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One day in my ✨SOVIET✨ university in Khabarovsk, Russia

I study Translation Studies, English and Chinese at the Pedagogical Institute of the Pacific National University in the city of Khabarovsk. In this video I will show you a day of life in my university; the interior, libraries, backyard, canteen and even restrooms. I will also tell you a little about higher education system in Russia. Soviet vibes are guaranteed. Push the like button for luck so that I'll not be expelled for this video! #Russia #Khabarovsk #university Background music: Каламбур - Деревня дураков https://youtu.be/S3202EhSRkY Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/NatashasAdventures My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/natsadv/ *About myself* My name is Natasha, I live in the Far East of Russia in the city of Khabarovsk, but originally I'm from a small town Spassk-Dalny. Currently I'm studying Linguistics in a university in Khabarovsk. I like languages and learning about different cultures. On this channel I'm making videos about life in Russia, our traditions and my traveling in Russian cities. Subscribe to my channel, and let's explore Russia together! #yeahrussia

Natasha's Adventures

3 years ago

And this place is our smoking area. Oh my gosh, I stuck. I was going to go a class, but we desided it will be cancelled... Hi guys! My name is Natasha, I live in the Far East od Russia in the city of Khabarovsk. In today's video I'll show you a day in my university. And thank you for making me to make this video, because actually it was really hard for me to start to make it, because it was hard to find a day when I was going to attend all the classes. So yeah. So now we are standing on the main
street of Khabarovsk. And this is the building of my university. Let's go! And I'm really excited to try out my new camera, it very wide, I like it more than my previous Iphone 6. So yeah, this is the main street of Khabarovsk. This is the university. Right next to the university, there is a statue of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, the great Russian poet. In the main lobby, there are such lovely clouds left from the International Women's Day event, organized by our student council. Also, here yo
u can take our student newspaper, it is called "Teacher". In Soviet times, this newspaper was a chronicle of the life of the university. A lot of things here remind of our Soviet past. For example, this whimsical wall mosaic. Walking down the corridor, we find ourselves in the floor of the Design department. There are always very beautiful art works here. This is a map of our region, the Khabarovsk Krai, and an image of Yerofey Khabarov, the pioneer, after whom the city is named. So my universit
y is called Pedagogical Institute and, for the most part, future teachers study here. There are different departments: Design, History, Biology, Psychology, Physical Education, and Linguistics. The linguistics department where I study is located one floor below. Here we have some information about contests and scholarships. The German Department always has the most colorful posters, and even teachers from Germany come to our university, so that students can practice with native speakers. Unfort
unately, there are no native English or French speakers in our university. Right now I am going to my English class, but actually I was late for it and I didn’t do my homework. The class was analyzing one of Fitzjerald's stories. Since I didn’t have a book, after the class I went to our library. Throughout the four years of study, the university library gives us textbooks free of charge. There is another library on the third floor, it is large and very comfortable. I decided to read this book th
ere, trying to pretend I’m reading and not just looking at the first line. I don’t like answering the question “What is your major?” because my major doesn’t define me. I’m studying Translation Studies with knowledge of English and Chinese Languages. But I don’t want to work as a translator, and I can’t just change it. In Russia, you have to decide on your major before entering the university, and then you study it for 4 or 5 years. The set of subjects and the schedule are already set by the uni
versity. As for the Chinese language, I don’t know it at all. When I was entering the university, I wanted to study Japanese, Japanese but the administration said they closed the Japanese department because there were no teachers. So, I chose Chinese and then understood that it’s not mine, but it was already late to switch to another language. So yeah, after four years here my only skill is good English. Instead of the next class, we went to a conference with our future employers, invited by our
university. Since we are Translation students, there were representatives of travel agencies and translation bureaus. Students had to show presentations about their experience and skills. I don't really want to work in such companies, so I just made a simple presentation about my interests and participation in some events. But my classmates took it more seriously, telling about their projects and language skills, and some of them even managed to attract attention of the employers. After the pre
sentation we were supposed to have another class (which I will not name), but we texted to the teacher and agreed that we would not come to it. To the general relief of both sides. Okay, so, we are going from the presentation, it all was really professional, and.. The highest level. High level, yeah. Yeah, let’s check out this not really noteworthy but still essential part of our daily routine. Here’s some announcement, it says “Dear ladies! Keep clean! Do not throw paper into the toilet and, to
avoid breakage, do not stand on it.” And that’s what students responded: “And you, in that case, put toilet paper and make normal toilet seats! Let's sign a petition!» It is so nice when students are given the right to leave their feedback. So, the presentation is over, and now I am kind of confused what to do because I was going to go to a class, but we decided it will be cancelled. Now we have like a big break, I am going along the university to show you our canteen. So, we approached the ca
