Unexpected VISA delays forced Oulu company IT worker to turn hotel room into makeshift office.

Yuri Vasiyarov, a 24 year-old Russian with a degree in IT, finally arrived in Oulu on Friday. For the previous six weeks he had been stuck in Moscow waiting for his VISA to be approved.

‘I presented the embassy with my documents and they said, “Okay. Wait here.” And it took about one and a half months,’ he explains.

Hailing from a city over 1000km from Moscow, Yuri had no choice but to book into a hotel and begin his new job for the Oulu-based advertising company Faarao from his hotel bedroom.

‘The work is mainly based around the internet and we communicated through email and SKYPE,’ he recalls, adding, ‘Maybe my English is not that good but it’s good enough to communicate here at work.’

Faarao specialises in web-based advertising

Faarao specialises in web-based advertising and one of Yuri’s main clients, while conducting his work amidst a bed and a mini-bar, was ‘Medikit.’ Also based in Oulu, the company imports and sells first-aid products for ambulances and other private customers.

‘We import from the UK, Italy, China . . . these things are not produced in Finland,’ explains company boss Minna Åman-Tovio. Like Faarao, Medikit is also international. ‘We have a Chinese employee called Xin. He is in charge of making contacts in China,’ states Mrs Åman-Tovio, whose husband is a doctor.

‘Our business is based completely on the internet,’ she continues. ‘We have no catalogue. We use Google-ads and I wanted to locate the best company to make our webshop. This is how I found out about Faarao and they had a new website designer who would work for me . . . but they said he worked from Russia because he couldn’t get his licence to come to Finland!’

But Yuri is now in Oulu and, fortunately, it seems it was worth the wait. ‘It’s quite a nice city,’ he muses. ‘It’s very clean and beautiful and not too crowded. I like it!’