A tale of dreams seen in Russia, near yet far.

Recently, I visited Russia for the very first time in my life. It's surprisingly close—or rather, right next door—yet it's a country you rarely get the chance to visit. After a 10-hour flight from Narita, I landed at Domodedovo Airport. We finally made it through the massive traffic jam to reach downtown Moscow, where I found myself in a world of only Russian. Shop signs, station displays—almost no English at all. It felt incredibly foreign.

With digital tools so widespread and information readily available today, I'd thought that even a little English would get me by anywhere in the world. But here I was, feeling that long-forgotten thrill of uncertainty – what if I get lost? This is the joy of travel, I thought, as I hopped onto the deeply underground metro, where it was hard to tell which way was up or down, relying purely on instinct. Well, then again, Japan must seem pretty inconvenient to foreigners too, with Japanese everywhere and hardly any English mixed in.

After the workshop ended, we all took a commemorative photo. If I ever get to come back, I'd like to go out for drinks with them.

 

Oh, I didn't come to Moscow just for fun. This time, my purpose is to visit our company's Russian office and give a lecture on digital creativity there. On Friday and Saturday, I gathered young employees for classes and workshops from morning until evening.

Russia's digitalization is progressing normally, with about 80 million people connected to the internet. In urban areas, about 70% are digital users. Smartphone penetration is around 40%, which might be higher than Japan. Few people use English, so slightly older business users tend to use English-based platforms like Facebook, while younger folks primarily use local SNS like vk.com. It's a bit like Japan a while back. Advertising in new digital areas still feels somewhat limited, but recently, while judging advertising awards, I've noticed Russian campaigns starting to appear here and there – likethat anti-illegal parking case orthe insurance company case.

Now, about the training session: my first impression of the Russian participants was that they were quiet and serious. The complete opposite of New Yorkers. While their assertiveness was subdued, they learned diligently, and I think we had a very good workshop. Thank you all, spasiba! I hope this leads to us working together on something soon.

In the evenings, we enjoyed Georgian cuisine, Uzbek cuisine, Turkmen cuisine, and more. The menus felt like a complex blend of Asian, Turkish, and various other cultures. Interesting and delicious. I daydreamed about how work could become more fun and interesting if we could casually mix different cultures like this. I also fantasized that digital work might actually be surprisingly easy to blend. Then, fueled by Georgian wine and jet lag, I drifted into a dream world right there in the restaurant.

Moscow's streets felt incredibly vibrant. Most of the cars driving around were foreign models like German or Japanese cars.