Coup de gueule

I’ve had surprisingly few low moods here, since my arrival. They do occur, but I usually try to snap out of it, and get on with things. Alex has been having a slightly tougher time lately, so we are trying to support him as best we can. One thing that still gets me into a fit of rage (slight exaggeration), is when Russian speakers question the usefulness of our degree (Russian and politics), and our level of Russian. This has happened countless times, but I usually laugh it off, or try to explain why I chose my degree, and why my Russian is still as “appalling” as it is. I am all for constructive criticism, but when someone actually laughs and says we “can’t speak russian” (I have a certain person in mind), I just do not see the point of those comments. Surely, if anyone has tried learning a foreign language, you know that the least encouraging thing a native speaker could do is laugh at the way you speak. I am usually immune to this sort of thing, and chat with people anyway, despite making mistakes, but I still find it bloody rude. So hopefully, despite Russians thinking that our degree is completely useless, I hope to reach an acceptable level of Russian and not to be jobless. I believe a lot of things are changing in our generation, and that a degree will not necessarily get you where you want to be. Hard work and perseverance, openness and a passion for something will get you a lot further.

Roleplay games and why they are beneficial for children

A few days ago, I did an interview with Vanya, Kitezh’s history teacher. Apart from being a history teacher, a foster parent, and many other things, Vanya has a passion for role-play. Ever since he was young, he enjoyed inventing new worlds with his friends, and escaping reality.
They were so committed to their new worlds, that sometimes in “battles”, “blood would be real blood”. Vanya was the weird kid in the 90s who loved star wars, when people were barely trying to scrape by in their lives. Now, star wars is a huge thing in Russia, and everyone knows about it, especially in Kitezh. Vanya and a huge group of other people have taken role play games to another level, and organise one in the winter and one big one in the summer. The one for small chidlren must have a clear moral, good and bad characters. Whereas the roleplay game for teenagers can have blurrier lines concerning the moral. Vanya takes inspiration from Russian sci-fi, star wars, game of thrones, and the list continues. Here is a small taster of the most recent summer role play game. The leader of a fictional empire is fighting against the leader of the separatists. What will the outcome be? War, or a compromise?

Autumn in Kitezh

Lately, I have been quite a lazy blogger. Since our trip to Kaluga, a new volunteer has arrived from Moscow. He’s half russian half english, and speaks both languages perfectly. He’s almost been here two weeks, and will probably be leaving soon. Other than that we’ve all been having fun together, and have been having a few get togethers, one of them being yesterday in the Banya, where we played card games and truth or dare. It was like being a fresher again. Apart from having a laugh together, we did a treasure hunt with the kids last sunday, which was quite successful. Sweets were hidden in different houses in Kitezh, and they had clues where they had to guess which house had sweets in it. Emily and I have been helping out in the kitchen quite a bit, and I also worked in the greenhouses. English classes have once again been changed, which means we temporarily no longer teach the children, because two of the teachers in Kitezh, Yulya and Nastya, who know fairly good english, are teaching them english grammar through russian. We will see if this will be a more successful way of teaching english. Other events in Kitezh have been the visit of three girls from the Urals, studying cinema. They organised a sort of cinema club, retracing the history of cinema (from charlie chaplin onwards). At the end of their stay they filmed a short film as an advert for Kitezh, imitating charlie chaplin style films. We also had the visit of a theater troupe from the neighboring region.They put on “The little prince” by Saint Exupery. It is one of my favourite books, which I read as a child. Winter hasn’t arrived yet, but Kitezh has transformed into beautiful golden and crimson colours. Today is a day off, finally. So we have been having breakfast and lunch together. Both the parents and the little girl, Dasha, in my house have left for Kaluga or Orion (the other village). They will be coming back in a couple of days. Alina is washing the kitten with a lot of dedication in the bathroom. I have decided that I might come back to Kitezh during the month of january, but Russian administration is a pain. I have two passports, so it is possible for me to apply for two visas, but considering the fact that they are so close together in time, the applications are going to be a nightmare. Although I am really enjoying my time in Kitezh and the closeness of the bonds people have to each other, I am happy that I will be experiencing something new in my second term, in St-Petersburg. Although it might be harder to meet people and Russians in particular, I will be having more classes. I hope it won’t get too lonely, after 3 months of close-knit interactions with people in this community. You get used to greeting everyone you meet with a friendly “Privyet!”(hey/hi), which means that whenever someone outside Kitezh visits, I have the reflex of going for the informal “Privyet”, rather than “zdrastvuyite” (hello). We are going to work on “kaminii dom” today, or the chimney house. A new family has arrived in Kitezh, and they are going to be living in that house when it is ready. I hope my last 5 weeks in Kitezh will be a success, and that I will enjoy as much as the rest of my stay. 

Kaluga

Trip to Kaluga

We finally got a small breath of fresh air by being allowed a day out in the city of Kaluga. It had the reverse effect of my arrival in Kitezh. The country bumpkins going to the “big” city. Like most russian cities, Kaluga is a combination of soviet architecture, churches, parks, and decrepit buildings. On the whole, it is quite a pleasant, hilly city. We made a few errands, and had breakfast and lunch in nice cafés. Andrew gave us the grand tour, and we walked through a beautiful park, with a view on the old river. We saw several churches, and monuments of interest, one of them being dedicated to Kaluga’s very own rocket science pioneer, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. The Tsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics is dedicated to his achievements. Other interesting people coming from Kaluga are Yuri Gagarin, whom I’m sure everyone knows. 

Should Kitezh Kids Know Who Obama Is?

I was having a conversation with one of the girls from Kitezh about history. We somehow started speaking about the cold war. She had not yet learnt about it in detail, so I started mentioning some American presidents. She did not know who Bush was, and found it to be a very strange and funny name. So I moved on to Obama, which she had no idea who was either. Having until recently been relatively politically ignorant, I do not judge her, but at least I had an idea of who the different world leaders were. However, considering the fact that the Kitezh children’s internet use and computer use is monitored,it is not so strange that they are unaware of current affairs and the world around them. I do not speak for the older children, but the slightly younger ones. Kitezh is secluded on purpose, so should these children have at least some knowledge of what’s going on in the rest of the world, or is this of no use to them? A lot of the children have suffered from terrible psychological traumas in their past, so it is probably wise to control their use of internet. The information and knowledge we are talking about is not a matter of life or death, but seeing as the rest of the school’s level is quite high, surely it would be useful for them to know a bit more about the outside world?