Thursday morning there were four tired Scandinavians who came down to breakfast, obviously affected by the intensity of the journey so far. Today we had a two hour bus ride to Vyborg to look forward to and I think all of us wanted to catch some useful sleep on the way over. Though our plans did not turn out quite the way we had wanted them to, as Russians apparently never sleep, and we did not dare to miss anything interesting they might have to share with us.  So even though I did not participate in the conversation on the bus over much, I sure kept an ear open in order to not miss anything.

A visit to the medieval city Vyborg

When we arrived to Vyborg we only had time to jump off the bus, stretch our legs and grab a cup of coffee before the organizers of today’s meeting started talking. This meeting was the first time the language barrier became a problem as we not only had a very fast Russian woman that was translated, but she also used slides, which never seemed to be connected with what she said. Thus, I will try my best to describe this organization without mistakes but I cannot promise you anything.

The first woman that we listened to was a representative for the non-commercial partnership woman’s resource center “Kristina” of Vyborg.  This organization works with both men and women; even though the title makes it sound like it is only for women. The organization has many different programs for their member such as training courses, organization for business men, writing of business plans and a program called successful businessmen. As you might here from these names the organization does mostly consulted for entrepreneurs. What I found most interesting is that most of their participants are under 30 years old.

This organization had a similar grant program as the one at the Moskovsky district which I thought was interesting to learn more in detail about.

The project is called successful start and works like this:

The first step is to write a business plan and attend different entrepreneur courses. The courses for the entrepreneurs included consulting, learning about the rules and laws that entrepreneurs faces, and they also get to write their business plan with a mentor from the organization. The organization also offers the new entrepreneurs a great opportunity to meet businesses through the organization network.  When they have completed the training and finished the business plan they get to present their ideas for a special government committee.  This committee will decide if the entrepreneur is offered the grant or not, and the different tactics to convince them has apparently been very interesting she told us with a smile on her face. If you are approved for the grant they will transfer the money right to your account and you do not have to payback. The total grant can be up to 300.000 Ruble but can only cover 80 % of the total investment, the other 20 % you have to come up with yourself.

After we learned about the organization they had a surprise for us. We got to see Tuukka and a few other dressed up in medieval clothing and served bread from that time. After that we talked a bit about who we were and what we did until it was finally time to meet a few of the participant of the grant program.

Meeting the young entrepreneurs

For those of you who want to learn a bit about what the Vyborg entrepreneurs is working with here is a presentation of three of them.

First we met Jana, one of the participants in the grant program. She recently started a children’s club for children between 1 to 9 years old. The idea is that it gives children who do not attend a daily kindergarten to get prepared for it when it is time to start. They have lessons for small children and their parents. She also tells us that they have many ideas that are still not implemented as they just started. We later got to go and visit her children’s club, more of that soon.

Next up to speak was a young farmer, who is the son of a very famous farmer in the region. Listening to him you can hear that he is very thankful and proud of his father who began teaching him about farming when he was only six years old. A while back though he decided to start his own business and rented ground to be able to begin. He produces flowers and fruit among other things; he also combines farmer activities with design. His current specialty collie flowers, apparently he grows a special kind of them, as the Dutch collie flowers cannot grow in the region. He has the best natural growth of ecological collie flowers. His next goal is to get a credit for a green house.

The last speaker that I will tell you about here was a man who received the grant a few years back. He owns a company that provides legal and financial services for businesses and entrepreneurs. The idea behind the company was to help entrepreneur s who makes mistakes when they start up their businesses and help them to avoid them. Thus they have a special offer that is affordable for startups.  When he got the grant the business plan was already made they mostly needed the financial help for expansion. There are 4000 entrepreneurs in the area that needs help but they do have competition. Currently they have about 40 companies that use their services constantly.

As you can see the entrepreneurs in Vyborg work in very different areas, we even got to hear about a woman who has started a free cultural news paper for young people financed by advertising. So even though Vyborg can seem quite old and torn from the outside, the city seem to be bubbling of entrepreneurial spirit.

Touring the city

After spending a few hours in the organization’s headquarters, an old building that did not seem to have any central heating. We were happy to get into the minibus that took us to a restaurant for yet another Russian meal. It is insane how much food you eat at every meal. It was always two courses and dessert on top of that.

The lunch was followed by a tour around the city, included visits at two of the entrepreneurs businesses. As I told you we visited the children’s club owned by Jana, which had some very interesting equipment used to stimulate the children’s development. Colors and building blocks seemed to be very popular, and so did the club which started to fill up which small kids just as we were about to leave.

We also visited a very young entrepreneur who owned a stable where she trained and sold horses. There she also held riding classes even though the property where the stable was limited the possibilities for big riding classes.  Never the less, this girl was really inspiring as she had about eight horses that she owned and she could not have been a day above 25.

Quite tired after the days visit in Vyborg we sat on the bus for the two hour ride home. Personally I was too filled with expressions to manage to fall asleep, so instead I sat listening to even more interesting stores. How much inspiration can you take-in during three days?