The lecture today was entitled "From a Russian Country Estate to a Soviet Dacha," and was given by Professor Olga Zinovieva, an old friend of Dr. Goeckel's. I had been waiting a while to receive a lecture on architecture, because we are shown so many buildings in Moscow and I would love to be able to tell the time period and style in which they were built. A dacha was a summer home that was located outside of a city or town that several Muscovites owned before 1917. After the revolution, dachas were considered a possession of the bourgeoisie and were often either burned or divided into apartment complexes. They were strongly regulated during the Soviet period. Olga was telling us how it took weeks to go through all of the bureaucracy in order to receive permission to remove a dead tree from "your" home. She said that several dachas would have one side colored green and the other blue because they would be unable to decide collectively how they wanted it to look. After perestroika, dachas came back into existence and many Muscovites now own two homes.
After lunch we were given time to look on the website of the American Center of Moscow. It is part of the Library of Foreign Literature, which used to be a way to read Marxist literature in the Soviet Union. During perestroika, Gorbachev gave Western countries an opportunity to donate to the library and the United States took advantage of it, creating an American Center that held everything from Frost Nixon DVD's to The Cat in the Hat. There is a class offered every day to teenagers who are interested in going to college in America. We were invited to sit and answer questions about American colleges and anything else on their minds.
Going in, we had uncertain expectations given the description of the program on their website. It said: "Please join us on Friday, May 25 at 4 p.m. for the amazing opportunity to meet with TWELVE students from State University of New York (SUNY) – Geneseo! These students will be in Moscow for a week to participate in community service projects throughout the city. The students are majoring in International Relations, Political Science, Anthropology, Biology and more! This will be an interactive and fun activity, where audience members will attend “stations” with students to learn more about different aspects of life in the U.S. (such as food, music, sports, religion, fashion and other topics) in addition to learning more about SUNY-Geneseo itself. Please join us for a fun and informative afternoon!"
1) I love how TWELVE was capitalized, as if the number was the number of Americans was not large enough that they felt they needed to make it bigger in text.
2) We are actually in Moscow for a month. I'm not sure where they were getting their information from when they wrote "for a week"
3) The only "community service projects" that we could come up with was the fact that all of the money we are spending on food is helping to stimulate the Russian economy. I guess I also gave up my seat on the bus once to an old lady, but I don't think it's equivalent to cleaning up the Russian national parks or teaching children how to read. Still, I don't mind the credit.
4) Judging from my experience here, Russians have a lot more to say about fashion than us. What they wear to school is fancier than what some of the girls in America where to Junior Prom. I'm not sure if Russian teenagers would want fashion advice from a kid who wears jeans and a sweatshirt to class every day.
We were pleasantly surprised to find out that the discussion was nothing like the description on the website. The director of the Center gave us snacks (I believe the first time we received free food in Russia) and separated us into four groups of three. A group of about twelve Russian students and one 65 year-old woman sat at a table with me, Sam, and Katie. The students started off by asking basic questions (How hard are the SAT's? What do colleges look for in a student? Do they look at grades?). After about ten minutes, the conversation began to get really weird.
The old lady at our table started to ask us some weird questions. She asked us about the criminality in America, which was slightly off topic. She then asked, "If someone believes in God and said that they stole something or killed someone because God told them to, do they get in trouble?" We assumed she was talking about Islamic terrorism, but steered away from the topic and told her that the police will arrest anyone, no matter their motive. She then asked us who "the computer guy that died" was. We figured she was referring to Steve Jobs. She asked why he died even though he was so rich. We were baffled by the question and gave her the obvious answer that everyone dies and that America hasn't discovered a cure for cancer. She then asked if women wrote books in America. We looked at each other and began listing the names of American female authors. It was at this point that the other students started to look at each other and giggle. Everyone finally lost it when she said, "For example, suppose there is a situation in which you see a snake." Everyone held in their breaths in befuddlement. "Would you be afraid?," she finished. We all burst out laughing at the sheer randomness of the inquiry. My face turned red, some people were crying, and only Katie had enough strength to put herself together and give a three minute spiel about how she sees snakes in her garden sometimes and she is afraid of them. Sam and I couldn't keep ourselves together through her other questions, which included, "If an American dog has a muzzle and bites someone, can that person sue?";"What makes you happy?";"If you were president, what is the first thing you would do?";"How do you bring healthcare to the simple people?"; (looking at me) "Are you a soldier?";"Have you ever seen the movie 'Fighting?'" (after which she told us that she didn't like it when people kill each other); and my personal favorite "Why are there so many plane crashes?" I don't know why she thought that we were an expert on these topics, but she told our professor that we were really good at answering her questions.
