Самара // Samara

Meanwhile, in Samara...

Sorry for the lack of posting! We have been in Samara for a week, so were nearly done with our time here, technically. It's been a total blur, but here's what I've been up to (sorry that I've been too busy to really write about it all, but for those intrested in knowing what types of meetings we have all-day everyday, here you are!):

Day 1: Met with our hosts at the International Marketing Institute, saw Swan Lake at the Ballet.
Day 2: Sat in on presentations of Samara-region social projects financed by the state for the upcoming year, learned about the structure of NGO and government funding for Education in Russia
Day 3: Met with our good friend Yuriy Maystrovskiy to talk about his own financed project, where students from 6 different universities will be creating their own NGO over the course of the spring semester.
Day 4: Acted as judges for the "Federation of Kids' Organization" as middle-school students presented their tourism projects. Students lead interactive tours of their town for younger children, and came together to present and discuss with groups from different towns.
Day 5: Cross-country skiing and the Museum of Modernism!
Day 6: Trip to the town of Togliatti to visit their youth volunteer corps and youth bank.
Day 7: Visit to "Desnitsa," a local NGO that supports people living with physical disability, followed by a visit to a home for social orphans where Desnitsa youth volunteers (with and without physical disabilities) socialize and play board games with the children on a regular basis.
Day 8: Visited the Volga Business Expo where we got to play a business simulation computer game being used in high-school classis to teach the basics of business and economics (My colleage got first place, I got last... I should never start a business). Oh, and we visited Stalin's Bunker, which he built in secret just in case he needed to sneak away into hiding deeeep underground.
Day 9: Visiting village schools in Otradniy, where we learned about their youth social initiatives. Ended the night with a feast in an old schoolhouse which is now a museum of traditional crafts --- Got to weave AND throw a pot! (throw a pot = make a clay pot on a pottery wheel)
Day 10: Met with high-school students in their "Social Design" club and discussed their volunteer initiatives with service NGO "New People"

Youth Tourism Project

Cross-Country Skiing

Museum of Modernism

Togliatti Youth Volunteers

Stalin's hideout, 37 meters underground

Russian Feast

Largest Village in Russia?

Today: If you need me, I'll be sleeping, thankyouverymuch.

Sarah

411. 179.

Aaaand we're back. Sorry for being a bit behind --- As most of you know, I am already in Samara, which is about a bajillion times better than being in St. Petersburg (in my opinion). While I am totally loving it here, we are extremely busy, and I haven't even finished writing about our work in St. Pete! I gave myself an ultimatum to write about it before I fall asleep tonight, so here goes :)

Our last two visits in St. Petersburg were to School 411 and Lyceum 179. Russian schools are usually referred to by number, instead of by name --- although school 411 is called "Harmony," everyone refers to it as 411. In fact, I'm not even positive about the name of Lyceum 179, I don't think anyone bothered to mention it (or perhaps they don't even have one).

School 411 is located in Peterhof, just outside of St. Petersburg, which is also the home of Peter the Great's fabulous summer palace. It's famous for it's spectacular fountains, although this isn't really fountain season, so we enjoyed it in the snow. We spoke with a representative from the Peterhof Museum, and she told us about their special school for museum tour guides. Highschool-aged students can apply to take special courses once a week in the many museums around Peterhof. They are trained as guides, lead tours for local schoolchildren, and graduate high-school with a sort of "excursion license" which allows them to work in St. Petersburg and Peterhof museums. At Peterhof they lead special themed tours for children, where they dress up as historical characters and lead them to a royal ball!

Our friends from school 411 took us for a stroll around the palace grounds and then brought us back to visit "Harmony." The Students study English and German, and are part of a special league of Petersbug schools who coordinate on projects like "NanoCity," a special camp dedicated to studying nanotechnology.

Friends from School 411 at Peterhof

School 411, "Harmony"

A Kindergarten play-room/performance area

I wish I had taken more pictures inside the school, but the students were already gone, and the most interesting room was this carpeted space for kindergarteners to run, play, and occasionally perform. Kindergarten programs in Russia are like day-care in the sense that young children of different ages (2-6yrs) stay with their peers and teacher all day, usually in a facility that has beds for each child to nap in, meals during the day, and plenty of toys and games for all. In any case, it was fun to see the school, and it sounds like they might have students who are interested in taking part in our International cyberfair project.

Our last school visit was Lyceum 179. While Lyceums are still public schools (students don't have to pay tuition), they usually have a special focus and sometimes require that perspective pupils take entrance exams and/or apply for a space. This particular lyceum had a partnership with medical and physics universities, and focused on medical and technological sciences.

Physics Classroom

Students test water quality based on plant indicators

Salt therapy room - yeah, those walls are salt.

