Host Families

[ulvesang.livejournal.com]

I am a student at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, studying Russian. Next year, I must study for the year in Russia, and I am going to РГГУ in Moscow. They used to offer homestays as an option for their foreign students, but as the visa requirements have recently become stricter regarding changing addresses of residence, they seem to have become very reluctant to offer help in terms of homestays. I still think that living with a family would vastly improve my Russian, as opposed to staying with a bunch of Engish-speaking international students in halls...

Does anyone know of either any formal host-family agencies, or simply any people doing such things informally?

Спасибо

Comments

[octobrina.livejournal.com]

may be you can contact aiesec moscow and they help you

[korolyeva525.livejournal.com]

I was at IMOP in St. Petersburg for 6 months a few years ago, and chose to live in the dormitories. I did this because, at the end of the day, I figured I would like to be able to live for a few hours without struggling to communicate in another language. I'm very glad I did this, because although I really made myself go out and talk to Russians and do things like shop for groceries and hail taxis, I felt so comforted to be able to go back to the dormitory and speak English.

I also knew two students who chose homestays and were unsatisfied. One was over 6 feet tall, and his homestay gave him a sofa to sleep on, and he was obviously uncomfortable. The other homestay was overweight, and the house mother said he should find alternate accomodations because she was afraid of feeding him. In both these cases, the students could not find alternate accomodations because of their visas.

Now, none of this is to say that some people didn't have a bad experience in the dorms (they were kinda gross, in hindsight). And some people from my class still keep in touch with their host families. I just wanted you to know my experiences.

[belacane.livejournal.com]

The 'grossness', as long as it's not life threatening... is really all part of the experience.

Yes, the toilets and showers were different than I was used to, the elevators broke down and I had to do laundry by hand, but if I wanted to live in the relative luxury I knew at home, then I should have stayed at home and not lived in Russia.

[korolyeva525.livejournal.com]

You're right :)

And the "grossness" was NOTHING that you couldn't conceivably come across in a dormitory in any other country, including the USA. For a few weeks, we were molested by flies and mosquitos. There was a very large rat that sometimes scampered across the halls on the first floors, and no matter how many times I scrubbed the bathroom it still looked dingy. Nope, not life-threatening.

Our dezhurnaya would do laundry at 50 roubles per bag. I decided to wash my own in the tub, but we did have that option. And I think you could use the laundry machines on the first floor, but there was always a line and the two machines were known to leave rust stains and eat your clothes. Still, not life threatening.

I just felt like Russia was very difficult and overwhelming - between the language barriers and the absence of some "modern comforts" I was used to. I felt like the dorms gave me a chance to commiserate with my fellow Spoilt Princesses about having to - le sigh - do our own laundry and carry bags of groceries for half a mile.

If that's overwhelming, I wonder what it's like to study in Iraq...

[ulvesang.livejournal.com]

This is why I don't want to live in halls.

I was in halls for one month and was about to stab the next person who forgot to turn the oven off after putting food in it.

Granted, Russian students are probably a lot smarter, but I wouldn't be living with them.

Re: If that's overwhelming, I wonder what it's like to study in Iraq...

[belacane.livejournal.com]

There are stupid people everywhere.
There are brilliant people everywhere.

There are wonderful aspects of homestays, there are terribly aspects of homestays. Likewise with the dorms.

Really it just ends up being how you make it. If you end up in the dorms and find you're surrounded by brain-dead Brits and americans who don't want to do anything but whine in their native language, then don't hang around there. Go out on the street, find a place to take classes in something that interests you, frequent clubs, go to concerts, find russians to talk to at the univeristy (they have a special faculty for foreign students studying russian, if you have enough language skill to take mainstream classes with the russian students, do so, and then ask some of your classmates if you can study with them or something), volunteer somewhere (the detski dom in Moscow often takes volunteer workers)

In the end it's really up to you and what you make of it.

If you don't think you'll be able to enjoy yourself in whatever situation you're put in (especially since often things don't go exactly how you want them to when you want them to in Russia... it's just the way of life) maybe you should rethink your plans to study there.

[belacane.livejournal.com]

that's what it's like moving to a new country. There are times when homesickness and desire for something familiar is inevitable for most people regardless of how 'tough' they feel they are.

[belacane.livejournal.com]

i studied at РГГУ for a while as an international student and the dorm situation is as such:

I lived in a dorm building near the campus at Novoslabodskaja. I lived with a bunch of international students from many different countries (Italy, Korea, Germany, Austria, USA, Quebec, Moldovia, Japan, Sweeden...) and often our common language was Russian. There were English speaking students, but I could totally avoid speaking English if I wanted to. Down the hall was also a Russian family, probably the father was doing construction at the university, and a floor above me were a bunch of Ukranian and Uzbek migrant workers.

I guess it really depends on the batch of students who are living there at the time.

The situation there is that РГГУ has a number of dorms, students who have family in Moscow live at home with their parents or relatives, international students and study abroad students tend to live at novoslabodskaja dorms and Russian students who don't have family in Moscow live at other dorms (my friend lived at the dorm by the metro station Akademika Yangelja).

I had a few friends who were exchange students or international students who rented apartments or rooms in apartments... just ask around I guess.

good luck!

[shariperkins.livejournal.com]

Be careful ... the new registration laws are not quite clear yet and you want to make sure that you receive the right kind of visa and live somewhere where you can be registered. For instance, in apartments now, apparently, your LANDLADY has to register you in person. This can cause all kinds of problems, probably why they are not doing homestays right now. Try reading in the visa section of Expat.ru for more info. I can't figure it out.

I'm here on a one year business visa, which has caused some big problems. I somehow got registered in a dorm here, but it was not an easy process. Now I'm concerned that I won't be able to find a homestay or apartment where the landlord will register me, and I am ineligable to be registered in the dorms.