Ukraine

Nicholas Seay Participates in American Councils’ Eurasian Regional Language Program

By Nicholas Seay

Nicholas Seay, a second-year PhD Student in the Department of History spent two months this summer learning Tajik through the American Councils Eurasian Regional Language Program (ERLP). The ERLP program provides high-quality language instruction and specially designed cultural programming for students studying the languages of Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova. Languages available to study include Armenian, Azerbaijani, Turkish, Georgian, Chechen, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Romanian, Bashkir, Buryat, Tatar, Yakut, Persian (Dari, Farsi, Tajik), Pashto, Uzbek, and Ukrainian.

Karakul Lake, Tajikistan

While the COVID-19 pandemic led American Councils to cancel in-person language learning programs, the majority of classes were still offered online. “The ability to continue to work towards the language skills necessary for my research while ensuring that students, staff, and instructors had the opportunity to work safely during the pandemic made this a unique opportunity. I am very happy to see American Councils working so hard to ensure that all programs are carried out safely,” Nicholas explained. In both Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 American Councils programming will continue to operate online.

Nicholas Seay Giving an Uzbek Language Presentation

Nicholas first traveled to Tajikistan in 2017 as part of the State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship program for the study of Persian. Iranian Persian (sometimes called Farsi) and Tajik Persian are closely related. While Iranian Persian served as Nicholas’ initial encounter with Persian, his research interests in the history of cotton production in Soviet Tajikistan have led him to redirect his focus towards Tajik. As Nicholas described, “One advantage of studying with ERLP was the ability to study the specifics of the Tajik language and begin to understand regional dialects within Tajikistan.”

In the future, Nicholas hopes to combine his Russian and Tajik language skills in archival and oral history work in Russia and Tajikistan. His summer online studies were partially funded by support from the History Department at Ohio State and with the support of a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education. Nicholas will be hosting a virtual information session on October 5th at 3:00 PM for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students interested in pursuing similar opportunities with American Councils ERLP and related programs. To RSVP for this information session, follow the link here.

Philip Kopatz’s Fulbright Experience

By Philip Kopatz

September 7th, 2019: I had been in Kharkiv, Ukraine on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) for a week and was finally getting my teaching schedule. I had been assigned to the history faculty and my advisor told me “Your first class is on Monday. You’ll be teaching by yourself which is nice since you won’t have to report to anybody.” I replied in utter disbelief, “You know I have no teaching experience, right?” He calmly replied, “You won’t have anybody breathing down your neck.”

Man standing on a rock at the beach

Sunrise in Odesa

I spent the weekend frantically googling lesson plans and ideas. The two-day seminar on teaching at the orientation did not prepare me for this! I strung together a semi-coherent lesson plan and walked into the classroom on Monday not knowing what to expect. When I asked the history professors about the level of the students’ English, they laughingly replied, “not great.” The classroom had about 20 students of mixed levels. Some could not understand or speak English, some were advanced, and most were somewhere in the middle. The class went better than expected, but I knew I needed help. I pulled aside one of the advanced students, and to my pleasant surprise, it turned out she used to be an English teacher. With her help, I learned how to write lesson plans centered around fun and engaging activities such as “guess the lyrics” or video comprehension. Although the numbers dwindled throughout the semester because my class was optional, I found a core group of students who were motivated and saw a dramatic increase in their English proficiency over the next seven months.

Once I figured out how to teach, I turned my attention to “what should I do outside of the university?” As if she read my thoughts, a Ukrainian Fulbright alumna messaged me on Facebook to introduce herself and mentioned that she had an English school for lawyers and would love to have me. Two or three times a week I would spend evenings there talking to her students about topics from education in the U.S. to holiday traditions. It was refreshing to be surrounded by people who genuinely wanted to learn English as opposed to many of the university students who only studied English to pass the exit exam for graduation.

