A stitch in time saves… 29!

Privyet, droogs!

Yes – we’ve been stitching time and saving the world a full 29 years already! And last Friday we celebrated those 29 years in typically unrestrained, loud, colorful, and rock & rollicking style. Also typical: the venue – the only one in the Moscow Region that can fit us all in: the Zavidovo resort complex:

Yet another typical: the weather didn’t cooperate right away…

But we pulled through and got the job done!

Here at K, for those who might not know, we work real hard and play real hard – especially every July on the occasion of the Kompany’s b-day. And this year was no exception – naturally!

And as per – it was a belter!

So what did we have here?…

29^th birthday: how do you come up with a theme based on that? (And there’s always a theme.) Looks tricky, right? Wrong! A hotel-&-travel-&-beach-holiday storyline sprang to mind! After all, we’re a global company, with offices all over this fine world of ours, with our folks crisscrossing it all the time. (I alone stay in around 80 hotel rooms a year; if you extrapolate that across the rest of the company’s comings and goings, you’re looking at thousands of transactions, hotels, transfers, and so on.) So there we had it – theme sorted; just add hotel rooms, keys, and slippers (and more – see below)…

More on the theme: the K-crowd take a lot of transfers on their travels – between airports and venues and hotels. So we added… a party bus to the theme! But of course we did! (Inside: loud nightclub scenes to get the party vibe going, by all accounts).

+1 to the theme: no matter where we travel to or for what purposes (even just for one of our conferences), we practically always make sure there’s a beach nearby; and that includes here at Zavidovo. You’ve seen the sandy beach here. We just added the beach paraphernalia! ->

PPS on the theme: hotel luggage trolleys (oh, those creatives in our internal events dept.!) ->

The company’s birthday is always a work-free, festive, euphoric day. Whoever wants to swim, swims, dance – dances, chill – chills, chew the fat with colleagues – chews the fat, act a bit silly – acts that way, go on some water attractions… ->

There were also all kinds of climbing, squeezing-through, and extreme-contortion attractions, but I’ve showed all those in previous years. Here was something new – but I still don’t know what it is ->

Last time there was a KAMAZ dumper truck with a swimming pool in its dumper. This year the battiness went one further! ->

This year – our own beer! ->

Selfies non-stop wore me out somewhat – but what can you do?!

And all sorts of other bits and bobs – even yoga on the lawn, for some reason combined with drinking kvass:

Progressively more and more dancing as the day… progressed ->

Now for the stats:

– five K-folks’ bands

– 97 K-folks took part in the variety shows

– 82 hours of vocal, dance, and staging rehearsals!

Particularly curious figures:

– During employee rides, the excavator made 850 full turns around its axis

– 300 bottles of kvass were drunk in the yoga pose

– 3,500 balloons were inflated for hats // What this was all about – I don’t know

– 250 new acquaintances were made in the travel-buddies club // Ditto

– 250 Hawaiian cocktails were drunk in the secret bar // Where was that? How come it was a secret kept from me?!!

– 250 guests cracked the authorization code // What?! Again I was left out – and this one sounds right up my street!

– 2,200 items were sold in the duty-free // I didn’t have any money on me

– More than 600 guests earned five stars // I categorically don’t need any stars

– Nine beer safes were cracked open // Seriously: what, where? Why not me?!

– More than 800 jumps under a palm tree // No photos, alas

– 500 people battled for the ball in kayaks // Ditto

And also:

– 8.5 tons of food eaten

– 15.5 tons of drinks supped

– 58 transfer buses: a record

And an unknown number of people – unknown to me, anyway – enjoyed performances by our very own musicians:

The stats continue…

This year we set a record for the number of partygoers: a total of 3,650 company employees and specially invited guests! Around 2,000 folks in all worked on putting the celebration together! (That’s absolutely everyone – including loaders, security, and everybody else.)

As evening approached, it was time for the traditional employee variety-comedy show:

The guests take their seats on the beach, while others stand around:

Our hosts for the evening:

The jury gets ready to score the teams (traditionally, three teams perform) ->

And we’re off!…

The shows were just great – and went down a storm.

Announcing the winners:

Performers’ group photo – well done everyone! ->

Evening was setting in, and our first star guests were Moral Code X ->

Next up – Neuromonakh Feofan and his bear 😊 ->

He absolutely owned the crowd ->

Later – two bears ->

There was great chemistry between the bears. (Phew. It could have gone awry. Like with cats – you just never know!) I’m told our Midori was about to head down from the stage onto the dancefloor, but Neuromonakh’s bear – an experienced professional when it comes to mass performances, firing up large crowds, and keeping the artists safe at the same time – wouldn’t let him. That’s bear-style looking-after-each-other for you ).