quite a big barrier because they have many rules for promoting businesses that are not are Russian-speaking, and also prevent them from opening up to the world on more universal platforms and ultimately focus on local ones.
It struck me deeply that although creative Russians with original ideas, their business methods are slow and not very open to the world, even payment methods only work with local banks.
It is this seemingly insignificant property that has allowed Russians who come to South America to always be successful in business because they are innovative and quickly master the use of digital technology, which allows them to offer their products in a more versatile way and learn payment systems while receiving payments easily. Undoubtedly, in such things one can see the world blockade that Russia experienced, and because they have an unstable economy. Fortunately, many Russian citizens open themselves up to the world and learn about new technologies so as not to become outdated and use them for their own benefit.
