Karelia

After a few days of cold and rain warm and sunny days have come back to the capital of Karelia. The nature is getting ready for the foreign guests of Petrozavodsk who will be learning Russian in our Russian language school. The team of the School is finishing the last preparations to meet the students. They are coming this week to start their classes from next Monday, June, 7th. The first one is arriving tomorrow! She is from the USA, her name is Haydee.

We have good news for you! Now you may read the essays that have won the scholarships for studying Russian at the School “Enjoy Russian” at our site. This summer we are waiting here in Petrozavodsk not only for the four winners but also for the authors of the number of wonderful compositions who got the chance to study Russian at our courses with the discount! Their essays will be available at our site a bit later so keep informed!

Do you want to study Russian free?! You have a great chance to do it with our Russian language school “Enjoy Russian” in summer 2010! APPLY till April, 5, detailed information you can read here http://enjoyrussian.com/3686/3696/

There was a great holiday yesterday for all the Russian men! The 23th of February is The Defender of the Motherland Day. On this day men receive a lot of gifts from their nearest and dearest, plenty of concerts are organized to please them, their families cook tasty dinners to spent this holiday together and congratulate the defenders of their homes. So men are treated like kings! And the whole country gets long weekends. This year there were 4 days off to rest and enjoy the time!

Our northern winter is going on! But our brave students try their best to enjoy their time and Russian language courses in Russia. They just can’t help being amazed by these frosty sunny days, fresh air and spelled winter nature. By the way, do you have any idea how this time is called by Russians? That’s the period of Epiphany frosts! They come every winter after the Epiphany that is celebrated on the 19th of January.

Do you know what is the most popular holiday in Russia? Yes, this is New Year ;) New Year is very warm, funny and family holiday. Lots of people are waiting for it buying presents for their nearest and dearest, looking for some new recipes of tasty dishes…

Today is the last day of November. Winter is coming soon! Nevertheless there is still no snow on the streets. Our guest from Tim from the Netherlands will have a lot of free time this week. On Saturday he will go to the Theatre. We hope that Tim will enjoy the performance. So our volunteers will use all their imagination to entertain him.

Last week our Center “Initiative” organized 2 arrangements. The first one “Осень.fi” was open for all people from Petrozavodsk. During this meeting Russian youth had a possibility to know more about our neighbor country Finland, to take nice pictures, to dance polish polka and to speak Finnish during language master-class Enjoy Finnish! Now we feel that Suomi is even closer than we suppose! The second arrangement was called “Swiss chocolate in Russian paper-cover”.

In the nearest future we will make the results of the Summer season 2009, and will analyze the work of the teachers, the families and the volunteers in the evaluative forms. Without any doubt, we will take into account all wishes and complains, and will try to improve the aspects of teaching in our school Enjoy Russian next year. And of course we will choose the best teachers, volunteers and hostfamilies and encourage them!!!

On Thursday the students were offered to take part in Theatre party. That was a great fun for the guys, the volunteers of the Centre Initiative and for the citizens of Petrozavodsk, who also were invited to this show. All together we prepared two fairy-tales by the famous Russian writer Korney Chukovsky. The party turned out to be great. Everyone successfully managed with the roles and had a wonderful time together. Two of the local channels made reports about this event and some of the guys even gave them interviews.