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People of HSE: Personal Reflections on 2020
© Daniil Prokofyev/ HSE University
We are opening a new series, where HSE staff and students talk about the past year in a way that doesn’t make us all too sad. Today, Ivan Prostakov, Anfisa Dmitrieva, and Irina Martusevich review their 2020.
Anfisa Shminke
Head of the Volunteer Centre
For me, the word of the year is ‘support’.
People came together to help their families, friends, and strangers. We started paying more attention to other people’s feelings and hardships. We have also dared to ask ourselves: what do I want? What am I ready to do? How can I support myself when I have a hard time? In the spring, we created the Volunteer Centre in order to help others, but it would be impossible without the support from our colleagues.
We now know how extracurricular life can exist online: we’ve supported student associations, which, in their turn, supported us and devised more and more new projects, including lectures, quests, festivals, and games.
You know, this year I’ve had a lot of smiles and nice surprises. In spite of everything.
Irina Martusevich
Chief of Staff
In spite of everything, I would call this year rather successful, thanks to a few important personal achievements.
The first thing is a continuing education course for secretaries and assistants of vice rectors and directors. I organized it together with Olga Rybalko, and over 80 staff members of Moscow and other HSE campuses have taken it. I believe this has been an important experience, since we are moving towards complying with professional standards for assistants and secretaries. In addition, we are offering our employees project priorities and thus, motivating them to be creative at work, in addition to performing routine functions.
Second is our work related to the Durasov House (Building A on Pokrovsky Boulevard). I view this project as my baby. We are going to publish a book about the history of the house and create a virtual museum. Currently, we are actively collaborating with various Moscow archives – we are gathering all possible information bit by bit. Our colleagues from MIEM and the Faculty of Communications, Media and Design are helping us create the contents for the museum and the book.
In sum, this year I’ve come to believe once again that nothing is impossible and we are capable of literally anything. What’s most important is to take on responsibility, even in unclear, unexpected situations.
Happy New Year, my dear colleagues and friends!
Ivan Prostakov
HSE Vice Rector
For me, the main thing this past year was that, luckily, the coronavirus didn’t affect anyone in my family. Otherwise, the year was quite interesting, because it brought a new lifestyle and workstyle. These changes haven’t always been radical: in some terms, they had been prepared, while webcams, Zoom and MS Teams, which I acquired, are only superficial attributes. At the end of the day, the growing international student enrolment at HSE University during remote instruction and all the possible limitations, or the instant transition of April Conference online, as well as many other work-related things, are the results of the work our internationalization team had done before the pandemic. But, honestly speaking, when we had to make all the urgent changes, we were afraid we wouldn’t be able to succeed…
As for personal achievements, I can mention three things: I started learning Spanish, discovered Helikon-Opera, and read a few remarkable books recommended by a good friend of mine. I particularly recommend Ilget – Tri Imeni Sudby (Ilget – Three Names of Fate) by Alexander Grigorenko and The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe.