I’m coming!

Steps: your to-do-travel list

Do a tick borne encephalitis vaccine (optional). Please, read recommendations, if you won’t do it.
Get your visa.
Get your tickets to Ulan-Ude.
Pack your bag – here are some useful tips.

Cost

Dear Volunteers,

As the Volunteer Summer School in Buryatia has no sponsors (yet, we hope), you will have to arrange your visa to Russia and tickets yourself (some useful links regarding this you can find here on the website or contact me in case of any questions).

Your expences on trip to the VSS in Buryatia will consist of:

visa to Russia (if you need it),
tickets to get Ulan-Ude, capital of Buryatia,
accomodation, sightseeing and partying, shopping for necessary stuff – in Ulan-Ude,
transportation from Ulan-Ude to the villages and in-between,
food and accomodation in the villages,
horse ‘rent’ in Yengorboy for the trip to Hubsha.

All in sum excluding visa and tickets would amount to no more than approx. ~ 400 Euros. This includes some margin in it.

! Important !: This is not a fee for participation. No money given to me directly before the travel. Costs calculation above reflects your personal expences. It means you should have at least ~ 400 Euros (in Rubles, of course) in your wallet when you arrive/ land/ come to Ulan-Ude for your expences till the end of School.

* * * Keep it local * * *

BuryatiaSummerSchool.org aims to make believe local kids into power of knowledge and education. It also aims to make believe everybody that to implement ideas we do not need necessarily a big amount of money or an impressive support of sponsors with global brands name. That does not mean that BuryatiaSummerSchool.org is not in search for it or would ever refuse it. We are open and would appreciate any kind of support/ links/ contacts/ information.

Our Volunteers’ expences for the trip are no more and no less as if they would decide to come and travel through Buryatia independently. The difference is that this project is a unique life experience in a unique place. You would never be able to get there as a tourist because of the entry permissions unless: 1) you participate in BuryatiaSummerSchool.org, 2) you know me and come to visit me there, 3) you know someone from the villages to come to visit them. Let me guess, you know no one in the villages, am I right?

I believe that everyone indeed can do SOMETHING to help others and to make the world a little bit better. What can YOU do is to come and to teach those kids and to share your knowledge and to inspire them to study.

It’s independent and local project that aims to show that this is possible and real to realize! If you are inspired by our project, if you see the same problems around you and want to try to do a similar project and want to know more about our experience of implementation, don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions.

Living conditions

view

As a volunteer you will stay at one of the local families’ house. There live about 1000 people in Mikhaylovka village and about 500 people in Yengorboy village. But, please, be aware that the Volunteer Summer School in Buryatia 2010 is not much about comfort. Living conditions are very simple. People live in simple wooden houses without gas and water pipeline. The toilet is outside. The sleeping space could be ranged from a sofa in the living roon to a sofa in a separate room but with a curtain instead of a door, to a sofa in a separate (summer) house which can be used also as a summer kitchen so you will stay there alone (if alone) only for a night. It will be not very much about private space so, please, think if you are ready for this.

You will pretty often eat there soups, meat and potatoes instead of caesar salad, tiramisu and fresh squeezed orange juice. If you are a strict vegetarian we strongly recommend you not to apply for the Volunteer Summer School in Buryatia cause there simply will be not much food for you. Buryats are historically nomads. It means the cuisine is based on milk and meat. Besides, life in Siberia is pretty hard without meat and the climate with short summer period hardly allow to cultivate vegetables (no planted fruits at all). All the fruits are brought from China. It means it’s rather expensive for locals to buy it regularly.

The family usually holds a cow or few cows, horses, sheep. For these two weeks you have to make your way of life appropriate to the people’s you live with. It means you have to take part in your family’s every-day life, to help in the house, be part of the family for a while and also to take a chance to give them another perception of ‘foreign’ world. For 99,9 % of them you will be the first foreigner they’d meet in their life.

I hope coming to Buryatia, seeing and watching these people’s life will broaden your mind. In any way, if you need something special, please, inform us about it in advance. We will try our best to arrange everything for you and make you feel comfortable as much as it is possible.