From Russia to Hong Kong to New Haven, all Anna!
Happy to announce I will from now on be writing for a very nice blog about Russian: SiberianLight. Those of you russophiles out there, check it out. My article is about a very unusual way women in Russian start their own businesses and can be found here.
How Russian women are running their own online businesses that make fashion affordable – and make a profit.
This post is way overdue, but better late than never.
At Pierson College’s Master’s Tea, Latvia’s ex-President Vaira Vike-Freiberga participated in a talk with the crowd constisting mostly of Yale grad students and professors. A couple of Russian undergrad students, including myself, were present.
In Russia, Dr. Vike-Freiberga is usually portrayed as a stern, anti-Russian leader who made miserable the lives of many Russians living in Latvia. I went to that meeting hoping that maybe Russian media actually exaggerated their portrayal.
Dr. Vike-Freiberga is a very charismatic, well-spoken lady who seems to be able to make the audience happy. In the beginning, she talked a lot about Latvian history and of it being annexed and occupied by the USSR. Most Russian media disagree with that, but I believe she absolutely right describing the Soviets as ruthless invaders. The USSR (NOT Russia) did invade Latvia. But a side note: isn’t’ this how most of the world history is made anyway?
Dr. Vike-Freiberga’s hostility towards USSR/Russia is sadly based on her country’s history in general and her family’s history in particular. At the same time, Russians suffered just as much (and, as one of the guest who was siding with the Latvians admitted in a private discussion after a talk, Russians had suffered much more). Her family was escaped to Germany to avoid the Nazis; my grandfathers, both in Russia and Ukraine, were killed in the concentration camps.
During her two terms at the office, Latvia joined the EU and NATO – which is a big achievement for a post-Soviet country. Well that’s all warm and fuzzy and the audience was feeling happy for a small nation re-gaining its national sovereignty and pride.
Things got heated when the issue of the Russians in Latvia was raised. 20% of the Latvian population are Russian. Many never learned a word of Latvian, because they simply never had to. Everybody (including ethnic Latvians) spoke Russian in the USSR, of which Latvia used to be part. Schools and universities were taught in Russian; office and government work was done in Russian. Latvian was one of the official national languages of the USSR — along with Russian. Any Russian speaker has as many rights to speak Russian in Latvia as he did to speak Latvian. Most preferred Russian though, since it was a lingua franca of all fifteen republics of the USSR. In many mixed Russian-Latvian marriages, Russian was a language of choice for spouses and children.
These days when Latvia is a sovereign state, there is a clear attempt on the government’s part to oust Russians and Russian speakers out of the country. This campaign was largely initiated by Dr. Vike-Freiberga, who (coincidentally, of course) possesses an interest in linguistics and Latvian folklore.
Now, in order to obtain a job, the Russians have to pass what Dr. Vike-Freiberga referred to at that meeting as ” a minimal language proficiency exam.” She also claimed that “if someone lives in a country, they should speak a language of that country.” That “minimal” exam requires fluency in a language. And most developed countries have either no state language (e.g., the U.S, where people manage to live without speaking a word of English and where speaking Spanish is often an essential skill for employment in some parts of the country), or state programs that allow immigrants to learn the language (Germany, Israel, you name it).
Interestingly enough, after my questions to Dr. Vike-Freiberga, several Yalies approached me to discuss the issue. Russia was often portrayed as “the evil one” in this case, but many Yalies changed their understanding of the matter after that meeting. Yay for breaking stereotypes!
I have a Hong Kong visa in my traveling passport. I set my debit card so it could be used in Hong Kong. I had a uber-prestigious corporate paid internship in Hong Kong. And then one person at Yale decided I couldn’t go. I will vent extensively later, when I have all the complete information.
And so I needed something to do in Russia over the summer. I showed up at a local TV station and told them they want me to be their intern. The magic of Yale University helped. Now I write news for the local radios, write texts for the evening news, and make completely my own features shown on the evening news at the local (but large) TV station. Oh, and I am an anchor – just occasionally. So much for wanting a corporate internship.
PS: I am also writing for a local newspaper. Apparently, not all of us Yalies go on the cool internship in exotic locales (who would have thought, right?)
I have been in Russia for a while, busy re-uniting with the family and long-lost friends. I was supposed to have an internship in Hong Kong this summer, but things got immensely messed up (more venting on my part will come in a much more detailed post later), so for the next month I am a correspondent of a local newspaper, a TV anchor and a host of my own TV show (a little one, but still, a real one). Things are keeping me busy, so I don’t really have time to blog, but here is an interesting observation about Russia.
