A Dream Come True
Alexandra Khrenova, a 5th year student of the Institute of Philology, "Russian Lanugage Ambassador to the World", talked about her expedition to Kyrgyzstan and her love of her work:
Almost a year ago, I became the Russian Language Ambassador to the world! The path to this status was not an easy one: offline and online selection for the programme, studies in Moscow at the Pushkin Institute, and the long-awaited first expedition.
This summer, the organisers offered the ambassadors expeditions to Issyk-Kul Lake in Kyrgyzstan to children's summer camps, to play and engage with schoolchildren and to talk about the culture and traditions of our country.
I was lucky enough to visit the international children's camp "Zhetigen", which convenes children from Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Uzbekistan and many other countries. Zhetigen is a modern educational camp located on the shore of Issyk-Kul, between the towns of Bosteri and Cholpon-Ata.
The camp program is comprehensive in its focus and includes a variety of activities, combining various areas of health, recreation, education and training. Under the responsive guidance of our methodologist, Varvara Filippova, we held interactive activities and workshops, quests, quizzes, folk Russian games. The younger children enjoyed creating a Russian traditional amulet toy called "Kon-Ogon" (“Horse-Fire”), playing modern songs on wooden spoons, and staging performances based on Russian folk tales.
The older age group attended a "blogging" class, where they analysed typical spelling and lexical mistakes that can be made when blogging in Russian. In the "rap lessons", the children found similarities between folk rhymes and the rap lyrics, and identified whether the lyrics were by a poet or a popular rapper. The finale of this lesson was a reading to the beat of poems by the great poets Alexander Pushkin and Vladimir Mayakovsky.
An important part of the Russian Language Ambassadors to the World program is getting to know the culture, traditions and customs of the country we are visiting on an educational expedition. And Kyrgyzstan was no exception!
At the State Historical and Cultural Museum in Cholpon-Ata, we learned about the history of the country and discovered the 'wonders' of the sacred mountain lake Issyk-Kul, which is among the 25 largest lakes in the world and ranks seventh among the deepest lakes. The lake is incredibly beautiful, clean and clear. No wonder is it called the Pearl of Kyrgyzstan.
We also visited the Ruh Ordo cultural centre, which is unique in bringing together the five major religions of the world: Islam, Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Buddhism and Judaism in one place, under the same sky. God is one for all - this is the tenet of this spiritual center. This museum is named after Chingiz Aitmatov, the national writer of Kyrgyzstan. A visit to the house-museum was a real gift for us, students of philological faculties and teachers of the Russian language and literature!
The museum of Petroglyphs, where hundreds of petroglyphs were preserved on hundreds of stones, is amazing and beautiful! Most of all I remember the image of a goat being attacked from behind by a dog. While walking around the museum, we met a history professor at one of Turkey's largest universities who is studying these drawings.
On a tour of the Grigoriev and Semenov Gorge we were able to ride horses, touch grazing sheep and cows, see the unearthly beauty and enjoy the national food in a yurt on the bank of a mountain river. We tasted: manty, lagman, fragrant homemade flatbread with kaimak (fat sour cream) and raspberry jam.
I heartily thank the International Volunteer Program "Russian Language Ambassadors to the World" and its head Svetlana Ulyanova for everything! To travel, to teach children the Russian language, to meet different interesting people, cultures and traditions of other countries - it's just magical! Earlier I could only dream about it, but now it's my beautiful and favorite reality.
