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NEWS
08/30 2010
Today we are glad to welcome a new group of students from Belgium, Austria, and Italy. In a week some more students from Estonia will join us. Moreover, we have five students from Belgium, so we are sure, these students will find much in common :) Some of our guests are going to take part in the 2 week Russian courses, others in the 4 week course.
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Petrozavodsk What students say about Petrozavodsk
Caithrin Holly Porteus, UK
“I really enjoyed staying in Petrozavodsk. I’ve never experienced such great hospitality anywhere else but in Russia! I’d like to come back again”
David Salas, Spain
"Petrozavodsk is a nice place to visit. The people are kind and I had a great time here in Russia."
Gianluka Polini, Italy
"In Petrozavodsk I felt at home from the first minute. I'm sad that I have to leave. I spent a great time here and I really liked the people I met in Karelia."
Aleksandra Luksza, Poland
“Petrozavodsk - fantastic city, especially prospect Lenina. I met a lot of great people”.
Ural Ünsur, Turkey
“I didn't get bored and I had so much fun in Petrozavodsk. It is an ideal city for students who want to study Russian”
Kevin Duddy, UK
“Petrozavodsk is a nice friendly city, ideal for practicing your language in. The city is on the shores of Europe's second biggest lake, Lake Onega. It is so big that it looks like the ocean - there is no visible other side. I love Russia!”.
Petrozavodsk today
Petrozavodsk is a small cozy town. It is situated on the picturesque shores of Lake Onega (the second largest lake in Europe). The town stretches for 21.7 km. Nowadays, it is an important scientific, industrial and educational centre in the North-West of Russia. The distance between Petrozavodsk and St.-Petersburg is 460 km, between Petrozavodsk and Moscow – 1000 km. The town’s population is about 270 000 (that is about 35 % of the whole population of the republic). There are 28 districts in Petrozavodsk, 13 of them are pretty big with lots of citizen. All the areas’ names are connected with Petrozavodsk history (Zareka – on the other bank of the river, Drevlyanka – built in the forest area, etc.)
 The climate here is quite mild. Since the town is situated on the shores of Lake Onega it is usually humid in the summer and frosty in the winter. The difference in temperature is huge: it can fall down till -35 in the winter and still rise 35 degrees above zero. Be also ready for fast weather changes – it is so unpredictable! (Still you can try to rely on official data - http://rp5.ru/town.php?id=6601 .)
Petrozavodsk has a lot of traditional holidays that are celebrated annually. The last weekend in June is Petrozavodsk’s “Birthday”. Actually there is no definite date of when the city was born; still this date is connected with the liberation of Finnish occupation on the 29th of June in 1944. Annually on this weekend Petrozavodsk turns into a great celebrating area. Lots of little performances are held all over the city. In the evening, Petrozavodsk citizens and guests enjoy great fireworks.
The main event during the winter is the Hiperborea festival, which is usually in the beginning of February. For one week creative teams, from different countries, work on ice sculptures. Then on the weekend a special jury decides which one is the best. Besides watching the sculptures, you may enjoy local folk band concerts, local craft souvenir markets, and take part in various humorous competitions.
Furthermore, there are different sport events all year round (skiing and skating in the winter, football and volleyball in summer). You may also visit different rock-music festivals which are very popular here (the most well-known is Vozduh - http://www.vozduh.info/ ).
Today Petrozavodsk lives its own life. At first glance the speed of life here is pretty low, it’s quite and peaceful. At the same time Petrozavodsk is ready to offer its visitors an assortment of entertainment.Petrozavodsk was founded in 1703 (the same as St.-Petersburg) by Peter the Great. At the time of the North war (between Russia and Sweden) the Russian army was in great need of modern arms. All army factories were too far from the drama of the war. Then Peter the Great ordered to organize an army industry in Karelia, which was much closer. The special expedition was sent to Karelia and they found a suitable place for the factory. It was River Lossosinka’s outfall. In the beginning of the XVIII century the factory was built on the shores of Lake Onega. That was the birth of Petrozavodsk. At first it was a small village, Petrovskay sloboda, for the factory workers. Little by little it was growing up and eventually became the regional centre.
  In the XIX century Petrozavodsk became a Northern Siberia, that means poets, writers, critics, and publishers were sent out of Moscow and St.-Petersburg and were forced to live here. Still the factory worked well and the city continued growing. It was silent and peaceful, rich citizens participated in charity, while others were enjoying the quite atmosphere. After the revolution of 1917, Petrozavodsk life changed a little bit. At first there was a struggle for power in the city. Then Petrozavodsk became a part of the war drama during the Winter War (against Finland) and the Second World War. The city was destroyed and it took about 5 years to reconstruct it. Today Petrozavodsk is a modern, but still quite and safe to stay in city.
For more detailed and precise information visit these web-sites - www.ptz.ru/history.html, www.gov.karelia.ru/Different/300/history.shtml, http://history.ptz.ru/
Citizens and government of Petrozavodsk try to preserve the heritage of the past. There are several museums and exhibition areas in the city today.