If a holder of an American passport or a Green Card flies into the US, they go through customs much faster than all those unlucky visa holders. The queues are always shorter, there seem to be more immigration officers on hand, and the smiles they dispense at the citizens are always nicer (NB: my personal observation, not a documented fact). If you enter Hong Kong with a permanent resident card, you just swipe the said card through a terminal — an voila, welcome home. This trend in general is true for the rest of the world — except for Russia.
Entering the Russian Federation is much easier for the foreigners than for the citizens of the Russian Federation. I was flying into Pulkovo-2 (international abbreviation LED) — an airport in St. Petersburg, which is dominated by the Russians returning from their European vacations. There are only two immigration booths for the Russians, while there were four or five for the foreigners.
The extremely unfriendly, sulking immigration officer (by the way, the ones working with the foreigner did smile at them; I tried taking a picture to prove, but was yelled at by the local security agents) went through an extensive number of visas in my passport and muttered something like, “why the f*** do you travel so much” (quoted verbatim, translation mine). She asked me how I “dared studying at the foreign university.” (because Moscow State is so much better than Yale, of course!) Then she asked me why my traveling passport looks worn-out. (because I travel a lot? An obvious answer). Then she finally — and very reluctantly — let me into my own country. I didn’t know if I should show extreme gratitude I was reluctantly allowed into my motherland — that’s what their demeanor suggested.
Welcome home, I guess.
PS: Apparently, Russia is actually one country with Belarus — or at least a union with it, according to the sign above the immigration booth at Pulkovo-2.
What do I and Russia’s new first lady have in common? We are both dating scammers.
Well, not us, but Russian women with the same names. At some point, I googled my name to see how my blog was doing in the rankings, and one of the links that came up in the top 20 was “dating scammer Anna Ershova.” Upon clicking on the link and seeing a picture that differed very much from my visage, I realized my reputation was not in any danger. Even though we share one name, she is 30 and comes from Rostov-on-Don. According to John, who submitted her profile,
She is very skillful woman with using copy and paste contents in mail.
She requested much and many.
Very quick temper.
And her photo on the site may be photos when she was very young age or much decorated. Pay attention.
I found this fascinating, but not worth investigating, and went back to studying for finals. Now that I am done with my freshman year, I have a bit more time to investigate this interesting phenomenon. It’s even more exciting, because there is a dating scammer whose name is the same as President Medvedev’s wife — Svetlana Medvedeva. She is listed under a Russian Marriage Scams category on a website that appears to be originally dedicated to computer programming. (I wonder if its founder got scammed by a Russian bride wannabe?) Her semi-provocative photographs are accompanied by an e-mail Ms. Medvedeva’s potential victim received. Here is an excerpt:
You know for these some letters I have fallen in love with you very strongly. I for a long time did not test anything to men, and you seem have demented me… I very much want to arrive to you but unfortunately I have no such opportunity… I must have registration of visa and passport, so I must pay about 250-290 $ US for those things. This amount includes: payment for visa and passport registration, payment for promptness because sometimes registration borrow 4-6 months. Also this price include Interview in embassy and medicalsurvey… I will have work visa so my firm will pay for tickets so you must not worry about tickets or money for tickets because my working firm will pay for this. But I must ask money help from you … because I do not have any money right now. So please try to find way to help me this money sooner, so I might pay for it because as you may understand it will borrow sometime. So if you would send money help that amount today or tomorrow I will be able to pick up your money help faster and pay for it, so it would take less time…
Both of these two websites have other profiles of Russian or post-Soviet dating scammers. One of them even offers “The Complete, No-Nonsense Anti-Scam Guide For Men Seeking a Russian Wife.” Why a Russian wife? There are slightly under 200 countries in the world, so why not look for matrimonial happiness elsewhere? The RussianWife website claims:
We are owned and operated by an American who is very happily married to a fantastic Russian woman. I have been to Russia several times, and one thing I was struck by was how many fantastic women over there who are alone.
This is indeed true. Russian men live significantly less than Russian women; alcoholism and domestic violence are a huge issue, and, unfortunately, many Russian women struggle to find a partner. But do all marriage agencies and their clients have such altruistic motivations?
Russian marriage agency offering single Russian women, young Russian girls and mail order brides for dating and marriage.
