Education Russia

On the long journey, doubts were often my companions. I’ve always admired those reporters who can descend on an area, talk to key people, ask key questions, take samplings of opinions, and then set down an orderly report, very like a road map. I envy this technique and at the same time do not trust it as a mirror of reality. I feel that there are too many realities. What I set down here is true until someone else passes that way and rearranges the world in its own style.

John Steinbeck – Travels with Charley in search of America

Russia

1.

For many centuries now, the Russians have been thought, trained, encouraged, or even threatened into believing that their leader is good, that their government is good, and that their job is to support it, and back it up.

It is the country with the largest surface in the world, and it follows that it is among the ten most populous countries. From St. Petersburg to Irkutsk, with stops in Moscow and Saratov, Monica and I have crossed almost half the country. And in the biggest cities, as well as in the small and not-so-industrialized ones, we have encountered the same attitude: Russia is in trouble and it needs a powerful leader, but Putin is as good a leader as they can hope for in these times. And this attitude goes further: people admit that it is a real struggle (mainly for the middle class and the poor) to make a decent living, but they accept the situation with stoicism and stubbornness. “Can you think of a way to improve this situation?” we would ask. And invariably, the answer would come with not so much hesitation “No, things are as they are”, “I don’t believe there is something to be done by people like me”, “I can only work hard for me and my family, but the rest is not in my power”. And there were comments followed by some hope for the future, just as we had comments followed by despair and pessimism. In this regard there’s not much surprise – out of 144 million people, it should be normal to have such variety of opinions of the future.

Now let me tell you what are the main issues the Russians deal with: little access to quality education (it difficult for the middle class to get higher education; the poor cannot even dream about it), difficulty to find jobs that are decently paid, exploitation of the employees in many different fields, too much bureaucracy, teachers that do not do their job properly, nepotism and, of course, corruption. Oh well, what can I say, in many aspects it actually sounds much like Romania.

What stroke me most of all is that from all the people we’ve talked to, none seemed to blame directly their government. Yes, they would admit it might be corrupt, or they would admit that the country, as a whole, is quite badly managed, or they would talk about corrupt administration. But when it came to saying things in black and white, all of a sudden, an unknown, unnamed, indefinable, mysterious entity would appear to take all the blame. Every bad thought and complaint about life in Russia went in that hazy-gray direction. They are a proud, patriotic people, these Russians. They know their place in history and throughout our whole trip in Russia I felt that they also want us to acknowledge it. They put this patriotic pride above any financial difficulty and above any personal dream. At least it was so with the people we met.

 2.

I would say that we’ve mostly seen people complaining and not acting. Please notice the “mostly”. Of course we’ve also met content people, but most of them didn’t know English at all...and oh well, that’s another story. With the risk of becoming judgmental, I will say that all these dead-end attitudes come from a lack of perspectives, or in other words, from a not so broad horizon. And it is my strong belief that this comes from a failure in the education system. Or it may as well be a calculated failure in the system. We all know that for some people, especially the poor, there is only so much education they can get from home. There are so many people relying on the public education system. And if this fails to awaken curiosity, give courage to question, and offer relevant information for the age we live in.... then of course, there’s lost generation after lost generation. However, considering the past, I think it’s only normal for Russia to recover more slowly in this regard than the other countries that belonged to the communist bloc.

The Russian education system still promotes competition among the students. There’s all kinds of examinations for schools, and of course, the highest grades win. That is to say the highest grades get the scholarships for good high schools, or good universities. Because there are always more applicants for good universities than there are places, the competition is very keen. Those who do not have such good grades as to consider applying for scholarships, need to pay yearly fees. It is difficult even for middle class families to support their children in universities in these situations. We were told quite bluntly by a graduate of the State University of Saratov: “If you don’t have money, you just don’t go to university, is that simple”. This is a Journalism graduate who has worked and was also helped by his parents in order to finish his studies.

However, we also met with another situation: a student who was recruited by a university in Moscow, right before graduating from a high school, in a small city near Moscow. Because he had good academic results, he was offered a place to study in Moscow. This summer, right before graduating his Master degree, he was again recruited by a company. So a week after graduating he already started work, without even looking for a job. Of course he is not going to become rich instantly, but he was very content with the beginning of his “adult-life”, as he called it.

3.

We have met with a Ugandan teacher, educated in London, who came to teach English in St. Petersburg. The biggest challenge she met with when trying to teach English was that the students didn’t actually want to learn another language. “I am Russian, and I live in Russia, therefore, I do not need to know English” was the logic behind this refusal to learn the language. In the end, the English teacher had to learn Russian so she would find other ways of communicating with her students. Apparently, the Russian English teachers do not really do their job. We encountered a few Russian young people who explained to us how they knew English from their favorite music bands or movies and how they were correcting their English teachers during classes.