The local history museum presents several exhibitions of Petrozavodsk and Karelian history and nature (official site is http://kgkm.karelia.ru)
Karelian Fine Arts Museum offers you collections of painting, applied arts, icon-painting, and folk art. (official site is http://artmuseum.karelia.ru)
You can see traditional and modern works of Karelian doll-creators in the Doll Museum. That is a family gallery which is worth visiting. http://kukla.karelia.ru
If you come to Petrozavodsk during the winter season you won’t have an opportunity to visit the open-air museum on Kizhi Island. Still you can go the Kizhi museum exhibition hall (http://kizhi.karelia.ru/information/2_Petrozavodsk/address_pvc.htm). It presents full information about the museum and besides that, different subject exhibitions are held there.
If you are interested in the local craft traditions visit the Petrozavodsk Craft Centre. There you can see the local traditional souvenir exhibition and may even buy some yourself. If you wish, you may also take a master-class and try to create a souvenir yourself!
Various exhibitions are also held at the Petrozavodsk Exhibition hall. You can see not only professional artists’ paintings here, but children art as well. Usually there are about 12-14 different exhibitions of paintings, pictures, sculptures, drawings, posters, etc., held here annually (http://www.museum.ru/M2782).
  Petrozavodsk cultural life is full of different events. You may enjoy hanging around the town looking at monuments (most of them are concentrated on the Onego lake embankment) or fountains.
If you want to do shopping, go to the town’s centre where a lot of small stores are situated or visit one of the big mall. You surely will find everything you need in all sort of shops on Lenin Street. The biggest and the most popular mall in the downtown area is Karelia-market (Karl Marks Street, 14). There are still lots of little shops all over the downtown where you can find clothes, shoes, cell-phones, etc. In some of them you can pay by credit card (usually the shops that have a Visa or MasterCard sticker on the door). If you want to purchase some souvenirs for your relatives and friends go to the Karelia market, Podarki shop (Lenina prospect, 17) or Khudozestveny salon (Gertsen Street, 41).
You can find many cafés, bars, and restaurants in town. You can be sure that you can always choose something suitable for your tastes and your means. You can taste traditional Karelian food and listen to the folk music in a traditional setting in Karelskaya gornitsa (Engels Street,13). There are several restaurants with traditional and European cuisine. Petrovsky restaurant (Lenin square, 2) is one of the oldest in the city. If you want to have a snack or you prefer simple and cheap food you can go to any of cafés on Lenin prospect or anywhere in Petrozavodsk centre. For example, you can taste Russian blini (pancakes) in Chaynaya lozka (Lenin prospect, 31), have a cup of coffee in Coffee house (Lenina prospect, 23), have a nice chat with Petrozavodsk students in Kivach (Lenina prospect, 28) or Deja vu (Lenina prospect, 20). There also are several pubs in the city such us Neubrandenburg (Lenin prospect, 23), football bar Spartacus (Dzerzhinsky Street, 9) and many others. Several bars also have dance floors so you can not only eat there, but you can also have fun. So if you want to have fun, go to XXXX bar (Karl Marks street, 3), Peshkov Street bar (Gorky Street, 25), Camelot (Berezovaya alley, 31), Karelia (Lenin prospect, 27) and many others.
In the evening you can visit the theatre or cinema – all of them are reconstructed and provided all modern facilities. There are two popular cinemas in the downtown area. Pobeda (Lenin st., 27) has a big modern hall and there is even a dance floor and a cafeteria in the same building. The second is Kalevala (Pervomaysky prospect, 2), which has two cinema halls and a nice family café on the first floor. Here are several links that might be helpful for you.
Cinemas - http://kino.sampo.ru , http://karelia-krc.ru/Petrozavodsk government consists of three main parts. Officially the head of the town is a mayor elected every four years. Today the former chief manager of local enterprises Nikolay Levin occupies this post. Consultative body Petrosovet consists of the head and elected deputies. The third part is administration. It includes five committees that deal with public health, economy and finances, municipal economy, education, sport, etc.
You can get more information about Petrozavodsk government here - http://www.petrozavodsk-mo.ru/petrozavodsk/index.htm
There are about 70 thousand young people in Petrozavodsk. All of them, of course, are so different! Some are fond of night-clubs and are ready to spend all their free time on the dance floor (http://nights.ptz.ru/index.htm). Others try to find their place in politics (http://youthnet.karelia.ru/ru). Extreme youth enjoy night-quest games (http://night.dzzzr.ru/ptz). You can be sure that if you are an active person you won’t get bored here!
 The most active youth in Petrozavodsk study at one of the local universities. Petrozavodsk State University is the biggest one (http://petrsu.karelia.ru). There are about 6,000 students who study in 16 different departments in PetrSU. PetrSU has also a great student organization, Profcom that deals with student problems and organizes their free time helping them (http://profcom.karelia.ru/ru ). Karelian State Pedagogic University (http://kspu.ptz.ru/index.html ) has 9 departments. It offers lots of students exchange programs and communicates with many foreign universities. There are also several branches of St. Petersburg universities in Petrozavodsk. Petrozavodsk State Conservatory is also a very popular institute in the city as well as all over the country.
The official religion in Karelia is Orthodox. Nowadays there are 15 churches and chapels in Petrozavodsk (http://eparhia.onego.ru/xram.htm ). The ruling bishop of the diocese is archbishop Manuil of Petrozavodsk and Karelia. Still, the population of the republic includes different nationalities, thus other houses of worship do exist. There are Lutheran (http://heninen.net/luter/petroskoi.htm ) and Muslim houses of worship in the area.
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ANNOUNCEMENT
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Studencheskiy pereulok 13-a, office 119 185007 Petrozavodsk, Russia Phone + 7 8142 78 11 30
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