But Fulbright is not completely about working; it is about cultural exchange and immersion. With eight other ETAs across Ukraine, we took the opportunity to travel as much as possible. From the beaches of Odesa, to the baroque and Renaissance inspired architecture of Lviv, I immersed myself in Ukraine. There are numerous stories I could write about, but I’ll leave it off with my last trip in March before COVID changed our lives. My Ukrainian friend, who had never been west of Kyiv, and I jumped on a train to western Ukraine to visit some of my Fulbright friends and do some sightseeing for the weekend of March 6th. We did the normal things while traveling: ate good food and saw some cool sights. But we also did some extraordinary things: one day we were visiting a Soviet prison in Ternopil and heard the experiences from a man who spent eight years in that small prison cell, and the next night we were drinking wine on the shores of the Dnipro river in Kyiv.

Students cooking

Making Vareniki and Borscht in Lviv

In the words of the late Fulbright director in Ukraine: “you need to have patience and a sense of humor here.” Those words could not be truer. Living in another country, even if its government sponsored, requires one to be flexible and adaptable. Most of the time things will not go how you planned or imagined, but if you just go with it and enjoy the process, you may just have the best experience of your life.

Updates from the Field

To wrap up our Notes from the Field series, we reached back out to our respondents for updates. Roughly two months have passed since we began this series, so we were interested to hear what has changed and what the future looks like now versus back in April. Below we have some updates from Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, and Russia.

Ann Merrill, Kyiv, Ukraine

Ukrainian President Zelensky sits in a café with his team despite cafes remaining closed to dine-in customers.

In Ukraine, it seems to me the government is caving under pressure from the business community to return to “normal life.” The Ministry of Health set specific conditions for easing the quarantine, which were not met by Kyiv city and several oblasts, but I guess keeping the capital and rest of the country shut down just doesn’t seem to be a viable option anymore. And with almost no enforcement of quarantine measures, and no repercussions for breaking them, it’s not surprising that many Ukrainians are not taking it seriously anymore -even the president. His office posted a photo on the Office of the President’s official Telegram channel of him inside a café during a working visit to Khmelnitsky. Cafes were not yet permitted to allow customers inside, so it caused a bit of a scandal. While the number of confirmed cases in Ukraine is still relatively low compared to many other countries (25,411 as of June 4, with 742 fatalities and 11,402 recovered), the curve is not flattening and certainly not declining. Yesterday had the highest number of new confirmed cases in one day to date with 588. The unseasonably cool and rainy weather has helped keep more people inside than usual for spring, but I worry what the coming weeks will look like as the weather improves.

 

Emma Pratt, Tbilisi, Georgia

The pandemic has certainly given me some insights into my daily life, especially into my work as a teacher. Delivering my course online has made clear to me which parts of teaching I like and which I dislike. Unfortunately, face to face interaction seems to be one of the things I like most, which I hadn’t fully realized before. Student requests come across differently online than they do in person, often in a negative way. On a similar note, it seems I should focus more on email-writing in the future. Some of the online activities born out of necessity have been very effective, and I hope to integrate them into future courses, even if they don’t have an online component.

I’ve realized that though cooking is my hobby, it is also a chore. There isn’t easy access to grocery stores and restaurants and the dishes are endless! Although I have been cooking for myself and my family for years, I never understood the “double burden” so well before. There was always the option to just grab something if I was tired or out of an ingredient. Don’t be mistaken. My family has also been doing an increased amount of cooking and dishwashing at this time. We just seem to need a LOT of food and dishes.

The biggest insight, though, has been into the political situations in the US and in Georgia. As America struggles, I worry about my friends and family there. However, Georgia has remained relatively calm and we are slowly returning to normal life, with the addition of masks and lots of hand sanitizer (both of which are now easily available). This is having an effect on the way I think about my future plans, though it’s too early for anything to be certain.

Free bread for those in need in Tbilisi

The following passages were pulled from a blog essay written by Tatiana Shchyttsova discussing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global society as well as Belarus’s response the pandemic. The essay was published in April 2020.

–Tatiana Shchyttsova, Vilnius, Lithuania

The pandemic confirmed a truth already known to all: a crisis situation reveals weak spots and flaws in public systems: poorly functioning institutions, a deficit of material resources, various forms of social injustice.

