Last weekend I finally saw how Maslenitsa is celebrated in London, it actually is an annual event here but to date I have never managed to see it, so I finally decided to fill in this gap in my view of the London events. Like many other ethnic holiday celebrations it was held on the Trafalgar Square...

Here I should probably make a brief comment for those who are not sure what Maslenitsa actually is. Basically, this is a Russian carnival, a festival to celebrate the coming of spring, a week during which pancakes (which symbolise the Sun) are eaten in quite huge quantities with all types of fillings and just on their own. This is Shrove Tuesday stretched out for a week, and after this week the 40-day long Lent starts. On Sunday, the last day of the Maslenitsa week and the highlight of the celebrations a straw doll representing winter is traditionally burned. All in all, this is one of those wonderful occasions when pagan and Christian tradition are mixed and happily co-exist. I personally really like this period for its joyful spirit and pancakes, even though being someone who actually loves proper snowy winters I find it unfair that no other season is pushed away with such ferocity...

Upon arriving on the square I found it filled with a fairly gruesome crowd, which could be roughly separated into two groups - those who spoke Russian and knew what the holiday was about looking half-bored half-embarrassed by the stalls with traditional matruoshka dolls, and those who did not speak Russian and thus left to wonder what the concert host was going on about... London boasts a population of 7 million and a good number of tourists, so filling up a square was not that hard, but frankly speaking after walking around for 20 minutes, there was only one conclusion you would arrive no matter where you came from and what your language skills are - the event was boring. Even the fact that towards the end of it Chaif, a rather popular Russian Rock band would perform, could not make me stay there, waiting for 2-3 hours just didn't seem worth it! So I disappeared into the National Gallery instead...But the thoughts of how wonderfully this event could be organised keep haunting me, so I decided to note them down here and probably send them on to organisers as feedback and suggestions for the future.

So, how I would've done it...
1. Location - take the spot nearby the Southbank centre instead of the Trafalgar square, that would allow much more flexibility as you could have a concert, some outdoor games and also indoor activities all located nearby. Taking into account late February-early March weather is tricky to predict, such variety of spots would've allowed people to stay warm and enjoy the celebrations longer. Also, I suspect that burning a straw doll in that field by the London Eye might be feasible, while in Trafalgar square no mayor in their right mind would allow you to do that. And yes, Maslenitsa celebrations without burning the doll loose half its charm!

2. Programme - prepare a varied programme of indoor and outdoor activities
One of the main reasons, why the last weekend event was so tremendously boring is that there was nothing, literally nothing to do there, and one 'Children's Activities' stall was not near enough to accommodate for the number of kids, so people just gave up on it right away. While if you think of it there are plenty of things one could do there!

Outdoors:
- Folk dancing - arrange mass workshops of traditional Russian dance to folk music. Those 10 moves every Russian learns in kindergarten and never really manages to forget would be fun to do, both for those who know them but have not done anything like that for may be 20 years and those who have never tried anything like that! As a result, both parts of the target audience of our event are entertained and kept warm! And for some it would even be a small discovery trip into a different culture!
- Rope games and other traditional games - again, here the participants can compete in teams or on their own, and it would be fun for both children and adults
- Concert - the concert as such is a good idea, so there's no need to abandon it, though the list of participants might be expanded

Indoors:
- Painting in all the different traditional styles. I fact, it is very easy, but still it is important for someone to point out the different techniques and let the people play around with it
- Story telling - Russian fairy tales are little known and are actually a great way to learn more about the culture, just as any fairy tales are
- Pancake workshop - potentially getting one or two Russian cuisine restaurants do some activity to find new clients would be a good idea

And more ideas for businesses - all the different kinds of these - from food stalls to arts, crafts and fashion designers could be invited (which would be useful for raising funds for the event!)

3. Cooperation - Liaise with museums and may be businesses to turn the event into a showcase of the Russian culture. In fact, there are so many bits and pieces one could do in cooperating with other museums, that I am not going to list these here. Starting with the British Museum, the V&A and the National Portrait Gallery and ending with the National Maritime Museum - there are really, really plenty of things one could do.

