Who, What, When, Where and Why

On Wednesday, May the 9th I will be leaving my home in Bloomington, Indiana to spend 28 days living and studying in Russia. I've started this blog to document my journey for my friends, my family and myself. This is my first attempt at blogging/journaling of any kind (unless you count 2 one-day attempts in 2nd and 4th grade respectively) so bear with me.

In August of 2006 I began to investigate the possibility of spending some time studying in Russia. After looking into several programs sponsored by American Universities and other organizations, I decided the best thing for me to do is to go it alone. The last thing I want is to spend weeks in a foreign country with other Americans fighting off the temptation to speak English. I'm going to Russia to learn the language, experience the culture and as a good friend put it "to shake up my comfort zone." In order to best do that I decided to travel and enroll independently in a Russian University as an International Student.

The next question was, where? First and foremost, I wanted to live and study in a place that felt Russian, a place where I would see more onion domes than golden arches. I didn't want to go to Moscow or St. Petersburg. I felt that both cities would provide me with more opportunities to speak English and less necessity to speak Russian to function. I wanted a city small enough that I could master, but not so small that I'd standout even more than I already will. So I did what I've done so many other times in my life, I made a list, a long list.

I made a list of all the places that fit my criteria and began sending out emails to every university in the cities on my list. After weeks of communication between myself and several Universities, I decided to attend Yaroslavl Demidov State University in Yaroslavl. Yaroslavl fit the bill, just 4 hours by train from Moscow, it's a city of around 600,000 that sits on the Volga and was originally founded in 1010 A.D., and is part of Russia's famed "Golden Ring." I will be living in an apartment in the center of Yaroslavl with the Ovcharov's, a married couple who work as journalists and editors who have been gracious enough to welcome me in to their home.

I leave three weeks from today.

In the meantime here are some links for those of you who are curious:

Yaroslavl Wikipedia page.

Yaroslavl Demidov State University