Ural Region Youth Forum

After my time in Moscow, I flew to Tyumen. But, before I even had a chance to see the city, I was taken directly to a youth forum located 40 minutes outside of town. The forum basically consists of university students from the region and a number of experts who come to give presentations on topics such as politics, agriculture, and intercultural dialogue. Since my host contact, Pavel, was one of the primary organizers of the event, I was invited as an "expert." Even though I was registered as an expert in intercultural dialogue, I didn't have to actively participate. In fact, I didn't even receive my own name tag or schedule of events. I was pretty much just thrown into it. I sat in on a lot of presentations and met a few people. I met a few of my primary contacts/colleagues from Tyumen for the first time. I shared a room with Ken, who was actually the ETA in Tyumen a couple of years ago, and a real expert, Alexei, who is a graduate student from Moscow State University.

The forum only lasted a couple of days; unfortunately for me, this meant living out of a suitcase for a little while longer. On one of the evenings, the forum planned to take as many of the 300 or so participants that wanted to go on a bus tour through Tyumen. Our tour guide dressed in some sort of late 1800s or early 1900s getup and the tour had sort of a theatrical twist (which was a little hokey). We stopped at a home/museum of a well-known, wealthy merchant and made a few other stops. I was pretty tired and zoned out much of the information from the tour guide, but I did meet a guy from Krygyzstan and we had a good, long conversation that helped shake off some the rust from my Russian skills and his English skills. The city also recently finished a riverside walkway which looks like a great place for future strolls.

Over the last week, I've been getting used to a Russian way-of-life again. Like my last time in Russia, adapting to the diet appears to be a challenge. However, since I have my own kitchen, I am now in charge of my own diet. Hopefully, that will help ease me into my next year here. I do wish they would turn on the heat so I don't have to sleep in sweatpants. That might help too.

Orientation in Moscow

Well, I made it to Russia in one piece. I spent the first 5 days of my 9-month-stay in Russia in Moscow for Fulbright orientation. It was basically a workshop to learn about how the Russian educational system works and how we might engage our students with language exercises and the like. I met a lot of great people who are also doing Fulbright English-Teaching Assistantships (ETAs) in Russia this year. We all got to know each other pretty well during orientation itself, but also by exploring Moscow in the evenings. It felt a lot like my study abroad program two years ago when we first met and knew we were sort of all in this thing together. The main difference with this program though was that after only 5 days we were splitting up and travelling to every corner of the country!

On the first night in town, I arranged to see Anastasia, a friend and former tutor from my study abroad program in Vladimir. That was the first time I had seen anyone from my study abroad semester that ended two years ago.  Our meeting brought back a few memories of Vladimir and we spent much of the time talking about other people from the program who have come back to Russia since then. My Russian speaking skills were clearly a bit rusty but I battled through it, so I'll consider it a positive opening to another long spell in Russia.

The evening trips throughout Moscow were pretty great in general. I about killed my legs on a couple occasions by covering entirely too much ground in the span of a day. On one of our first days, I went out with a huge group to stroll through Gorkii Park. There we got a good group photo in front of an old space shuttle. We then took a walk down to Arbat Street (an area known for usually overflowing with tourists and tourist shops) for dinner at the Russian fast food equivalent to McDonald's, Teremog. Later that night, after our group had already split off into smaller groups, some of us went to Red Square on wet cobblestones and under the lights to see St. Basil's Cathedral, GUM, and the Kremlin. Somewhat unfortunately, the city was preparing for some sort of international lights festival so it was full of fences and machinery. I thought it stole away from the majesty of the place but, because I had seen Red Square in all its glory before, I wasn't fully disappointed. On other days, I also went to Tsaritsino, which was Catherine the Great's Moscow palace. It's probably best known for its colorfully lit fountain, but the palace, garden, and pond were equally as impressive.

Kristen, a friend and fellow Russian major from Grinnell, was there as an ETA as well. Even though all of the other ETAs are great people, it was nice to have a familiar face around. One day, we even got to meet up with another Grinnell alum, LeAnn ('07 I believe), who currently lives in Moscow. We met outside the legendary Bolshoi Theater and, after walking around a bit, went out to a cafe in one of the ritzier areas of Moscow to basically chat about Russia, Fulbright, and Grinnell. Then we checked out a book store and a unique grocery store that looks like a palace museum on the inside with ornate wall decorations and chandeliers.

In general, it was pretty neat to see Moscow again before getting thrown out into Siberia to my new city, Tyumen. Although, I'm not a big fan of living out of a suitcase, I enjoyed meeting all of my fellow ETAs, learning about their cities, and getting another taste of the enormous Russian capitol.