Tallinn, Estonia

We went to Tallinn, Estonia this weekend.  It was amazingly beautiful! Tallinn is an old medieval style city. The people there were really nice and the scenery was picture perfect. That is about the only exciting thing that happened lately.  Nothing has changed, I'm still really busy all of the time.  My Russian class is getting hard and I have to study a lot to remember all of the different cases and grammar rules, not to mention the twenty different Russian words there are for one English word.  But its all good.  My brain just aches everyday after class, so many things to remember.  My other classes are pretty bad actually, I'm not a fan of them.  History is terrible every time, Ethnic studies is interesting when the teacher is prepared and actually teaches instead of telling stores, and civilization is usually boring, but we have the occasional interesting discussion.  But I don't really care about those classes anyway, I'm only here to learn Russian.  

I've been volunteering teaching english at a local institute of foreign languages. It's fun, I enjoy talking with the students and helping them with their English.  And in return I get to practice my Russian, and meet interesting people. I usually go there at least twice a week, but sometimes three. Teaching, well it's not really teaching, they just like to have a native speaker, takes up a lot of my time during the week.  But I don't mind it because I get to do my homework and study were there are Russians to help me, plus they are really cool people. I also have a conversation partner that I'm supposed to meet once a week, but we're friends and we usually hang out whenever we have time.  Her name is Katya and she's a student studying tourism and hotel management.  I like her she's really fun to hang out with and she teaches me a lot of Russian.  

I'm having trouble finding time to write in my blog. I literally stay busy all day everyday.  I have to make myself write in it, but there is always something to do.  So sorry if I'm not updating very often.  I think it would be a good idea if you, whoever is reading, would comment and ask questions, or give me some ideas of what you would like me to write about.  There are so many things going on all the time, I don't know what you are interested in hearing about.  So if you have questions about something you've been wondering about, just ask. I'm open to all questions, whether its about my daily routine, politics, culture, people, places or whatever you can think about.

This Time of Year

Fall in Russia is gorgeous! The city is beautiful all year round, but the changing colors of the leaves this time of year adds to its beauty.  St. Petersburg is full of parks, in the city and just outside the city.  So it is easy to see the colorful fall leaves all over the city.  You can usually find people playing in leaves at any nearby park, they love to make hats out of the leaves and wear them around the park.  I think most people back home have a really gray view of what Russia might look like to them.  I want everyone to see how beautiful it really is.

Newspaper Articles

Just a couple of updates....

I've read some interesting articles in the St. Petersburg Times lately.  I'll post a link to two of them so everyone can read them if they want.  They are really interesting.  The St. Petersburg Times is printed in english twice a week and the articles are written by mainly russian journalists, so its an interesting perspective.  The first article is titled "Museum Shows Georgian War Trophies."  They have items on display such as captured Georgian rifles, uniforms, and photos of dead Georgian soldiers in the streets and victories Russian tanks.  I think this is pretty repulsive.  First of all I don't think there should even be such a thing a "war trophies." The article quoted a Russian who was visiting the exhibit with his son saying, “I wanted to show my son this... He has to see how strong and powerful the Russian army is.  It was not the aggressor but it still won.” Most Americans probably don't know that Georgia actually launched the 1st offensive, even though the Russians were gathered on the border clearly prepared for an encounter with the Georgians.  Not to mention when the conflict did occur, the Russians pushed much farther into Georgian territory beyond South Ossetia.  The article made me think about what Americans would say if we had a museum displaying war trophies from Iraq.  I'm sure some responses would be much like this Russian's response, but I think the majority would be outraged by it.  Not sure though, what would your response be to

such a museum in America?

Here is the link:

http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=27101

The second article talks about the large number of abortions in Russia, the statistics are shocking.  I know abortion was a problem in Russia, but I didn't really know the extent of the problem.  If you didn't already know, Russia has a major demographic problem, the number of Russians is decreasing year by year.  Theoretically if this was to continue there would eventually be no more Russians.  It's a big problem for Russia.  So much that Russia declared this year the year of the family.  Last week fire inspection authorities raided two buildings that were going to host a gay and lesbian film festival in St. Petersburg and declared them unsafe, resulting in the festival not taking place.  I believe that is partly related to the whole year of the family concept.  Certainly gays and lesbians don't fit in with the whole family concept.  Anyway, you should read the article, it is well worth it.  And I'd love to hear some comments.

Here is the link:

http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=27240

You'll probably just have to copy and paste the link into your browser....mom just ask missy or kim how to that!