Kazan — summer 2012

Classes as usual this morning for our students. In the afternoon a bunch of them did a community service project by teaching an English lesson at the local American Center. The two-pronged theme of the lesson was being single and inviting people to social events/dates. The progression of the lesson was:

1. Listening exercise
2. Reading of the transcript for comprehension
3. Honing pronunciation
4. Simultaneous listening/reading
5. Generating questions and answers
6. Discussion of whether it was better/worse to be married at 25
7. Four American dialogs with invitations, reading
8. Same, performing
9. Discussion of cultural differences and subtexts

They had a lot more prepared to do, but time ran short, so they didn't get any further.

My favorite dialog of the evening is below.

Wow, what a day. Various administrative things in the morning, preparing for the next couple days. Then four students came to my apartment to take their OPI-c exams, which are tests to evaluate their oral proficiency in Russian via an internet-mediated test. Then I made the rounds of our host families.

I really like visiting the host families. It gives me the opportunity to meet so many different types of people. One of the host mothers, Lyutsia, astonished me by knowing exactly how to talk to a foreigner. She spoke slowly and clearly. I complimented her on this, which surprised her. It turns out that she teaches kindergarten, and speaking clearly and slowly is exactly what her children need. She was amazing that way. And I had to laugh at the overlap of skills.

Lyutsia is the host mother of John and Andrew. She has a cat. A female cat. Lyutsia says that the cat really likes men, and that she never lets her out on the street, and that's why she has never had kittens. The cat really likes to be petted. I scratched her head, and she purred. I scratched her shoulders, and she purred. I scratched her lower back, and her purr turned into a semi-orgasmic thunderstorm, and she displayed her feline female bits to me and started backing up in my direction. Andrew looked at me and said, “We think she’s in heat.” Oh. Sorry, kitty. That's a service I'm not willing to perform.

Visiting host families also gives me an amazing opportunity to see different living arrangements in Russia. Talk to me sometime in person about the variety. It really is astonishing.

Another day starting with administration. I attended all the final oral presentations of the second year students. I'm so proud of them. There isn't a one that hasn't made major progress in the last four weeks. If I had to pick one today who particularly impressed me, it would be Amanda. At only 19 years of age she has an excellent mind, good study habits, and to the best I can tell is a young woman of excellent character. Oh, and she is lovely beyond words. Though I am a teacher per se, I feel an avuncular pride in students like this. I'm often stunned by the privilege of being able to see some part of their lives. I will never have children, but I hope that some small virtue might pass from me to students like these.

I met with one of the Institute's vice-presidents today to begin discussions about bids for next year's program. I personally want to come back to Kazan, but I think we will have bids from Kiev and Petersburg as well.

After that two more students did their OPI-c exams, and then I visited more host families.

After that I was free for the evening, so I headed to the Osipovs'. Flyura decided to feed us, and she just "threw something together," which consisted of ground meat, potatoes, onions, cabbage. This she fried a bit, then she added a mixture of eggs and milk, along with some tomatoes, which she then covered. Ohmigosh, so tasty. If I were to try this at home, I might use chicken bouillion instead of milk, but oh so good.

She also served up сало, basically fat back. In the past I've mostly been grossed out by it, but in my new fat-friendly frame of nutrition I decided to eat it. Not bad at all. And throw a little AZ gun-slinger sauce in and it becomes even more interesting.

Danila's sister, Dasha. If she is not the cutest girl on the planet, I'm sure I don't know who is.

Here are a couple images from Bauman street during my last hours in Kazan.

First off, here is a group protesting the imprisonment of the feminist punk band "Pussy Riot." I was not fond of their method of protest, but their imprisonment and trial are a miscarriage of justice.

On the 15th the new KFC opened on Bauman. They have had a bunch of kids decked out as Colonel Saunders in front of the store passing out balloons, and every once in a while they break out in song to the tune of... what else?... "Música" by Fly project! Here's a photo.

And here's a video.