Syrian Chronicles 03: First encounter with the russian kind
After so many(six) years I’ve spent in school learning russian, the history of the Soviet Union then the stories linked to their heroism, finally I had the chance to meet them in the flesh. It was awkward, since in the beginning we didn’t understand each other because of our cultural differences. Being in a different country and trying to figure out our place was the other thing. Moreover, the sparks between teenagers were becoming a thing and no one knew how to feel and what to do about it.
The next two buildings where we lived were occupied with russian families. There were quite a few children and with some of them we became friends. Especially with the ones we were in the same age. However, there was a divide in so many ways and we rarely had similar interests. Later I found out there were more than ten thousand Russians living in Aleppo and I haven’t asked what kind of jobs there were doing. Anyway, there were enough to have a school, so there was one and I went there for one semester.
Adjusting to a new foreign school, classmates and language
It was arranged for all the Bulgarian kids that came along with their parents to study at the Russian consulate in Aleppo, which had a school within. Each morning a bus took us to there and brought us back around three. We were about twenty kids in it, different grades and occasionally we made small talk sometimes. Friendship with the Russians wasn’t that important back then, since many of fellow bulgarians came, we preferred to keep close within our circle.
It was just the beginning of the second term and some of the subjects like math were very familiar. I don’t remember playing sports, but after all the area wasn’t that big and there was little space for a proper yard. Our class was about 15 — four boys and eleven girls. The gals were taller, mostly long blond haired, all wearing black uniforms. I really can’t recall any of their names, but remember that the daughter to the Russian consul was in our class (6-th grade). She definitely was a bit bossy and there was a distance between her and all the other girls, as well as the teachers.
The teacher’s stigma on being great
Most of the teachers were friendly toward us, but the language we had to learn. The first time when I had to write down under dictation, the Russian lady couldn’t comprehend how I could possibly make so many mistakes and failed me. I blinked and stared back. After all we have had only two hours of Russian weekly in Bulgaria and most of the time we haven’t done dictations. I didn’t believe it was really important. And maybe at that time it was my understanding that mistakes are natural when you learn new things and you really can’t be perfect in everything even if you try to. The trick is to focus on the subjects you really like and just pass the others. However, there was a stigma in the education system and parenting, which I still believe is present today. You have to strive to get perfect grades in all subjects, otherwise something is wrong with you — being lazy, stubborn or unfocused.
I found out I could be good at reciting poems and that way got my first actual A in Russian. In the music classes that translated to singing and was noticed several times by the teacher. Otherwise all the other boys didn’t really care, but a few of the girls giggled.
The cost of lies and its effects on children
After watching and rewatching several times the Chernobyl series that came this summer, I think no one really knew back then the size of the accident and its cause. Only few years had passed since it happened and the time wasn’t enough even for real facts gossip to spread in Bulgaria. What we were presented with was mainly disinformation and only nowadays we started to realise what was at stake.
However, the lies I could relate to. I had brought some of my Bulgarian textbooks with me in Syria, including a geography one, which had a lesson on Russia. It was written with such awe of their industry, culture and achievements. When I read and translated several passages to my russian classmates, they laughed in disagreement. I could understand the text was far from the truth, but since we had so many things going on, we didn’t care that much. There were true things we knew and I personally admired, like the space race, but there were others like the general living standard and industry that were quite dwarfed by the progress of western countries. Syria was somewhere in the middle and that time for me and my family was a transition into something new and exciting.
After all, the Russian perestroika hadn’t yet taken place and although people felt times are changing I still feel now it was a moment where nobody was certain what that change could really mean.
