Since we didn’t really have a program for this morning, we had some free time. Some of us decided to visit a park, which was actually not unlike the rest of Moscow: lots of concrete and buildings under construction. It even had a completely empty, pretty spooky fairground. To be fair: it was nice and even had a great rose garden, but it still needed some time to reach its full potential.
Others wanted to act like true tourists and visit the Red Square yet again, this time to gain entrance to St. Basil’s Cathedral. They turned out to be in luck: there was a men’s choir performing in the center church, singing medieval counterpoint music. They were great, and sounded like they were amplified, but the music was actually fully a capella. Fun fact: the back of the cathedral is even prettier than the front.
In the afternoon, we visited the Institute for System Programming, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Their director gave a great presentation about their mentality, goals and overall way of operating. We interviewed some of the people who work there, which benefited our own research greatly. It was a successful afternoon, especially considering most of us didn’t have any experience with interviewing whatsoever.
Afterwards, we had a great dinner at the most inconspicuous restaurant, despite their very loud parrot continuously screeching in the background.