This is what the agency Your Bride offers. Sounds a bit like a marketplace: you have your pick of a Russian bride, all combinations of eye color/hair color/age/weight/height possible. Not satisfied? We’ll ship you another one.
Here is one question I would like to ask any man who ever used any of these services: What kind of women do you think would gladly provide their information to be in a website like this? I would imagine that an overwhelming majority of single Russian women would prefer submitting their profiles to a website that would present them as humans, not as bride meat.
There are a plethora of scammers who try to get money from the naive foreigners. While in some cases it may be difficult, if not impossible, to recognize them, sometimes it is fairly obvious. CNN features a story about two young Russian men who collected $56K from Westerners. No women were involved in this scheme; this means the eager Western men parted with their money without even speaking to their “loved one” on the phone (not to mention videochatting). Were they so infatuated by the photographs and sweet e-mails? Did they think there were no telephones in Russia? (the “woman” wrote her e-mails in English, which means the two criminals couldn’t use “her” lack of language skills as an excuse) Why didn’t they spent the money on a ticket to Russia for themselves? The actions of the Russian men were doubtless illegal, but a little bit of common sense on the part of the Western men would have helped prevent the crimes.
By the way, the Russian-speaking internet is full of stories about Western men who would engage in an online relationship with a Russian lady, then invite her over, where she would learn her knight in a shining armor is in fact homeless/a father of six children he had never mentioned/has a different job from what he claimed to have/disabled. It looks like Russian brides and their potential Western husbands are even.
A friend recently posted this on my Facebook wall:
Your capital city is quite beautiful 😉 I watched the president taking his oath yesterday, it was quite interesting. Do you think he will try and remove Putin from power at some point or will let him complete his term as PM?
Now, this is an interesting question. Ever since Medvedev was elected, there was a feeling there are two presidents in Russia. There were and are numerous pictures of Mr. Medvedev by Mr. Putin’s side. They seem to form the most harmonious political tandem I have ever known.
Historically, a Prime Minister is a position of no real political power in Russia. The dynamics of the PM-president relationship will doubtlessly change now that Putin is a PM. I believe that the constitution somewhat limits PM’s power, but constitutions can be changed.
Duocracy, however, is unprecedented in Russian politics. There have always been “gray cardinals,” but it is difficult to believe Putin will agree to be one. However, I doubt President Medvedev will attempt to oust Mr. Putin. Medvedev does not appear to be power-thirsty enough to so. Putin is also older and more experienced than Medvedev. The latter is 55 and used to work as a spy, which, I would imagine, provides one with a lot of useful life experience for a politician; the former is 42 and was “just” trained in law. It seems that Mr. Putin can be a valuable adviser to Mr. Medvedev (unfortunately, mostly in how to make Russia autocratic).
To make Mr. Putin a PM was part of Medvedev’s presidential campaign. There were rumors that it was only a fake promise to attract voters, but the promise was been fulfilled today. Vladimir Putin is announced to be a Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. There is certainly at least one positive side to it.
Russia is a huge country and one of the problems that politicians face is that one leader is not enough to keep everything under control. I am not a fan of Putin’s, but I have to admit that corruption has decreased since he was elected 8 years ago. Russia is not as chaotic anymore. Who knows, duocracy may actually benefit the country and keep thing more civilized and organized.
I am more than confident that tomorrow both President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin will be watching the Victory Day parade side by side on the Red Square. Welcome to the world of duocracy.
Svetlana Medvedeva is the new Karla Bruni. Or the new Jacquie Kennedy. At least that’s what the visitors of my blog think: many of them accessed it while searching for “Svetlana Medvedev nice body,” “Svetlana Medvedeva nationality” etc. Interestingly enough, nobody searched for Dmitriy Medvedev himself.
So here are some comments.
Russia’s new First Lady’s name is Svetlana Medvedeva, not “Medvedev.” Her husband’s last name is Medvedev, a typical Russian name ending in “ov/ev.” For female last names, one adds an “a” to that ending, making it “ova/eva.” For instance, my dad’s name is Ershov, my mom’s and mine are Ershova. My parents used to receive letters from my Hong Kong high school in which they were addressed as Mr. and Mrs. Ershova, which sounds really weird to any Russian.
As far as her “nationality” is concerned, I believe she is Russian Russian, just like President Medvedev. By the way, he is officially a President now, the inauguration ceremony was held on May 7.
