Cultural insights into Scandinavia.

Many of my friends were puzzled when I have chosen a small town, up in the north of Denmark, Aalborg, over the ‘city of dreams’ and of great buzz, London. The answer was easy. I wanted to concentrate on my studies, and found it difficult to concentrate surrounded by London's noise, needed a break from the busyness, needed to sort out my thoughts, which I found difficult to do in London. I have made the most of London over the past twelve years and it was the time to move on, to search for a place where there was no buzz, but peace, time to reflect on my experiences, and simply some order to my life. London was great when I needed inspiration and life experience, it was a great platform for inspiration, for networking, and of course, career development. But there was no need for external world to inspire me anymore, my head craved more freedom and space instead and it was wild nature that I felt could bring me more inspiration then megapolis. I was not enjoying any of the city’s pleasures, I have been to many galleries, gigs, concerts, theatre performances and it was not something I was enjoying anymore. I was not enjoying acquiring new relationships every week without anyone wanting to keep their relationships going, I didn’t enjoy feeling that only reasons people would find me interesting and would invite me to their fancy parties only because they found me ‘useful’ in their career climbings. I wanted some more honesty and slower pace of life, where I would have time to work on my projects and concentrate on things that were more meaningful in life.

I was always fascinated by how different Scandinavia is from the rest of the world, colder temperatures also looked attractive to me, as I, being born in Russian Saint-Petersburg, represented a proper northerner. It was also my personal interest in a social political system that Scandinavian countries shared and I was hoping that coming to Denmark to study would help me understand its culture and its people better. I was lucky enough to meet a few Danes before coming to Denmark who were genuinely good people with characteristics I always respected in people, polite, rational, calm, honest and direct.

I have also heard about ‘Danish happiness’ which I thought was more about people themselves and how they saw things rather then about Danish greatness as a country. Danes just know how to appreciate what they have, accept things as they are and feel satisfied with them. My rather confused self craved that sense of order and peace they had in their communities.

They were educational statistics that I was very much impressed with and high rankings in students’ satisfaction. Programs were well designed and were very much personalized. It seemed Danish Universities were interested in educating its students to the highest level and cared about students do well in the future. I have never had this feeling in England, especially while studying in London. In London I thought it was much more materialized, it was more about appearances and self-marketing rather then real knowledge. English professors were very much preoccupied with their own research, they hardly had any time for their students, and of course not for any personal contact with them. Maybe it was just my personal unlucky experience with my particular degree, but that is how I saw things and that is why I did not want to carry on with my future development in England.  

And so the decision was made to come to Aalborg as they had a multi-disciplinary Masters degree that I thought could help me to narrow down my interests and help me choose my future path. It is a great experience I must say, I am learning new things every day, not just from my lectures, but from people around me, from Scandinavian culture, nature and air. I could not be any happier. Sometimes I wonder when I am going to start missing the buzz.. Can’t get enough of that peace, quietness and space.


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