What I Did in Moscow…

I definitely underestimated the effect going abroad would have on me. Not only did it challenge me to understand and appreciate a very different culture and way-of-life than my own, but I also grew to appreciate my life in the U.S. much more too. My experience in Moscow was fantastic to say the least and I think that if the possibility arises for one to spend a quarter in such a city, especially with the great program and all the opportunities available through it, then it should be considered with great care.Read full profile »

In late August at the start of my Junior year I boarded a plane to a city I’d never been to, where they spoke a language I didn’t know, to be with Stanford students I’d only met three times, to stay with a family I’d never spoken to, and to be immersed in a culture nearly exactly opposite from my own.

My most memorable experience from Moscow is from standing on the city’s famous Red Square and absorbing the blend of tradition and modernity that Russia so uniquely represents. Still grappling with the challenges of its post-soviet transition, Russia is definitely one of the most fascinating countries in the world today. My quarter abroad was my second extended stay in the country, and the possibility to immerse myself in Russian reality again made it an extremely rewarding experience.

I was intrigued by Russia for many reasons. Russia is the largest country in the world, with one of the most interesting and enchanting histories. It’s growing preeminence in the global market proved particularly fascinating to me—given it’s position as the leading exporter of natural gas in the world, Russia plays a dominant role in the economy.

I took off for Moscow not even knowing how to read Russian, let alone speak a word of the language. My first memory of Russia is landing in the airport with my friend Roxanne at 3 am, being very gratefully met by the Moscow program director, Sasha, and sitting in a cab blaring techno music, half in Russian and half in English, while whizzing past a city of neon colored lights.

Russia had always loomed large in my imagination: opulent tsars and funny-looking architecture, giant bears and snowy Siberian tundra’s, Communist cosmonauts and head-scarf wearing babushkas. But all of these stereotypes told me little about the real question I wanted to know: what would it be like, in 2008, living in a city of 12 million, trotting past old communist flats and ducking into the metro outside the Kremlin on a day-to-day basis?

Sometimes I still smell Russia when I wake up. It’s the parquet floors ubiquitous in old apartments, the wooden boards with interlocking tongue and groove creating repeating V-shapes lining narrow hallways; it’s the perpetually boiling teakettle waiting in the miniature kitchen; it’s the smoke hanging in the cold air. As I wake up I imagine myself in the apartment of my Moscow host mother, lying in my little bed while snow falls past the window, accumulating on the sill, then blanketing the still-quiet and dark street below, covering the leaves of the trees that line the park across the street from our seventh-story apartment, and silently accumulating on the black woolen shoulders of the overcoat worn by the lone early-morning walker in the park.