Megan
My blogs
| Gender | Female |
|---|---|
| Industry | Education |
| Occupation | Graduate student |
| Introduction | I read a novel by Dostoevsky in high school (The Brothers Karamazov) and decided that I needed to learn Russian. Fortunately, I have a great deal of mental stamina, because I soon found out that you have to study Russian for years to read Dostoevsky successfully. However, wonderful professors and generous friends in Russia, mainly in Leningrad/St. Petersburg, made the whole process thoroughly worth the long hours spent memorizing verb forms and making vocabulary lists. I first visited Leningrad in summer 1989, although I barely left the hotel on that two-day trip. I returned for four months in the spring of 1990, and again to (renamed) St. Petersburg in fall 1991. I have been visiting the city regularly since then. I visited Petersburg for dissertation research from August-December 2006, in March 2007, and in July 2008. This blog draws on specific information from those three trips, but also on the knowledge of the city that I gained over 20 years of spending time there. It provides updates based on information from a range of news websites and contacts in Petersburg. |