A year surviving Russia's San Francisco. Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

The Russian texts provided were often just put together by the instructors and these often were the same sorts of texts used to teach Russian to children. I also noticed that there were some presentations given by instructors which directly plagiarized material that I discovered online. As children and adults learn language in different ways I felt that the program was of limited use. The staff was unwilling to work with me using material that I found that I could understand better.

On-site administration of your program

The on site administration did little to represent me to the university. As most of them had only a tenuous grasp of English, I was left to ask other students with a background in Russian to help me with most of my problems. When I mentioned these difficulties, I was told that administrators aren't required to know English.

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

The communal kitchen and bathroom areas were unsanitary, theft was rampant, the sleeping arrangements were spartan to put it mildly, and disease spread like wildfire.

The food was adequate.

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

The dorm's curfew made it difficult to really immerse myself into the nightlife of Vladivostok but the university did not restrict my comings and goings beyond that.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

The health facilities used very old techniques and disease was common in the dorms. If a student was unfortunate to be sequestered in a local hospital they could expect only saline solution injections, bread, and tea in an institution that looked like it had been unchanged since the Soviet Union.

Problems with locals were common if they learned that students were foreign. Harassment of people of color using slurs, cat calling and cornering women to coax them into sex, and the threatening of homosexuals with physical violence are all common occurrences in Vladivostok. During my stay, one of my friends was simply walking around the city and was grabbed by her hair and screamed at to go home. My girlfriend was cornered by a group of young men in broad daylight, not from the university, who yanked her ear phones out of her ears and proceeded to start touching her and attempting to lead her away from the public streets presumably to rape her. The police in Russia are famously corrupt, nor would they respond quickly and were of little use. My advice to future students in Vladivostok would be to travel in a group and be very aware of your surroundings. It is unlikely that anyone will be able to help you later if you are targeted.

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

There may be some misconceptions about Russia. Despite being a developing country, Russia is not especially cheap to live in aside for a few goods. Despite this, it wasn't especially difficult to live there without spending too much.

0 = No encouragement, 5 = frequent encouragement to use the language

I was told often to use Russian and was encouraged to try and explain something in Russian before falling back on English if I was unsuccessful.

Select all that apply

• Dorm

Select all that apply

• Local Students
• Americans
• International Students

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• Americans
• International Students

• The chance to interact with people from different cultures.
• Glimpsing the world from a Russian perspective.
• The ability to use this as a staging area for visiting a great many other countries.

• The living arrangements were terrible.
• The dangers of the Russian Far East should be gone over in greater detail to prospective students.
• The administration could have more staff that both understands English and what more common international expectations of service and behavior are.

The Avid Adventurer