The global spread of the virus has worked like a perception enhancer or a magnifying glass: it has sharpened our ethical, social, and political sensitivity, bringing about a new wave of critical hostility toward those things we already knew. That there are particularly vulnerable groups–the elderly, the critically ill, the unemployed, the homeless–who are not receiving sufficient social support. That the wealthy have privileged access to high-quality medical care. That corruption impedes the development of social institutions. That neoliberal capitalism does not facilitate social equality. That authoritarian government tends toward irrational decisions and the misuse of a crisis situation.

Liya Bushkanets, a literature professor in Kazan, Russia, honed her sewing talents during the Soviet era and now has created masks “in every size and color” for her family to wear during the pandemic.

–Lyudmila Skryabina, Moscow, Russia

Lyudmila Skryabina shared her “outing schedule” for the first half of June: her building fell into Group 3 for her region and residents were permitted to go outside only three days a week: from 9 AM to 9 PM on June 2, 4, 6, 10, 12 and 14th.

Compared to many other countries, Russia has not had as many human losses in this epidemic. And that’s probably why large numbers of people outside of Moscow and the Moscow region don’t believe the virus is particularly dangerous. They argue that percentage-wise about as many people—and sometimes more—die each year from ordinary flu viruses.

In my opinion, the epidemic has not caused a collapse in Russia because quarantine measures were taken in time, the healthcare system was reoriented as the situation changed, and epidemiological controls were well-organized. This, I think, is where the habits of the Soviet-era planned economy come in handy.

Officially, unemployment stands at about 3 million people, and some estimates suggest it may rise to 6 million. Most of all the service sector—especially trade, food service, tourism—has suffered, and it won’t soon recover. Everyone I know who worked in cafes and bars has now registered for unemployment. In Moscow, civil servants have not stopped working but are still on a “distanced” regime. The plan now is to return to offices June 15, but construction and industry have already reopened.

Moscow instituted a walking schedule which residents were required to follow (although it was canceled on 9 June, 2020) and has now introduced a mobile tracking app.

 

Thank you for reading Notes from the Field, and thank you to all of our respondents for sharing their experiences during what we hope will turn out to be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Life in a Pandemic: What Could the Future Hold, continued

In continuation of yesterday’s post about what the next six months could look like, here are some responses from Ukraine, Hungary, Georgia, and Russia.

 

–Ann Merrill, Kyiv, Ukraine
Ukrainians are pretty awesome people with (unfortunately) a lot of experience dealing with disasters and difficult situations. Within the first couple of weeks, there were already numerous volunteer initiatives to help elderly and vulnerable people who are home alone during the quarantine. Many businesses are adapting to an online world (and Ukraine is, after all, one of the top IT countries in the world). I won’t speculate on what will happen, there are too many unknown and unpredictable variables. But I do know this wonderful country and the great people here are hardy, determined, and good at taking care of each other. I’m glad I am here.

 

–Jessie Labov, Budapest, Hungary
I expect to see the slow but steady erasure of more civil liberties and attacks on migrants/stiffening of immigration and visa regulations in the name of preventing a second wave of COVID-19.

 

–Emma Pratt, Tbilisi, Georgia
I think that we will remain on lockdown into summer. I hope that by fall the country will begin to reopen, though unfortunately many businesses will not be able to do so. I hope that the threatened food shortages have reinvigorated Georgian agriculture and the harvest will be fruitful. If the situation remains under control, fall has the potential to bring in tourists* again for the wine harvest and begin the slow economic recovery.

–Lyudmila Skryabina, Moscow, Russia
I am sure that we’ll solve the problem within six months and will celebrate two Victory Days** simultaneously – WWII and the victory over COVID! I wish everyone GOOD HEALTH!!! May our world become kinder after this pandemic!

*Update: Georgia plans to open to tourists starting 1 July, 2020, but with restrictions. Read more here 

**Russia is planning to hold its Victory Day celebration on 24 June, 2020 despite having the third highest number of COVID-19 infections in the world.