Between Crazy Lady's questions, we were able to extract some really interesting information from the Russian students. They were telling us how corrupt the Russian school system is as well as the day-to-day institutions in general. One girl told us a story about how one of her friends wanted to be a doctor, but she wasn't doing well enough in school to be a pre-med major in college. However, her father was wealthy and paid her teachers a lot of money to raise her grade. To get a doctor's appointment at a decent time, it is almost implied that you must bribe the secretaries and the doctor to fit you into their schedule. The students said that they really didn't enjoy living in Moscow (which is why there were in a class devoted to helping them study in the US). The weather is cold, people are angry and mean, everything is expensive. Those in the group who visited the US said that everyone smiles there and that they are much more free to do what they want. It looks like America still holds the reputation of being the land of the free. Score one for the stars and stripes!
After lunch we were given time to look on the website of the American Center of Moscow. It is part of the Library of Foreign Literature, which used to be a way to read Marxist literature in the Soviet Union. During perestroika, Gorbachev gave Western countries an opportunity to donate to the library and the United States took advantage of it, creating an American Center that held everything from Frost Nixon DVD's to The Cat in the Hat. There is a class offered every day to teenagers who are interested in going to college in America. We were invited to sit and answer questions about American colleges and anything else on their minds.
Going in, we had uncertain expectations given the description of the program on their website. It said: "Please join us on Friday, May 25 at 4 p.m. for the amazing opportunity to meet with TWELVE students from State University of New York (SUNY) – Geneseo! These students will be in Moscow for a week to participate in community service projects throughout the city. The students are majoring in International Relations, Political Science, Anthropology, Biology and more! This will be an interactive and fun activity, where audience members will attend “stations” with students to learn more about different aspects of life in the U.S. (such as food, music, sports, religion, fashion and other topics) in addition to learning more about SUNY-Geneseo itself. Please join us for a fun and informative afternoon!"
1) I love how TWELVE was capitalized, as if the number was the number of Americans was not large enough that they felt they needed to make it bigger in text.
2) We are actually in Moscow for a month. I'm not sure where they were getting their information from when they wrote "for a week"
3) The only "community service projects" that we could come up with was the fact that all of the money we are spending on food is helping to stimulate the Russian economy. I guess I also gave up my seat on the bus once to an old lady, but I don't think it's equivalent to cleaning up the Russian national parks or teaching children how to read. Still, I don't mind the credit.
4) Judging from my experience here, Russians have a lot more to say about fashion than us. What they wear to school is fancier than what some of the girls in America where to Junior Prom. I'm not sure if Russian teenagers would want fashion advice from a kid who wears jeans and a sweatshirt to class every day.
We were pleasantly surprised to find out that the discussion was nothing like the description on the website. The director of the Center gave us snacks (I believe the first time we received free food in Russia) and separated us into four groups of three. A group of about twelve Russian students and one 65 year-old woman sat at a table with me, Sam, and Katie. The students started off by asking basic questions (How hard are the SAT's? What do colleges look for in a student? Do they look at grades?). After about ten minutes, the conversation began to get really weird.
The old lady at our table started to ask us some weird questions. She asked us about the criminality in America, which was slightly off topic. She then asked, "If someone believes in God and said that they stole something or killed someone because God told them to, do they get in trouble?" We assumed she was talking about Islamic terrorism, but steered away from the topic and told her that the police will arrest anyone, no matter their motive. She then asked us who "the computer guy that died" was. We figured she was referring to Steve Jobs. She asked why he died even though he was so rich. We were baffled by the question and gave her the obvious answer that everyone dies and that America hasn't discovered a cure for cancer. She then asked if women wrote books in America. We looked at each other and began listing the names of American female authors. It was at this point that the other students started to look at each other and giggle. Everyone finally lost it when she said, "For example, suppose there is a situation in which you see a snake." Everyone held in their breaths in befuddlement. "Would you be afraid?," she finished. We all burst out laughing at the sheer randomness of the inquiry. My face turned red, some people were crying, and only Katie had enough strength to put herself together and give a three minute spiel about how she sees snakes in her garden sometimes and she is afraid of them. Sam and I couldn't keep ourselves together through her other questions, which included, "If an American dog has a muzzle and bites someone, can that person sue?";"What makes you happy?";"If you were president, what is the first thing you would do?";"How do you bring healthcare to the simple people?"; (looking at me) "Are you a soldier?";"Have you ever seen the movie 'Fighting?'" (after which she told us that she didn't like it when people kill each other); and my personal favorite "Why are there so many plane crashes?" I don't know why she thought that we were an expert on these topics, but she told our professor that we were really good at answering her questions.
Between Crazy Lady's questions, we were able to extract some really interesting information from the Russian students. They were telling us how corrupt the Russian school system is as well as the day-to-day institutions in general. One girl told us a story about how one of her friends wanted to be a doctor, but she wasn't doing well enough in school to be a pre-med major in college. However, her father was wealthy and paid her teachers a lot of money to raise her grade. To get a doctor's appointment at a decent time, it is almost implied that you must bribe the secretaries and the doctor to fit you into their schedule. The students said that they really didn't enjoy living in Moscow (which is why there were in a class devoted to helping them study in the US). The weather is cold, people are angry and mean, everything is expensive. Those in the group who visited the US said that everyone smiles there and that they are much more free to do what they want. It looks like America still holds the reputation of being the land of the free. Score one for the stars and stripes!
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