Lisa Matusova: Sour cream and other pleasures of a GROW participant's life

The last weeks have brought new unexpected pleasure to my life. For more than 2 weeks I'm one of the hosts of the channel on which I work as a GROW program participant.

The whole story begun as a joke. During our corporate trip to Suomenlinna, in a restaurant with a glass of wine I told my colleagues about my working experience and mentioned the work as a host on St. Petersburg's MTV channel. Then my colleagues just for fun said: "Maybe you should make your own Russian speaking show on our channel?" Supporting the tone of the conversation I answered: "Sure, why not?" 

In 3 weeks everything was ready for the show to start. My colleagues thought that it could become an interesting experiment, as there is about 100,000 Russian speaking people living in Finland, and for them it should become a pleasant surprise.

The working name for the show was Lisa and the Red Square. It was supposed that I will be kind of a special correspondent for Finland in Russia. But then we decided that it would be more interesting to on the contrary underline that the action takes place in Finland, and also to bring my supervision and notes about the Finnish way of life and Finns in the light form of a chat show, to try to pay attention of the Russian speaking people living in Finland on these amusing details and to try to have a dialogue with them. For Finns, this program should become a certain sign that near tothem lives representatives of other cultures, other countries and other language groups. Then I thought that the name of the show should be clear both to Finns and Russian to underline that there is much more in common between us, than it seems at first sight. The name I have chosen was the only common word which I knew by then: Smetana (sour cream). The name is very suitable for the occasion, because my show is a part of the big morning chat show Milk Bar. Besides, sour cream is a real Russian product which has come to Europe from Russia only 65 years ago. In many countries it is still called smetana.

The premier of Smetana took place on October, 9th on Sub. I got to say that my colleagues Henrik Laine, Alexsi Leinonen and Jussi Lipponen who got involved into this adventure are improbably courageous people. First of all, they never saw me working as a host and have simply believed that I can cope with it. Secondly, they don't understand a word I'm saying on the air. And I'm very grateful to them for this courage and for trusting me and believing in me. 

Of course, there were lots of questions. For example, everybody were worried that sms in Russian (I urge to use Latin letters for writing messages) can have obscene or rough character, and with the impossibility of moderation they will get aired in an original form. But in this case everything also has appeared above expectations: I get messages in Russian, English and Finnish languages, and for the 4 shows which have passed by now, there has been no rough or indecent sms.

So now Smetana appears every Wednesday and Friday at 11 am. I discuss a new theme at every show: the difficulties of studying the Finnish language, the relation of Russians to Finns and of Finns to Russians, the question why Finns drink so much milk and also why you won't meet anybody at a Finnish street on a Sunday. In the next shows, I will talk about the Finnish-Swedish relations (for this show I even managed to film some interviews on the street of Stockholm during my working trip to the Bonnier head office), international marriages, Finnish rock, which is so loved by almost all of the Finns including children, and many other things. There should be 10 more Smetana shows before the terms of my GROW program would pass.

It's an improbable experience, and I'm incredibly grateful to the organizers of the GROW program for everything that have occured to me for the last 2 months, MTV Media for such a warm reception, trust and support and of course to Delovoy Peterburg that gave me an opportunity to participate in this program. Please don't forget me and wait for me coming back!

The latest releases of Smetana you can watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H9JwbfmKx4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Uag5LsAnOw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQX1BuvknUk