I think this reluctance to learn English has a lot to do with the pride of being such a big nation. They consider themselves to be self-sufficient. And I do not think this is so far from the truth. They have the biggest country in the world, after all, with plenty of resources. So I can say that I understand this attitude, and at the end of the day, each and every one has the right to choose what they learn. In addition to this, we have to consider that for many decades, the Russians had translated universal academic and literary works into their own language. In this way, the need of the common people to learn a new language in order to have access to international works was limited. However, the situation today has changed, with all kinds of information pouring from all these new types of media. No translator can keep pace, not even with the scientific international works. And in the area of research and development in any kind of domain, knowing English is vital. So I would go as far as to say that this reluctance to learn English is limiting the students’ possibilities to excel in certain domains where they need information that is constantly changing. Not to mention the fact that their only information sources are the ones that the Russian media companies release.

4.

We also had a meeting with a graduate of pedagogical studies. She has studied to become a primary school teacher. She also had practice with the kids. She loved it. Except that when she graduated and wanted to get hired, she was immediately faced with the tangled world of Russian bureaucracy. There were so many papers to be found and signed by various other administrative people, and so many projects to be written periodically, and so many trips to other administrative offices (also periodically), that she simply gave up. She realized that instead of being able to focus on the kids and on creative teaching methods, she would have to follow exhaustive steps just to keep her job. And then, anyway, the curriculum is not too flexible. She felt that all her passion would be lost in tangles and stacks of irrelevant papers. Maybe she is wrong in doing so, or maybe she knows better what it means to be caught up in this system.

However, the paradox is that the government encourages young graduates to become teachers. A person, who will start teaching right after graduating, receives for the following three years a salary that is more than double the salary of a normal teacher. After those three years, the salary drops to normal. In order to get a raise the teacher will have to take all kinds of examinations. So there is a financial incentive offered by the government. Of course, there are many who take this road, especially for the financial security that comes with it. But few of these teachers are truly motivated to walk the extra mile for the education of the children. They simply comply with the rules imposed by government, take their salaries, and off go another batch of standard-educated children who will never feel the need to question anything.

5.

On the very bright side of things, is the fact that the Waldorf schools from Germany have some branches in Russia. We met with one of their students, from the Waldorf School in Irkutsk; a 17 years old German girl who fell in love with Russia, Russian language and Russian classics after studying in Irkutsk. These schools focus on creative learning, and on learning based on individual needs and competences. Of course, they are not recognized by the Russian government, but they manage to survive by donations from the Waldorf Friends Foundation and from taxes paid by some rich parents of some of the students. I say “some of the students”, because not all of them come from rich families. We were told that there are students coming from very poor families who are helped through donations or sometimes they work in the school for the money. The rich and the poor are studying together in an environment where these distinctions do not actually exist among the students or the teachers. The teachers are more than just teachers - they are mentors and friends and whatever the students need them to be. At the moment, in the school in Irkutsk there are not too many students, we only found out about a class with around 15 students. The girl we met with about this didn’t know English so well (she was fluent in Russian, though), so there were a few language barriers in our conversation. I suspect that Russians are reluctant to join this kind of school, even if the money would not be a problem, because it is not recognized by the government, hence the small number of students. However, this is a very interesting subject that deserves a more thorough investigation, for which we did not have time (we found out that there is such a school in Irkutsk only on our last day in Russia).

This is Andrei, freshly graduated and freshly employed. We had the chance to actually assist at his graduation ceremony – he said that this “European trend of fancy graduation ceremonies” is very new to them, and two years ago, for his Bachelor graduation, it was virtually non-existent. Graduation is starting to become a business in itself in Russia, just like in the rest of the Western countries.

Victory Park, Saratov – it’s an immense park full of war machinery, Russian and German. For every exponent there is a clear distinction between “victorious” and “defeated”, depending on whether the machinery is Russian or German. Needless to say, Victory Park was built to celebrate Russia’s victory in World War second, and maybe to remind it’s people of their importance in history. This year, Russia celebrates 70 years since Victory, and it is written on banners and flags all over the country. This is also why the train in the image is decorated.

