Valentine's Day, no longer just a Western tradition

Culture
By Erin Wahal

Erin and Kyrill Celebrating Russian St. Valentine’s Day with Apple on a String Races!

With our new friends from MSAU, on February 14th we had the privilege of celebrating Valentine’s Day from both American and Russian perspectives.  St Valentine’s Day or Densuyatovo Valentina is a recent addition to Moscow’s calendar; it didn’t become widely celebrated until about 10 years ago. Still it is not as popular as it is in the West.  In the United States Valentine’s Day is celebrated mostly as a Hallmark holiday, where many people go out to dinner, pass out cards, and send flowers and candy to each other. Although they do many similar things in Russia, it’s not as widely celebrated as it is in the United States.  American and Russian young children decorate valentine boxes, and pass out valentines to their classmates.  Many people send each other flowers and cards for the holiday.  A Russian man may also give his sweetheart something special for the day, but it isn’t expected nor would it be a disappointment if no gifts were given.
Here in Moscow, our celebration consisted of a variety of activities. We went to a program given by the international department at the local middle school where we teach. The children performed skits, songs and recited poems. The patriotic and popular songs songs were in English and German. They sang English songs like “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and even sang “If you want to be my Lover” by the Spice Girls. After passing out valentines to our students, we talked with faculty about how Russians celebrate this holiday.
At the hostel, MSAU students surprised us by passing out Valentines, balloons, and presents to each one of us. After exchanging valentines, we played games such as Russian twister, charades, apple on a string races, and card games.  Russian twister differs from our twister, as it has numbers instead of colors and the moves are pulled from a hat versus being spun on a wheel. Charades turned out to be a very interesting game because some of the clues were fellow classmates or teachers. The most interesting game was the race to eat an apple dangling from a string. It was kind of like our bobbing for apples game in the United States. It was also very interesting to teach the Russian students some American cards games, and for them to do the same for us. This was by far the most unique way that I have ever celebrated Valentines Day.  It was a pleasure being able to gain a new outlook on ways to celebrate this holiday and I can’t wait to learn some more Russian games!  

Playing Valentine’s Day Twister with Erin, Rebecca, Sam and Kyrill- Don’t Fall Guys!

University de-enrollment???

Education
BySamuel Carpenter

Sad Students Earning less than 3 on their Exams are Expelled. . . bye-bye MSAU

Imagine the forced expulsion of four thousand five hundred Penn State students, or almost fifteen percent of the student body.  Well, this is just what happened at MSAU.  We understood that performing well on finals could help increase a student’s standing and provide extra student aid. But what we didn’t know were the real consequences of poor performance.  At P.S.U. students are used to poor performance affecting G.P.A. and standing.  Without passing grades, students must repeat certain subjects.  The same goes for Russian students in terms of needing a passing grade in order to proceed onto the next level of a given subject.  But the consequences of poor performance on multiple tests can result in a much greater penalty – the forced ‘un-enrollment’ of students by the university president.
Around 500 students were expelled from a previous class body of 3500. Some students will be allowed to reapply in the fall, but they will be forced to retake the previous year. This accounts for about fifteen percent of the entire student body or one in every six students.  I have known kids who have had to withdraw from Penn State but picturing one in every six students being expelled is inconceivable.
            When I first heard this, I thought I had misunderstood.  Penn State could never afford such a huge loss of income. But I soon realized that students are not a source of income for the MSAU because higher education in Russia is provided by the state. Fortunately nobody from our program was forced to make this walk of shame. Our ‘girls’ as we so call them were ashamed of what had occurred.  One hundred and ninety students had been expelled from the department of Engineering and Pedagogy – the same department that most of our Russian classmates are enrolled in. 
            The faculty in the Engineering and Pedagogy department has a very good reputation for being helpful and considerate of students. Whereas most professors and assistant deans in other departments do not try to help students, the faculty in this department does what they can to encourage and motivate students. 
            The assistant dean, Valentina Michialovna, has a reputation for being a very nice woman.  She is always willing to call in favors and grant special requests to those that need extra assistance.  Unlike Penn State, students have multiple tries to pass exams. However, if students fail to pass after several tries, they are forced to pay for required tutoring in that specific subject.  Valentina helped those who were in this tight spot by scheduling help and extending deadlines.  Despite the extra help, many students were not able or willing to put forth the extra effort. These students had many incompletes or inadequate grades on prior exams. 
The president of MSAU, Michael Erohin, decided to oversee the current status of his students. He looked through the assistant dean’s student records and found that many students still had inferior marks on this years’ and previous years’ exams. He decided to cancel their enrollment at MSAU.  I couldn’t imagine that such a drastic change could take place in a university. Still, the MSAU administrators saw the need to remove students who had been given the chance to pass many times over.  Hopefully they will learn from their mistakes and get back into a university, or whatever their lifelong dreams are.

