*The Debatewise Blog
Nobody expects the Russian delegation!
I only found out yesterday that we had a Russian delegation arriving at Debatewise HQ this morning. One day, of course, we hope that Debatewise will be a global organisation with offices in all major countries, but it's not really that way yet, so their visit was an exciting cultural highlight of the daily grind.It's not every day you get a text on your way into work asking you to pick up milk because the Russians are coming!The delegation was a group of students from Tomsk University and their tutor Oleg who had come to England to learn about British Parliamentary debating. If you've looked at the site (which you should have!) you will realise we don't work by anything as formal as British Parliamentary format. We're pretty much what would happen 'if Wikipedia met British Parliamentary Debate in an internet chat room'. But I sensed this may confuse them. So I called upon vague memories of BP format from my Cambridge Union days and explained as best as I could. Unfortunately niether Dave or I felt well placed to demonstrate it to them. But we did have tea and croissants and chatted about the differences in Debating styles and techniques in our two nations (apparently we are too emotional, and anyone waving their arms around and shouting 'here here!' would get ridiculed in Russia. I sort of hope they meet Boris
) I was even shown the Russian version of Facebook and a video of Russian debating.We were presented with gifts of ornamental plates and tasty chocolate (and as Alex discovered to his slight panic they also gave his laptop a propensity to type in Russian, but we soon rectified that!) Overall a very pleasant experience all round and I hope the delegates took something away from their time with us. Perhaps Debatewise 'ru' isn't too far off! 