This is Anton. He graduated from Journalism, but decided not to work in this domain because he thinks that there is too much censorship in the media institutions, and he could not make his real voice heard. He expresses his thoughts through graphics and drawings. I saw his portfolio and I was truly impressed. And then truly disappointed to find out that he is reluctant to continue. He decided to give up on his dream, or to postpone it, because he prefers financial stability for his future family, and the two cannot merge.

We traveled four days with a train from Saratov to Irkutsk. The car where we had seats was full of children. One of their mothers knew like two words of English, but she really wanted to make us talk to her two daughters who knew a little bit more...like four words. Of course, we didn’t really understand what she wanted. But one night I was not sleeping and I was alone on the corridor (due to a drunkard man in our compartment that was stinking of smoked fish and alcohol, a combination I hope none of you will ever smell). And this lady was still awake with her friends, and all of their children (at least six girls and a little boy). She knew about the drunkard man in our compartment, and she took us under their protection, finally making her daughters talk to us. We spent all night together. Somehow we managed to communicate with sign language and smiles and laughter. The little girls taught us the colors in Russian, and they made little colorful bracelets for us and also taught us how to make them (we are wearing them in the picture). So this was a mother who really wanted her daughters to know English. I hoped we helped a bit.

Dreams don't come true in Russia

Hypothesis: "People try to find happiness more and more by turning back towards nature and
towards their inner selves."

