Author Archives: Emily Kohlman

Busting the Stereotypes

After strolling around for almost 2 months in the Russian Federation, I have learned so much about cultural differences. I have seen things that I never would have imagined I would witness here in Russia, and I would love to share these “stereotype-busters” with you in this post.

1. Russia does not have year-long winter: “You are studying abroad in Russia?! You will have to wear your winter coat ALL summer!”

While it may seem that almost every American film set in Russia involves freezing weather and fur coats and hats, brutal cold is not the only temperature. Sunshine does exist: I have seen beaches and people sunbathing in parks. There are fountains here that children play in and adults run through. On sunny days, my phonetics professor actually teaches our class outside on the green lawn!

They have beaches in Russia?!

To be completely honest, the weather is a little odd. The rain and wind here can get pretty funky. My host mom just informed me that there was a small tornado in St. Petersburg yesterday, and she said it was the first time ever. (This is also the record coldest summer since 1948, which is unfortunately ironic.) Nevertheless, even during an unusually windy and chilly summer, sunburns and sweat are still very much a reality.

2. I haven’t seen any bears roaming about in Russia. I haven’t even seen a pet bear on a leash. But I have seen stray dogs and more pigeons than I would ever like to see. And I have also seen pet monkeys in outfits and raccoons on leashes. Go figure.

This lil guy actually has an owner, but he was strolling about campus today and interrupted our last outdoor phonetics class.

3. All Russians are not as “serious” as one might have thought. Humor is a huge part of life here, and it is enjoyable to catch silly moments on the metro or marshrytka (like when an elderly woman starts laughing hysterically and blessing you repeatedly because she fell onto your lap during a sharp turn …or when it starts raining out of nowhere and the wind blows your umbrella inside-out and an elderly man finds it to be absolutely hysterical). Actually, a lot of these LOL moments happen at home. I woke up the other morning to some Russians teenagers singing “Hakuna Matata” outside my window.

And the other week, I bought a purse during a huge sale at the mall, and my host mom liked it so much that she went out and bought the same purse in a different color …and could not wait to tell me about it. Now she enjoys telling me “good job” every time I take it with me out the door in the morning.

And sometimes, when she knows I have been to the mall, she will ask me if I saw any good deals.

“Super American Sandwich”… Russian humor at its finest.

4. Fastfood is better abroad. There is just something about sitting in a Burger King with a ceiling fit for a cathedral and biting into the most plump burger that makes one start to compare…

The prettiest Burger King ceiling I ever did see

And… Russian McFlurries are creamier than American ones, too.

To be entirely honest, the best American hamburger I had here was from a Russian cafe…

5. Russia has roller coasters. I would know – for the Fourth of July, I went to a “Disney-like” theme park. Oh, and they are WILD. The advertisements for the particular roller coaster that I rode said it went from 0 to 100 km/hr in 2 seconds, but the fact that there was no bar over my shoulders during all the loops and corkscrews was slightly more terrifying. But for the split-second I had at the top before the plunge, I could see the most spectacular view.

How Americans celebrate the Fourth of July in Russia…

6. Not all Russians drink. But when they do, according to my culture professor, they do it right. And it is normally vodka. “To warm Russians up because we are such cold people,” he would sarcastically explain.

7. The Minion movie in Russian is great. Without having really seen either Despicable Me movie, I can say that my friend and I laughed our pants off in a theater that only had a handful of other people in it… and they were all under 3 feet tall.

That reminds me…

8. Russian movie theaters have the comfiest seats ever. And probably the coolest refreshment options ever. A pint of Baskin Robbins? Sure. Refillable giant sugar sticks? So that’s why the little boy kept leaving the theater…

9. While it is advised to keep a straight, blank look on your face on the metro, some people are doing just fine without their “Metro Face”:

After this Russian man spontaneously hopped on the metro and started playing his electric clarinet after everyone had a long and tiring day (Navy Day celebrations – long travels, lots of walking, lots of exciting events)… he ran up and down the aisle – asking for money – and then hopped off at the next stop.

Never a dull moment.

^^^ Not even for him.

Location: st. petersburg, russia

I Really-Actually-Seriously Stood on Red Square. Это Правда.

