For those of you who are ready to take it a step further, our Russian village home gets a new house in October and February, when we move to “The Forest,” Concordia Language Villages’ rental facility near the Twin Cities. I hope some of you will check out the schedule at lesnoeozero.org and join us this fall or winter!

Finally, I know some of you are eagerly awaiting some promised films and pictures. I’ll try to get those up ASAP, as soon as I can unpack the DVDs and find the files!

Thanks again for a wonderful summer!!! Спасибо большое!

Each credit language class read several stories by Chekhov (with varying amounts of English & Russian text, depending on the language proficiency of the class), and then the class adapted the story they read and made a film. The beginning class chose “Pari,” about a young lawyer who agrees to be imprisoned on a bet and becomes enlightened during his years in isolation. This group did a particularly impressive job of using the language they have to convey the important events of the story. Although they had limited language at their disposal, they did a great job of communicating exactly what was happening, the mood of the characters, etc., through a nice combination of dialogue, voice over, and dream-sequence pantomime.

The high beginner class adapted Chekhov’s short play, “The Proposal,” and this class clearly had a ton of fun with their film. They did a beautiful job of distilling the play down to the most important events and communicating them very clearly. Everyone in the class played a significant role in the film, because this group chose to have several people play the same character and keep the characters consistent throughout the film by using consistent costumes. This was a very creative choice & it was fun to see how different people interpreted these characters, who are certainly some of the silliest and most exaggerated individuals he created!

The next class did the story “Kashtanka,” about a little dog who is accidentally abandoned but eventually finds her home again. This group was able to integrate quite a bit of Chekhov’s language, and they chose to shoot their film in a more realistic style with costumes that somewhat represented the period. The mood of this piece was quite serious, but the group lightened it up with a wacky dream sequence involving a counselor, Sasha, singing into an ice-cream scoop in the kitchen.

Finally, the heritage class presented their film, Chameleon. They adapted Chekhov’s story about hypocrisy to camp, and transformed a tale about a police superintendant, a drunken goldsmith, and a borzoi puppy into a film about a counselor on “safety patrol,” a lazy student, and a stuffed crocodile. The villagers did an excellent job writing a script that activated their already very proficient Russian.

The two-week villagers watched the films (and the initial presentation by a counselor in the role of Anton Chekhov) with great interest, and at the end, they voted on various awards. Each group won an award representent the particular achievements of that class, and we were all very proud of our credit students! We’re lucky to have such a talented, creative and hard-working group of villagers!

In the morning, all villagers wore their pioneer neckerchiefs to breakfast, marched in rows, and formally presented themselves to the leader. Upon entering the dining hall, we were immediately impressed with the redecoration that had taken place during the night: all of our usual decorations had been removed, and they were replaced with dozens of authentic Soviet propaganda posters & flags, some modern replicas of Soviet-era posters, and some camp-related Soviet-style admonitions to eat your porridge. We were introduced to Nikita Khrushchev, who attempted to plant corn, but failed to grow anything of note. Later, after breakfast, instead of our usual news announcements, we saw footage of Gagarin’s blastoff into space and Khrushchev’s meetings with Nixon. Our final announcement after breakfast was an explanation of some of the posters in the dining hall. We learned who Lenin was and his role in the founding of the Communist Party of Russa.

At lunch, things took a concerning turn. All began well with a delicious meal, but then, shortly after we celebrated the birthday of one of our villagers, there was an announcement that the currency would be devalued & that our money was nearly worthless. Immediately following that announcement, the birthday boy was “arrested” and discovered to be hiding foreign currency in his pockets. (He was, of course, in on all of this, and delighted to participate in the simulation.) Later in the evening, we talked about the relationship between these kinds of arrests, which were common in the 60s, and the mass killings and imprisonment in gulags that happened under Stalin. Of course, after lunch, Khrushchev was also replaced by Brezhnev.

During free time, there were very few products available in the camp store, but a floating black market had many tasty treats available – for a price. The “police” were also on the lookout for black market speculaters, who ran the risk of being carted off to the gazebo if they overstepped.

Finally, during evening program, we went from station to station doing small simulations of moving all of our belongings into a tiny apartment, or talking to Boris & Valya about their lives in the USSR, or learning the western-style music and dance of the rebel “stilyagi” groups. The goal of the station activities was to acquire enough points to be allowed to pass through the Berlin Wall into West Germany. At the end of the program, all groups were finally allowed into the West and we debriefed our experience. The villagers were easily able to understand the significance of the events of the day, and although they had fun with the simulated arrests and deprivations in the camp store, they clearly saw how such events in real life could have a devastating effect on people. They finished the evening by continuing to ask questions of Boris & Valya, who invited them to keep asking questions for the rest of the session, as long as necessary. We were particularly impressed with Valya’s candid discussion of her naivete when she became a member of the Communist Party as a very young woman and her disillusionment with the Party and the Communist ideals as she aged. We are lucky indeed to have such a rich resource on our staff!

During our day-long program, villagers learned about the “bannik,” a mischievous spirit who inhabits the banya. They all got a chance to try out the famous healing properties of the banya, relax on the beach, learn about the plants grown in the Russian countryside, and listen to (and in some cases play along with) the Russian campfire song stylings of Sasha, our song leader.

For dinner, we had a tasty meal of shashlyk, pilaf, and watermelon – yum! Tonight, the two-weekers will go to bed early, while the crediters help to prepare for tomorrow’s evening program: restaurant night!