Dreams don’t come true in Russia… or at least so I’ve been told by a Russian young man.
Dreams don’t come true in Russia… kind of hard to believe while wandering the streets of two of the
biggest cities of this country – Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
Moscow – with its majestic metro stations that trigger the memory of fairytale ball rooms, with its
internationally renowned ballet and theatre, with its cheerfully colored churches with onion shaped
towers, with its amazing buildings covered in the dust of ruthless time…
Saint Petersburg – with its imposing architecture and opulent grandeur, with its beautiful parks and
gardens, with its shivering producing bell rings, hosting one of the biggest museums in the world which
is in itself a dream for many…
Now that I think about it… there is actually one thing that I have noticed in Saint Petersburg – lack of
kids between the ages of 5 to 15. And that could mean two things. First, that there is holiday in July and
the children get shipped off to some relatives living in the country side to enjoy their summer more
authentically. It happens quite often in Romania too, so it could totally make sense.
The other reason goes a little bit deeper. Children represent hope for a better future. And if people
don’t see that projection of the future bright enough in their minds, then they probably choose not to
have children. And that would make me to draw the conclusion that they are not happy enough as to
look at what is to come with an open heart and a cheerful soul.
Sadly, I don’t really know which of this two options is closer to reality. Or maybe it is a combination of
both. Defying our expectations, Russians don’t really speak English (not even the ones from the big
cities), so my conclusions are mostly based on observation.
Anyway, travelling further away from this two famous cities, you encounter a surprisingly desolated
Russia. Abandoned buildings, stray dogs, holes in the streets, rats, weird smells, tangled bureaucracy
that lasts for hours, incredibly muddy roads… it all reminded me of my home city probably 20, maybe
even 30 years ago.
But I expected more from Russia. I expected more from a country that claims to be (and is recognized to
be) one of the most powerful in the world. I expected more from a country who has the courage to seize
territories of others. First you organize your stuff in the territory that you have – you make sure that
people have what they need and that things run smoothly, and only afterwards you can find the courage
to claim pieces of other countries as yours. Or not? Well… apparently not for Russia.
As Russia was such a huge soft spot of mine, I tried to learn more about its times of glory. And it was
actually in the library of Hornsjo that I found a book about the USSR, few days before leaving to Sweden
for my pre course. I took it with me – and it was this book that made me understand how difficult it was
to rule such a huge country, how the grandeur that I saw as an outsider when thinking about USSR was
actually not at all reflected in the inside of the country, and how all this system was so poorly organized
that it was obviously just a matter of time until its implosion.
I read about all this with curiosity, and probably with a little bit of disappointment. But I definitely
expected things to have gotten better until now, twenty years after. Sadly – I’m not sure they did. Not
for the average Russian, for sure.
Walking around the streets, you can see that people don’t look happy. Factories have been replaced
with shopping malls, there are not enough working places for everybody, corruption and bad
management are thriving, the old and the new (typically Russian buildings in desperate need of
restauration and huge shiny buildings, most surely brought there by globalization) intertwine in a
hideous way which emphasizes the discrepancies of the world we are living in. On top of this, Russia is
currently undergoing economic austerity and this affects people’s everyday life in a strong negative way.
The power of their currency shrank constantly in the past two years, prices varying from day to day.
Inconstancy began to rule people’s lives – and living in insecurity is for sure not a reason for happiness.
I noticed that people are drawn to materialism. Getting a new job makes them happy, of course. But
they still compare themselves to the ones who have it better. Which is not a bad thing in general, if you
keep in mind to also appreciate what you have. Comparison with the ones superior (in any kind of way)
might produce competitiveness and performance. I can understand that people need a certain security,
moneywise speaking, before they can focus on the spiritual part. But the moment you live in an almost
luxurious apartment (although rented), and consider that you are not even in the middle class, just
because you don’t own a car – well, there I see a problem. It probably means that you don’t really know
what poverty actually is, and comply yourself in complaining instead of appreciating.
As these measures of austerity that I was talking about earlier were imposed to Russia as a consequence
of its political choices (regarding Ukraine and Crimea), I was curious if people were upset with their
ruler/rulers for making these choices. They were not. They welcomed the annexation of Crimea as if
they were reunited with their brothers and sisters. They were not happy with the economic status of
their country, of course, but believed that what happened was right and was what should have
happened – so Russia was not to blame for the economic situation in which the country ended up (at
least in their eyes). About Ukraine, the people I have asked considered it to have fallen in between the
conflict of Russia with the US – sort of a bad luck.
Not all the people we have talked to about this subject liked Putin, but all agreed that he was the best
ruler Russia could possibly wish for at the present moment. They felt the need of a strong leader, and
they saw that in Putin. On the other hand, they were reluctant towards the transparency and correction
of the elections. They were convinced that their disapproval could not make a difference. They saw that
the system was failing them every day, but were resigned about it.
The only thing that I saw Russians frustrated about was the fact that they are not officially
acknowledged as the winners of the Second World War. Americans stole this recognition from them, as
Americans believe themselves to be the ones who won and brought the war to an end. But Russians
consider that they were the ones who actually carried the burden of the war on their shoulders, the
ones who stopped Hitler and made him retreat - with a lot of human sacrifice, of course; the ones who
won the war. And they seem annoyed that the general international perception has been distorted by
the Western media machine.
I saw Russians as very proud people. Partly because, as I said, they truly believe it was them who won
the Second World War, and consider this something exceptional. Also, because they were part of this
huge empire, to which they tend to go back to. It is said that the image of Putin in the hearts of the
people resembles more and more the one of a tsar, and that gives an even stronger feeling of patriotism
to the Russian people.
As I have previously mentioned, most Russians only speak Russian – and I believe this is a huge proof of
patriotism, stubbornness, but also ignorance. They do learn English in school, but the English teachers
are not very good themselves with the language. Even the young people – you ask them a question and
sometimes they seem to understand, but they can’t answer back. They either don’t know, or they are
