The whole time I've been in Moscow, I've had a hard time getting a grasp of what normal weather for the city actually is. In the autumn, I recall Volodya telling me a joke that circulates in Russia, to the effect that the country has only two seasons: the one where you go around bundled up from head to toe, and the one where you go around bundled up from head to toe except for the very top button of your coat. To Volodya's mind, this October was apparently unseasonably warm, which for him meant that there was as yet no frost on the ground.
Winter too, variously people told me, was warmer than usual in Moscow this year. Too busy avoiding the black ice I seemed to encounter everywhere, I failed to notice--though in retrospect, it says something about my time in Russia that I never felt compelled to buy the thermal underwear I was told was an absolutely necessity in the Russian winter.
On the other hand, my banker, Gulia, lamented the snow that was falling as we had our lesson about a week ago. Snow in April, she told me, is not usual, and she suspected some sort of climate change was responsible. I told her my mother had once had her thirtieth birthday party ruined by a sudden blizzard, in the comparatively balmier United States. Whether she believed me, I could not tell.
Right at the moment, however, we have just gotten through the period Russians call The Thaw--the time when winter comes to a messy end. For about three weeks, the streets in Moscow were awash in mud and melting snow. The thaw comes on abruptly and goes away just as abruptly, but while it's in full swing, it's impossible to miss. Piles of snow that seemed permanent features of the landscape suddenly vanish. Green grass appears in places you would never have guessed it could be. Life begins to resume.
And then, all of a sudden, there comes a day that's actually, well, almost warm. That day came today. A couple of months ago, when the zipper came off on my nice, thick winter coat, I couldn't find another coat equally thick--the season for them must have been over in the minds of store managers, even if it clearly wasn't in mine--and settled for something resembling a spring jacket with a removable lining. The day I first put that jacket on, it was barely warm enough. Then for a long time, it was as "just right" as Baby Bear's porridge. Today, suddenly, I had an urge to unzip it.
The Thaw is a common metaphor in Russian literature and, indeed, in Russian life. Most famously in the West, the term is used for a period of de-Stalinization that occurred in Krushchev's time. But it is also used extensively to describe sudden periods when anything gets better.
Lately, I've been in the midst of my own Thaw. Having resolved on attending Penn in the fall, I am more hopeful about my future than I have been in a long time. Oddly, I don't find myself agonizing over this decision, the way I agonized about going abroad in the first place. I know I will find a way to make Penn work for me. The degree I intend to puruse will open up a lot of avenues in my career and, I hope, in my wider life.
I also can look back on the past eleven months--my goodness, I've really been here eleven months!--with a certain satisfaction. I've built up a solid base of friends here. I have students who really seem to like me. I've learned that I have the ability to establish rapport with people and win them over--something I would not have thought myself capable of until I came to Russia and had to do it in my work, again and again.
For whatever comes next, I am ready.
12 April 2009
03 April 2009
Pennding No More
Well, it looks as though my grad school dilemma is over. I have finally made an executive decision to attend the University of Pennsylvania's Master of Science in Education program in Intercultural Communication.
A big part of that decision, as regular readers of this blog know, has been financial. Penn has shown me the money; no other school has. But the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized that Penn's program has some strengths beyond affordability. The faculty is small, the Graduate School of Education's reputation both generally and in this specific field are excellent, and internship and graduate associate opportunities abound.
There remains only the paperwork to be dealt with, but that will not be a major hassle. I need to send in only a couple of forms--an acceptance form and some forms officially accepting the scholarship Penn has given me--and I will officially be a Penn student.
In fact, as of last night, the other decisions I've been struggling with lately ceased to be pending. I managed to score a ticket back to the States for a mere 500 dollars, so at least I now have a definite date of departure. On the 23rd of June, I leave Moscow behind and head back to America. I will be staying with one (or more) of various friends in New York for a while before I set off on some travels in my native country. Boston is first on the list--followed, I think, by Chicago and San Francisco. Now that I've made a decision to go to Penn, however, I don't see a real reason to spend a lot of time playing tourist in Philadelphia.
For that I'll have two years.
A big part of that decision, as regular readers of this blog know, has been financial. Penn has shown me the money; no other school has. But the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized that Penn's program has some strengths beyond affordability. The faculty is small, the Graduate School of Education's reputation both generally and in this specific field are excellent, and internship and graduate associate opportunities abound.
There remains only the paperwork to be dealt with, but that will not be a major hassle. I need to send in only a couple of forms--an acceptance form and some forms officially accepting the scholarship Penn has given me--and I will officially be a Penn student.
In fact, as of last night, the other decisions I've been struggling with lately ceased to be pending. I managed to score a ticket back to the States for a mere 500 dollars, so at least I now have a definite date of departure. On the 23rd of June, I leave Moscow behind and head back to America. I will be staying with one (or more) of various friends in New York for a while before I set off on some travels in my native country. Boston is first on the list--followed, I think, by Chicago and San Francisco. Now that I've made a decision to go to Penn, however, I don't see a real reason to spend a lot of time playing tourist in Philadelphia.
For that I'll have two years.
Credit Where Credit Is Due
In the short time that I have been in Russia, I have been blessed with students who gave me interesting glimpses into many parts of Russian society. From Volodya, I learned quite a bit about the Russian legal system. Another class described for me "Soviet-style management" in state enterprises and their successor privately-held companies. And from Gulia, I am learning quite a bit about the Russian banking system.
