Getting and sending Mail from friends Wi-Fi iPhone

Hello -
Postings by others about problems with Mail access from others Wi-Fi networks havent helped me resolve my issue. The only place I have Mail access problems through Wi-Fi networks is at a friends home in Russia. I link to his network with no trouble, and can access the Internet with Safari and other apps, but Mail cannot send or receive email. I had to manually enter a proxy server address and password to get Internet access through the network here; is something similar required to get and send Mail?
Thanks!
David
MacMini 2.53/2x2G; MacBook 13.3 2GHz Aluminum Mac OS X (10.6.3) 20" Cinema Display; iPhone 3G 16GB; iPod Photo 40 GB;