not confident enough about their knowledge.
The perception of the common Russian people is that they don’t need more than their own language.
Russia is a huge country with a lot of places to visit and an incredible amount of people living in it. If
Russians want to travel, they can travel in their own country without having to learn English. Also, they
can meet new people every day in the same manner. As far as I noticed, tourism in Russia is also mostly
focused on Russian people, and it is quite difficult as a foreign tourist to find directions, explanations or
anything else in English, for that matter. The general attitude is that, if foreigners chose to come to
Russia, they should have learned Russian before.
But this closes the country very much, and it closes the people living in Russia inside its borders. If they
don’t speak English it is very difficult for them to travel to other countries, to experience other kind of
people with other kind of cultures. If they don’t speak English, they don’t have access to international
press, and considering that independent press is pretty much dead or dying in Russia, they are very
susceptible to manipulation.
Dreams don’t come true in Russia… maybe they don’t. Maybe they do. But anyway, it doesn’t mean that
people don’t dream. It is what makes humans to keep going in their quest towards happiness.
In all fairness, I met happy people too. Travelling for four days in the Trans-Siberian, we were befriended
by three mothers and their six children. Only the eldest of the daughters spoke some basic English, but it
was enough as to manage to get along. We found out that the mothers were very good friends,
travelling for holiday to some relatives from the Asian side of the country. I can imagine that, having two
weeks of holiday out of which at least one you spend on the train trying to get to your destination, you
must learn to also enjoy the ride, and not just to wait to get to the ending point. And they seemed to
have managed that.
The little girls (aged 7 to 16) were playing around and having fun all day long. They were also very much
into creating some type of bracelets out of rubber bands. After we became friends, we were given as
gifts some of this bracelets, and afterwards we were thought how to do them and encouraged to do
some for ourselves – using the colors and the patterns that we liked. They also thought us how to count
in Russian, how to say ‘thank you’ and ‘your welcome’, and how to spell some of the colors. The
youngest of the daughters was especially sweet, as she forgot from time to time that I don’t understand
Russian, and she started to speak to me in her own language until somebody stopped her and explained
once again that I can only understand English. They were all very friendly and nice to us, and they
brightened our long, long journey. Their mothers also seemed to have fun together, sleeping during the
day and laughing and storytelling during the night, when the air was much cooler and breathable.
Out of all the people that I have met in Russia, I was most impressed about this one young girl named
Aliona. We met in a hostel in Irkutsk (our couchsurfing hosts actually owned a hostel, but in times when
the hostel was not full they were accepting couchsurfers; as we wrote to them almost two months
before arriving they accepted us without truly knowing how many guests they will have, and it
happened that the hostel was full when we arrived, so we ended up sleeping in a tent, on a porch in
front of the hostel). But the atmosphere there was really amazing, and the hosts were finding time to
interact with everybody and make sure that people were having a good time. Their way of handling
things actually inspired us a lot. They were the ones who introduced us to Aliona.
Aliona is a 20 year old Russian girl from Saint Petersburg. She was travelling together with her boyfriend,
a huge backpack that he was carrying, and his guitar that she was carrying. His guitar was called Friday,
like Robinson Crusoe’s friend. They came from Saint Petersburg to Irkutsk, half way through the country
and 5500 km distance by hitch hiking. It took them two weeks, and it was during this travel that Aliona
realized she is pregnant. She knew she was too young, but she seemed happy about it nonetheless.
I liked her a lot because she was incredibly energetic, strongly positive and very communicative
(although her English was not the best). She was waving her hands in the air a lot when she was talking,
and she looked a little bit silly (in a good way). We talked about a lot of things from Russia and not only;
she told us about her hopes and dreams. She had just finished a collage in order to become a teacher,
but she was not sure that she wanted to do that for the rest of her life. Moreover, she realized that she
was to become a mother soon, and she had to accommodate the baby in her future plans too. But the
plans were plenty. She loved reading, and was dreaming of writing a book someday. She was thinking
about the possibility of opening an anti-cafe, or owning a hostel.
She was playing the guitar, as well as composing her own songs (we asked her to play a few songs for us,
and she tried to explain to us what the songs were about before singing – one was a traditional Russian
folk song about mountaineers who die in their quests to conquer the heights; the other one was
composed by herself and it told the story of a red cat who brought sun in people’s lives and who left
pieces of fish as gifts in their dreams). I asked about her relationship with nature, and she told me that
she is not going to the mountains as often as she would like, but that it is one of her family’s traditions
to go every summer to some lakes near Saint Petersburg and sing guitar songs around the fire (both her
parents are singing the guitar). I asked if she was happy, and she was. Although she didn’t have a very
well organized plan for the future, she painted her future in bright and colorful lights.
Based on the glimpse that I had into the hearts and minds of the Russian people, I could say that my
hypothesis is wrong. People are much to anchored in their daily lives and problems as to have time to
search for happiness by turning back towards nature or towards their inner selves. Maybe things will
look different after the country manages to stabilize a little bit and find an equilibrium point. After
people will have access to the basics of their necessities, I’m quite sure they will be tempted to look for
more. And perhaps then they will find the path towards nature.
Still, the ones who were in contact with nature all along know how fulfilling it is to connect with it and
how much peace and tranquility you can acquire by getting in touch with nature once in a while. Also, by
spending time in nature, away from all the technology and distractions of our everyday life, you
automatically acknowledge your inner self more.
Metro station in Saint Petersburg
Hermitage Museum (Saint Petersburg)
Not so shiny parts of Saint Petersburg
View of Moscow and one of the seven sisters buildings
Happy to reach Red Square
Creepy ghost window in the yard of the Architecture Museum Moscow
Graduation ceremony in Moscow
Neighborhood in Saratov
With the inventors of Cyrillic Alphabet in Saratov
Statue of Lenin with his pointy finger from Saratov
(similar statues with him can be found all over Russia)
Entrance of the open air museum about the 2
nd
World War in Saratov
Stairs with the years and the battles who took place in those years during the 2
nd
World War in the open
air museum in Saratov
Friends made during Trans-Siberian ride
Street in Irkutsk

