Upper Lake >> Viktoriya Vasilyeva is — currently — a resident of Kelseyville and senior at Kelseyville High School. She recently gave a series of presentations to Mr. Smith’s history class at Upper Lake High school discussing Russia. Students often make presentations as part of their coursework, but for Vasilyeva the experience is more personal. She happens to be a foreign exchange student from Balakovo, a city on the left bank of the Volga River in Russia, here through World Heritage Organization (WHO) and Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) programs.
Vasilyeva has been in the United States for six months and is set to go home in June, when her one-year scholarship expires. And it’s possible that she’ll be one of the last Russian exchange students in the U.S. for some time.
“The program I come from — the FLEX program — it’s closed now because of some problems between our governments,” she explained.
FLEX is an exchange program that works specifically with European countries and Russia to bring some of their youth to the states to experience the reality of life in America, while WHO is essentially its American counterpart.
“[FLEX] was created between Russia and U.S. by [Senator] Bill Bradley because of the cold war. He wanted to encourage Russian students to see real life in America and that there’s no tension or negative attitudes from common people to them,” said Vasilyeva. “Common people don’t really think what our governments want us to believe in, and so he started this program.”
Attending the presentations were Vasilyeva’s host parents, Cathleen Mondfrans and Adam Lawson. Mondfrans said they decided to apply for an exchange student out of a desire to do something meaningful. The organization performed background checks, personal interviews and more before introducing the three. After half a year, they are more like lifelong friends.
When asked by an audience member how they felt about having to part with Vasilyeva at the end of the school year, Mondfrans became emotional.
“I expect a weekly Skype call. We’ve really been enjoying our time with her,” she said” “She’s very open and talkative. She’s just been wonderful.”
“She doesn’t know we’re not letting her go yet,” added Lawson, mustering a laugh from everyone in the room.
Mondfrans added that “One of the biggest things she has brought is, when the plane was shot down over Ukraine, my youngest son called to make sure [Vasilyeva’s family] were OK, because now there’s this connection outside the United States… there’s this person that’s there. And so it really opened up his eyes that war isn’t just about countries, it’s about people.”
Naturally the student teaches her host family the Russian language and about life in that country. At the same time, she tries to experience as much as she can of American life.
Vasilyeva was happy to share some stories about the differences between her home in Russia and her experiences in the United States
“In my big city, I don’t know why, there are only like two cars of police officers who are working with car accidents, so you have to wait like five hours for them to come because they are working all over town,” she said. “Funny thing is, there’s a bridge, a big bridge, in my city and there’s a police station at the bottom of it and when there’s a car accident on the bridge they’re waiting the same amount of hours because these two guys aren’t near this police station, they’re elsewhere.”
Mondfrans had an observation to make as well: “They have so much more resources there than we have here. When she first came here I was telling her she can’t do more than one load of laundry a week, you can’t shower for more than 15 minutes… in her country there’s so much water it’s ridiculous. And then there’s the energy.”
“There’s a nuclear power plant, one that’s [hydroelectric] and another that’s heat or something,” Vasilyeva explained.
“So there are three power plants near her city so they don’t have nearly the power problems that we have,” added Mondfrans.
Even though she will be leaving in June, Vasilyeva does have plans to return to the United States, this time as a college student.
“It’s all about the education system. In Russia it’s really much more strict and much more pressing on you. I study all the time and I know here that education can be for fun,” she said. “In my history class in Russia we always do tests and we are learning by heart something and we’re studying. Here […] it’s just more interactive. That’s what I want Russia to have because it makes students want to learn.”
One thing that she is certain of, once she returns to school in Balakovo, she intends to give a similar presentation to her Russian schoolmates as she has to her American ones.
“I want American students to know what Russia is like, not just what they find on the internet. Culture isn’t just in the arts, it’s in real life. And I’m going to share my experience there because that’s not what Russians think about Americans. America isn’t in Los Angeles or New York. It’s in small cities and the common people. It’s in the American high school system.”