<< Come back next week as we wrap up Notes from the Field with some updates from our participants!

Opening Up

Many US states began slowly reopening in May while others extended their stay-at-home orders indefinitely. The following responses to the question “do you see any signs of reopening the economy? Do you think that’s a smart idea?” were collected in early April, 2020.

 

–Jessie Labov, Budapest, Hungary
No, I don’t. We will probably stay in semi-lockdown for a prophylactically long period of time. And yes, that does seem like a smart move.

 

–Ann Merrill, Kyiv, Ukraine
Some parts of the government talk about it, but other parts (MinHealth) insist it is much too early. I understand the desperate need for people to have income, but Ukraine could be devastated if the virus spreads significantly here. I do not envy those who have to make the very difficult decisions on how to handle this situation.

 

–Emma Pratt, Tbilisi, Georgia
Georgia has been successful in delaying the peak, but that means that reopening the economy is still a long way away. I agree that keeping most things closed is the right decision, but the longer it lasts, the more painful it will be. Many people have lost their jobs already and fear they will go hungry. One thing that gives me some hope for the economy is the creative pivots I have seen many small businesses make: chacha distillers making hand sanitizer, wineries hosting online tastings, pub quizzes migrating online with a “virtual tip jar” for the staff of the bar that used to host, etc.

 

–Jesse Smeal, Rome, Italy
Like many countries, Italy has slowly reopened. Some industries and factories started to reopen in April and some small business such as bookstores, stationary stores, and children’s clothing stores. In May, more have followed.

 

–Lyudmila Skryabina, Moscow, Russia
In Russia the peak of the pandemic is just being reached, in particular in the Moscow area, according to the government and it’s conceivable that the economic situation will continue to get objectively worse, despite the unprecedented supportive measures on the part of the government. April and May largely became state mandated vacations but in June we will see how things stabilize or what further actions are taken.

 

<<Return next week, June 22nd, to read our participants’ predictions for the futures of their countries.

The Consequences of a Pandemic

As tensions rise across the United States, people continue to be impacted by lockdowns and the spread of COVID-19. We asked our participants if they saw any political or economic flashpoints in their countries as a result of the pandemic.

 

–Jesse Smeal, Rome, Italy
None had really developed by early April. As the crisis goes on many have suffered economically. I personally had to close both of my shops due to lack of revenue and government support.

–Ann Merrill, Kyiv, Ukraine
Tens of thousands of Ukrainians lost their jobs or are on furlough. However, businesses that were allowed to stay open, like grocery stores and delivery services, were hiring. The Ministry of Economy estimates that most Ukrainians can survive only one month without income, and we are now beyond that point. The government is working to enact support programs to help citizens and businesses.

– Tatiana Shchytssova, Vilnius, Lithuania
Yes, in Belarus there are many inspiring examples of civic activity. Top-down initiatives aim mostly at helping doctors (providing them with masks etc.)

–Adela Muchova, Prague, Czechia
Major economic and political impacts seem to be rather high, strict prevention measures, such as closing most businesses, affected most of the population. There were also some attempts to misuse the crisis situation for the government to obtain more power (like in Hungary and Poland). These attempts were fortunately suppressed by opposition, media, and active citizens´ initiatives (so the situation is different from that of Hungary and Poland at the moment). In addition, some politicians misused the situation to mount unjustified criticism of the European Union. For instance, ministries of public health are independent from the EU, so their unpreparedness in terms of medical tools is solely the responsibility of national governing bodies. All this has been accelerated by the disinformation campaigns of Russian fake-news networks.

 

<<Come back tomorrow for another post with answers from Hungary, Russia, and Georgia!

Who is Most Vulnerable in a Crisis?

This week we asked our participants about vulnerability. What groups are being most impacted physically, financially, etc. by COVID-19?