Russia - St. Petersburg&Moscow

The tiles were dirty and cold. The snow carried by the boots of the hurried passengers filthy melted in the diffuse layer on the whole length of the cold corridor. A guy with a floor cleaning machine was struggling without any chance to remove the dirty water from it. I searched some drier spots and seemingly untouched by steps of the travelers that were transiting the room. Under normal conditions, it would not have been a good waiting place. But there were a few degrees better off less than zero and snow did not cease to fall heavy and cold. The strap of the heavy backpack was hanging on my neck, while the small bag that I was carrying on my back caused me a trail of sweat down my spine. On my head, the cap was wet as well and my thick jacket felt suffocating. In these conditions, entering one of the halls seemed the best option. Shortly after we got rid of luggage, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and I grinned worried when I went over behind my wet back. The first impulse was to get rid of the thick clothes that I felt cold on my body. Still, I kept my clothes on, as the cold from outside and the cold stream corridor would make me feel more refreshed than I wanted to be. I arranged the luggage in order, one by one, making sure that the bag left beneath touched as little as possible from the black and filthy snow.

The others were in a similar mood. Smaranda hardly breathed under the thick scarf, with her hat fallen on one side. A few strands of blond hair can hardly been noticed sparkling on the light. She left her luggage in my care and sought to refresh herself while curiously watching the display of souvenir shops. Mark looked at his watch and seemed even more baffled that we had to spend two hours more on that dirty tiles. I said that I was going to check what time and at what line the train was supposed to come. Balu smiled beneath his thick mustache continually typing on his Nook in a rather desperate attempt trying to find a network connection. It was certain that latest information would be useful to us, as the train would have no connection with the outside world. I went out in the cold with wet clothes under the jacket. But I knew that's the only way to prevent a possible cold: to keep myself on the move.

We were in one of the train stations from Moscow prepared to embark in a journey that can be an experience that you live once in a lifetime, a journey of six days by train to Beijing, across Russia to Lake Baikal and then to the far Mongolia eventually getting to China. But until then, we had to endure two hours of waiting in unfriendly conditions.

There was no waiting room in the station or we did not know where to look for one. There were two huge underground holes, two cafes without seats and an open -air pool with desks where they sold tickets directly in the street. No roof, not even a cover to take refuge from rain or snow caught our sight.

We spent four days here, in Moscow, the capital of Russia and we thought that nothing could surprise us anymore. We were fascinated by a lot of contrasts and quirks, but we kept our enthusiasm in such a way as to be able to explore the places and see people and facts with emotion and joy in our soul. And if we add the four days of St. Petersburg, I could certainly say that Russia would remain a memorable experience for each of us.

Let's take them one at a time for me to be able to live them again and recollect from my memories the precious moments that we lived in Russia:

We arrived on October 24, at around ten in the evening in Oslo airport (Gardemoen). It wasn’t the first time when we were supposed to spend the night sleeping in an airport, so I came prepared for it. The emotion of the previous happenings, with the goodbye party and the farewell to our mates was still deeply overwhelming each of us. Even so, at four o'clock in the morning, the boarding time found all of us exhausted and not in the mood for talking. Moreover, the first plane that would take us to Riga was empty and rather strange. With only 12 passengers on board and the flight engine noise amplified ten times, the plane left the impression that it can open up at any moment and crashed to the ground. Luckily, the entire flight lasted less than two hours and the feeling of anxiety disappeared once we got down to earth. We quickly changed the plane to a more crowded, but less noisy one and after two more hours, we arrived in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Besides, we passed customs control unexpectedly quick and we found ourselves out in a center of a city, as if we came out of a station instead of an airport. We had a look on a map and we lost several minutes to realize where to go. As everyone probably knows, Russia uses the Cyrillic alphabet, an alphabet totally different from what we are normally used to see. A bus driver saw us confused and took us under his protection. He understood where we want to go and explained that he could lead us near in his language. Although skeptical at first sight, we still left ourselves in his hand and we took the bus. I withdrew money from an ATM, but just enough to pay our ticket. Because of the extraction fees, the commission was more than the money that I got, but this, I found out later. (Actually, this made us aware that it would be easier to pay by credit card or to use cash, as foreign currencies can be exchanged anywhere in Russia without commission). After we got on our bus, we soon realized that the road would last more than half an hour and we relaxed while admiring St Petersburg’s architectural wonders. And, thanks God; we had what to look at. Wide boulevards, with huge buildings of specific architecture, traditional Russian columns that seemed to touch the sky and churches with their multi colored or golden towers that resembled sweet twisted candies amazed us from the very beginning. Therefore, we left ourselves stolen by the view until the nice driver told us that it was time to go down. Then, more than one hour had passed until we eventually managed to find the booked hostel. No, we were not lost as one may be tempted to assume, but we went slowly suffocated by our luggage and delighted by the many wonders that came on our way.

