Study Russia

If you’re contemplating going on a study program in Russia, you’ll need all the advice you can get. Corin C. Cummings provides a guide to current options for study, volunteering and interning in Russia. Photos by Sergei Kaptilkin.

It seems the honeymoon between America and Russia is over. The stars have vanished from our eyes, and we (East and West) are left looking at the great heaps of work to be done. Traveling and studying in Russia may not be as ‘fashionable’ as it has been in the past few years, but it is no less exciting and vital, and for those who wish to do it, there are a wide variety of options.

Existing programs range considerably in level of Russian language skills required, degree of independence, difficulty, length and cost. Many of today’s study, exchange and volunteer programs are stronger and better connected than ever before. They have been tried and, to a degree, have had the bugs worked out.

The majority of Russia programs are, of course, geared toward students and are centered around language study. Most operations are administered by American universities in cooperation with Russian institutions of learning. Costs are pretty much in line with American higher education, and financial aid is usually available.

In most college programs, American students live in spruced up Soviet dorms or sometimes in homestays, and take classes specially designed for them (i.e. intensive Russian) and some regular Russian university courses. The program organizers usually arrange for cultural excursions, and generally keep a pretty close eye on participants. Most such programs are in Moscow or St. Petersburg.

Probably on the high end of these kinds of programs is Middlebury College’s School in Russia. Students can choose a semester or year-long program at Moscow State University ($11,075 — $16,480) that combines intensive language study with regular MSU courses. Middlebury claims to provide “‘American- style’ courses and support services” and to be committed to maintaining a high living standard and secure environment for students.

“Middlebury coddles you,” said Carolyn Ashby, who participated in the program as an undergraduate in 1993. The School in Russia is “incredible for improving your Russian,” she continued, but she said she found it difficult to become immersed in Russian culture.

She noted the abundance of American students: “It’s really hard not to get stuck speaking English a lot...,” she said. “It can feel a little narrow when it’s so Americanized.”

Ashby would recommend Middlebury to “someone who wants to be in Russia but isn’t sure if they can hack it on their own.” Presumably, the same advice would go for most comparable programs, too.

Students of Russian can get a more in-depth look at Russia’s greatest village through Boston University’s Moscow Internship Program. B.U. mixes intensive Russian language study, elective courses at European University in Moscow and an internship. Depending on students’ Russian abilities, the program lasts 16 or 20 weeks, and for the final 8 weeks, each participant is placed in a Moscow business.

B.U.’s program provides a situation for students to learn from their own experiences. “You’re out on your own a lot,” said Lisa Romano, a 26-year-old from Long Island, NY. Though she found the degree of independence intimidating at times, it allowed for “a lot of exposure” to Russian life and culture, she said. Romano worked at Moscow’s Dialog Bank in card services where she was primarily an advisor on how credit card services function in the US.

“I feel like I got a lot out of it,” was her personal verdict on the course.

Over all, Romano characterized the program as intensive and career oriented — maybe a little too much for some. “It’s not for those who don’t know what they want to do,” she said.

Truly one of the most remarkable student exchange programs in Russia is that administered by the American Collegiate Consortium (ACC). ACC was formed in 1987 “to address a concern, shared by several college presidents, about American students’ lack of familiarity with the Soviet Union.” Today, ACC has 60 members and has student exchange agreements with all of the states of the former Soviet Union.

Having placed students in Russian universities in, among other cities, Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Nizhny Novgorod, and Petrozavodsk, ACC probably has, geographically, a greater reach than any other American educational operation in Russia. Also, with 1,400 former participants from the former Soviet Union and America, the Consortium has a large network of Alumni contacts.

With ACC, the focus is cultural immersion. Students live with Russian roommates in standard dorm rooms (“Sure, we had rats in our dorms...and the hot water would come and go,” confessed one ACC Alumnus), or in homestays, and attend regular Russian university classes.

“It’s not a program that baby-sits you,” said Bill Converse, an undergrad from the University of Missouri who studied at Tver University through ACC last year.

“You’re really just on your own,” echoed Brad Koritzinsky, a Vassar undergrad who spent a year at Yaroslavl State University.

According to Koritzinsky, ACC gave him the freedom to experience things for himself because it created no artificial environment. “I went out to the dacha and planted potatoes,” he said.

Koritzinsky would recommend ACC to “people who really want to get to know Russia beyond the classroom, beyond the books.”

Generally, the Consortium places several students together in a single university, and they commonly attend some of the same classes. However, Hamilton College undergrad Karen Johnson, who spent her 1994-95 academic year at Irkutsk State University with six other ACC students, noted that they all had separate lives. Nonetheless, they were mutually supportive. “We were a family,” she said. “It may sound cheesy, but it’s true.”

There are of course dangers to the kind of independence provided by the Consortium. As an extreme example, in 1994 Tony Riccio, an ACC student from Brown University studying at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute, was murdered.

Converse, who was acquainted with Riccio, said he felt ‘very safe’ in Tver, but he still had a story about being harassed on the street by a xenophobic drunk. And Johnson, an African-American, said she “pretty much had to watch my back the whole time” in Irkutsk.

