Russian department in Greenwich charity run

On Sunday 9 December all our Sixth Form Russianists (17 in total) took part in a charity run in Greenwich Park in London, raising money to fund a joint project with a Russian village called Kitezh.

Our Upper Sixth students visited Kitezh in April last year and our Lower Sixth will visit in April 2013. The village consists entirely of foster families, and is a unique social project within Russia. All students elected to run the full 10km dressed in Santa Claus suits, alongside 2000 other similarly attired runners.

Each student has raised a minimum of £100 sponsorship, and we are hoping for a total in excess of £2500. Although the exact details have not yet been worked out, the hope is that this money may be able to pay for a small group of orphans from Kitezh to visit the UK in 2013, a project which our students will also help to coordinate. 10km is a serious distance, especially in costume, and all runners deserve great praise for their efforts!

Russia Study trip 2012

In the last week of the Easter holidays, 18 members of Year 10 and four members of the Lower Sixth travelled to Russia. They initially followed an intensive language programme, undertaking 16 hours of classes over four short but enchanting days in St Petersburg, the northern capital of Russia. Blessed with sunshine and unseasonably warm weather, they navigated the famous canals, discovered art treasures in the Hermitage, and saw some breathtaking ballet. After St Petersburg, they travelled to Moscow on the night train for a day’s damp sightseeing, before commencing the next part of the trip – a weekend camp with local charity Maria’s Children and young people from Russian orphanages.

The Russian welfare system sets orphans on a very different life course to children from normal families, and often these children find it difficult to socialise and integrate in society. Together, however, we managed to find a common language (mostly of Russian and hand gestures) as we played games and sport, and drew and painted together. We even scripted short plays of Greek myths, which we performed on stage in mixed groups and full costume! Many new friends were made, even in such a short time. Our Year 10 pupils then returned to the UK, having learned a little bit about Russia, and what lies beneath the polished facade, as our four L6 IB students moved on to the provincial village of Kitezh, 300km to the south of Moscow.

This village, founded 19 years ago by social visionary Dimitri Morozov, consists entirely of foster families. Our pupils lived in these families for five days, and integrated fully into the quite unique life of the community:  cleaning stables, building tables, collecting rubbish and sweeping floors. Most impressive was the deep understanding we gained of the ideology that underpins the work of the village, and their vision of how best to develop and support these emotionally damaged children. We saw first-hand many aspects of this, especially their hierarchy of social roles and their ‘economic games’, which used their own local currency to reward hard work and planning. The correlation between their self-created ideology and the IB learner profile was fascinating. There was, of course, plenty of time for fun and laughter, and so many memories that will bring a smile to my face for many years to come (morning exercise, circuit training in jeans and jumpers and the diverse qualities of smetana, to name but a few). Our hosts were some of the friendliest Russians I have met, and this will certainly be the first of many joint projects between us and the Kitezhans. Pleasingly, our group of students are already planning how they might raise the money to bring a group of orphans over to Sevenoaks.

My thanks go to Miss Cardon and Miss McQuillin for accompanying me on this wonderful trip and for being such good sports, and also to all our pupils, who were such excellent ambassadors of the school.

Jon Drury

Azerbaijan trip, April 2011

When a planned charity project in Russia fell through at the last minute, the opportunity arose to take our L6 Russianists on a study trip to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, one of the Russian-speaking states of the former USSR.

Supported by the Azeri Ministry for Culture and Tourism, our pupils attended Russian lessons each day, and had the chance to gain a rich understanding of this rapidly changing Muslim country. We visited mosques and temples of fire-worshippers, oil fields and carpet factories, orphanages and war graves, gaining insight into the ancient and modern history of this country, which even today is engaged in conflict with Armenia and finds itself in sandwiched between the Caspian Sea, Iran, Turkey, Georgia and the volatile Caucasian republics of southern Russia.

We received a phenomenally warm welcome wherever we went, and our pupils were interviewed (in Russian) for the main state TV channel three times! It was a remarkable trip; a real once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Shilovo 2010

During the Easter Holidays eleven Lower Sixth Russianists travelled to the small provincial town of Shilovo, accompanied by Mr Drury and Miss Tebay. Pupils lived in local families, and spent the mornings in local schools, working with pupils and teachers alike. In the afternoons we helped at the ‘Rainbow’ orphanage and local kindergartens, which provided plenty of opportunities to chat to new young friends! The cultural programme proved as varied as we had hoped. We bathed in a holy spring in near sub-zero temperatures, visited the poet Esenin’s birthplace, challenged the locals to a game of ‘lapta’ (Russian baseball), tried on chain-mail armour, lost shoes in snow-drifts, formed a truly cacophonous accordion orchestra and sang Russian songs to rapt audiences wherever we went. The hospitality shown to us at all times was simply incredible.

Having returned to Moscow to catch our flight home, we immediately became embroiled in the volcano travel chaos - something that we had only been vaguely aware of from our provincial backwater. Undeterred, we plotted a route through Eastern Europe, and journeyed through some of the great European capitals - Kiev, Warsaw and Berlin – eventually completing the overland journey in under 5 days. Everyone embraced the adventure, and it served as a reminder of how very large the world is without aeroplanes to make it seem small. Kiev’s gold and green domes, Warsaw’s miraculously rebuilt old town and visiting Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin will be just some of the amazing memories of our fabulous homeward trek. But the memory that will linger most is of the farewell tears of our Shilovo hosts, who had let us into their lives so warmly and wholeheartedly for such a short but precious time.