When we finally arrived at the hostel, we were headed towards our booked room. It was a room for ten. We chose the most crowded one not because it was necessarily the cheapest, but based on the assumption that there we could easily get acquainted with more people and we could enrich our knowledge with a variety of new and exciting information.

And this proved to be right. Thus, we met Miles and Sonia, both coming from the U.S. in order to study Russian. From Miles, we learned about local interest for football and the local team Zenit. On one of the days we spent in Petersburg, 60,000 people braved the cold and snow to sustain and track their favorite team in an important match in the Champions League against a strong team from Spain (Atletico Madrid). Miles was there and he helped us understand what devotion meant to him even if it was about a football team. What matters the most would be to have confidence in what you love.

Sonia was working as a volunteer at an orphanage nearby. Unfortunately we could not go there because of rules that were not related to us and to our short time spent in Sankt Petersburg. Nevertheless, we talked for hours about her work with those kids and her enthusiasm and emotion was hard not to be noticed by us. Thus, just thinking that we could have to opportunity to get into this place, made us realize every child was beautiful and deserved all the best. At the children's home in St. Petersburg, volunteers were trying to prove there was no difference between orphans and children who have parents. Or, between children with Russian parents and those that belonged to different ethnic minorities and were not able to speak Russian. We all knew that every child, with or without mom and dad needed and had the right to education. Well, Sonia explained to us that the main task of volunteers and social workers employed by the Russian authorities consisted of providing to children all they could in order to have a happy childhood and hope for a bright future.

Also, in the hostel room we met two students from Russia that gave us a lot of useful information about the education system. I learned from the beginning, as I was advised before departure that discussions and communication with strangers could bring a lot of benefits to us. Thus, our interaction with people of all kinds, locals or tourists, sketched us a rather panoramic view about education and life conditions in Russia.

To get a different approach about our theme, we met with a professor teaching at two of the most important universities from the city in our fourth day spent. We chose to meet her due to her insight related to education and its relation to employability and her cosmopolitan view. Hence, she studied and taught a variety of topics in a university from US and she had a very good knowledge of English language. So, like in the case of Miles and Sonia, we had a common language that facilitated our discussion. Hence, we spent hours in a café near the university to get to know the Russian educational system, or, at least, get a clear view about it. We found out that nowadays the system seemed trapped in a transition period, with pupils disoriented from the discrepancy between what they learn in the schools and what they actually need to adapt to the market demands. According to her, they lack the initiative to attempt to find solutions by themselves and a critical judgment to analyze every situation they encounter. But, with a focus on self-initiative and self-motivation developed and encouraged by career services from universities, they may be guided towards professional development and a career that meets their individual expectances. Unfortunately, a lot of universities do not offer a qualitative career service and universities end up in seeing students as a source of income. It was strange to us to hear from a university teacher that universities were similar to business, but at a closer sight, this approach seemed reasonable and heavily sustained. It is the trap of political changes, a time when reforms make every social sector a room for experiment and stability seems a far-away goal. In this sense, I could connect the fault of universities with the fall of USSR and of the communist regime and the chaos created when people encouraged to take a workplace are suddenly forced to struggle for finding one. Therefore, as Elena Kournichkova explained to us, students would need to be guided and encouraged to develop their skills and initiative by teachers, instead of getting just the advice to accumulate data. Soft skills, such as communication, networking, and ability to learn foreign languages, precision and attention to details should be cultivated together with assimilating hard knowledge. So, it is not enough for a youngster to be professional in his field if he is not able to exceed market demands, which encompass team spirit and self-initiative.

Apart from the issue of employability, Elena gave us pieces of advice about our travel and the benefits of it for our development. Hence, she encouraged us in getting all the benefits that we can from this by getting to know people and finding a way of communicating to each of them, even if we do not speak the language. In this sense, she appreciated that we took the courage to struggle to become better and the will to adapt, as these features show our strength in cooperating with difficulties and getting prepared for integrating as good citizens to our society. As a personal observation, I learned from her insight the advantages that both the Russian and the American system of education offer to youngsters and I understood that getting the courage to act is essential for any improvement.

After four days, we left Sankt Petersburg and eight hours later, we reached Moscow by train. Buying a train ticket to Moscow was not an easy task, as we encountered difficulties related to the language and a long time of waiting because of the process to purchase a ticket. Hence, we found out that in Russia one had to present an identity document for being able to purchase the ticket. Whether you are a child or adult, you must be logged in STARE database trip. For tourists, it seemed almost impossible to buy tickets only from the agency or station ticket office and often the price paid was much higher than the real one. But we got help from Miles and owing to his fluent Russian, we managed to buy tickets cheap as we were locals. While getting on the train, we were surprised that despite the fact that the whole journey lasted eight hours, the train was special, with great coaches, comfortable seating and a large space for legs. I could not remember ever having so much space in any journey.

