What a great summer in the Russian School in 2002!
Our students arrived in early June and right away plunged into a variety of exciting activities and events. We enjoyed a wonderful field day on our first Friday of classes and learned that the fourth-year class (level 7) was the best at running while holding an egg on a spoon (for the second year in a row!), while the third-year class (level 5) was best at the three-legged race (of course!). Students from level 4 won the volleyball tournament and had a lot of fun in the process. The 1st year class (level 1) won the tug-of-war: clearly they came prepared to work hard this summer! Everyone had a great time. That same evening we enjoyed parties for each of our courses.
Other sporting events this
summer included our very successful soccer and volleyball teams.
Our chess team was undefeated and we inaugurated a new "cup" for an annual language schools competition in chess: The Rifkin Chess Cup!
We had wonderful dance parties, an all-school charades party and a karaoke evening.
This summer we had a great week-long workshop in folk music led by the folk ensemble Zolotoi Plios (Aleksandr Solovov, Elena Sadina, Sergei Gratchev).
The workshop culminated in a fantastic joint concert in which students from all seven courses performed together with the musicians.
Olga Solovova, Sasha
Solovov's wife, conducted a seminar in Russian folk art and students painted in Russian folk style. The results were beautiful!
We were delighted by the music of Nina Kogan and Julian Milkis, who gave a great concert of Russian jazz music in conjunction with the literary symposium, "America through Russian Eyes," sponsored by the Middlebury Russian School this summer. Nina Kogan also provided live piano accompaniment to the classic silent film-comedy, "The Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks."
This summer we had some fascinating visitors, most important of whom was Pavel Lungin, noted Russian filmmaker (Taxi Blues, Luna Park, The Wedding). Pavel Semyonovich was with us for a week, during which time we screened several of his films. After each showing, he answered students' questions and the discussion was very thought-provoking. Pavel Semyonovich also visited
several of the undergraduate
and graduate classes for more discussions with the students
about his films and about contemporary Russian cinema. His visit was timed to 
coincide with the Russian School's contribution to the Middlebury International Film Festival: we showed Pavel Semyonovich's beautiful lyric comedy "The Wedding" in two showings to over 500 people in Dana Auditorium
We had two film festivals this summer. As always, we once again featured a festival of recent Russian films (focusing on films released in the last 2-3 years,but especially films from the previous year). These films included Voina and Ekhali dva shofera, among others. Our second film festival focused on "spy films" and students enjoyed watching films from this genre, too. We had a special evening dedicated to watching Star Wars in Russian dub of course!
After our films we often headed to our tea salon for an evening of tea and conversation.
For the most part we enjoyed great weather this summer and this allowed us to get out and about. We had an all-school picnic at Lake Dunmore and each course had a picnic off campus as well. We hope vacationers at Lake Dunmore didn't think they were experiencing a Russian invasion!
One of our other visitors this summer was Elena Khanga, moderator of the Russian television talk show "The Domino Effect." Elena talked about her experience on this program, but also on her previous show, "About That," a show about attitudes towards sex and relationships. Elena also spoke about the state of television in Russia today.
Noted Russian actor and director Veniamin Smekhov joined us again this summer, giving a lecture on Russians' perceptions of America (as part of our symposium) and a reading of Russian poetry. Students especially enjoyed the poetry reading, because Smekhov read each poem in the style of the poet who wrote it, from Mayakovsky to Vysotsky.
In addition to the choir concert, play and talent show, we had a college bowl competition in which students matched wits with one another. The viktorina "What? Where? When?" was a lot of fun for all who participated or watched.
This year's talent show was a fabulous showcase of the talent of Russian School students from all levels. We enjoyed serious and comical music, from Schumann to a new version of the Beatles' song "Yesterday" ("Scrambled Eggs") and a demonstration of Russian verbs of motion in dance the level 1 course.
Students participated in a lot of different clubs. Among all the clubs, we have to single out the theater (with 26 actors from all 7 levels and the graduate program) and choir. Under the direction of Sergei Borisovich Kokovkin and Anna Sergeevna Rodionova (formerly of the Norwich Russian School), students put on a beautifully acted performance of "Kreizi Rashn mediteishn," by Aleksandr Zherebtsov.
Under the direction of conductor Nina Alekseevna Savitskaia (also formerly of the Norwich Russian School), students in the Russian School choir performed Russian liturgical, folk and popular music, and danced as well.
This year the staff of the school newspaper outdid itself once again, putting out three issues of the newspaper "Yolki Palki: Zheltaya pressa zelenykh gor" featuring student articles and reviews, a gossip column and a horoscope. We also had an active radio club, with weekly broadcasts featuring interviews with visiting guests (including Elena Khanga), faculty and staff (such as our own Russian School Director, Benjamin Rifkin, aka Ven'iamin Il'ich), a live choral performance, and a weekly call-in segment.
Students also participated in the chess club, cooking club, current events club, dead poets' society, all of which were popular (and one of which was also tasty.) This year for the first time we offered, as a club, a special workshop on the Russian lexicon of organized crime. Students in this club read articles about organized crime and watched episodes from a television show about police officers dealing with crime in St. Petersburg.
This page was last updated on April 4, 2003