For those interested in her “nice body,” I am not an expert, but she definitely has a distinctive sense of style. She already appears to be involved with more different charity causes than Lyudmila Putina was. The Independent has an informative article about the high school sweethearts’ love story and their careers.
In a couple of hours ex-President Putin is supposed to be appointed prime minister. Russia has an exciting first lady, a new President, and an ex-President, who is going to be a new (powerful?) prime minister. Let’s see what’s going to happen.
My dear friend Lubin Li posted this note on her Facebook:
Top 12 lessons that I learned after freshman year at Yale.
12. Some people would sleepwalk into your room at 3am and take away your blanket; others of the opposite sex would appear almost totally naked at your door at 2am. Yet your still fail to learn the lesson — maybe you should lock your bedroom door.
11. Apparently, according to SML librarian, the best place to “do it” in the stacks is the 4th floor. (I was once writing a paper on genocide, and found out that all the depressing books on that subject are on the 4th floor. No wonder.)
10. Suite duty assignments never work, no matter how sophisticated the rotation chart looks.
9. You do badly on an exam and feel horrible, so you compassionately hope everyone else did ten times more horribly so you’ll end up with a good curve.
8. However, you discover that most of the social sciences/humanities courses are NOT curved. To make things worse, an A or a 4.0 is a 93%.
7. A considerable portion of your tuition seems to go towards funding free food at events. But since there are way too many of them, you should NOT take advantage them all. Or else awaiting you is not the Freshman 15, but, maybe, the Freshman 50.
6. Moms are magical — how did they get the stain off your shirts so easily?!
5. You actually can procrastinate on half a semester’s readings and catch up all in a week. However that is, speaking from personal experience, not very advisable.
4. They are called midterms, yet they run from the 5th week of the semester until the week before finals.
3. Harvard sucks; Princeton doesn’t even matter!
2. There ARE people who can write 20-page papers in one night. There are also people who finish an entire semester’s of problem sets 5 weeks early. However, you are not one of those people, so life continues to suck for you.
1. Most importantly, you realized that the George Pierson quote on the poster that Yale sent you last April actually couldn’t be any truer. “Yale is at once a tradition, a company of scholars, and a society of friends.” You’ll find friends who share your craziness roaming the streets of New York, friends who’d look after you after you injure yourself, and friends who infuse you with philosophical theories at 3:30am. These are the people who happily share with you the joy and memories of growth, and they are the biggest reason for which you can’t wait to come back in September.
Thanks for an amazing year, my friends.
With her permission, I am going to plagiarize a bit and make my own list:
20. Whenever you stop by at University Health Services — for any reason, including kidney infection, dizziness, or a cold –first thing they do is test you for pregnancy. Then they test you for mono. So if you want a free pregnancy test and are too shy to ask for one, go to DUH and fake any disease (if you are female, that is).
19. Restrooms at DUH always have basketfuls of condoms for oral sex. Nobody knows why.
18. Be careful while walking around at the SML stacks: people *do* have sex there. Be careful while walking around academic buildings after 9pm: people have sex there, too. Be careful while walking up the stair in your dorm: people have sex there. Beware of the restrooms at night: people have sex there, too. So yeah, beware.
17. Beware of your own common room: random couples sleep on a futon there. None of your suitemates knows the couple.
16. The one time your towel slips off while you are getting out of the shower, your roommate’s boyfriend will walk in.
15. Don’t be surprised to find a semi-naked guy shaving in an all-girls restroom – at 2pm. Nobody will ever know who he was.
14. Freshman Counselors are very very very useful . Your Dean is even more useful. Thank god we have them.
13. Professors are human. They will help you with your paper if you show up for office hours.
12. Professors are human. If you can’t hand in an assignment on time, they’ll understand – just don’t warn them about it an hour in advance.
11. Professors are human. That professor who was oh-so-nice luring you to his high-level literature seminar is not going to be that nice to you afterwards.
10. Anything in Victorian literature can be analyzed using several statements:
a. The French are evil.
b. Everyone is a closeted gay. Dracula is gay. Jane Eyre is not gay, but she is a frigid bitch.
c. Anything that involves an extensive use of “discourse,” “agency,” “anality,” and “orality.” (throwing in “homoerotic,” “the fear of the Other,” and “anxiety” helps, too).
d. Or just quote Foucault.
9. Law school students make best TA’s in law-related classes (duh!), but beware of those attempting to teach your econ section. Run (or switch to another section if you can).
