Okaziya--A Novel Use of the Internet


List Name: Okaziya: Offers/requests to carry mail/docs/etc. to/from Russia
List address: [email protected]

Mail service into the NIS being what it is, at one time or another nearly everyone with a friend or partner in the NIS has asked somebody traveling there from the U.S. the favor of delivering some letters or a small package. Usually, people are willing to do this. But how often does any given individual needing to send something to the NIS know a person who is leaving soon, willing to take a small package, and going to the right city? And if no such person is immediately available, who can spend a lot of time on the telephone, looking for a needle in the haystack: somebody who is able to play the role of friendly courier to Russia, Ukraine, or Uzbekistan--in the next few days?

This has been a problem without a solution for many years. In recent years, DHL, FedEx and other services have come along to offer relatively reliable package delivery to certain cities in the NIS, but the cost of using this service is not cheap.

Now a student at MIT has developed another solution, using the Internet to create a very low-cost sort of "electronic cooperative of couriers." For this is what "Okaziya," a listserv created by Ilya Shlyakhter, in fact is.

Okaziya is a Russian word that, says Shlyakhter, means "occasion" or "opportunity." As Ilya explains it:

My best friends are in St. Petersburg and I write them letters, but I don't use regular mail because it takes too long and may get lost. I usually need something to push me to sit down and write a letter--like an opportunity to have it delivered if I finish it by a certain deadline. I'm sure there are other people like me. So I set up a listserv.

CCSI has already used the "Okaziya" listserv to have a diskette carried to Novosibirsk via a person visiting London. (We mailed the diskette to London.)

"Okaziya" exists both as an Internet mailing list (listserv) and as an automated database.


To subscribe to the mailing list
Send a message with the words:

subscribe okaziya firstname lastname
to the following address:

[email protected]


Ilya has also worked with Greg Cole at "Friends and Partners" to create a computer program, which automatically matches okaziya offers to okaziya requests.

To make an offer
Send an email message to:

[email protected]
In the Subject line of the e-mail message type:

OKAZIYA OFFER
Then, in the body of the message type (for example):

Dest: VLADIVOSTOK KAZAN
or whatever cities you are planning to visit. The system will automatically send an e-mail message giving your e-mail address to everyone needing to send a letter or small parcel to those cities.

To make a request, simply substitute REQUEST for OFFER in the Subject line.

Messages on the list have appeared both in English and transliterated Russian. For more information, contact Ilya Shlyakhter at: [email protected]

This article is from the February 1995 issue of
Net Talk

For more information or to order a subscription, see our publications page.


The URL for this page is: http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/~ccsi/nettalk/95-02/okaziya.htm
Last updated: March 29, 1995

Center for Civil Society International
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