TEN WEEKS IN MOSCOW

Thomas Kuhn & Ratko Cindric, both 7th-Quarter Art Directors

"Travel" to a German beer garden In Moscow. Travel back in time when you go to the big flea market. You can see a lot of really old things like dolls, rusty toy cars, old war medals, uniforms, and even real AK47s . The "you can buy an AK47 at a flea market" cliche is true, just like the "Russian dancing bear" cliche and the "Russians drink Vodka" cliche. We even drank some in a lunch break before a meeting with the Creative Director.

Strange beginning for a Quarter Away report? Call it different, because Moscow is different. Different in the way of working, different in the way of thinking, and of course different in traditions. If you don't toast before drinking you are an alcoholic. If you toast every time, you can drink as much as you want. After Vodka, they eat something like gherkins or bread--or they just smell the bread. The Saatchi traditionto drink and have snacks every Friday, also exists in Moscow. It was a nice opportunity to get to know new people. The Russians know how to party and they have plenty of places where you can spend your rubles.

Russians also celebrate the Second World War victory over Germany. It's a public holiday. Since we've been here, the Russian parade was held the first time since the Second World War, with tanks and even nuclear weapons. It was quite a strange feeling as Germans to watch all the war vehicles and hear Russians celebrate their nuclear rockets, but everything went peaceful and we celebrated with them afterwards.

Ten weeks flew by. In Moscow everything goes fast; the cab driver that picks you up from the airport, and drives with 120 km/h through the city; or the production of an ad campaign. We worked on a lot of briefs, mostly P&G, like Ariel, and Safe Guard, Sony Ericsson, a Russian fruit juice, Saatchi, and some pitches. Some of our ideas are still in progress; others have already been produced. We had a good time with the guys from Saatchi & Saatchi, and they helped us in the world outside the agency. We felt like almost nobody speaks English, and we didn’t speak Russian. At least the Cyrillic wasn’t that hard to learn. At first it’s hard to get used to people not smiling on the street much, with somewhat cold expressions, but if you really get to know some of them, you will see that the Russians are normally very friendly, and have a big heart.

Communism seems to be dead when you look at the streets that are overloaded with billboards. There are all kinds of billboards, from paper size to huge installations. Money seems to play no big role in Moscow. A billboard next to the red square cost about $1,000,000 a month, and we don’t even know how much the huge billboard with 5 real BMW M3 cars costs. We had never seen that many expensive cars, like Maybachs, S-classes, Hummers, and Porsche in one place. They park anywhere; crosswalks, or sidewalks in front of restaurants.

At Saatchi, it was quite small, about 68 employees overall, 3-4 creative teams, and space for 60 people. But, the advertising market in Russia grows like no other, so Saatchi grows by moving to a bigger place--to another building in a good neighborhood. All in all, we had a good time in Moscow, and found some friends over there. Maybe we will even move there after graduation.

Spasibo Mockba!

Read more about our trip at
http://copydirector.blogspot.com