Entrepreneurial Week Students

The majority of the Entrepreneurial class at the Samara hotel, celebrating Hakob's birthday.  (High-Res)

The Entrepreneurial program was held on a farm partly so that we would be protected from any outside distractions that happen in people's everyday lives.  We wanted the program to be an intense immersion for the students.  To do this, not only did we hold it on a farm, but we put everybody up in a resort hotel called Samara about 40 minutes from Agro Soyuz.  There was nothing to do within walking of the hotel, so the evenings were typically spent just hanging out together, drinking beer and vodka and talking. 

On Tuesday evening, the students challenged us (the LEADERites) to a game of beach volleyball on the hotel's beach court.  Unfortunately, there weren't enough of us, so we ended up mixing up the teams and played until well after dark; to the point where we could no longer see the ball when it was on the other side of the court, but we didn't care - we just kept playing.  I left shortly after my baby toe lost a battle with a piece of rebar strategically stuck in the ground next to the volleyball court.  

Gary, Yuri, Oksana, Hakob the Birthday boy, and Lena. (High-Res)

On Thursday night we celebrated Hakob's birthday with the typical beer, sausage, cheese, vodka, and an interesting drink that the students taught us to make.  I can't remember the name, but here's the recipe. 

Fancy cognac drink:

• 1/2 cup beer

• 2 shots cognac

• 1 tablespoon instant coffee
  Mix and drink! 

 

 

Uliana Dovbush and Natasha "In My Pants" Pipa.  (High-Res)

 

They introduced us to a game called "In My Pants", but didn't tell us what it was all about until after we'd started. One person whispers the name of his favorite movie into the ear of the next person, and it goes around the circle like that. Once everyone's done that, everyone says "I have <movie name> in my pants." Apparently, I have Forrest Gump in my pants. We asked them afterward if they play that game often, and Natasha Pipa said "we always play in my pants". 

We also tried playing charades, which was a lot of fun - especially hearing the Ukrainian version of some Hollywood movies. Remember that comedic classic, "Stupid and more stupider"?  How about the Meg Ryan / Billy Crystal romantic classic, "When Gary met Jenny"? 

Halyna, Oksana, Lidia and Alina sampling the drinks.  (High-Res)

On one of the nights (I can't remember which), we all stayed up late to watch a "football" game (that's fancy European lingo for soccer) between AC Milan and some other team.  The students were all very excited because there was a Ukrainian player - Andriy Shevchenko - on AC Milan, and they were looking forward to watching him play.  Just for their benefit, he scored a goal during the game.