Why Russia

Interestingly, when I set out to write this I was expecting to write about how I was interested in Russian culture because of my fascination with “Soviet Russia” stereotypes. Looks like I proved myself wrong.

A lot of people have been asking me this lately. As I'm sure many of you know (hey, I could use that as like my signature line, I use it a lot) I'll be spending next semester at the Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod. I have no background at all in Russian, and I realize that it isn't the most marketable language skill in today's job market. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that a lot of people ask me why I'm going to Russia, and I'm not. What does surprise me is how hard it is to answer.

My instinct always tells me to just say “Why not?” and to an extent this is true. My decision to pick Russia was largely on a whim. When I first began to research NSLI-Y I was interested in studying Chinese. Once I took a month of 中文 classes at MMLA (just google it) I realized that as fascinating as the language is, I wasn't that interested in the culture. Spending a summer or longer immersed in a culture I wasn't interested in just seemed foolish, so I looked at the other programs offered. I knew more about Russia than the other countries, so I applied, and got in. Bang. End of story. That's all folks.

Every now and then, some incessantly annoying individual (more often than not a relative) asks for a “better answer.” After a little thought, I always turn to the same responses: “I love how the language sounds,” or maybe “I'm interested in nuclear physics, the Soviet Union made great advances in the field,” and sometimes even just “the architecture is really cool” or “I love the cold weather.” This isn't the whole truth though. What really has driven me to love Russia is my own ignorance

Anecdote time! I first started to toy around with computer programming in 7^th grade. My first language was the 83+ version of TI-BASIC. I had an 84+ Silver Edition, and I spent more time on it than I did on my actual computer. Almost everything I knew then about programming I learned either through guess and check or from my friend Wilhelm, who I later learned had simply leeched the knowledge off his dad. One of the first programs he threw together was a quiz on Russian culture, just meant to demonstrate basic logic algorithms. I tried it, I failed miserably. I knew nothing about Russia's geography, culture, language, or history; to be honest I still know little. I've never taken kindly to failure, so I set out to learn more. About a month ago, a friend asked me if the KGB still was in operation. Even more astonishing than the fact that he didn't know was the fact that I couldn't answer. Americans, myself included, are ignorant. I'm ashamed of it, and the fact that my ignorance about Russia has been rubbed into my face has been what sparked my interest to learn more. Maybe it could have been Turkey, or Brazil, but as my life played out I've been stuck with an interest in Russia.