ISA Training Day 4: A Chance to Look (and touch!) Mammoth Tusk and Fancy Dinner at Kvartirka Cafe

If you ever watched the Ice Age movie franchise, you must be familiar with Manfred or Manny. Manny is a mammoth who has a grumpy, sarcastic, and standoffish personality, yet he's really loving and courageous. Of course no! I'm not going to review the movie(s). But if you haven't watched the movie, better googling the word "mammoth" because at least one picture from this post will be connected to that.

"Kvartirka" Soviet Cafe: a place for the fancy dinner that night. (Picture by me)

Damn! My first paragraph looks serious. Okay, so we have three courses that day. All of them are really fascinating. The first one is Physical Oceanography given by Ass. Prof. Dr. Victor Ionov. I'm not familiar with physical oceanography before. After the class, at least I can tell that what happens in the atmosphere is influenced by what is happening in the ocean. This lecture will still be continued tomorrow.

Ah, forget to mention. So, the first course was given at the Institute of Earth Sciences of Saint Petersburg State University. If I'm not mistaken, it was at POMOR (polar and marine research) classroom. After that, there's still a big-time gap until the next lecture that is located at VNIIOkeangeologia. We're in an awkward situation where launch time is still 2 hours away but our stomachs need something to eat. So, the cozy cake shop was our destination.

Some cakes we ordered. Looks delicious, doesn't it? (Photo by Bia)

Enjoying time between courses. Left-right: Rubel, me, Bia, Artyom, Amina, Jose, Isuri, and Dolo. (Picture by me)

The second lecture was a continuation from yesterday, namely Marine Environmental Studies from Livia Ermakova. This time regarding the law of the United Nations and several recommendations for studies by the International Seabed Authority which are carried out in exploration and exploitation of deep-sea minerals in international waters, or "the Area", as the law said. I've always got easily bored with anything law-related before. But this was different. After this course, I learned that study law is important and doesn't hurt my brain. Haha.

The training was closed with the course "Shallow-water mineral deposits" given by Dr. Alex Seleznev translated by Alexander Smirnov. The most interesting part about this lecture was we can see a Mammoth tusk, even touch it.

A picture of me holding a Mammoth tusk. (Picture by me)

Jose (left [duh!]) and Bia (right) also holding the Mammoth tusk. (Pictures by Dolo)

We took a bus on our way back to the hotel. For bus transportation, I think Jakarta is more advanced than Saint Petersburg. Jakarta uses a bus rapid transit (or BRT) system. As the name suggests, it's easier to transit from one line to another, with one tap to pay on the first bus stop and one tap again on the last bus stop. We have 23 bus corridors/lines so far, make it the longest BRT system in the world. In Saint Petersburg, we need to tap on each bus, and the bus staff will check whether you've already paid or not.

In the evening, we're going to have dinner outside. I guess it's because we've little had enough with dinner food at the hotel. We waited for Artyom at the front of Vasileostrovskaya. I think we arrived earlier. The good thing was I can see Saint Petersburg's atmosphere during rush hour after work.

People passed by in front of the Vasileostrovskaya metro station during work hours. (Photo by me)

After we met Artyom, we headed to Kvartirka Soviet Cafe. It's located only around 200 meters from the station. The last time I check the cafe is no longer there. It's on Nevsky Avenue now. Anyway, the concept of the cafe is delivering people with Soviet times nostalgia. I like how "all-out" this cafe delivered the concept. Starting from the cuisine until the interior design. I was impressed by how detail they implemented the concept. Even, they have tube TV from the old times. Besides, the song played is also nostalgic songs.