nteen, it's called "Lozhka", like "Spoon", And this is our smoking area, "kurilka". It's not an official smoking place but everybody smokes here. Actually, it’s not assigned to our university, it’s just a chain of canteens throughout the city. But it happened to be here and they even give a little discount to students, if you show your student ID. This is me four years ago. Let's see the menu. Drinks here are rather healthy: lemon water, dried apricot drink, and compote. As for the food, there i
s a large selection of salads. Today they even serve aspic, or in Russian “holodets”, a traditional Russian gelatin dish. For the first course, there is pilaf, mashed potatoes, buckwheat and rice, and a very large selection of cutlets. I decided to take mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables. This all cost me about a dollar and a half. While I was standing at the cashier, three students came up and complained that the meat was spoiled. A canteen worker came said that it was just the cheese that
smells like that, but the girls said that cheese doesn’t smell like that. And then, the cashier returned them the money for the purchase. For me it was strange, because in all the three years that I dined in the Spoon, I have not heard anyone get poisoned. But I still was glad that that day I decided to take only vegetables. Also, in the canteen there is a coffee bar from Plantacia, one of Khabarovsk coffee shop chains. Sometimes I buy coffee here and then go to the university with it, imagining
like I am walking in the center of New York or something. A small cappuccino here also costs about a dollar and a half. So, even though the class was cancelled, the content is not stopping, so I am now going to another, like, building of the university... This building used to be a student dormitory. Now it’s a building for students who study oriental languages, philology and history. In the main lobby, there were old Soviet books that could be borrowed for free. I took the one, called "Russian
Soviet Literature". Then I discovered that the floor of Oriental Languages was still being renovated. And this is the floor of the students of the History Faculty. Here you can see stands related to the history of the Second World War, and wall newspapers made by students. So, my day was over but I decided to walk around the university territory. Oh, look at these two snowmen. They're so cute. They're like, "help". This yellow building, all of this is my university, and this Lozhka canteen is
right here. That place behind is the back yard of our university, I suggest you to check it out because there are some interesting sceneries to observe. It wouldn't be Russia if I couldn't do it this easy way. Right? Yeah. It is a whole. Okay. Oh my gosh, I stuck... Ah, no. Just it seemed that my backpack stuck. In all its glory... Oh, this is that long large window that I saw from within. And this is that view from here. What is that? Some old fences. Wow. Imagine! This is just in the back yard
of that university. You know, kind of reminds me of houses in Dostoevsky's descriptions of Saint Petersburg in "Crime and Punishment". Okay, so, this place. I don't know if you consider this aesthetics, but I do. So, behind this fence there're just stored desks. Yeah, so here they are. I think it's a good place for, like, a photoshoot. But my bitter irony can be sugar-coated with the fact that I study here for free. Russian students can get a state budget-financed place, but only if they have s
ufficient total points in EGE, the Unified State Exams, passed upon high school graduation. The USE in the Russian language and mathematics are obligatory; and then you should choose two other subjects in accordance with what the university requires for a particular major. In my case, it was English and Social Studies (Citizenship education.) Studying in my major costs about 1,500 USD per year. It sounds ridiculous for foreigners but by Russian standards it's still a lot, considering the average
salary in Russia. Then I decided to go around the building. There I saw this abbreviation, ДВГГУ, it stands for Far Eastern Humanitarian University. This is how the university was named until 2015. That year, the University didn’t pass accreditation, and another Khabarovsk university took us under its wing. This is how we became a Pedagogical Institute of the Pacific National University. And this actually brought benefits to us, because at the PNU there are more activities for students. The Pac
ific National University is located in a different district, it has a beautiful stately building and an entire campus. But studying in the separate Pedagogical Institute for all these years, I never felt I studied in a BIG university. My first two years here were kind of a blur. I would come to the university, sit at that desk, come to my dorm, sleep, and the next day the same. There were almost no student activities. I was very disappointed, and lost, but I had nowhere to go after high school.
In fact, I got a lot of points in the Unified State Exam, and if I prepared more, I could even consider applying to some university in Moscow. But living all my life HERE, I couldn’t even dare to think about it. Moscow was unknown, far away and expensive... But there was one thing that literally saved my life. After my second year at university, I won a scholarship sponsored by the American councils for international education. Two semesters at the University of Minnesota certainly showed me WHA
T a college education should be. I cannot imagine how I would live now if this had not happened. But the program ended, and I returned to Russia to finish my studies at PNU, now is my last semester here. Yeah, so guys, today's day is very weird because you probably expected to see something about, like, studying, this academia atmosphere, but no, it was just some skipped class, another skipped class, the self-presentation and the cafeteria. Yeah, so today I definitely didn't come there to study.
If I ever did. Alright, this was my video about my university in Khabarovsk. Like this video and write your comment! Thanks for watching and special thanks to my Patreons and PayPal donors! See you very soon. Good bye! Poka-poka!

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