Rally Tyva-2008

A group of Sibersers returned from a 7-day motor rally to Republic of Tyva, which is located at the Mongolia border. We experienced deserts and taiga, temperature drops to -2C/28F, mountain passes of 2200 meters above sea levels and virgin lakes almost in Mongolia. The 4500 km/2800 mile-journey revealed the land of shamans and yurts and made us challenge ourselves.

GPS track of the rally

Two of our cars in Gobi desert

It’s the end of the world

Yurts by mountains

Our crew

Sibers Trainees Graduate

Today we celebrated graduation of our first trainees. During last month they worked on real-life (internal though) software projects under constant supervision of their tutors, our senior developers. The group consisted of 4 students of Novosibirsk University. They improved their skills in PHP, C++ Unix, C# and Flash programming. Two of them received job offers from Sibers. This was a very good experience for trainees and us and we’re recruiting a new group of trainees for our summer software development camp.

Charity Night

Sibers charity activities got recognized by the Novosibirsk Charity Fund and city administration. For the constant help and attention of everyone in Sibers for a girl with cerebral spastic infantile paralysis, we were awarded a diploma and a charity medal.

In a photo, our customer care Regina talks about everyone’s involvement in the charity activities and the girl’s success in her recovery.

New Room

We expand our software development offices in Akademgorodok to a new room and throw a small party in it. This room was the one Key-Soft began at, and now we’re returning to the roots.

Right now our team is spread in 6 offices in Akademgorodok and one large office in the city of Novosibirsk.

TurtleMania

Welcome two new residents of Sibers software development office in Akademgorodok: two red-eared sliders!

Shopping Malls in Gulag

Ubiquitous New York Times has recently published a quite controversial article describing shopping boom in Siberia. We at Sibers just couldn’t leave it unnoticed.

The article describes Siberia as an awkward place to live, where only hopeless descendants of Gulag prisoners remain: “The winters are long, the distances vast”. People are “living with several generations crammed into tiny apartments”. Probably authors don’t know that in such “provincial Russian town like” Novosibirsk, a square meter of a new apartment costs from 2,600 to 6,000 USD.

Pictures made us laugh. A toothless Siberian aboriginal with a 3-day shadow wearing a kepka is indeed a best illustration of savage population that’s just back from a “miner’s riot”. A log-assembled half-ruinos wooden hut growing from gray melted snow is no doubt a usual habitation of Novosibirsk Ikea customers who are in just one step from getting accustomed to “outsized yellow sized carts” that more advanced civilizations brought to them from overseas.

PHP Skills Tested: Top 1

Today our development teams started with the Elance skills certification process that is aimed at unbiased examination of Elance provider’s expertise.

The first test was a thorough check of PHP5 development skills. 40 questions held our PHP developers rapt for long 45 minutes. Although our PHP gurus handed their tests before the time elapsed, they all needed a good cup of coffee to recreate.

The test results were amazing but not surprising: 90 of 100 points brought us to the Top 1 rating in PHP5 development expertise among Elance providers.

View our Elance profile and software development expertise level along with references at hirerussians.elance.com

Hockey World Champ: Russia - Canada 5-4

It’s the first time since 1993 when Russia wins the gold at the World Ice Hockey Championships. We congratulate our team with the historic victory at Quebec!

Bike To Work

This week, 12-16 of May is the Bike To Work Week in many U.S. cities. Although we are not in the U.S., bikes are very popular in Sibers and we fully support this initiative! Living and working in Academic Campus, it is a real pleasure to travel by bike to work and home, to the beach and inside the surrounding forests. Sibers encourages its employees to ride their bikes and built a special secure bicycle parking near the office. After-work bike trips became a good tradition among Sibersers, and if you’re new to it, we’ll show you around.

You can learn more about the BikeToWorkWeek at its official site: www.biketoworkweek.org

Welcome Spring - 2008

It was slow but inevitable: trees turn green, sun gets warm, and Sibers celebrates Spring! Birds are piping too loud and we got outside to take a sip of traditional port and burn a New Year’s tree carefully preserved by our DigitalTee team.

Beating a Siberian tambourine to keep off clouds and rain.

Burning a New Year’s tree to ensure that winter doesn’t come back.