In Siberia, I always wondered how many visitors a year came to the museums we stopped by. More often than not, the group I traveled with was the only group in a museum, with docents available to give us private tours and their full attention. As I walked the halls listening to experts tell me […]
During our trip along the shore of Lake Baikal, two of our nights were spent at the quaint lake-side town of Tanhoi. Before arriving, few of the students knew anything about this small town of less than 1000 inhabitants. Personally, I had just assumed it would be a dinky little fishing village like several others […]
I remember earlier in this term one of our professors jokingly described our trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad would be like sitting in jail for three days. We all laughed off what was clearly a joke but as the time flew by in Moscow and then in Siberia, I started to think more about that […]
As a Carleton student I am acutely aware of my environmental impact. We’re trained during orientation to be careful about separating our compostable materials from our recyclables, and to avoid creating food waste by taking too much from the cafeteria. This awareness is something I’ve brought with me to Russia, and especially to Siberia. During […]
During my last day in Moscow, I had the opportunity to go with Julia P. to an upscale hotel to visit her mom. We also spent some more time around Patriarch Ponds, and it was then that I was able to realize something that was happening to us while in more tourist-y areas. Usually if […]
What are you? Where are you from? No, where are you really from? These are all questions of which I’ve heard some variation while in both the U.S. and Russia. While in the U.S., there’s a certain level of disrespect inherent in having these questions asked by someone you’ve only just met, and at first […]
I tried my best to go for a run frequently in Russia, and I am a little disappointed with how infrequent it actually turned out to be, but the times I was able to were extremely memorable. In Moscow, all my runs were along the Moscow river, and I usually would run northeast toward Gorki […]
One of the most frequently asked questions put to me by Russians during my time here is: “what stereotypes do Americans have about Russia?”. Then, before I can give an answer, they list the things that they’ve heard we think about them: bears in the streets, everybody drinks vodka, it’s always cold, and Siberia is […]
Have you ever heard the phrase “sweat it out”? Maybe a friend told you when you had a cold that it’d be a good idea to go work out? I believe in the “sweat it out” principle of curing a common cold, and sometimes I’ve gone to what I felt were significant lengths: full sweatsuits, […]
Picture this: a nature center on the shores of Lake Baikal. The fifteen of us sitting in rows, expectantly awaiting a video on the Trans-Siberian railroad and the icebreaker ferries that brought trains full of people and goods across Baikal started at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The video starts. A voiceover […]