Russian year abroad not in Russia

If you study French and Russian, is it possible to not go to Russia and only go to France during my year abroad? If I must go to a Russian speaking country, is it possible to go to a country other than Russia? I have nothing against Russia, but I get the impression that they do not like those that are not White.

Reply 1

Fysidiko

Not an unreasonable worry to be honest - when I was in Russia there was definite racism at times. One question that is worth asking, if you don't mind, is: what ethnicity are you? Black people seem to have a pretty hard time in Russia, but asians don't fare so badly, I assume because Russia itself stretches into Asia so it's more familiar to them.

Regarding Russia for non-Whites, Moscow would definitely be your best hope; it gets a lot of tourists and businessmen from all round the world so people are more reasonable toward non-whites.

If you want to avoid Russia altogether you might be able to - it depends on the university. Kazakhstan is often a possibility and has a very pure version of Russian, and the southern Ukraine currently speaks Russian rather than Ukrainian so that might also be possible (and much easier regarding Visas!), although that might change if there's a move toward pro-Ukrainian nationalism as a response to the elections.

Not going to a Russian-speaking country at all is unlikely to be possible; simply put, Russian is a difficult language to learn even with half a year in Russia, so (unlike occasionally with 'easier' languages) universities will not normally be flexible with the year-abroad requirements.

Reply 2

knit-knots

Ah, thanks. I'm Chinese. At the moment I'm contemplating whether to study Italian or Russian. I worried about going to Russia. But I could easily learn Italian over summer. =/

Reply 3

Fysidiko

When I was in Russia last year I shared a flat with a couple of Chinese students who had no problems as far as I know - and from speaking to friends, both St Petersburg and Moscow have sizeable Chinese populations. As I said, the worst of the racism seems to be reserved for blacks.