Of course at every meeting in Russia, there is always tea. At this meeting we had a special treat, Russian chocolates. Moscow and St. Petersburg (as well as many other cities in Russia, mind you) each have their own brands of candies. The chocolates come wrapped in paper just like in this photo, folded except for the tips of paper on each long end. They use this paper as a canvas to display a character or animal instead of a written name for the chocolate. This one is a Petersburg chocolate called "Little Red Riding Hood," or in Russian "Красная Шапочка"

"Krasnaya Shapochka"

We had a great time in St. Petersburg, but have a lot of work ahead of us. Just a little hint: The Samara region has over 4,000 NGOs, and we are visiting as many as humanly possible to see how they work with local schools. Get ready, get set, go!

Sarah

St. Petersburg Day of Journalism

Just a quick post on something really cool that St. Petersburg schools have been doing --- every year they have a "Day of Journalism" where students from different schools around the city come together, are mixed into groups of 5 or 6, and spend an entire day working as a group to create a page for a newspaper. They act as journalists, have interviews set up, talk to passers-by to get opinions and statements, and write about different social issues in their city. By the end of the day, the groups come together to present their work, and join forces to create a very professional looking edition of a digital newspaper. I thought it was so cool, I had to share it! Here is a front page from their theme "Tolerant St. Petersburg":

Including the story "Nationalism: It's everyone's problem" with ideas on how to solve issues of intolerance in St. Pete

Kids in Russia are doing some cool things, yo.

Sarah

EPIschool take 2

Some photos from the wonderful EPIschool! We had an English lesson on stereotypes and cultural sensitivity, and spent a day just exploring the workings of the school. The students will be using footage and pictures from Google Glass (which we brought in on Friday and allowed them all to try out) for working on their blog, epischoolstudents.blogspot.com --- their first foiree into the world of group digital storytelling. What a cool bunch of kids...

The woman is their physics teacher, and the mural is filled with equations.

Lyonya shows me the napping space.

Seryoga and Lera

A Russian language lesson

Studying impressionism in literature --- through impressionism in art.

Teacher gon' teach

Stereotypes Lesson

Lyosha, Artyom, and Sasha researching how to get their own Google Glass

More soon,

Sarah

NGOs/Russian-German Exchange

Hello, all! St. Petersburg hasn't seen the sun in at least a week, but we are having a good time despite the weather. We have been very busy, but I will try to post everything in Chronological order --- Earlier this week we went to the NGO center n St. Petersburg, which houses the Russian-German Exchange center. They had the whole place decorated with posters from previous initiatives:

"November 9th: International Day against Fascism and Antisemitism"

"School Exchange with Germany"

We spoke to a representative from the German-Russian exchange program, who coordinates with all the other NGOs. Their main programs focus on helping orphans and special needs children, supporting LGBT rights, and bringing an end to racism and xenophobia in Russia. They use graphic novels as tools to promote tolerance and inter-cultural understanding, including this one published through the Russian-German exchnage and their partner, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam:

"SEARCH"

Our Host, Boris, explains the work at the NGO center

 All work and no play makes Sarah want to go to the theater, so we hit up a musical in the evenng. Our coordinator, Mikhail, joined me for a photo-op when we ran into the wolf from the famous Russian cartoon series "Ну, Погоди!"

Theater events are usually quite formal in Russia, which meant I got to wear my black dress and pearls. I even carried high-heels in my purse and changed into sheer tights when I made it to the theater --- I felt super-classy-Russian. The play itself was a ridiculous musical about a fictional day in which characters could cross between parallel universes until they finally find their one true love (who they painted on a canvas and saw in a magic mirror, respectively). Didn't get any pictures except for this selfie with my wonderful colleague and mentor, Bonnie.

We got our tickets to Samara today, but  I still have so much to do, write, and blog about before we go! Stay tuned for news about GOOGLE GLASS because I am an expert with it and never want to take it off of my face ever.

Sarah

Petersburg Promenade

Some photos from my walks through the streets of St. Pete :) Enjoy!

Water Worlds

Take a look at the amazing water museum and Children's ecological center we visited --- This is a crazy rare thing in Russia, especially because it is FREE for kids to explore the learning center. This is an amazing exception in Russia, very refreshing to see :) First off, the water museum, which gave a visual history of water in St. Petersburg:

The historical museum is inside the old brick water tower

Historical water vessels

"I am looking --- But I can't quite see"

Transliteration: "Va-ter klo-set"

Across from the museum is the Children's Ecological Center, where we got to see how kids can learn about the water cycle, filtration, and the Baltic Sea area. They have lots of games, experiments, and fun activities that teach you about water, how it effects our lives, and where it goes after it runs down the drain:

Myself, my colleague, and our wonderful Russian friend/guide

A video/game area with sea-creature pillows

Watching a 3-d film about the Baltic Sea and its fishy inhabitants!

An interactive game table --- here we are testing our Baltic geography knowledge

Very busy, more coming soon :)

Sarah