Gulia and I got into a discussion about Russian and American banking practices tonight after she asked me what I understood about the current economic crisis. While I did not attempt to explain to her the intricacies of mortgage-backed securities or credit default swaps, I did tell her my overall impression of what has causes this mess--namely, total recklessness on the part of the banks. To try to make clear to her what had happened, I asked her how one goes about getting a credit card in Russia. What she had to say was surprising.
First, it would seem, Russians are not inundated, as Americans are, by a never-ending stream of credit card solicitations. The would-be credit card holder has to request a card from a bank (often in person, but increasingly an application can be filled out online). The bank will then obtain what information it can about the person's income and creditworthiness. Within the last three years, this step has become somewhat easier, because credit bureaus on the American model have been established in Russia. Prior to that time, however, the banks had to request information directly from other banks.
According to Gulia, the retail (consumer) credit market in Russia has been, until recently, a rather small business. In fact, lending to nearly everything except the government, large businesses, and quasi-private enterprises like Gazprom and Lukoil (Russia's largest natural gas and oil producers, respectively, in which the government has more than a 70% stake), is small potatoes in the credit market. But the ersatz wealth Russia acquired through rising oil prices the last few years has caused this market to expand.
Gulia's job within her bank is to assess the riskiness of would-be retail loans and lenders. From what I gathered, the president of her bank, to whom she reports, actually listens to her. And what she tells him, at the moment, is to be cautious. Recently, for instance, she recommended that her bank stop giving credit cards to people under age 24. Her recomendation was based on statistical analysis showing that 80 percent of university students who were granted credit cards defaulted on them at some point.
But the really shocking thing is, the bank actually listened to her. As a result, one of the largest banks in Russia no longer lets university students obtain credit cards, with or without a co-signer.
I cannot imagine any bank making a similar decision in America. Or at least, I couldn't imagine it until the current financial crisis hit. I told Gulia my own story of getting my first credit card: at the tender age of eighteen, I applied for one with a vendor on my college campus who was giving out free t-shirts. Gulia was aghast that American banks would give out credit so freely.
The strange thing is: I am too.
In banking, as in many other things, then, Russia seems a land frozen in time as well as in temperature. Once upon a time in America, we used to joke that a bank was a place that would give you a loan if you could prove you didn't need it. Now, we see to give credit to anyone and everyone, whether they have any real chance of repaying or not. We've let cashiers at Home Depot get mortages to buy $500,000 houses. We raise spending limits, so that people who have maxed out their cards can keep right on charging. And when they're done, we let them consolidate their debts as "home equity loans" ("second mortgage sounds so passe) and charge even more.
But in Russia, it would seem, the banks only give credit where credit is due.
Gulia and I got into a discussion about Russian and American banking practices tonight after she asked me what I understood about the current economic crisis. While I did not attempt to explain to her the intricacies of mortgage-backed securities or credit default swaps, I did tell her my overall impression of what has causes this mess--namely, total recklessness on the part of the banks. To try to make clear to her what had happened, I asked her how one goes about getting a credit card in Russia. What she had to say was surprising.
First, it would seem, Russians are not inundated, as Americans are, by a never-ending stream of credit card solicitations. The would-be credit card holder has to request a card from a bank (often in person, but increasingly an application can be filled out online). The bank will then obtain what information it can about the person's income and creditworthiness. Within the last three years, this step has become somewhat easier, because credit bureaus on the American model have been established in Russia. Prior to that time, however, the banks had to request information directly from other banks.
According to Gulia, the retail (consumer) credit market in Russia has been, until recently, a rather small business. In fact, lending to nearly everything except the government, large businesses, and quasi-private enterprises like Gazprom and Lukoil (Russia's largest natural gas and oil producers, respectively, in which the government has more than a 70% stake), is small potatoes in the credit market. But the ersatz wealth Russia acquired through rising oil prices the last few years has caused this market to expand.
Gulia's job within her bank is to assess the riskiness of would-be retail loans and lenders. From what I gathered, the president of her bank, to whom she reports, actually listens to her. And what she tells him, at the moment, is to be cautious. Recently, for instance, she recommended that her bank stop giving credit cards to people under age 24. Her recomendation was based on statistical analysis showing that 80 percent of university students who were granted credit cards defaulted on them at some point.
But the really shocking thing is, the bank actually listened to her. As a result, one of the largest banks in Russia no longer lets university students obtain credit cards, with or without a co-signer.
I cannot imagine any bank making a similar decision in America. Or at least, I couldn't imagine it until the current financial crisis hit. I told Gulia my own story of getting my first credit card: at the tender age of eighteen, I applied for one with a vendor on my college campus who was giving out free t-shirts. Gulia was aghast that American banks would give out credit so freely.
The strange thing is: I am too.
In banking, as in many other things, then, Russia seems a land frozen in time as well as in temperature. Once upon a time in America, we used to joke that a bank was a place that would give you a loan if you could prove you didn't need it. Now, we see to give credit to anyone and everyone, whether they have any real chance of repaying or not. We've let cashiers at Home Depot get mortages to buy $500,000 houses. We raise spending limits, so that people who have maxed out their cards can keep right on charging. And when they're done, we let them consolidate their debts as "home equity loans" ("second mortgage sounds so passe) and charge even more.
But in Russia, it would seem, the banks only give credit where credit is due.
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