Dubki Or “You Know, I Am From Dubai”
For those of you who do not live in one of HSE dorms, it might be interesting how students cope with the dorm life and why it is so interesting.
Today I am going to tell you a little bit about the most crowded dormitory of HSE – Dubki.
Dubki, or as we call it Dubai Luxury Village, is a dormitory of HSE, which is located far away not only from the university campuses, but also from Moscow itself. 3223 students from all over Russia and from other countries live here.
To begin with, it is worth mentioning that Dubki is considered the best HSE dormitory. It has won various awards and several times has been called the dormitory with the best infrastructure. Dubki consists of three tall fenced buildings, which altogether give us 487 flats. The number of floors varies from 9 to 12. There is a big sports ground in the inner courtyard. On every third floor, there is a quiet study room with desks, chairs and a whiteboard, where students can study and do their homework.
One to twelve people can live in each flat. All flats are packed with cookers, washing machines, and refrigerators. That is a big advantage in comparison with other HSE dorms, because some dormitories have shared washing machines and laundry rooms. Free Wi-Fi is available in Dubki providing the Internet connection with the speed of 300 megabytes per second (is that okay?).
What is fascinating, for HSE students the dorm is open 24/7, but guests can visit students only from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Speaking about safety, Dubki is a secure dormitory, there is a guard post at the entrance to each building.
Now it is time to discuss the most urgent topic connected with Dubki. This Dorm is in Odintsovo (Moscow region, not Moscow), so it is rather intriguing to try to imagine the complex route from Dubki to Moscow. It all starts with the “traffic jams” in elevators. I live on the 11th floor and every morning when I am late for bus, the elevator cannot but stop on every floor and picks up a billion people. The next challenge is the HSE bus. There are so many people at the bus station in the mornings that you might not be able to get inside and must wait for another one. If the road is empty the bus will be at Odintsovo railway station in 10-15 minutes, but if your bus catches a rush hour it may take much longer. As soon as your bus arrives, all you need to do is to run to buy a train ticket (they make a 50 % discount for students) and try to find a place to sit. Depending on this important part of your mourning routine, you might be sitting or standing for the next 40 minutes. After that, your goal is to leave the train and sweat out the line to the metro. Then you take another train and finally arrive at your faculty building in 15-25 minutes. On average, it takes from 1,5 to 2 hours to get to the destination point.
As you all know, classes start at 9 a.m. in HSE so we have to get up at 6 a.m. in order not to be late for lectures and seminars. The most painful and beyond our understanding thing is to watch how people who live in Moscow are always late.
You see how far Doobki is 😉
Overall, we all love our dormitory although we spend approximately 15-18 hours on public transport per week. Anyway, you can always try to sleep in trains 😊
Dubki is a special community with its unique atmosphere and by the way, the window view here is magnificent!
P.S. Also, you should know that from some Dubki windows the Moscow City business center might be seen, let alone the view from trains.
Text by
Aleksandra Vasileva