Kazan — summer 2012

The other day when we went to the Volga, Flyura was driving. As we backed into a parking space, a pedestrian got out of a car nearby.

“Careful!” I said.

“Let him be careful,” snapped Flyura. “There’s a woman at the wheel!”

I died laughing.

All of our CLI Kazan students have now arrived safe and sound.

First day of class here in Kazan. The students here are pretty great. Twelve of our students have had only 8 weeks of Russian, and even buying a bottle of water at that stage is pretty intimidating. So great to see them go through that process, getting past that huge mental barrier of starting to use a language.

Here's the first local press release about the CLI Kazan program, along with a translations. It's obviously a blurb that was prepared in advance by the institute and released today just after our meeting with Igor Izmailovich Bikeev, the Institute's Vice-President of Academics.

I got a note from a colleague in Kiev concerned about "massive disturbances in Kazan." I'm not sure where that idea comes from. Aygul tells me there was a demonstration somewhere, but I can't even find a good news story on that. All was calm here yesterday. I'm still very glad to be here.