Kazan — summer 2014

I'm sure our participants and their families are concerned about the political situation involving Ukraine. Kazan is over 500 miles from the nearest corner of Ukraine, and it’s about 1000 miles away from the Russian naval base on the Crimean Peninsula. I expect there will be no particular military activity anywhere near Kazan this summer.

But two pieces of news today do make one concerned. First off, the Russian Federation Council (the upper house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, which is the parliament of the Russian Federation) has authorized troop movement into Ukraine. Once again, because of the distances involved, that particular aspect doesn't, as far as I can tell, threaten our program.

The Federation Council also recommended recalling the Russian ambassador from the US. It's political events like that that could actually jeopardize a program. That could happen one of two ways: Russia could refuse to issue our students invitations or visas for the academic program, or the US could issue a travel warning or travel alert regarding Russia. I imagine either one of those events would put the kibosh on our summer plans.

Now I have a thought about the daily news: one has to be very careful about overinterpreting news at times like this. I remember that less than 24 hours after the Chernobyl disaster there were reports of 20,000 people having died, which was blatantly false; the total number of deaths during the accident itself was 31. Early news is sometimes radically incorrect.

Despite the dismaying news in the Ukraine I expect that the program will continue as planned. I'll delay making my plane reservations until we receive the student invitations to Russia, but once that happens, I'll feel pretty good about doing so. In the meantime, I will use this blog for program updates, pictures, info and stories, and I will use another blog to track the political situation.