For as long as I can remember, it has been my dream to visit Red Square in Moscow and gape at St. Basil’s Cathedral, the GUM shopping center, Lenin’s Mausoleum and the Kremlin wall.

I could not be happier to be standing on Red Square in front of the beautiful St. Basil’s Cathedral!

Last week, my life-long dream was finally fulfilled, and I am still in disbelief. Every aspect of my journey to and from Moscow was incredible as well, and I would love to share with you my 4-day adventure to the capital of the Motherland!

The Kremlin at dusk

CIEE arranged for us students to take the overnight train to Moscow to get the full experience (…coming back to Petersburg, we took the Sapsan – the fastest train connecting the two cities… only took 4 hours!). For someone who has never taken an overnight train before, I was so excited. My friends and I would peer excitedly out the window at all the dachas (Russian summer cabins) and trees until the sun went down… then we transitioned to watching Russian cartoons about travels to Outer Space. Before we remembered that we needed sleep, the train had arrived at the train station in Moscow! Immediately, after stepping off the platform, I knew I wasn’t in St. Petersburg anymore. The buildings differed from each other in height, and the sound of traffic seemed to overwhelmingly drone out everyone’s thoughts. The CIEE group then took a short bus tour from the station to our sweet Holiday Inn hotel and ate an incredible breakfast. Once hyped up on adrenaline and excessive amounts of coffee and blini (see?! sleeping on the overnight train wasn’t really necessary..), we made our way to the bus again for our 5-hour-long introductory tour of Moscow (we stopped for photo-ops, of course). The tour concluded with a stop at Red Square. After many group pictures, we were free to explore the area. The huge, high-end shopping mall, GUM, was a big hit with everyone because venders inside of GUM were handing out FREE ice-cream that day. It was coincidentally the absolute hottest day we have had in Russia. Is that fate or what?! (Though I must admit, I bought blini instead of waiting in the free-ice-cream line…)

The free ice cream was HERE!

After that packed first day, we were able to try to catch up on sleep so that we could go to Lenin’s Mausoleum early the next morning. My host mother told me that she went once when she was very young and warned me that it was very strange and she was very afraid. I did not know what to expect exactly, but it was an experience I am glad that I have had. It was surreal to see Vladimir Lenin in his own flesh… but it was definitely eerie. After seeing Lenin, I saw the graves of other influential political and historical figures in Russian history, including the grave of Joseph Stalin.

The grave of Joseph Stalin

After the mausoleum, we watched the changing of the guards at the WW2 Eternal Fame Memorial, and then we received a tour of the Kremlin and the Armoury Museum (amazing, so beautiful and rich in history!) inside the Kremlin (Oh, Disclaimer: I didn’t get to see Putin at all, let alone on a bear).

My Moscow nights were spent wandering about the city with my native Russian friends, Liza and Masha. They were more than happy to show another CIEE participant, my friend Ericka, and I their favorite cafes, parks, gardens and streets. They took us out to eat at an old Soviet-style restaurant I would have otherwise never tried, told us stories behind detailed graffiti on less-populated streets, showed us churches with secret gardens behind them and explained the story behind the addition of McDonald’s to Moscow (people waited for days in the line for Mickey D’s… 24 years ago!).

Eating a Soviet-style dinner in Moscow with Russian friends

There is no place quite as wonderful as Gorky Park. It is complete with water boats, fountains, dance stages, basketball and volleyball courts, cotton candy and much, much more…

Bean Bag chairs at Gorky Park. Absolutely incredible!

From people-watching at Gorky Park to dancing in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral and walking through Lenin’s Mausoleum, I know that I made memories I will cherish for the rest of my life. I feel extremely blessed that I was able to experience Moscow through the eyes of locals; I learned that Moscow has a side that differs from her grandiose, magnificent and world-famous Kremlin. My only regret is that I could not be there longer… but I have more of St. Petersburg to study and explore!

Ericka and I posing with Pushkin and his wife on our tour with our Russian friends!

Location: Moscow, Russia

С Днём Независимости!

In other words, Happy Independence Day, America!

Every week of classes, a common theme is practiced throughout. For example, last week the theme was art (to keep up with Russian Art Week), and all 7 of my classes consisted of talking about art-related words and reading about the Russian art culture and festivities. This past week, the theme of the classes was National Holidays. We spent time learning about the different practices of holidays in Russia and compared the different traditions and celebrations.