For students and non-students alike, a less academic and less expensive — but often more culturally involved — way to go to Russia is as a volunteer. Organizations such as Volunteers For Peace (VFP) and Global Volunteers offer “short-term Peace Corps experiences,” which usually last no longer than a month.

Volunteering “puts you right in the middle of a community where you get to know people who live and work and struggle there everyday,” said John Crownover, a 28-year-old child care worker from Virginia. Crownover has volunteered the past five summers at a children’s hospital in Yekaterinburg through VFP.

The Vermont-based, non-profit VFP was founded in 1981 and is part of an international network of workcamp organizations operating under the aegis of UNESCO. VFP also publishes an annual International Workcamp Directory and functions as a placement service for workcamp hosts and volunteers. VFP usually offers 4 workcamps in Russia, which cost from $300 to $850 (not including travel costs). The small volunteer groups are mostly made up of twenty-something Americans and usually travel to their workcamp together.

Global Volunteers, a private non-profit corporation founded in 1984, offers ESL (English as a Second Language) volunteer opportunities in the city of Ryazan, 200 miles south of Moscow, and at the University of Tver (Both cost $1,995, not including airfare).

“You engage the people...You get a sense of who the people are and what their problems are,” said Sandy Alberts, a 65-year-old retired financial officer from Florida, of his teaching experience in Ryazan. “It gave me a feeling that helping others was helping myself.” While many Global Volunteer participants are students, most are over 30.

Global Volunteers also operates the Free Enterprise Institute (FEI), which offers experienced business men and women the opportunity to teach principles of a free market economy in the countries of the former Soviet Union. FEI programs are one- and two-week seminars that match North American professionals with interested Russians through Russian host organizations. The cost is $2,350 plus airfare.

Another option for volunteering, of course, is the Peace Corps, which needs no introduction. The Peace Corps currently has about a hundred volunteers in Russia administering projects ranging from aid in free market development to ESL to environmentalism. The Peace Corps requires a fairly lengthy commitment and a considerable knowledge of Russian.

Though neither Global Volunteers nor VFP require volunteers to know Russian, some instruction is recommended. “I didn’t fare that well on my own,” confessed Heather Mickman, a 21-year-old Global volunteer from Minnesota who taught English in Tver but did not speak Russian. She often had to rely on others to translate for her. So, unless you want to be dollied around in a communicational wheelchair, take some Russian.

VFP offers a month-long intensive Russian language course at Moscow State University ($1,600 including airfare). Also, if you’re looking for something stateside before you go, universities offering intensive Russian summer programs include Norwich University in Vermont ($695 for 2 weeks; $3,900 for 8 weeks) and the University of Pittsburgh (8 weeks $3,050).

Another option for those who have a little background in Russian and are looking for an individual experience in a “total immersion setting” is Project Harmony’s Teacher Internship program. Negotiating a contract with host organizations detailing workload, stipend and living situation, Project Harmony places ESL teachers in schools and other institutions throughout the former Soviet Union. Project Harmony, which was founded in Vermont in 1985, will also work with individuals to develop customized internships.

The best thing about Project Harmony, said Wendy Johnson, a 25-year-old who lived and worked in Petrozavodsk, is that “they’re very interested in you as an individual. They try to put you into creative and adventurous situations.” However, she warns, “bear in mind that they can’t do a whole lot for you once you’re there.” Day to day living and problem solving “is mostly up to you.”

Johnson, who ended up living in Petrozavodsk for 2 years, said hers was “an all around good experience.” And as a result of her firsthand knowledge of Russia, she has found a job assisting Russian Jews emigrate to the United States. “There’s nothing better than following up college with an experience like this,” she said.

Surely, there are many more opportunities to “Study Russia” than are mentioned in this survey (Some options that haven’t been explored, for instance, are new travel companies that offer special programs focusing on individual experience and Russian culture). Nevertheless, whatever you choose, know thy program. Know exactly what is included in the cost and, more importantly, what is not. Watch out for fees. Know what to do about your visa. Find out about health risks; depending on where you’re going, you might want to bring your own medicines, hypodermic needles or water filter. While most programs are good about informing participants and run orientation workshops, don’t always count on someone to tell you what you need to know, so ask! Another good way to find out about your program is to ask for alumni contacts.

As a final note on choosing a program, any worth considering should be designed around what Russia really is, not around what Americans like. Anything else is Disney. If you want to go to Russia; go to Russia, not “Russialand.” To have a real experience in the country, you need to try to understand the way Russians look at life in the same way that you try to comprehend their language.

In their Teacher Internship literature Project Harmony describes what it takes to be an intern:

“First and foremost, you must be able to deal with the day-to-day challenges of living in the former Soviet Union. You must be resourceful, independent, flexible and positive in dealing with these challenges, and you must make every attempt to become immersed in the environment in which you are working and living.”

The same could be said (and should be) about any serious student of Russia.

Corin C. Cummings is a graduate of the World Studies Program at Marlboro College and the School For International Training. He lived and worked in Tomsk, Siberia, for 7 months in 1994.