Then, we stayed relaxed with our legs stretched out and the eyes on the window catching every sight from the beautiful landscape. Winter took mastership over the entire country, while the wind was blowing and the snow seemed to form white waves with multi-colored lights. But in the landscape that was running in front of us, I saw images of the people that we met, places we had seen and museums full of history that we got the opportunity to visit.

In Moscow, we arrived on time and we took the metro to our accommodation. It was snowing pretty and delicate, and we felt joy and enthusiasm for discovering the second point of our trip. However, an hour later, after wandering the dimly lit streets of a Moscow district, with the same heavy luggage on our backs , our joy seemed to leave place for cold and discouragement. In this circumstance, I called the phone number that we got and a woman came before us. The woman, aged about 50 years, owned an apartment on the fifth floor of a block of flats. Smaranda heard about it in advance and arranged to sleep in her home for a much lower price than we had to pay at the cheapest hostel. The place looked similar to a traditional old house and nothing seemed to resemble to a location for tourists. With the dark from outside the night and our eagerness to experience life in Russia closer to the locals, we accepted the conditions and we found ourselves crammed into a small room. And if that was not enough, we had to share the room with a friend of the host, a Frenchman that was working in Moscow.

The room had two bunk beds resting on one wall and three smaller beds piled each on other sides of the room. A table placed in the middle and a black cabinet diminish the space next door in the room. The room was high -ceilinged with a yellowy light bulb in the middle. The walls were covered with wallpaper that had once dressed colorful and traditional Russian motifs. Unfortunately, in the present it was washed-out and shriveled in places, but with the same color as the ceiling and the frame of the dirty old door or the one of the window. On one wall, we noticed a traditional rug, while on top of the Wardrobe, an old traditional Russian painting tried

to make the room friendlier. The bathroom was down the hall, divided into two rooms, one for the toilet and one for the shower. The misery that came out especially because of the age of the house was easily to be taken into account. The kitchen, as tiny as a shower room with two sinks and taps included a hose, a sink with different old plates dirtied as the time passed by disorderly thrown on every corner and an antique stove probably much older than me that we were wondering how it still worked. Everything was sticky from tiles to tableware from the faucet to the sink window sill not open. What is more, half of the small ladder near the little table from the kitchen, the place where you were supposed to sit while eating, was occupied with old newspapers.

We said that in India we might face even worse conditions and should never weep for what we have. We decided to stay and adapt to it. Surely there are people in this world who live in conditions much heavier than that.

Thus, another four days when Moscow showed us why it deserved to be called impressive followed. Starting with the Kremlin wall on Red Square to orthodox churches with high towers that made you feel trapped in the pages of a storybook and continuing to Boulevard Gum Arabic where we found famous shops that remind us of market and consumerism and ending with the promenade street Arbat, we could say that Moscow offered us surprises on every small step that we took. The cold weather, the beggars in the subway, every shop with food from the streets, stores with shelves full of souvenirs and not the least the famous wooden dolls - matryoshka completed the image that we had about Russia: a rather vague, but at the same time complex one.

We did not care about the weather or I rather say we tried to fight against it. Although it was cold, we spent hours and hours from morning till late afternoon in the streets, eager to find out and know everything about Moscow. But that seemed normal for a city so beautiful and it did not pass long time until we understood that four days would not be enough for getting to know the capital of Russia.

Nevertheless, when I went to the station to embark to the Transsiberian or I may say the Trans-Mongolian, I felt like we managed to accomplish something important, that we can be proud of. . Everyone that we talked, each word that we managed to mutter in this strange language would remain in our mind and we would feel proud of how we managed to make ties to people in an unknown country, with a language and writing hostile to us, but nice and friendly people and landscape. We got a lesson from every place and picture that we took, but, more than everything, people that gave us a hand without any obligation and expecting no benefits taught us that one can smile even when outside is cold, and when the little sun-rays are unable to warm the air.

Yet, leaving Moscow did not mean leaving Russia, as the train would offer us five more long lasting days of Russia, with strangers, boredom and unexpected. After two hours of waiting in the cold, we embarked on a new adventure.

Next – The road through China, the Transsiberian experience

greet you and wish you all the best!

Following us:

on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/africaishappynow

and on the web-site: http://www.africaishappynow.com/