Holy trinity episcopal academy

Senior Reflects on Summer Study in Russia

This summer, senior Evan Killion spent six weeks in Kirov, Russia, studying the language and culture as part of the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI­Y).
The NSLI­Y is one of five State Department scholarships for high schoolers to study abroad. The extremely competitive application process took almost a year and involved numerous applications, essays and personal interviews. Learn more about Evan’s experience:
 
Describe the program for which you were selected to study abroad.
NSLI­Y offers summer and academic-year programs for Hindi, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Persian, and Arabic. The program covers classes, airfare and travel, food, and lodging. In my program, we lived in a dormitory for three weeks, and then for three weeks with a Russian host family. We studied in class for five hours, Monday through Friday, and went on excursions most afternoons in the time in which we lived in the dorms.
 
Why did you choose to apply to this program?
I have a passion for languages and foreign cultures, and am very much considering serving our country as a diplomat in some respect. I was torn between applying for Hindi (which I’ve studied before on another State Department scholarship) and Russian, but ultimately decided on Russian due to my love for the culture and history of the country.
 
What were the main cultural differences you experienced during your stay?
I lived in Russia for six weeks, the first three weeks with the other American students (there were 22 of us, the largest group in the history of the program) and the second three weeks with local host families.
 
In those first three weeks we, along with the 18 teenage Russians that were living with us, participated in a camp run by AFS (the student exchange organization that implemented our program), with excursions to local historical and cultural sites almost every afternoon. We studied Russian in the mornings from breakfast to lunch, with classes divided into a one-hour phonetics lesson where we learned songs and poems to better our pronunciation, a two-hour vocabulary and conversation class, and a two-hour grammar class. Food was generally very hearty and much like “comfort food,” involving lots of potatoes and soups, as well as the favorites of all the Americans... Russian bread and ice cream, which I must admit is much better than in the U.S. We also went on trips every few days to the grocery store to stock up on Добрый Мультифрут – our favorite juice; bread; Барний (little bear­shaped, cream filled, Hostess­type snacks); candies; and other assorted snacks.
 
Saying goodbye to our Russian peers at the dorms and at the train station was sad – I’d say with confidence that 21 of 22 of us cried – but it also presented a new adventure: our Russian families. Within an hour of moving in, I was brought to the дача, a country cottage which around 60 percent of Russians have, and was to take part in the quintessential Russian experience of баня, the stereotypical 200- degree Eastern European sauna where you sit completely nude (save for a felt hat) and get beat with birch branches. I had one 13­year old brother and two parents in my host family, along with three cousins, two aunts, and, best of all, two adorable cats.
 
I loved Moscow, which we got to visit on our last weekend in the country, and can say without a doubt that it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
 
What were the main cultural differences you experienced during your stay?
Some of the main cultural differences I experienced were the idea of the дача/dacha and the importance of family leisure time; the difference in teaching styles (with more of a focus on rote memorization); the centrality of the child within the family (as opposed to the western idea of children more as “equals” and young adults); and a slight lack of personal space.
 
What are your plans for college and career?
I plan to study either Linguistics or Geography, which centers more on geopolitics and is much more like diplomacy than what one studies in school. I’m not quite as certain in my career, but I would love to do research on endangered languages and language preservation, become a diplomat, or work in the private sector in some fashion. I also plan on teaching at some point later in my life.
 
Would you recommend this program to other students? If so, why?
 I would recommend this to any student, on the caveat that they are dedicated, ready to be challenged – both intellectually and emotionally, and truly interested and open-minded. I had the summer of my life and gained an amazing amount of fluency for just six short weeks, to the point where I now have daily conversations with Mia, another HT student from Ukraine, and have conversations as often as I can with my Russian best friends.
 
How do you feel Holy Trinity helps you to “Start Here. Go Anywhere.”?
While I definitely had some difficulties first arriving to HT as a transplant from a small town in New England, HT has been challenging and has really pushed me to do my best, something I think is largely responsible for the thirst for knowledge I possess today. Who knows, start at HT and you may end up in Russia, too.

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