Digital October - the lair of crazy ideas and coworking center

Red October once had cookies and sweets. Now ITUs and some really strange positive people have gotten into the factory premises. During the last business trip there, Habrayuser Lesnikova , the head of the local project Knowledge Stream, offered to look at the office and allowed to shoot everything, including hardware.

Inside it turned out to be a lot of interest: a cool modern bar for startups and people, a deep elevator shaft that you should look into on the way to the toilet, a co-working space (I finally realized that these were not apartments with freelancers), a fencing closet and many other interesting pieces But the mine is the worst. Here it is, covered with a thin layer of durable glass.
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I was able to force myself to go only with the third attempt. And - carefully: under the cut traffic.

It all begins with a wardrobe and a rescue, followed by such a lobby right here: different conferences are held here. If you were on a pair of the latest mobile technology, then you probably know this place.



During my walk, the tablecloths were being smoothed: a conference was being held, plus a new lecture with teleconference was supposed to be in the evening. “Is the reception free?” - it turns out, no, only when there is a sponsor. Information is free, but atoms are either in the bar or from good people.



Traces of the former industrial building are everywhere, but they do not mask, but rather emphasize.



Right on the brick wall hanging screen with navigation. During conferences, useful information is broadcast there.



Next - the entrance to the Progress Bar. Great place with an unreal professional bartender. I really like the name.



The screensaver DO is poured on another screen. During conferences, the monitor is used for the schedule and schedule.



From the windows you can see the river and the temple. In general, the building is very well lit by natural light.



Here is another column with a log, here is also a UI element:



Bar Room:



In the back of the bar there is a dining room, where they feed meals for about 300 rubles. Julia tells how they traveled to California: “All IT-companies had to go to the canteen. MS gave us a good feed right in the meeting room, and Google can eat all day meals for almost all nations of the world. ”



Food selection rack:



The food itself, it must be dragged to the bar: places for lunch are usually occupied.



Caitlin, a fellow intern at Stanford, sits down next to me. She works in the Knowledge Stream with foreigners and at the same time teaches Russian. When she goes for tea, comments: “Gone to find water.”



WC in the back of the bar. Geographically, there are offices and coworking PWC, so local people joke that it’s worth adding the letter P - and everyone will be completely confused.



In the toilet really does not reach: on the way mine from the picture on top of the topic. There she is shot with a flash, here - without. Resembles something from a star warrior or some shooter. It’s scary to walk on the glass - I don’t even know how many people were killed without failing.



This is the door to the shelter. If you look only at her, then you can go through the mine almost immediately and without losing weight.



The toilet itself.



And here is a sign of experienced risk management. Chances to screw up are extremely low.



At the exit of the bar I notice another room in a different style. It is called here “the room of mother and child”, perhaps because they do not smoke here.



After the bar down the hall we go to the office part. There are different old photos on the walls, and few really popular friends.



View from the window. If there are permits, in the summer there will be a platform for a cafe. I want it already.



View of the courtyard of the Red October:



There is an ad on the way. It is not the first on the walls, but one of the most revealing. In general, all communications here are made in this spirit: the atmosphere is light and slightly insane.



The first directly office. The figure table is interesting: it is specially such that one can sit down in pairs or three with laptops.



Office of the project. Caitlin knits while broadcasting!



She also pulled out a Num Lock so that it doesn’t hit on accidentally, and uses a “hard call” + tablet.



Julia negotiates with Scott Cohen (the founder of The Orchad, this is the opposite of Pirate Bay) about the lecture. Scott in distant London has problems like we have in the Moscow region - the provider promises 3 megabits, but in fact it gives less. For him, you need to find a conversation in a business center or an Internet cafe in the city center, from where he will go on a teleconference.



Given that all MacBooks look like this:



Traditional greetings. Well, not a permanent marker, he lay next.



And this is a wardrobe with fencing accessories. Just when you want to warm up, they arrange a mini-workout. I also wanted to participate, but now there is a rearrangement in the building, so the schedule was a little shaken up. In general, there is a whole fencing club with the motto “Fight or Agree”: someone fences, someone at this time is discussing projects.



