English Studies and Russian, 2000-2004 and PhD, 2009-2015.
My first visit to Russia was on trip organised by the department at the end of my first year. We attended a 3 week language course at the Yartek school in Yaroslavl’, and visited Moscow and St Petersburg at the weekends. I then spent three months in Voronezh as part of my year abroad in 2002, on a placement organised by the company Russian Language Undergraduate Studies (RLUS) along with other students from Nottingham, Sheffield, Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol. The son of the director of the language school we attended ran a travel company, so our group were able to travel further afield during ‘reading weeks’.
In October some of the group visited Sochi, where there was the option of sampling the night life and relaxing by the sea or partaking in a slightly more energetic hiking expedition in the Caucasus. The trip proved rather eventful, thanks to thunderstorms and leaky tents, and a mystery stomach bug which befell most of the campers. Then on the way back to Voronezh, several students, myself included, were stranded at Rostov-on-Don railway station when we failed to get back on the train in time when it made a shorter than expected stop. In November we travelled to Moscow, and then took the Trans-Siberian railway across to Ulan-Ude, visiting several other destinations en route. Novosibirsk, where we stayed in Academgorodok, the educational and scientific centre of Siberia, and Irkutsk and Lake Baikal, where we visited a traditional wooden village in -32°C.
Top left: Our first visit to Red Square, July 2001. (Left to right) Lauren Butcher, Jess Robinson, Kiti Soininen, Rachel Tuft, Sarah Moffat, Charlotte Eichler and Anna Evans.
Bottom left: The University of Nottingham students Al Locke, Greg Le Tocq and Jill Bates (centre of back row) were part of a group of students who went on an eventful walking expedition in the Caucasus Mountains during the visit to Sochi.
Right: (left to right) Getting a breath of fresh air at a stop on the Trans-Siberian. Nottingham students Rachel Tuft, Lauren Butcher and Sally Morgan with Lisa Thompson (Cambridge).