Ryazan, Russia - 1999
In 1999, I had the opportunity to travel to Russia
on three separate occasions. In May and June, I took a group of
students to Moscow and St. Petersburg and visited, for the first time,
Ryazan, a city 120 miles southeast of Moscow. In July and August, I
took a group of twelve teachers from Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Mississippi
to Ryazan where we participated in a Short-term Seminar sponsored and
funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Fulbright - Hays Group
Projects Abroad Program. In October, I spent three weeks in Ryazan
conducting demographic research.
All three
trips were wonderful experiences, but the five weeks spent in Ryazan in
July and August were collectivley one of the highlights of my life.
This website is devoted to that experience and is dedicated to those
wonderful teachers who participated!
On July 9, 1999, thirteen individuals departed from the Memphis International Airport for Ryazan, Russia where they spent the next five weeks participating in an academic seminar held at Ryazan State Pedagogical State University and an intensive field experience in Meshchersky National Park. The group consisted of the Program Director, Dr. Brooks Green, Associate Professor at the University of Central Arkansas; one third-grade teacher from Oxford, Mississippi; two high school teachers from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and nine elementary, middle school, and high school teachers from various towns and cities in Arkansas. Below you will find photographs of each.
Karen Anthony
Gerald Hanry
Kay Ryan
Mike Wallace
Barbara Johnson
Gail Streett
B. J. Boublik
Mary Wallis
Mary Cook
Paula Lawrence
Bill Turpen
Anne Williams
The focus of the seminar was how resources are managed in Russia with supporting topics in Russian geography, history, and the Russian language. The five-week seminar was organized such that class lectures and instruction, and associated tours, occurred during the first, third, and fifth weeks and an intensive resource management, national park experience, during the second and fourth weeks. Additionally, weekends included scheduled tours of significant Russian cities, towns, villages, rural areas, and protected reserves. In essence, the seminar had four components: 1) academic courses, 2) a national park experience, 3) public relations opportunities, and 4) weekend travel.
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Ryazan is located 120 miles southeast of Moscow.
Lived at "X," studied at "circle."
The Academic Component
During the three-week
academic component of the Seminar, the group lived in a hotel owned and
operated by Ryazan State Teachers Retraining University. It was
located about two kilometers from where we studied. The three photos
at the right show the entrance (1), right wing (2), and left wing (3) of
the hotel. It was a very comforable place to live with the exception
that some rooms did not have hot water (a fact that I heard about
frequently!).
The group studied at the main building of Ryazan
State Pedagogical University in classrom #20 on the third floor (4).
Most mornings began with a 1 1/2 to 2-hour Russian language course taught
by Professor Vladimir Rogatin (5). Professor Rogatin (we called him
"Bob") was also a professional interpreter and frequently traveled with
the group when we met with other educators or were interviewed by local
television, radio, and newspaper journalists. After the language
course, Professor Sergei Demidov taught the group about Russian
history. Professor Demidov was Chief of the History Faculty at the
university and his mother was one of the prorectors
(vice-presidents). A photo of Professor Demidov is also shown at the
right (6).
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were always served in the
cafe "Minibar" at the university. While we were in Ryazan, the cafe
was exclusively used by us and was closed to students and faculty.
We generally found the food to be exceptionally good and very
plentiful. The cafe staff was extremely kind, friendly, and
accepting of our rather unique American food preferences. The cafe
(7) and cafe staff (8) are shown at the right.
After lunch our
schedule typically consisted of lectures by Dr. Brooks Green about the
geography of Russia and then lectures given by Professor Elena (Lena)
Biryukova (9) about resource management in Russia. Lena and her
husband, Alexander (Sasha) Pribylov, were our hosts. She is a
geographer/ecologist and he is a computer scientist/ecologist. Their
photo, which includes their three-year old daughter, Alyona, is at the
right (10).
We were very fortunate to be able to intersperse
lectures with occasional visits to sites related to lecture topics.
For example, the group was able to work at an archeological site one
morning while in Meshchersky National Park. At that site many
members of the group found bones and pottery fragments which dated to the
First Century AD (11). Also, the Ryazan Kremlin (12) and associated
museums were within walking distance of the university. Therefore,
Dr. Demidov,our history professor, provided a tour in the Kremlin Palace
where we were able to observe artifacts from various periods of Russian
history. He was also able to give us information about the history
of Ryazan and the Ryazan Kremlin. A regional art museum was also
very near the university which made it possible to see local art
associated with the Ryazan region of Russia.
Lectures, discussions,
and on-site visits pertaining to the geography of Russia included:
geomorphology, climate, vegetation, population, ethnicity, political
divisions, the urban and rural setting, agriculture, industry, education,
and understanding the location of significant rivers, cities, and
towns. We were fortunate to be able to observe the vast Russian
Plain first hand (13), search for fossils in the soft limstone/clay west
of Ryazan (14), visit the Tatar town of Kasimov (15), observe production
in an employee-owned pottery factory (16), see the results of work in an
embroidery factor (17), and learn of the operation of a modern egg and
chicken factory (18).
On four separate occasions we had the
opportunity to visit with our colleague-educators in the Ryazan
region. First, we visited a privately funded school in Ryazan - a
Waldorf School - where we compared Russian and American school systems in
a round-table discussion (19) and other fun activities. Second, we
visited a state-funded ecology school northwest of Ryazan in Lykhovitsi
(20) where we learned about a wide range of after-school activities
provided for Russian school children. Third, we visited with
teachers at a rather modern, well-funded state school near Ryazan in
Alexandrova (21). And, forth, we visited with sociology faculty at
Ryazan State Pedagogical University about their new program in Social
Engineering (22 - Anne Williams with RSPU faculty).
