Back in the (Former) USSR.

I’ve been pretty quiet on this blog for the past few months, but instead of continuing to bore you with more Dostoevsky and Gogol quotes about St. Petersburg and the Russian soul (speak to my heart, though they do), I’m going to shake things up a little bit because guess what?  I’m in Russia.  For the next two months I have the wonderful opportunity to study Russian in the city of Kazan through the U.S. Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship Program.  This program brings together a diverse group of students with diverse interests to improve their language skills through intensive study at the Kazan Institute of Social and Humanitarian Science. 

After a series of five flights and a pre-departure orientation in Washington, D.C., we were welcomed to Kazan by the director of our program Natalya Kraeva, who after a brief greeting and orientation in the airport lobby sent us all on our merry way to our host families.  I have the privilege of living with Nina Ivanovna, a retired professor of psychology.  After a wonderful, Russian dinner my first evening in her home, Nina Ivanovna’s friend Elena came over, and while we sat around the table enjoying tea and chocolates, the two women told me all about the celebration they attended early that day in honor of the one and only, Alexander Sergeivich Pushkin.  Elena, who also happens to be a professor, painter, chess master, poet, and singer (no big deal, right?), read to me poems published in a book, which she had written, and sang for me a series of songs.  One word: amazing.  Of all the moments that I have spent in this region, the best always end up happening in the kitchen, around the table.  It’s a sacred place in Russian culture, the place where all the stereotypes that Russians are cold and unfriendly break down and where you are no longer an outsider but one of their own.  So much more than food is shared around the table, and it is the place where I learn the most about what it really means to be Russian. 

My hostess Nina Ivanovna is as much a renaissance woman as Elena.  She is ridiculously well read, and this apartment is basically just one big library.  She owns every volume of every work by every significant Russian, American, and European author, as well as a wide collection of classical music.  Every night after dinner I get a lesson on different authors, their literary works, and their significance in history.  We’ll read excerpts from their works and then read excerpts written about them or in honor of them by other authors.  No matter who we are discussing or when they lived, the conversation always somehow inevitably ends up at WWII.  As many hours as I will spend in the classroom this summer, I already know that my most valuable lessons are being learned at home.

Studying abroad the second time around is a very different experience.  While most of my classmates are freaking out about being in Russia, I feel right at home.  Thursday morning as I sat on the number 17 trolleybus on my way to the institute and took in my first real views of Kazan, I couldn’t help but to think how normal and how right it feels to be here in this country amongst these people.  Though Kazan is a new city to me, I’m already so glad that I am here and have the chance to get to know it (even just a little bit) over the coming days.  Being here for less than a week has been such a reminder of why I love Russia and why I want to study very hard to improve my language skills.  So that means no more English (minus the writing of this blog) for me.  I, of course, have lots more that I could say, but I’m going to stop here in the interest of avoiding the never-ending blog post:)

Kazan Federal University

Kazan Kremlin