JSC Agrocombinat: More than your avarage greenhouse

Production
By Steve Williams

Steve and the Never-ending greenhouse lettuce at JSC Agrocombinat

            What comes to mind when you imagine a greenhouse?  How about 284 acres of greenhouses?  75 meter long conveyor belts devoted entirely to lettuce?  Mushrooms on stilted tables?  Probably not.  However, these are exactly the type of greenhouses that we found on Wednesday afternoon at the JSC Agrocombinat.
The JSC Agrocombinat will remain in my mind as the best field trip I have ever been on.  You might ask, why was this field trip was so amazing?  Being in the greenhouse business myself, you can imagine I was overjoyed to explore one of the largest Moscow has to offer.  JSC houses 284 acres of greenhouses and has been in business for 36 years- making it the oldest greenhouse business in Russia.  They supply flowers and vegetables to all of the various stores and supermarkets in Moscow.  In addition to vegetables, they also produce over 8 million flowers per year with most being devoted to the governmental “Beautification of Moscow” project.   This means that JSC’s flowers can be seen lining the streets of Moscow every summer.
 This successful business is run by hundreds of workers who start off being paid $400 right out of high school.  Our group, being American, found this an outrageous “rip-off,” however after checking with our Russian friends, we realized this is quite high pay.  In addition to a number of workers, JSC has some of the most highly technical equipment used to grow their produce.  Being part of only a small family owned greenhouse business myself, I may be able to learn a thing or two from JSC!

Good Students + Professor B.J. at JSC Agrocombinat
Our in depth field trip came in three parts.  First, we were taken into one of the giant greenhouses where we received information on how they grow and package their lettuce. The lettuce greenhouse grows all of their products using hydroponics and no pesticides.  A 75 meter long conveyor belt is used to move the lettuce right to the workers for cleaning and packaging.  Next, we went into another room which had all these little white strings hanging from the ceiling.  Soon we found out they were used to hold up giant cucumber plants.  We were all in awe when they told us that only one flat of 5 plants would produce 45 kilograms (90 pounds) of cucumbers!  Even more amazing was how the mushrooms are grown. The interesting thing about Russian mushrooms is that they are grown in full sunlight.  This is to ensure a high content of vitamin D which is very important for Russians whom spend very little time sunbathing throughout most of the year.

At the end of our exciting tour we had one more surprise.  We were all offered a live flower of our choice to take home with us.  Maybe I can test my greenhouse skills and see if I can keep this flower alive, so that when its time to go home, I can bring back a little piece of JSC Agrocombinat with me.

A night of Jazz

Night life
By Rebecca Heilman

We are in Russia, right?  Then why did we hear English and French vocals at a jazz concert?  The only Russian we heard on the evening of February 18th was between songs and the waitress asking us if we needed anything else.  We had no idea what to expect that evening!  For most of the group, including the Russian girls that took us to the club, it was our first real jazz concert.  
            When we first arrived at the Club B2, we were searched from head to toe before we were permitted to go inside.  We followed our leaders up flights of stairs, around corners, down stairs, and down a long hallway before we reached our destination – the Cool Train Club.  Pictures of famous blues and jazz artists hung on the walls; however tonight, as it turned out, we would only be entertained by two small local groups.  Of course this is not to say that they weren’t every bit as interesting as big name bands. 

Before either of the bands performed, we ordered a sushi and quesadilla dinner and talked amongst our table.  A man sat at the piano and played a variety of songs, as the room filled with more people eagerly awaiting the concert.

We didn’t recognize many of the songs that the first band played.  But when 'Imagine' started, we all joined in singing – helping to make us stand out as Americans.  Another part that was a personal favorite was the trumpet player using a pop can filled with rice as an instrument.  After a short intermission, the next band was ready to begin their show.  The first couple of songs were only instrumental – very different from the last group.  However, things were about to get interesting.  Little did we know that when they asked Bruno to join them on stage, we were in for a surprise performance.  The nervous man began to sing in French, while grooving to the music.   As we voiced our excitement along with the table next to us, our group felt right at home in Moscow and closer than ever to each other.

Sam Excitedly Cleans his Plate While Listening to the English Vocals of our Favorite Jazz Band

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