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The National Park Experience
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Associated with the
resource management focus of the seminar and lectures at Ryazan State
Pedagogical University, was an eight-day national park experience.
This included additional lectures given by Dr. Alexander Pribylov,
ecologist and computer science engineer. The national park -
Meshchersky National Park - is located approximately forty-three miles
north of Ryazan in the Meshchora Lowlands and in the southern margins of
the great Russian taiga.
While in the park, the group stayed at the
tourist base in a hotel (23). The first week at the park was
primarily an orientation to the park and its resources. During that
time we were taught about the geological origins of the park as we walked
through the Pra River Valley (24), as we were shown lakes of glacial
origin (25), as we were shown rare and protected plant species (26), and
as we were shown some of the problems facing the park, such as an
extensive peat extraction industry (27).
The second week at the
park was devoted to two significant activities that kept the members of
the group very busy. First, we divided into three groups and
translated into English a brochure that had been written about the park in
Russian (28). The brochure will be published and made available to
English-speaking tourists when they visit the park headquarters or the
tourist base. Second, we designed and built an ecological trail for
children that was 1,600 meters in length. This trail is only the
second to be constructed in the park. The work involved with the
trail necessitated an association with park rangers (29) who cut trees,
provided equipment and tools, and who assisted us with the
construction. The trail was first explored by Drs. Alexander
Pribylov and Elena Biryukova then mapped by the teachers. Signs were
constructed, painted, and located at strategic places along the trail
where they were significant biome changes. Two bridges were built, the
trail was marked, a picnic site was built, and benches were placed at the
first stop along the trail. Several photos at the right depict
trail-building and related processes - cutting trees (30), making signs
and maps (31), building bridges (32), building a picnic site (33), and
building a fence to protect a hill built by a rare ant species
(34).
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Public Relations
An unexpected component of
the Short-term Seminar developed after we arrived in Ryazan. Because
Ryazan is not one of the major tourist sites in Russia, only on rare
occasions do foreigners visit the city. In fact, it was a closed
city until 1990 because of two military-related factories located
there. So, while we lived in Ryazan, we were frequently treated as
celebrities and many different groups wanted to visit with and interview
us.
The Rector (president) of the university, Anatoli Liferov (35
shown here with Lena Biryukova), on our first full day in Ryazan, arranged
for the local television station to come and film our arrival and
interview us. That segment appeared on the local news that
evening. Later during the first week, we were taken to the studio of
the local televison station and appeared for thirty minutes during a live
broadcast (36). The host and hostess asked many of us questions
about why we were in Ryazan and what we thought of Russia.
Additionally, when we visited Kasimov, a TV crew traveled with us and we
were interviewed again. And finally, while visiting the Lukhovitsi
ecology school, a TV crew filmed us and a radio station from Moscow
interviewed some of us.
There were also instances when newspaper
journalists came to interview us and their comments later appeared in
local newspapers. Photo 37 shows one journalist who spent an hour or
more visiting with us and asking us questions. While we were in
Ryazan, two items did appear about our visit (38 and 39). All of the
attention was disruptive at times, but we are sure that the attention also
aided in helping us build good relations with officials and residents of
Ryazan and that opportunities came to us because of the news
coverage.
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Weekend Tours
We had very little time to
rest during the Short-term Seminar in Ryazan. Weekends were also
filled with travel and tours. The first weekend of the Seminar was
spent traveling to Kasimov in the north-central area of the Ryazan Oblast
and to Lukhovitsi, northwest of Ryazan in the Moscow Oblast.
In
Kasimov, we met with the education director and the chief political
officer of the region. They gave us information regarding the town,
explained how Russians and Tatars were living peacefully together, and how
their educational system operated. They gave us a tour of the town,
its significant buildings, and then provided a banquet reception for us at
a resort near the town (40).
In Lukhovitsi, we were given a tour of
the city's ecology school where Russian school children came after school
to study geography, geology, ecology, and other related topics.
After the school visit, we were taken to a site near the Osyotr River
where we searched for fossils, visited the school's newly renovated
ecology camp, were fed lunch, and hiked along the banks of the river
(41).
The second weekend was spent traveling to and visiting the
beautiful palaces in and near St. Petersburg. We were taken by
university bus to Moscow where we took an overnight train to St.
Petersburg. The next two days were spent visiting the Hermitage, the
Peter and Paul Fortress, the palace at Peterhoff on the Gulf of Finland
(42), and the Summer Palace at Tsarskoye Celo.
The third weekend
was a visit, by university bus, to Moscow where we toured Red Square, St.
Basil's cathedral (43), Alexander's Garden, the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier, the Kremlin and Kremlin Cathedrals, the Armory Palace, Arbat
Street, Izmailovsky Park, and the Christ the Savior Cathedral.
The
forth weekend, the group was taken to Konstantinova, the birthplace (44)
of the Russian poet, Sergei Yesenin and to a recently restored monastery
in the town of Poshchupova. We also spent a full day traveling to
the Oksky Reserve where rare cranes and European bison (45) are
bred. During that trip we were able to observe small Russian
villages (46) far removed from civilization.
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Conclusion
We were fortunate to be able to spend parts of two days in Amsterdam (47) on the way home. It was a wonderful way to end a tremendous five weeks. The Ryazan Seminar was an exceptional experience. All who participated greatly appreciate the U.S. Department of Education, the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Program, for enabling American teachers to study and live in foreign countries. The total experience more than met our expectations. We hope that our future contribution to education in our schools, school districts, states, and indeed, the nation, will reflect our gratitude and demonstrate the value of such funded experiences.
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