Finally, I found some time for a walk with my camera.

Similar to one Image already to be found in my first entrance, this is how the University building looks like. To the left, you can see the “Skyway” connecting the University with the Dormitories. The second image gives the view from some main square.

The so-called “skyway” will come in handy especially in wintertime. A former student already told me that it will be really warm within the building in winter, so better be prepared not wearing your jackets. However, every building can be entered on its own as well.

As there are not only students but also families living in Innopolis, there is obviously the need for some housing as well. In the very front, you can see a construction site. At the moment, there are four rows of building like these in the city.

Students (even University) are required to do sports. In other Universities, they have a course in their curriculum. However, Innopolis does not have this but in order to fulfil this obligatory, students have free access to the gym.

Actually, it’s already the third week coming to an end right now, but it’s two weeks of formal academic courses soon. First of all, my concerns regarding arriving on time for the “mandatory orientation week” were not necessary at all. There was no schedule or whatsoever at all plus others even arrived on Sunday evening. Anyways, I could get everything sorted before the actual semester did begin. Indeed, I had problems with my access card upfront. My access to the gym did not work, plus I was not able to go into the dormitory buildings directly. Anyways, let’s continue with University itself.
Courses here are held quite distinctive from those back in Innsbruck. While there is some way of differentiation between labs and lectures, in most of the cases, they are joined better. Besides, it seems like they don’t offer different grades for the lab and the lecture, though combine them from the very beginning. The overall workload seems higher than our masters, but this belief could also be a result of my course choice. The first semester of the Master of Software Engineering – the actual program I am visiting – is considered the most time-consuming part of this particular master studies here in Innopolis. Nonetheless, I also decided to do two elective courses, ultimately leading to a quite high workload. Anyhow, having a complete masters program here helps the courses to not only interconnect between their labs and lectures but also to between the several modules.
In comparison, roughly one year of the Master of Computer Science in Innsbruck is regarding elective courses. We only have two mandatory modules allowing for exceptional flexibility in our program. However, I like it here in Innopolis (possibly more), but let’s see whether I am stating the same at the end of my exchange semester.

At one o’clock in the morning, my flight landed in Kazan, but it was yet to emerge that I’ll arrive at my room only shortly before sunrise. But first things first: Immigration was done quite fast as there was no queue at the counters – though, what does one expect from a flight arriving at one o’clock… However, as quick as it was doing the immigration part, as long did it take for the luggage to arrive on the conveyor belt. As a result, I did not meet my driver before 1:40. However, there was another guy, Enombe from Kamerun, whose luggage did not arrive as fast as mine. So we waited for about another five to ten minutes until we were ready to go – almost. We went outside, and our driver told us that the car was not here yet. It appeared that somebody else was waiting outside of the airport sitting in the car to get into the picking up area and outside as fast as possible. I already read about this in a book which states that such behaviour is quite usual. The first half-hour is mostly free for precisely these purposes.
So we finally started our journey to Innopolis by car at about 2:10 in the morning, yet having another one and a half hour drive to go. Unfortunately, our drivers didn’t talk English at all, so they weren’t able to tell us about the monuments we were passing while actually driving through Kazan city. When we arrived at the dormitories, they told us to go inside building three – in front of which we were standing – and left afterwards. At that point, I was a bit wondering where Petr, my contact person from the University was because he told me to be right at the entrance when I’ll arrive. Anyways, after we walked in, had some problems getting in first and finally got a room for the first night. So, have a good night? No, Petr was actually waiting for me in front of building two and also did see us. Though, as we were looking like we knew what we are doing, he didn’t walk over to us. Anyways, as the woman at the entrance obviously wrote down whom she gave which key, Petr was able to find me that night and showed me my actual room. If I only had internet access, I would have spared that part of the trouble. Anyways, at about 4:20 – the sun was already rising – I was able to go to bed.
At about nine o’clock, I woke up and wrote Petr that from my side we could start with whatever we have to do. Half an hour later, we met at my room and started doing some organizational stuff. This included registering at the dormitory, activating my keycard, and giving me my email credentials. Additionally, we needed to register me at the authorities, plus he showed me around within the University building and the city of Innopolis.
As some first impressions of this place here, I have to mention that while the rooms do have a kitchen, there are no dishes, pans or whatsoever. So, if you would like to cook on yourself, you might want to bring your own stuff or buy it at the local store. Besides, there are a lot of open spaces to get in contact with other people. There are also whiteboards to use for some (team) work and meeting rooms if you want to do some group discussion or something like that. And the best about this, everything can be used 24/7. The only downside for me here is, that, while everything will be taught in Engish, the non-academic staff is not able to speak English. This makes the decision at the canteen a little bit harder, but also creates unnecessary overhead if there are any non-academic problems. I’m happy that I can speak a little Russian, but I really feel the need to getting better.

This first real entry in my kind of travel blog will be about the journey to Kazan/Innopolis. But first of all, let’s talk about getting a visa.
To get a visa for your student trip to Russia, you have to get an invitation to a Russian University. This process included to write a motivation letter, getting a recommendation letter from one of my professors plus I had to be nominated by our international relations coordinator. However, this could be different for your University. Approximately one month later, I got the letter of acceptance, meaning, I could start the whole visa process – almost. The visa process can’t begin until three months before the scheduled entrance. Hence I had to wait a little bit again until the Russian University could apply for my me at the Federal Migration Service (FMS). This process takes approximately one month, after which it takes around another month to receive a so-called e-Invitation by the FMS. You see where I’m going; I have to apply for my visa as well, which might retake about a month. So, once the process starts, don’t linger but do your stuff as fast as possible. I ended up in need of an express visa because everything needed so much more time than thought in the beginning, plus other things weren’t always obvious. Mainly the way how the HIV-Test has to look like – needed for a visa allowing a more extended stay than 90 days – or just what the exact visa costs where.
These visa “problems” lead me to my booking problems as well. First of all, the mandatory introduction week at University starts on August 12th. But I only got the invitation starting from August 12th, which ultimately means I have more or less no time to travel there at all. I tried to apply for a visa beginning on August 11th, but that was not possible. One day earlier would have allowed me to travel to Moscow and taking a night train to Kazan like I already did in the previous year.
Additionally, I don’t like to book any non-refundable tickets before having my visa. Which ultimately lead to quite expensive tickets, especially as I neither know when or from where I will go back to Austria. However, especially for cases like these, I collected several frequent traveller miles. These allowed me to book at some reasonable price within the Star Alliance network. Here, Turkish Airlines comes into the game. They offer a flight landing at one o’clock in the morning at Kazan airport, which enables me to use as much as possible from my visa and being in Kazan on time. The only downside of this connection is, I flew from Munich via Istanbul to Kazan. After my arrival in Kazan and all the immigration is done, there will be a driver waiting for me to bring me to Innopolis. Innopolis University kindly organized this transfer, plus, their coordinator will pick me up in the middle of the night to give me my key. Let’s see how the first (introductory) week will be.
Some images will hopefully follow as soon I have a better internet connection.

For everyone reaching to this point, this blog was created with my family in mind wishing to get some updates from me during an exchange semester in Innopolis – Russia (university.innopolis.ru/en/). Hence, not all information found here will be relevant to you, though. Hopefully, I can give some details on how it is like studying in Innopolis. My first post will most likely be about the troubles I had obtaining my visa.