Fulbright and other ways to Russia

Many Russian enthusiasts at some point wish to live in Russia. The question is how. For students at the undergraduate and masters levels, there are several options worth exploring. I have been occupied with the questions of how best to move to Russia and in what program to participate off and on for the past couple of years. In that time, I’ve applied for Russian graduate schools, English teaching positions in Russia, a translation job with a science journal in Russia, research and travel grants, and computer science jobs in Russia. I’ve also applied to a couple of summer language institutes in America as a way of improving my Russian language skills. For anyone on a similar quest, I hope that my impressions of these various options are useful and will save you some time.

First, a bit about myself. I’ve been studying Russian language and culture for about 4 years. I double-majored as an undergraduate in Computer Science and Russian language and managed to graduate on time after many late and unhappy nights of studying. While in college I always considered Computer Science my pragmatic degree and future career, while Russian was more of a hobby and passion. I enjoyed Russian language and culture more, but at that point had no sense of any real-life opportunities in Russian-related careers, so resigned myself to computer work. After graduating, I took up work as a computer consultant, but continued to study Russian language and culture in my free time and to speak with Russian friends and co-workers. Over time I began exploring possibilities in Russian-related careers (which is a topic deserving of its own post). Just recently, a year after graduating and having started work as a computer consultant, I received notification that I was selected to receive a Fulbright grant to live in Russia for the coming year. In August I’ll be moving to Moscow for a month of training, and then on Novosibirsk for the rest of the year where I will work as an assistant to a professor of English at Novosibirsk State Technical University (click here for the Russian version).

Here are the avenues I explored for getting to Russia:

Russian graduate schools: It seems to be rarely done, but a not-so-bad option for spending time in Russia is to apply directly to a Russian graduate school. This approach has two main benefits: first, it gives you the legitimacy necessary to obtain a Russian visa (and many programs will help you or arrange the visa for you); second, it bypasses the American middlemen such as American Councils or university exchange programs who charge you twice or three times as much as just going straight to the source.

One of the main obstacles, if not the main one, for spending a substantial amount of time in Russia is obtaining a long-term visa. You can’t just go to Russia to live more than 30 days (30 days is the length of a tourist visa) without having some sort of legitimate activity there. Well, perhaps you can, but it is not advised. You must apply for a long-term visa, and to get this you must have a reason to be in the country. You can get a business visa if a company sponsors you or you can prove legitimate business activity (I’ve also been told you can request a business visa and pretend to be doing ‘entrepreneurial research’ and get away with it, but it’s not recommended). You can get a visa for educational purposes with the sponsorship of a university. I believe there are also personal visas which just require the sponsorship of a Russian citizen (so you would be going there for personal reasons to be with relatives or friends), but I’ve heard they are difficult to get. The Russian graduate school option solves this visa problem and is relatively cheap.

English teaching positions in Russia: There are countless English teaching organizations in Russia. I’ve heard many many horror stories about them. I applied to a couple of them at one point and was immediately hired. The positions are not difficult to get. I believe that in most cases it is quite possible to spend a year or more in Russia teaching English and manage to break even or even save a little bit of money. But there are several downsides in my opinion which make this a poor option, at least for someone like me. First and foremost, there are a lot of exploitative English teaching organizations in St. Petersburg and Moscow. I’ve heard stories of people being pressured into working extreme hours, having to be ‘on call’ all the time, not being able to travel, being stiffed out of paychecks, and receiving little to no training. Moreover, best case you will be teaching English much of the time and therefore not speaking Russian, so if your goal is Russian language, this is a big downside. A friend of mine participated in the American Home (Serendipity Russia) English teaching program in Vladimir and spoke well of it. I myself was offered work with Language Link, but did not follow up on it.