Well, let's hope it will be more fun in a year :)

I think this is the third such note I leave here, promising my final return to this page (let's hope this time I keep posting here a little bit longer). Though I regularly read selected blogs here I could never quite bring myself to writing, but well, I guess I might give it another go.

Quite a few things changed since I last made an entry here, with the major positive change being me getting a better job (this happened quite a while ago but then the latest entries were also made quite some time ago and still tell about my time in the Mad House). Luckily, this fact does not mean that there are not enough things to notice and think about around me, on the contrary, their number is growing and they are getting more and more interesting. I can see things changing, and my attitudes to professional relationships changing as well, with me learning to act in a more diplomatic way (and it took me a while to understand that this includes not just being tactful and striving for peace). So that is the brief update on the current status of things...

What I actually wanted to write here is a little note about product placement in movies and series. As I happily watch BBC Sherlock fandom gaining strength and blossoming beautifully all around, I can't help realising that this series, apart from being brilliant as such, are a great example of proper product placement. Surely the fact that it is placed in the modern time and in actual reality helps as it allows it include already existing things into the movie. Another helpful thing is that its target audience includes quite a wide age group, mainly consisting of adults, which means that the purchasing power is there. So with the good use of stylists and decorators you get a set which appears completely fascinating for the audience and each element of which can be found in the real world (thus allowing recreating the image on the screen in real life without having to purpose-manufacture things). The rest is done by the dedicated fans who track down where each piece of the favourite universe came from and create a detailed catalogue with links, prices and excited comments. The products are thus advertised throughout the fan community and spread around even wider as the series becomes more and more popular. Now there all that's left for the producers is to make sure things are available in stock (or will be available in stock, as in the case with the famous Sherlock's coat) and, importantly, not to spoil the hunt for the fans by boasting too much about their products being used in Sherlock series - no fan would like their love being publicly exploited.

And this is exactly how it is done in Sherlock. In fact, it was all executed with such elegance and skill that I believe it should be used as a case study in marketing classes. Now, aren't BBC producers adorable? :)

There is one thing worse then an ignorant and unwilling salesperson - the salesperson who jumps on you and starts pushing you so hard you want to defend yourself with whatever your hand can grab. They go on you as a falcon would go on a mouse, once they spot you they feel no mercy.

Some people believe this works. And it does, sometimes. But what I wonder about is if the consumers actually fall prey to their fierce persuasion (as the salespeople might think), or simply duck out of this immense pressure by buying something for the sake of their life and sanity. In fact, you could see such hard selling as a certain type of bullying, though standing up for yourself and telling the salesperson in their face to shut up and leave you in peace would not be something everyone can do. At the end we all understand that this is just their job, many companies make them do this.

But people selling the ideas in this way are even scarier then the shop assistants which jump on you as soon as you enter the shop. As soon as they start to talk all glowing with the fake enthusiasm, you know something is wrong. You suddenly feel miserable and the sheer fact that you get in a situation like this, makes you depressed. Or is it just sceptical me who gets sick of fast-moving, fake-smiling, over-enthusiastic people?

Whether others share my viewpoint or not, I can tell for sure that never ever will I buy something from a hard-selling salesperson. Even if I need the product. I'd rather go somewhere else and do it on my own will, rather then endorse these violent predators and the companies who send them hunt.

Indinan princesses kidnapped in early childhood, long-lost relatives from various parts of Afrika and now barrister Lee Elaine Chin from Malaysia for some reason writing from xavier.dennis@hotmail.com, all with 'interesting busness proposals". I even answer them sometimes, just out of boredom and must say their fantasy is truly unlimited. When they finally realise there's no point of writing such e-mails I'll probably even miss them))

Right, I have been thinking of starting to write in English for quite some time now and once this account already exhists for quite a while creating a separate blog for such purposes does not make much sence. Most probably, the posts here will be more marketing-related or contain some piece of reflection which will not fit anywhere else but here.

Frankly speaking, at this very moment I've got a very vague idea of formatting what I write and absolutely no desire to plunge into technical details right now  but this might improve in future. Anyway, I welcome myself in here (how pathetic!) and hope this first entry won't become the last one as well.