Magnificent St. Pete

It's the middle of January. Apparently the snow and general messy weather has hit New England again this week. I wasn't there.

I had told several people that I was heading to St. Petersburg and they asked "Sunny St. Pete?", as in St. Petersburg, Florida.

My answer was "No, I'm heading to Northern Russia for my winter trip this year"!

I've been here in Snowy St. Pete for five days now and am about to fly back to the States. I enjoy coming here and would come again, no matter what time of year.

I walked to work each morning. The St. Petersburg city layout, buildings, and architecture are phenomenal. When I left my hotel each morning, I immediately entered the huge Palace Square and walked in front of the Winter Palace, home of the Hermitage Museum (below).  

After walking past the Hermitage I would cross over a bridge that afforded a spectacular view of the St. Petersburg skyline. Each morning (and evening, when I walked home) I was able to see the bell tower of the Peter and Paul cathedral, which is actually one of the first structures built during the rule of Peter the Great (starting in the early 1700s). The bell tower is lit up in the morning and evening. I've attached a picture of it below.

Every day the temperature grew colder and colder. One day the morning temperature was -25 Celsius (-13 F). The other remarkable weather fact has been the amount of snow that is on the ground. Apparently in the last 5-6 years there has been relatively little snow accumulation. This year it has snowed so much that it has overwhelmed the city. Every day I walked past the same cars buried in snow; several of them had completely crushed windshields, snow spilling inside, and wheels still buried in the white stuff. City employees were shoveling all day, every day. Some of them were shoveling from the rooftops. I had to keep my distance from the buildings; death by icicle is not how I want to go.

What I found most interesting about the weather was that families with small children were playing in the snow every evening. I would stroll past a playground at 8 o'clock at night and toddlers would be out playing in their snowsuits, going down the slides and swinging on the swingsets! And it was -20 Celsius, not counting the wind chill! I loved it!

Back to Business

The purpose of the trip of course was to connect with my co-workers and discuss some of the products that we are jointly developing. There was a corporate aspect to the trip as well. This June will mark the third anniversary of EMC's St. Petersburg development facility. During that time the team in St. Petersburg have learned a variety of technologies and delivered on several products. These technologies have included products like Symmetrix, CLARiiON, Centera, PowerPath, Captiva, and Celerra (to name a few).

The productivity has been so good, in fact, that EMC has decided to fund a formal research initiative with local St. Petersburg universities. I spoke at a well-attended university session on Wednesday night and discussed a set of interesting technology areas that EMC employees can share with students and professors. In return EMC will host university students and professors at our facility. All of this information flow will be made visible to worldwide EMC employees in the same way that our Cambridge research team shares information from our MIT and Harvard collaborations. EMC will form local teams and fund joint projects that are mutually beneficial.

The Russian efforts to establish a software presence here in St. Petersburg is going magnificently. In fact, "magnificent" is a great word to describe the city itself.

So next time someone asks me if I'm going to "Sunny St. Pete", I'll just say, "No, I'm going to Magnificent St. Pete".  The magnificent city pictures that I've used in this post came from an internal St. Petersburg EMC employee photo contest. The winning pictures are hanging up in the conference rooms throughout the facility. I've added a few more below.

Steve

http://stevetodd.typepad.com

Twitter: @SteveTodd

EMC Intrapreneur