Culture Café: Russia 19.09.2018

Culture Cafe: about Russia with Love

Explore countries from within at Culture Cafe! 

Culture Cafe is not just an event. It is a possibility to make new friends, meet different cultures, try unusual food, and travel around the world without leaving a classroom!

ESN HSE Moscow is happy to announce a new season of Culture Cafés. Isn’t it impolite to welcome new students without introducing ourselves? That is why our very first Culture Café in this semester was dedicated to Russia - an enormous, diverse, charming country of mysterious souls and open hearts.

 

 

On September 19th, members of ESN HSE Moscow presented their country, sharing tips on how to live in Russia and introducing a national dish - “bliny”, which means pancakes in Russian.

We started with a “Russian survival kit” - useful everyday phrases which will set you apart from a regular tourist straight away. Some of the students even tried to pronounce tongue-twisters, which confuse even native speakers.

  

Next, we tested our knowledge about Russian superstitions in a quiz. Did you know that Russia and America are only 4 km apart, and it is actually possible to see a bear walking on the city streets? Those who knew got a prize - a traditional rooster-shaped candy, called “petushok”.

 It is hard to talk about Russia, without mentioning its great history, and it is even harder not to talk about Russia’s history for hours, but we managed to touch upon the main highlights of Russian historical heritage from Rus’ to the USSR just in five minutes.

We were introduced to the legendary Russian ballet. We even tried to name famous classical music compositions.

 

The last, but certainly not the least, was the presentation of Russian regions by ESN HSE Moscow members, who come from different parts of the country, from Krasnodar Krai on the South to Sakhalin on the Far East. We also learned about culture and traditions in republics of The Russian Federation - Chuvashia, the Mari El Republic, and Yakutia - not to mention Siberia, which occupies most of the Russian territories.

 

This Culture Café was not only informative, but soulful, as the event, and Russia itself, united students from all over the world. Culture Café: Russia was magnificent, but that’s just the beginning of the Culture Café series. Next time - other countries, other cultures, other people, the only things that remain the same are time (try to guess the date of our next Culture Café!), place - HSE, and the team - ESN HSE Moscow.

 

Author: Anna Petukhova

Editor: Ekaterina Kravtsova

Proofreader: Freddie Booth