Translation job: This position with “Nauka/Interperiodica” is something I came across on the web and when it started off it seemed very promising. A Russian publishing company in Moscow offers a paid internship position for a year to live in Moscow and edit translations of scientific articles in English. To apply you must edit a couple of sample translations, which takes a few hours, but if you get through that and do it well you are likely to be offered some work. I’ve exchanged e-mails with past interns at this company and they were very positive about the experience. I think it would probably be a good experience and an easy way to Russia because the visa issue would be covered and you would make enough money to cover expenses and even save a bit. However, when I was applying there they appeared to have some problems, either with having too many editors already, too little work, or perhaps too little money to hire me at that time. They indicated that they would be interested in bringing me over a few months down the road, but I have not followed up on this. So, I would give this a mild recommendation, but be aware that it is not guaranteed you will be brought over to Moscow even if you are a good candidate, depending on how much work the company has available.

Computer science jobs in Russia: Since I currently work as a computer consultant and have a fair number of technical qualifications, I thought it might be a good idea to try to work in IT in Russia. In theory this would be great because I could actually get paid a relatively good income and live in Russia! Plus I would get visa sponsorship from an employer. In reality, this proved a bit out of reach. You need to speak rather good Russian to be able to apply for these jobs, which are posted on the Russian equivalents of Monster.com . After all, the ads for these jobs are written in Russian and certainly you will need to conduct at least a phone interview in Russian with the companies you are applying for. I received one such interview, but my language skills weren’t quite at the level needed for the professional world.

Summer language institutes in America: This doesn’t fall under the heading of ‘ways to get to Russia’ per se, but I thought it might be of interest. There are several intensive summer Russian programs hosted by American universities. The most well-known program is Middlebury, followed probably by Indiana’s SWSEEL summer program. I also looked at Pittsburgh University’s Summer Language Institute (SLI). My alma mater, Miami University, also offers an intensive Russian summer program, which is held in Novgorod, Russia for 1 month in the summer. I participated in this in 2004. It was a great cultural experience and a fairly good language program.

American Graduate Programs in Russian: There are several Russian-related master’s degrees you can pursue. Which you choose depends on what sort of career you want to pursue. If you want to be a teacher/professor, you can pursue Russian history, linguistics, or literature. I am more interested in a more pragmatic career in something like non-profit (NGO) work or international business consulting, so I applied for a couple of Russian Area Studies programs. “Russian Area Studies” is sort of a buzzword for programs that train people in a number of Russian-related disciplines to make them Russian experts that would be valuable in certain fields (intelligence, business, international development). I applied to Ohio State’s Russian Area Studies program and Harvard’s. I did not get into Harvard, f-ing snobs, but received a full ride to Ohio State. American graduate programs are a very good option for someone interested both in living in Russia and in pursuing a Russian-related career. Most of these programs allow (if not require) that one of the two years of study be spent in Russia. Most of these programs also offer generous funding, often full funding. The U.S. Dept of Education provides very large amounts of grant money to these programs in the form of FLAS grants, which the programs regulate themselves and distribute based on merit. So, this is a great way to kill some birds, live in Russia for free and get a master’s degree. All visa issues are covered through an educational visa, and FLAS grants and other fellowships provided by university programs generally cover tuition and also give a generous living stipend.

Fulbright: Fulbright is a great opportunity because it allows you to pursue your interests in the country of your choice for free. It is a research grant to a specific country for a year. The application process is long and somewhat arduous, but if awarded a grant it is very worthwhile. The grant covers all travel and living expenses and the living stipend is very generous. There are two types of Fulbright grants for people going to Russia — research grants and English Teaching Assistantships. Research grants are for people who want to study something very specific in Russia for the year. These ideas tend to be very high-brow and specific. I considered proposing a project researching the work of Vladimir Nabokov and studying in the museum dedicated to him in St. Petersburg, but ultimately decided that I cared less about that or any other specific research topic than I did just living in Russia and experiencing the language and cultural immersion, so I dropped that idea and applied to be an English Teaching Assistant. As I mention above, I was awarded the grant to live in Novosibirsk for the coming year and teach at Novosibirsk State Technical University.

This was quite long-winded, but I hope that it proves to be a good resource for anyone in a similar situation to me, trying to move to Russia and exploring the various options for doing so. There are a surprising number of good opportunities and also a lot of pitfalls.