Third and final instalment of our Russian blog post series, by Mina Jankovic, a 1st year student in Modern Languages and Economics. You can find earlier blog posts in the series here and here

The virtual Russian exchange programme was a valuable experience as it meant making international friends and expanding our network. My partner in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, was very motivated and devoted to our partnership and our project. My classmate and I were partnered with a third-year student at AUCA  (American University of Central Asia), so we worked as a group of three. Our partner was already very competent in English whilst we had only just begun learning Russian. Although we were only beginners, we found that the discrepancy in our respective language fluency did not hinder our progress as a group as well as the successful completion of our project.

We had an initial meeting with all the groups and were introduced potential project ideas. I immediately noticed the warmth and excitement of all participants, especially those from AUCA. Our first few meetings as a group consisted of listening and speaking where we (from Warwick) spoke in Russian and our partner from Kyrgyzstan spoke in English. We came up with topics to talk about very easily due to the vast and stimulating culture difference and we would help each other express our ideas in the target language. At first, I expected the 6-hour time difference to make it hard for us to arrange meeting times however we found times that suited us all due to flexibility and being able to negotiate different times each week, including weekend meetings when needed.

After getting to know each other, we started discussing our project and how we would approach it given our respective language levels. We quickly realised that a video would be a better presentation format and probably even more entertaining to create and piece together as well as being a more rewarding and memorable outcome to our exchange. We delegated the tasks efficiently and equally in time for the final group meeting with the other groups where we were able to showcase our video and reminisce on the process of making it. It was also very enlightening to see the other groups’ projects which covered a variety of formats and themes and amazing to think that these projects were all in the making at the same time we were making ours! As a result of the exchange, my Russian listening skills particularly has improved at a much faster rate than it would have otherwise and getting to know the cultures of both Kyrgyzstan and Russia on a personal level was gratifying and enriching.