 

–Jesse Smeal, Rome, Italy

I believe the most vulnerable groups are the elderly, homeless, and small/independent business owners. The elderly because they are extremely susceptible to the virus and have minimal support and help due to social distancing and movement restrictions. The homeless because they are more exposed to the virus and have little help available. Small business owners because they do not fall into any category to receive government help and they rely solely on the revenue from their business. They are mostly closed and have zero revenue.

–Lyudmila Skryabina, Moscow, Russia

As far as I know, unlike in Europe where the most vulnerable have been the elderly, in Russia more people between the ages of 18-45 have been infected.

–Emma Pratt, Tbilisi, Georgia

The ethnic minority communities were hit particularly hard early on. The first community cluster occurred in the Marneuli-Bolnisi area, where a large portion of the population are Armenian and Azeri. The language barrier may have made things worse, since locals don’t receive information from the Georgian media, which has generally been giving accurate and helpful information. Since then, the government’s website  has been translated into Azeri, Armenian, Abkhaz, and Ossetian. South Ossetia and Abkhazia are huge question marks in their handling of the situation, which leaves many people vulnerable. The homeless population is also particularly at risk.

–Ann Merrill, Kyiv, Ukraine

The Ministry of Health posts updates and has a press briefing every day, so we know the stats quite well. As of early April, 54% of those infected are women and 49% men, which seems to be different from the trends in other countries where men have higher rates of infection. MinHealth also reports that the majority of people who have died had concomitant illnesses (heart disease, diabetes, etc). The initial infections were in Ukrainians who had returned from working in Italy and those with whom they had contact. Most recently, it has been sweeping through the monks at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, who refused to follow any quarantine practices until this week.

– Tatiana Shchytssova, Vilnius, Lithuania

The most vulnerable are doctors and teachers. Actually, all groups that must continue working in close contact or large groups are vulnerable.

<<Check back tomorrow for a special post about the situation migrants are facing in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dealing with a Pandemic, continued

In continuation of yesterday’s post, here are a few more answers to the question: What are the opinions that you are hearing in your country of how your government has dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic?

Evening traffic outside St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia on 24 March, 2020 (left) versus the same intersection on 26 March, 2020 (right) after quarantine began.

 

 

–Jessie Labov, Budapest, Hungary

The Hungarian government’s strategy seems to be not to test anybody, even if they have very obvious symptoms of the virus, unless they are in need of hospitalization. As a result, we have an artificially low number of diagnosed cases and a fatality rate of 10-12%. They followed the same arc of population control that you see in the rest of the region, but with a lot less enforcement than Poland (where police actually stop people in the streets and ask where they are going), and a lot less buy-in than Czech Republic (where masks are required in public and people are sewing them all night and some are even handing them out for free). In general, people seem satisfied with the government’s response, safety-wise, but very cynical about the abuse of political power coming down the road. One interesting detail: Hungarians (in my opinion) were relatively quick to understand what was at stake and make the conscious choice to act in the interest of the collective social body. A marked difference from the US. I wonder whether that is a European thing, a hangover from the socialist era, both, or neither.

–Ann Merrill, Kyiv, Ukraine

There has been quite mixed reactions to the quarantine in Ukraine. The first couple of weeks, people really didn’t take it seriously, but by now (week 5) most people seem to understand the importance of physical distance to stop the spread. The economic impact is really hard for the vast majority of Ukrainians who live hand-to-mouth already or have very little savings.

– Tatiana Shchytssova, Vilnius, Lithuania

The government of my country (Belarus), strictly following its authoritarian president, tries to ignore the pandemic and shows catastrophic helplessness accompanied by concealing true information about the number of infected people and the deceased. In social and independent media, the level of criticism in this regard is very high, but it seems to have no influence on the attitude of officials.

 

<<Next Monday, June 1st, we will learn about different groups who are most vulnerable to the virus.

 

COVID-19: The Bread Baking Renaissance

Food is one of the few things that can unite, sustain, and soothe us no matter where we are in the world. In these troubling times, many people have turned to bread baking and vegetable gardening both to feed themselves and to pass time. In this week’s Notes from the Field, we asked our participants what their go-to comfort food is.

