Moscow, Russia - October, 2007

Well, I’m way behind on reporting on my travels … way behind as in, I haven’t reported on last year, so I’d better catch up.

Aside of my weightlifting ventures to exotic places like … Johnson City, Tennessee, the biggest trip that I took in 2007 was to Moscow, Russia, where I gave a presentation on the Rosetta Stone Russian product at a conference hosted by the Russian State University for the Humanities (Российский Государственный Гуманитарный Университет). It was a wonderful experience because:

- I got to travel to Russia for the first time since my mission.

- I gained valuable professional experience.

- I met a lot of wonderful people whose focus is to teach Russian either as a foreign or second language. Many of these people were from the Moscow area, but many were from other parts of the Russian Federation or other countries, like Germany, Italy, and South Korea.

The opportunity resulted from collaborating on the Rosetta Stone Russian product with Nyusya Milman-Miller, professor of Russian Language and Literature at Virginia Tech. She had a connection with the RSL program at RSUH, who in turn invited me to come present at their conference.

So, I applied for a visa, packed my bags, and went on a very long plane ride.

The first thing that I have to say about visiting Russia not as a missionary is that it’s weird. You’re not wearing a shirt and tie, so not everyone is staring at you. You don’t need to feel paranoid that the police are going to stop you at any minute or that thugs are going to give you trouble.

On the plane, I sat next to a pretty cool kid named Radik, in his early twenties, married, lives in Virginia. Flew into Sheremetievo on Saturday morning and was greeted by Elena from RSUH. We got into a cab, I sat in the front, buckled up, and Elena exclaimed to the driver, “You see, Kolya, a western person gets in the car and immediately buckles his seatbelt.” I couldn’t help but respond that I was just familiar with the way Russian cab drivers drive.

The weather on Sunday was perfect. Sunny, temperate, with yellow leaves all over the trees. Woke up very early, went downtown and took pictures of Red Square and other parts of Moscow. Went to church, met up with Dima Mikulin, an elder from my mission, from the Ukraine, now living in Moscow.

Monday was spent preparing for my presentation, registering my passport, meeting the program director at RSUH.

The conference began on Tuesday. We had a general opening session, then lunch. After lunch, I gave my presentation. Unfortunately, right when I got up, my colleague Nyusya’s eyes got really big as she motioned for me to wipe something off of my nose. Apparently, I had a big streak of pen ink that had somehow found its way onto my cartilage.

The presentation went well. It was definitely a growing experience.

The subsequent days of the conference were spent listening to several 20-minute lectures in Russian, some of which were very interesting. One led to a debate over whether the western educational system was better than that of the former USSR. I’m not sure how well received my capitalist comments were, but I made them none the less.

The conference ended and I found myself very bored on Friday. Saturday, a German kid on my floor and I went to the Tretiakov Gallery and saw some incredible Russian master works. The weekend was spent watching General Conference. Monday I returned home.