8. Two best sources of free candy: Master’s office and Chaplain’s office.
7. Ronald Dworkin (yes, the Ronald Dworkin, a famed legal scholar) used to be a Master of Trumbull!
6. You can talk your way into a senior-level EP&E seminar (lots of stratagems involved), but it’s going to be a lot of work. You’ve been warned.
5. Don’t be surprised to buy a new “Harper’s,” “Foreign Affairs,” etc and see an article written by your professor. Also don’t be surprised to find out that said articles sound exactly like the lectures you attended last term – and the subchapters are exactly like the titles of those lectures.
4. Doing laundry is painful, expensive, and ineffective. Stains never come off. Prepare to buy lots of socks because they will get lost.
3. If you buy a $150 course packet, it won’t be needed in section. Your professor will explain everything in a lecture anyway. Moreover, you can get an A on the first draft of your final paper for that class without ever reading that course packet and without using a single concept from the lecture. AND you will get a writing credit for that course. (allegedly, some people managed to do it without attending lectures…)
2. GoogleBooks and GoogleScholar make your life easier. And they save you from having to make unnecessary runs to the library at the risk of running into copulating couples.
1. Yale is the best.
I was recently confronted by a fellow Russian student at the Bass library and asked if I owned a hedgehog.
“So, is it you who has a hedgehog?”
“Excuse me?”
“There was an article in the Yale Daily News about how we crazy Russian students have hedgehogs and squirrels living in our dorms…”
The YDN website had been down for over a week, courtesy of Aliza Shvart’s case, I suspect. Now that it is up and running again, I found that article. Entitled “Furry, Feathered Creatures Bring Home Back to Yale,” it describes how some students choose to violate the Undergraduate Regulation by having a pet. The two students who have the weirdest pets –- squirrels and a hedgehog –- are Russian. Apparently, we acquire our habit of having weird pets while hanging out with our pet polar bears (sharing a bottle of vodka with them, of course). Just kidding.
I guess I am a proper Russian Yalie, because I like both hedgehogs and squirrels. And I do have a hedgehog in my suite… a plush one that I got for Valentine’s from a friend. My family kept a hedgehog for a couple of months, when I was a child; we found him in the city in the fall. One of his paws was frostbitten and he looked like he wasn’t doing so well on his own, so we decided to host him for the winter. He was cute, friendly, and nocturnal. He loved sleeping in my mom’s shoes and boots, choosing an arbitrary pair every night, so she never knew which one had needles in it in the morning. We loved him, but he would have been much happier in his natural habitat. In the summer, we set him free in the woods and he ran off happily.
I do like squirrels a lot, but I have never had a completely positive squirrel experience at Yale. I encountered a squirrel in my floor’s bathroom once, and I was more frightened than it was. Another incident involved a bouquet of roses in my room and a hungry squirrel that was trying to feed on it (how it snuck into my fourth-floor suite still remains a mystery). It was chased away by my angry boyfriend, who had given me the flowers.
I still don’t know who the hedgehog-loving Russian freshman is; the only other Russian freshman I know claims it is not her. Go figure.
One final word of advice to the YDN: if you are really concerned with protecting privacy of those you are writing about, do not bother with coming up with a fake English name for her if you are going to refer to her as a “sophomore from St. Petersburg, Russia.” There is only one Russian Yale undergrad from St. Petersburg, as one can easily learn from Yale Facebook. Clearly, Yale really needs more Russian undergrads … to make sure all squirrels and campus are well-fed and taken care of!
PS: Recently, I spotted a really cute pig named Isosceles on Old Campus. It belongs to someone living off-campus and it comes to Old Campus to feed on acorns. Now, that’s an exotic pet. Russians, beat that!
I recently spoke at the conference at The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies about what it is like to be an international/Russian at Yale. I did some research before and thought I would share some of it. Here is some food for thought:
Yale’s undergraduate international enrollment is around 8%; some colleges in the US have as much as 15%.
Yale’s international students come from over 70 countries. My tiny international school in Hong Kong had representatives from 80-something countries in a student body of 220 or so.
One Ukrainian, two Georgian and no Russian students were admitted to the class of 2012 (according to those who have access to the admits website). It is unknown how many of them will choose Yale.
Here is a link to the blog some internationals in the US may find useful.
And here is a link to an post about international admissions at Williams. There is a lot I would like to say about it, but I am trying to make some progress on my paper on the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine. Once I get am done with writing a prognosis for Ukraine’s failed democracy, I will certainly blog more.
