Fulbright in Russia
By Louis Pinkett
Always expect the unexpected!
Standing outside the arrivals gate in Moscow’s Sheremteyevo Airport with about 100 kilograms of baggage and twenty words of Russian between us, we looked around for the friendly, English-speaking taxi driver sent to meet us. As the waiting crowd gradually melted away and we found ourselves alone, we studied our options.
Unfortunately there were none.
Normally, I would just curse a little and find a taxi. But this time was a bit different. The driver who was supposed to meet us had our connecting flight tickets from Moscow to our ultimate destination, a spa town in the Caucasus with the appropriate name of Mineralnye Vody (mineral waters), the closest airport to my Fulbright assignment at Pyatigorsk State Linguistics University. Thanks to some good fortune we found an uncrowded airport information desk and they called the Fulbright office in Moscow for us. The driver was located, came up with some outlandish excuse for not being on time, gave us our tickets and got us to the correct terminal. The rest was easy. We were met in MinVod by a young faculty member who was to shepherd us through the settling in process. Since then she’s been a constant companion and a good friend. Within a couple of days we were settled in an apartment with a view of the mountains, within walking distance of the university.
Pyatigorsk the town has about 150,000 inhabitants. It is known throughout Russia for its curative mineral springs and muds. Busloads of tourists come from throughout the country to take the spa treatments, many with doctors’ prescriptions, many in wheel chairs. I’ve heard various anecdotes from colleagues about successful rehabilitation, but whether or not it works, it’s certainly popular. At one time it was strictly the reserve of the rich and famous, tsars and commissars alike, but it has become more accessible. The ‘resort area’ where most of the hotels are is quite beautiful, set at the foot of Mt. Mashuk, where the popular Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov, who spent several years in Pyatigorsk, died in a duel in 1841. In a quirky coincidence, or perhaps a foreboding he had, Lermontov, in his novella, ‘A Hero of Our Time,’ relates a very similar incident. In addition to Lermontov, whose name is so closely associated with the town, Pushkin and Tolstoy also spent time and wrote here.
Pyatigorsk State Linguistics University has a student body of about 5500 students and offers degrees up to and including doctoral in Linguistics, Intercultural Communication, Philology, Pedagogies, Psychology, Translation Theory, Theory and Methods of Foreign language teaching, Russian Language, Culture and Literature, Government and Public Administration, Business Management, International Relations, Public Relations and Journalism. All students graduate with knowledge of two languages, and English is widely studied and widely spoken by both student body and faculty. It is a highly respected institution and ranks ninth in the top 100 liberal arts universities in the Russian Federation.
I work with the Department of English and Romance Languages, which also has centers for Armenian language and culture and a recently opened Israeli language and culture center.
Although my Fulbright grant was specifically for furthering an interest in community colleges in Russia, there is no interest here and every time I’ve tried to bring up the benefits, somehow the subject gets changed. As I said at the beginning, ‘expect the unexpected,’ so I teach film and writing with no particular syllabus and respond to the needs of the students in conjunction with the Dean and assistant Deans of the department. I enjoy both the challenge and the freedom, the students are bright and friendly and clearly love the new experiences, and my colleagues here are friendly, curious and ever helpful.
The academic level here is quite high and students above the second year are familiar with Lakoff’s work on metaphors and Halliday’s meta linguistics.
On a different note, I was fortunate enough to arrive here during the university’s 70th anniversary celebration, and have been to four banquets in the two months I’ve been here. This being Russia, the vodka and champagne and cognac flows freely and the last celebration, in honor of my department’s 20th anniversary as an independent department began at 10 AM with student presentations of ethnic foods, moved on to a student concert, and finished at 7PM with a banquet for faculty complete with DJ playing Russian, Armenian, and Israeli folk and American R&R.
While rolling along here on the banquet circuit, I offered to do a Thanksgiving presentation for first year students as a cultural event and am now deep in consultation with the cafeteria manager and a couple of faculty members on how we will arrange things. It will be a useful intercultural experience for the students, and for me too as I try to balance the negative elements of that period of our history while still maintaining the positive aspects of the holiday.
The student body is amazingly diverse. Whereas in the US, ‘diversity’ seems to be a goal that requires departments, managers and head counters (I’m obviously oversimplifying), it seems to work here as a natural process. When I mention diversity departments jaws drop and eyebrows raise and although they understand and are aware of the affirmative action process they find it hard to understand the bureaucratizing of it. Although Russia is known for its rigid bureaucracy (ask me about my visa experiences sometime), and its sometimes crude processes, there is a thread of honesty and openness that runs through the populace that I haven’t really seen anywhere else.
To elaborate a bit, everybody knows about Chechnya, and Georgia, and perhaps Dagestan, and maybe Ossetia and Abkhazia but among the separate and distinct language and ethnic groups in the Caucasus are Abazinians, Kabardinians, Ingushians, Chechnyans, Darginians, Svans, South Ossetians, Georgians from Kazbegi, Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanians, Lezginians, as well as a Russian population and in my area a large Greek population that for some reason has become known for their local pumpkin production. I first became aware of it when a student of mine, with an excellent command of English, explained the challenges she sometimes has in dealing with the different writing styles of Russian, Abazinian, and English. Abazians have their own distinct language and alphabet and are a distinct ethnic group, and although they have no ‘country,’ consider themselves a separate nation.
Wars have been fought and blood spilled between and among these groups and there is currently a nasty and ongoing border dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan among other local tensions, but the university culture seems to be a study in harmony.
This is my second overseas assignment funded through the State Department. In 2006- 2007, I spent an academic year in Minsk, Belarus at Minsk State Linguistics University through the English Language Fellow program where I worked as a faculty consultant. This year’s Fulbright grant has been shorter term, but equally satisfying. The experiences have been outstanding, both as cultural/travel experiences and the chance to present a positive face of America in an organic and non political way. I have developed a network of international contacts that I can draw upon and that have drawn upon me. I feel that I have grown as a result and have contributed to the growth of my students here and fellow faculty members. I hope that when I return, I have the opportunity to elaborate on the experience and perhaps encourage others to apply for a Fulbright.