–Emma Pratt, Tbilisi, Georgia

Khachapuri is a traditional Georgian bread filled with cheese and egg.

Most Georgian food makes good comfort food. There has been a popular social media challenge of people around the world making adjaruli khachapuri or khinkali and posting photos of their results. I think I will try to make my first adjaruli khachapuri soon.

–Jesse Smeal, Rome, Italy

Any pasta dish. Cheap, easy and delicious.

–Ann Merrill, Kyiv, Ukraine

Carbs, carbs, carbs.

–Jessie Labov, Budapest, Hungary

My child has been sustained largely on “mákos tészta,” or poppy seed noodles, which is spaghetti or fettuccine coated with butter (or duck fat if you’re my mother-in-law), then sprinkled with a mix of ground poppy seeds and powdered sugar—the proportion of each depending entirely on the level of bribery necessary to get the child to eat. If you grew up in the U.S., you will probably find this weird and off-putting. If you grew up in this region, you will wolf it down like manna from heaven.

–Eric Bednarski, Warsaw, Poland

We have been eating a lot of traditional homemade Polish pierogis in my household. Although I have been eating pierogis for most of my life, I’d never made pierogis myself until this pandemic struck, so it has been fascinating to see the whole pierogi-making process from start to finish. A lot of people I know in Warsaw seem to be baking their own bread now too. Many of them are baking bread for the first time.

–Lyudmila Skryabina, Moscow, Russia

A meat and fish counter remains open in an empty St. Petersburg supermarket.

I can’t say anything about my fellow countrymen, although I think many are cooking now. Personally, I have been making more soups in quarantine. Yesterday I made borscht. I am also trying to remember the recipes for all kinds of yummy dishes. I recently made the mini-khachapuris Dr. Brintlinger taught me to make several years ago. I have to admit that I’ve been eating better and healthier food in quarantine.

<<Check back in next Monday, May 25, to learn more about how countries in Central and Eastern Europe are dealing with the pandemic.

Pandemic Essentials

What is essential in a pandemic? Our correspondents in Central and Eastern Europe recommend these books, films, and other works of art.

–Jessie Labov, Hungary

Giorgio Agamben’s State of Exception. Even though he has gone off the deep end and claimed at the beginning of this global health emergency that COVID-19 was a hoax and a conspiracy cooked up by governments in order to wield exceptional power. Yes, even though Agamben recently said those insane things, his book about the post-9/11 world is still very relevant and important to today’s reality. See: “Giorgio Agamben’s Coronavirus Cluelessness”

–Emma Pratt, Georgia

I can’t dazzle you with my intellect with my answer to this question, because I haven’t had the bandwidth for academic or intellectual reading. I tried to start Red Famine by Anne Applebaum when I returned from my trip to Ukraine, but I found it too emotional right now. The most fitting book I’ve read during this time has been Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory. It strikes the balance between being light and fun and reminiscent of better times, without being overly frivolous or silly.

–Ann Merrill, Ukraine

Мої Думки Тихі (My Thoughts Are Silent), a quirky, lovely, funny Ukrainian independent film released earlier this year. It’s available online in Ukrainian with Russian subtitles. The scenery is gorgeous, and anyone who’s taken a road trip in Western Ukraine will find many familiar sights.

–Jesse Smeal, Italy

Influenza 1918 – PBS film on the 1918 Pandemic. Very relevant to today’s crisis.

–Conrad Rinto, Hungary

Luckily, prior to the pandemic I had ordered Eric Hobsbawm’s The Age of series. He is an author that I had discovered in Professor Dragostinova’s “Nations and Nationalism” course at Ohio State. Additionally, I am re-reading Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula series because when in Hungary why not read an alternative history series on Dracula.

– Lyudmila Skryabina, Russia

It seems to me that during the pandemic we should read those things we’ve been unable to find time for. And watch as many comedies as possible!

<<Next Monday, May 18, our participants will be sharing their go-to comfort food recipes!