Fulbright Invitation Letter

[aciel.livejournal.com]

I'm applying for a Fulbright Scholarship to Novosibirsk in Siberia. One of the requirements of the scholarship is that I have a letter of invitation from a faculty member at the institution I want to go to, and I have found someone to sign such a letter for me.

So they want me to write what they call a рыба ("fish") for them to sign.

I have two questions. The first is the most important. The second is more just curiosity.

(1) I know that when addressing a letter internationally you put the address in the language and format of the destination country, and then underneath it put a much briefer version in the native language. Now, all over the world people know New York City, USA; but I'm in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA, and I can't imagine that many foreigners know where that is. Furthermore, I imagine that they'd want the name of the city it would get airmailed to, not the final destination, or am I wrong?

What I have is this:

<my name>
c/o University Honors Program (0427)
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, Virginia 24061
USA
Вирджиния
США


(2) Have any of the members here applied for Fulbright before? Any words of wisdom?

Спасибо!
--Аркадий

Comments

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Блаксберг, штат Вирджиния, США would do.

I can't imagine that many foreigners know where that is...

[aristophan.livejournal.com]

didn't you think about maps?

Re: I can't imagine that many foreigners know where that is...

[aciel.livejournal.com]

Of course. I was more worried about the people working in the postal office; do they really check a map for each and every town in the United States?

Re: I can't imagine that many foreigners know where that is...

[monarchistka.livejournal.com]

They won't need to do that. :) The only thing they do is sending letters to the USA (if you're speaking about the russian postal offices). And then the people in the postal offices of the USA check the map and find the town and so on...
Perhaps for such a large country like USA it might be useful to write the name of the state in Russian as well - but anything more.

[monarchistka.livejournal.com]

When I send letters to Germany I never write the address* in Russian (except for the name of the country: ФРГ or Германия).
When my german friends send letters to me they write the whole address in German and it has never been a problem with our post(al) service. :)
*(I mean both addresses: that of the sender and that of the "receiver".)

[l-strange.livejournal.com]

Granted, you live in a country that is much more accustom to seeing foreign languages than rural Virginia (which is, while not politically so, a foreign country unto itself).

[monarchistka.livejournal.com]

May be it's because of my English: I'm not sure I have explained that properly...
Whereever the city is - in Virginia or in Texas - it doesn't matter for people who work in Russian postal offices. They don't send letters to a city or to a town or to a village. They send it to the USA (as a country) or to Virginia (as a state). So "США, Вирджиния" is the only thing that you should write on the envelope in Russian sending a letter FROM Russia to the USA.
If you send a letter from the USA to Russia, surely it would be better to write the whole address in Russian and only "Russia" or "Russia Novosibirsk" in English. But if you write the whole address in English it might be OK as well, because the people working in Russian postal offices are supposed to be able to transliterate a Russian address from English / German / French / Spanish (at least).
I have received every letter which was addressed in German (the country, the city and the street name - not a single cyrillic letter). And I _never_ write German addresses in Russian.

[aciel.livejournal.com]

People in Russian post offices are clearly much smarter than their American counterparts. =D

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Well, they're simply required to be able to read Latin letters, otherwise thay aren't qualified for that job and they won't hire them.
To be honest, though, I have to admit that 98 per cent of those who goes through the mandatory 7-years high school course in Russia can read Latin letters. The other two per cent are simply too silly and/or lazy to read anything :)

[kart.livejournal.com]

I recently received a package from Kharkiv, via Ukrposhta. To be extra sure, they wrote the whole address twice.

Realistically, though, all you need is enough info in {Russian/English} to get the letter on its way, then toggle to {English/Russian} for the finer details like city, street, house number, etc.

[kart.livejournal.com]

This got through without any delays recently:

From:

Т. М.
Героев Труда хх кв. № ххх
Харьков, 61121 - Kharkov
Украина - Ukraine

To:

T. S.
xxxx N. Atherton Apt. xx
State College, PA 16803
USA - США

[tikvi.livejournal.com]

Wow, good luck! What are you plannng to study in Russia? And you'll let us know if you get it, right? :-))

[aciel.livejournal.com]

It looks like I'll be working on the collider they're building. They want me to write computer simulations for it.

I'll definitely mention it here if I get it. Thanks! =D