July 27, 2017
An 8-day transcontinental trip.
Dear regulars and visitors to my blog, I continue to pay back my week-old debts. The week in question was pretty hectic. To be more precise, it was an eight-dayer, because it stretched from Monday to Monday.
It all started with my departure from Moscow to St. Petersburg on Sunday evening, and was rounded off by my return from Ekaterinburg to Moscow early on Tuesday morning (right after midnight). All in all, there were four cities on my itinerary, seven flights and 35 hours in the air: Moscow (SVO) – St. Petersburg – Moscow (DME, connection) – Singapore – Sanya – Almaty (refuel) – Ekaterinburg – Moscow (SVO).
The best route from St. Pete to Singapore was via Domodedovo airport in Moscow, where I could catch the direct MOW-SIN (Moscow – Singapore) flight. From St. Pete to Domodedovo, I flew S7 economy class (S7 doesn’t offer business class on this route) without anything of note to report. However, if I have the same sort of connection at Domodedovo again, I will definitely give a full account. Everything there is so messed up inconvenient. They really must have put their minds to it to make it so awkward. I always try to make connections at the far more convenient Sheremetyevo, but this time I had little choice.
Singapore Airlines was top notch, as always. After 10 hours of relaxation, we landed at 6 a.m. in the dream city of Singapore!
The main theme of my visit to Singapore was the INTERPOL-World conference (as you may know, Kaspersky Lab is an official Interpol partner). There was also an accompanying exhibition plus quite a few other events going on nearby. We also held a variety of corporate events in the enormous exhibition center.
The Interpol exhibition is interesting.
It has everything you could possibly need if you want to find, localize and neutralize different kinds of baddies. Quite an interesting job they do! That’s why I decided to wander around the exhibition. By the way, we also have a stand at this exhibition with stuff about bad guys and how good we are!
Lots of interesting stuff going on! On the right, they are demonstrating souped-up octocopters (is that what they’re called? And what if it has 17 rotors…what would you call that?). Anyway, here we have a nice copter model on one side.
And on the other side of the aisle from those copters, there’s a magnetic-ray weapon on display that’s designed to shoot down those very same multirotor drones.
It’s a very diverse exhibition. No danger of getting bored!
Here’s a selfie I took:
Our competitors have also shown up here for some reason. Don’t want to troll them, but this looks like window dressing and nothing more. Next time I see them, I’ll try and hunt down an employee. Might get lucky…
Here’s another curious photo:
This is Hacking Team, that very same Italian company that everybody thought was dead after those infamous events. It now turns out that it’s alive and kicking, and it has promptly taken away that photo from Twitter that A.G. posted there. We are still in written communication with their management, trying to figure out what happened to them.
OK, nuff said. And we carry on walking.
If I happen to say, “first of all” at some point, then an “and then” must certainly follow. Otherwise, you can’t work. First of all, we do something, and then there is a certain result. Then something else is done, and so on and so forth => profit is made, and bonuses are awarded to everybody who participated. This is how a job is done. End of cycle. If there is anybody out there who doesn’t understand this whole thing, go and study at school or university. That’s where your brain is configured to think and come up with things. Of course, there are some people who are just born geniuses, but they are rare. I’ve only met two…(no, not me) and they both work for Kaspersky Lab.
In Kaspersky Lab, there are many different offices. R&D is almost exclusively done in Russia – namely Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk. When it comes to sales, marketing and product support, the company has offices all over the world, including in Singapore.
We have just furnished, equipped and unveiled our new office here in Singapore – it will manage operations across the whole of Asia and ANZ (Australia/New Zealand/Oceania). This is the latest initiative we have come up with. And this is the heart of our Asia/ANZ/Oceania operations:
The views out the office windows are quite nice too. Here is Sentosa, for example:
Here’s another view:
Here’s more of the interior… Looks like they’ve copied the rainy-gray Moscow office design :)
There are also all sorts of pipes and whistles hooting and whistling, with assorted grunts! Next comes a competition to see who looks the silliest, and the winner gets a super-duper multi-tool, satisfaction guaranteed! Sorry. What was I talking about?
OK, back to serious things. So, this was the official opening of the head office for Asia, Australia and Oceania.
Don’t believe me? Just look at what a nice office we’ve got.
Folks have turned up for the party!
I’ve been having a hard time remembering the names of these two creatures. Can anyone help?
Well, I know some of the characters, but don’t really understand the whole meaning. In any case, I know these are good wishes, wishing us many years of happiness and prosperity. OK, we will try our best to make it come true!
And next I head off to Sentosa. You may not believe it, but the Kaspersky Lab office is right next to Singapore’s main resort, which is located on Sentosa Island. (Curious readers can google it.) So that’s where we went to continue the party. These are the cables that start from the building where our new office is, and they take you directly to the resort!
And now for a simple dinner … Oh no, someone’s made a bit of a splash:
What can I say? That’s Singapore for you…
I was giving a presentation and turned around to see this… art installation?! Pretty cool.
All in all, it was very cool!