Today is the 4th of July, and while it is obviously not celebrated in Russia, Dostoevsky Day (or Weekend, actually) is celebrated. Fyoder Dostoevsky was a 19th-century Russian writer who is well-known around the world through his novels Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. The first weekend in July was chosen because the opening scene in Crime and Punishment takes place on a hot Petersburg day in early July, and Russians celebrate with many street festivals, living statues and demonstrations outside of the Dostoevsky Museum in St. Petersburg.

The program I am here studying with, CIEE, is kind enough to even host a picnic for the American students today to commemorate our national holiday! This will be an exciting way to celebrate while we are abroad in Russia, and I am also pumped to observe some Dostoevsky celebrations (there are a couple of concerts going on, too) as well. Oh, and to make this day EVEN better, the weather is supposed to reach a sunny upper-70s Fahrenheit temperature! (Disclaimer: I know it is Russia, but yes, it does get warm, and yes, they do have beaches.)

Back to my classes this past week, we covered a lot of different material. In my media class on Friday, after we were finished discussing articles published by different Russian journalists,our professor asked us to describe some of the most blatant differences between Russia and America in terms of everyday life. Immediately, I thought about the necessity of different forms of daily transportation and the blatant overdose each day of grains and potatoes that I have observed in my first (almost) month here. There are a lot of similarities, more so than I think many people may realize, but of course, this is a different country with different traditions and a different day-to-day life. Below I have compiled a little list to express some of the more obvious cultural things I am still learning to adapt to:

Transportation: I am from a rural area about 40 miles north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I do not think I have ever used a metro. Okay, so maybe I have, but I was very young, and it was never a necessity. When I go to class in the morning at Penn State, my longest walk might take about 15 minutes, but here, getting to my classes is quite a hike. In St. Petersburg, I wake up around 7:45, get ready and eat breakfast and am out the door by 9. I catch a bus by my apartment building and ride to the metro station nearest me (I prefer not to take a bus home, and the walk takes me a half an hour from my closest metro station). Then, I ride four stops on the red line to the metro stop nearest the Smolny campus of Saint Petersburg State University. If I were to walk from here, it would take about 20 minutes, but thankfully, CIEE provides students a shuttle that leaves from the station at 9:40, bringing us to Smolny just in time for our first class at 10 am. I could go on for days about transportation here, but I must admit that it has grown on me, and I enjoy observing people on the metro.

Smolny Campus: What a place to study at all summer!

Classes: We have classes 3 times a day, 4 days a week. Each class lasts an hour and a half, which is something that really seems to take a while during the days Smolny is especially freezing. Also, class participation makes up the majority of the grade (along with the final), rather than tests or quizzes throughout the course.

After climbing to the top of the Smolny Cathedral located on my campus, I got to see the bird’s-eye view of the beautiful city.

Food: I have jokingly said to family and friends that the diet here might persuade someone to want to never eat potatoes again, but it’s not that bad. Breakfast typically consists of kasha (oatmeal), eggs, buckwheat, or sausage and potatoes with an open-faced sandwich, and dinner typically contains cucumbers, tomatoes, soup, pasta, potatoes, bread… fruit is not really a big thing here. I am fortunate to be studying in Russia during the summer when the largest selection of freshly-grown fruits and vegetables is available to me, but I must say, the four main food groups here are grains, meat, tea and dairy. The little poppyseed cakes and blini (crepe-like pancakes) treats that do come hand-in-hand with tea time are incredible, I must admit.
Typical Russian Dinner: Potatoes, cabbage, chicken, cheese, raw fish, bread, apples (oh, and of course, black tea)

Location: St. Petersburg, Russia

From Pittsburgh to Petersburg

Now that I have developed somewhat of a routine that involves getting used to the constant daylight of White Nights in Saint Petersburg (waking up at 3 a.m. and seeing daylight kept throwing me for a loop), I am rather excited to share my experiences with you!

As my plane flew from Brussels to Saint Petersburg two weeks ago, I could feel my heart thumping in my chest. Maybe it was a combination of the dehydration that comes with running through airports and time zones without a water bottle handy and the anxiety of flying to Russia to live there for the summer. Yeah, that was probably it.

