"Cold weather, but warm hearts": Argentinean student Maidana Ariel Alejandro shares his experience at SPbU

First of all, what did you know about Russia and St Petersburg before coming here? Were there any clichés that were proven true or false?

Scholars from 55 countries take part in the XV MAPRYAL Congress

Before arriving, I only knew a bit about the Russian history and history of St Petersburg, the excellent higher education in here, that some winters are really harsh. I also knew that the University is almost 300 years old, which is impressive to me. I compare it with Argentina, which has a bit more than 200 years of history. But I did not know how people live here. If you were to talk to my relatives or friends, they would tell you that it is impossible to live in a temperature of −10 degrees С°. Even in the winter, the average temperature of a place where I live is 10 degrees С° above zero.

As for the clichés, I was told that, during the winter the temperature can reach −50 degrees С°, but I am happy that it did not. I read before coming to St Petersburg that Russians almost do not express any emotions that they are quite cold people and they only drink vodka, but, thankfully, this was wrong too. On the other side, I also read that Russia has a lot of museums and a very good education, and this, in my opinion, was very true and admirable.

What do you think of the city? Are you comfortable with the weather which is completely different from the weather of your motherland?

I think that this city is unique, has a lot of historic buildings and institutions. By far it is the most beautiful city that I have ever seen. Tourists, who come here, would have to stay for months to appreciate all the richness of this place.

Unfortunately, I do not like the weather of St Petersburg at all, because I am used to living in a very warm place where we have sunny days almost every day and winters with an average temperature of 10 degrees С° above zero. St Petersburg’s weather is very strange to me as it is the fact that during Christmas and New Year it is winter. I am used to celebrating these holidays in temperatures of plus 35 degrees С° or even more.

Could you share with us, what was your motivation to study Russian?

My motivation was to learn a new language, to improve my English language, and to study in a master’s university programme in Economics. For this reason, I applied for a scholarship in many places, but the only one I got was the one from the Russian House of Buenos Aires (Rossotrudnichestvo).

What are your impressions about Preparatory Courses? How are your classes organised?

From my perspective, at first it was very difficult because I did not know much Russian before I came, but day by day I felt more comfortable with the classes, classmates, and my teachers.

Practically, since September, when I started my Russian classes, I had to attend from Mondays to Saturdays for approximately 3 hours of classes increasing on some days to 4 and a half hour of lessons. These classes are very well structured because of the work of the teachers and the previously prepared content. Every day I learn a lot of new words and how to pronounce them. I learn how to read and how to talk.

Since the first week of March, I have been attending classes assigned by specialty, such as math, social studies and history, and they also last 3 hours.

What do you value the most about Preparatory Courses?

The human warmth of my Russian language teachers. They are always willing to help students in the best way possible, which is impressive to me, because in my country people do not work as they do here. It was really astonishing for me to meet them. I always ask a lot of questions, and they always reply in the best possible manner.

How would you describe studying at SPbU in five words?

Excellence, quality, worthwhile, perseverance, experience. Excellence and Quality — because of the education level and the prestige and relevance of the University. Worthwhile — because I think every person who studies here can say that the effort invested, pays off in the end. Perseverance — because despite the different events in the history of the city, the university prevails in its objectives. And finally, Experience, since it has the experience in being the alma mater of great people that left their mark in the history of Russia.

Please, tell us about challenges in learning Russian you’ve faced and how you overcame them.

Learning Russian for a Spanish native speaker is very difficult. What I could understand without knowing a word of Russian were some words that have a Latin, Greek or English origin. The rest was impossible to understand for me. Reading and speaking in this language, remembering the importance of the stress of the letters "o", "e" and "я" in the words, the use of two type of verbs, one for processes and another for results, the use of cases, the enormous quantity of new words and some idioms that Russians commonly use were the challenges that I have faced learning this language.

In my opinion, I think that I am still overcoming the mentioned challenges due to the difficulty of memorizing and learning day by day. Anyway, from my perspective, I consider that I am improving my Russian language by attending classes every day, doing homework, listening Russian podcasts sometimes, and speaking Russian with my friends.

What are your hobbies? How do you like to spend your leisure time?

I like swimming and I used to be part of the swimming team in my previous university. Also, I like learning new languages, meeting new people, reading about history, getting to know new cultures, and traveling around different places.

What are your academic interests? Do you plan to continue your studies in our University?

After the Preparatory courses, I plan to continue studying here. I am going to study at the master’s programme Financial Economics, because I would like to continue specializing in the banking sector. I would also like to find a job and start working in order to gain some experience in working in Russia. Beside that, I am interested in participating in any group of studies in the Faculty of Economics because I have worked in this field before, but never in the academic environment.

How do you think learning Russian will benefit your future career?

Considering that I want to study in a master’s degree programme and work here on a job position related to my university programme, it is very important to learn Russian well. Besides, the fact that the Russian language is one of the 10 most spoken languages in the world opens a lot of opportunities for me, especially in case I continue my career in Latin America, since not many people speak Russian in that part of the world.

What do you think about the common statement that studying a foreign language helps break barriers and connect people of different cultures?

I think it is true due to my personal experience in Russia. When I arrived, thanks to some university volunteers, who spoke English, and who helped me, I was able to complete the forms and successfully move into the campus. If they had not been there, it would be almost impossible for me to do that, due to the language barrier. But now, after months of learning Russian language, I can freely go everywhere; ask questions about whatever I need to in my daily life and have conversations with Russian people. Russian is very hard to learn, but after all it is worth the effort because of the importance of communication with people. In the end, it is very rewarding knowing that the person on the other side of the conversation understands you.

What would you like to advise international students who are coming to Russia?

If they are coming from countries that do not speak Slavic languages, I would recommend them to learn Russian in their free time due to its difficulty. Also, I would tell them to be prepared for learning new words every day because this language has a very vast vocabulary, which is in no way similar to vocabularies of their own languages. But after all, I would like to tell them that they are going to study with really good teachers and, if they look, they are going to find very good friends in the University and at the campus.