Near something connect. Here, somewhere near, data from video cameras from polling stations will be processed, so the shukher is scary.



From the window you can see the old sign:



Now we go to the lecture hall. There are vacuuming and testing screens. Unfortunately, I did not find the moment when they checked the equipment of holographic communication, but, they say, it was just fantastic. According to eyewitnesses, half of the hall was occupied with iron so that a man from America could wave his hand to all those present. Another couple of years of such progress - and it will be possible to beat in the face by IP.



For the lecturer there are two soufflero monitors, one is the countdown of the lecture time:



A specially trained robot crawling around the room on a suspension, who is shooting for a lecturer. On the camera of the robot can switch and director from the studio next.



Cables are attached to the floor of the building material of the future:



We go in the technical room. Instruments - Sea:



Now there is a system calibration, the sound disappears again. “Well, this is high-tech iron, of course, something will happen!”



On these screens during the event are data from different cameras. The director switches between them and gives the desired picture to the main thread, plus starts the presentations for the lecturer from here.



The lecturer, by the way, manages the presentation of the presentation from his laptop with the help of some frivarnoy software.



I ask a specialist: are there any breaks during lectures? He tells the whole story about the fact that all speakers are asked to test the connection the day before the event. It is not necessary to go to the business center with a strong connection, but you can send a secretary. If the speaker does not have an HD camera, they bring it to him and connect it - this also needs to be organized. If there is no good connection - find a place somewhere in the city and invite there. There are at least one test, usually two or three. The second option is to work through our own “bases” in Palo Alto, Boston (and soon at MIT), where everything is set up and ready to receive a lecturer.



This is what the interpreter booths look like. They, in the best traditions of the translation of videotapes of the 90s, issue a simultaneous translation of the speaker into Russian and vice versa into English, when the lecturer is asked questions.



Somewhere there is iron hiding, which translates the sound from the translator into devices that are distributed to people in the hall. By the way, they give out these things for free after presenting a passport. Recently, they began to issue and for showing rights - many people simply do not take passports with them.



Now we go to the coworking center. Behind the bar there is another room for business meetings. Here serious projects are discussed:



Apparently, now just will be something very serious:



There are strange things on the shelves:



In the window you can see parking:



Here is the first coworking office.



Here is the second:



But the room Kommersant club. They have strange fish on the cabinet:



And a golden brick. He was given to all Internet workers on the day of October.



We return to the bar. On the walls hang old paintings in modern processing:



Here is another one:



Behind the hall there is a steep old staircase:



Actually, everything. I also asked Julia to show photos of the hall when a lecture is being held. Here they are:



Lectures here almost every other day, so the iron is very cool.


The screens show support materials or twitter walls:




Digital October is on Habré, if something is interesting, you can ask them questions. Immediately I answer a few obvious ones: the co-working center is described somewhere on the site: there is a club, which gives discounts on the rental of everything, including cabinets, talks, lecture halls and the main hall. Yes, many modern IT conferences are held there. Yes, there you can come to any lecture and jointly de-anonymize in the corridor during the buffet table. And, yes, Julia agreed with Cohen from the photo, and he will read the other day. The beauty is that he will read after a very positive comrade Barlow, who told me how to deal with copiers.

UPD : Photos from Julia just from Barlow's lecture about copywriting, DO right now hung up with her report . There's still a couple without these healthy copyrights. Yes, by the way, there is one more interesting feature with lectures: after them you can communicate with various interesting people, often - leaders of the sphere in the Russian Federation. On this one, there were Spout from SUP, Gatov from RIA “Novosti” and so on.

And the last, of course, the most interesting - where does the money come from for a bunch of free lectures with stars? Firstly, the sponsors of Rostelecom, and secondly, they answer that Digital October is a private project that serious people started to develop business in Russia only humanly and correctly. Lectures allow you to find a bunch of promising people and “ignite” ideas. Despite the fact that there is no business incubator, there are already examples of very successful large projects.

In general, I don’t know how about a real practical effect, but free smart lectures are cool.