To ease my nerves and excitement, I peered out the window into the vast blue. The sky seemed cloudless and endless, and eventually the pilot’s voice announced our descent into Saint Petersburg. As if on cue, the sky turned to a thick, milky gray, and condensation covered my window. When my plane landed, the 20-some degree drop in the temperature blasted me like a bad surprise… But there was absolutely no time to let the stereotypically temperamental Petersburg weather being me down. I was greeted by enthusiastic CIEE employees and taken to Crowne Plaza, a gorgeous hotel (WITH WIFI!), to wind down and prepare for dinner and, yes finally, sleep.

I landed on a Friday and spent the weekend attending orientation sessions with the other CIEE program participants to prepare for Sunday afternoon. That was when our host families were meeting us to take us to our home for the summer. (Ahhhhh!!! We were all so anxious..)

But everything has been great, and I am happily typing away in my own bedroom in an apartment with my host mother and her little Yorkshire Terrier. We have had multiple funny moments together, and no matter how awkward a situation may seem due to cultural differences… we both get a kick out of it.

For example, during first evening with my host mom I was telling her about where I came from, and I brought out my gifts to share with her. I presented to her a Pennsylvania map, Pittsburgh sports memorabilia (including a Fourth-of-July-edition Terrible Towel, of course), JIF Peanut Butter and family pictures.

I guess I figured that my lack of language skills (how does one explain the Terrible Towel, anyway?!) would be made up for with my superior charades skills… Needless to say, my host mom was laughing so hard when I jumped up and started waving around the Terrible Towel like a true Steelers football fan. She must have liked the gifts because she giggled and grabbed my arm, and we went for a walk to the metro station so that I would be able to know where to go to commute to school each day (Russian transportation requires another post… stay tuned…). We laughed the whole time, bonding over the stories we shared as we passed a McDonald’s restaurant (you can’t escape it…) and other familiar businesses. To my happy surprise, I realized I even knew enough Russian to crack a few jokes and to help break the ice.

Троицкий собор – Troitsky sobor (Trinity Cathedral) I am lucky to have a long, scenic walk home from the metro station every day. Oh, and this photo was taken at about 10 at night!

Eat Fresh!

As it turns out, we are all people who smile and laugh and cry and understand – no matter where we come from or what language we speak – and I am so blessed to be understanding the Russian culture and appreciating more every single day that I spend abroad.

Location: St. Petersburg, Russia

Vodka and Mayonnaise and Bears, OH MY!

After telling people where I was studying abroad this summer, I got a lot of funny reactions: Most of the time I got worried reactions (people asking if I was okay), sometimes I received agonizing looks, and I even witnessed a few angry outbursts. It’s true: Russia isn’t everybody’s first choice for vacation or study, but it’s mine. I love telling stories and am naturally curious, and I see studying abroad in Russia as an opportunity to challenge myself and to inform others about a culture that perhaps they don’t know very much about.

It hasn’t really hit me yet that I am going to be in Russia on Friday. I will be living in St. Petersburg with a Russian family, taking classes in Russian (!??!?!!) about the Russian language and culture, and exploring not only a new world …but a new me.

Just a year ago, I was packing up my stuff for my freshman year at Penn State. I never imagined that this summer would see me off to the Motherland. And I definitely never imagined that I would be taking an oath to speak only in Russian. But hey, I wouldn’t have it any other way, and I cannot wait to soak it in!

I AM nervous, though. Naturally… I have a long plane ride with a few layovers, and packing was a nightmare. Thank goodness I finished that… today… And I am also anxious about living in a Russian family’s home for 8 weeks. What if I can’t understand them? What if they don’t like me? What if I get lost trying to get to St Petersburg State University every morning (the metro system is a whole different story!)? I realize these little worries are stupid to fret over. I’ll get over there and it’ll be fine. Actually, it’s going to be a lot better than fine. It’s going to be amazing – quite the life experience – and I am going to savor the Russian language and culture and share the beauty and excitement of Russia with all of you.

So watch out, world. I am packed (I hope I’m not forgetting anything…) and ready for a challenge. This surreal adventure that I am about to embark on is ON!

Location: Pittsburgh, PA

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