Ada —  

When two former Russian exchange students learned they were coming to the United States to work last summer, they knew they had to visit to their “alma mater,” East Central University.

Valeriya Kazakevich and Ekaterina Suzonova, both students at the State University of Moscow, studied at ECU during the fall 2009 semester as part of a student exchange agreement between the two universities.

“We had a plan,” Kazakevich said. “If we get to the United States of America, we have to go to Oklahoma.”

They found a program through the U.S. government that allowed them to work and travel in the United States if they secured an American sponsor. They landed about as far from Oklahoma as they could, however, and still be in the U.S. They spent the summer in Hawaii.

Before returning to school in Russia, they planned a two-day stay in Ada. Dr. Mara Sukholutskaya, professor of English and languages, picked them up in Dallas.

“I thought two days would be enough,” Kazakevich said, “but I didn’t want to leave.”

So Suzonova returned to Moscow on schedule and Kazakevich stayed in Ada another couple of days.

“We came back to the same place as two years ago,” she said. “I really missed Ada and ECU. I don’t know why it goes this way.”

She said the international student community is close, and while she and Suzonova were here only a few months, most of the other international students stay four years and are still here. They also saw some of their friends who had graduated and are working in different places.

“I was here just a short time compared to other students, but I had all kinds of friends here. We were just happy we had a chance to be with them all.

“We got here on a Friday and went to an ECU football game on Saturday. We were so happy to find a football game,” she said. “We had been missing American football.”

Kazakevich has one more year at the State University of Moscow where she is majoring in sociology and psychology of management and hopes to work in public relations, advertising or marketing.

She said her parents weren’t as nervous about her going to Hawaii as they were when she left home the first time to come to the United States and ECU. She rented an apartment with friends in Hawaii and said it was a good experience before she starts life on her own.

“I had my own money (in Hawaii),” she said. “I was not asking for money from my parents. I had my own apartment and had to cook on my own.”

She worked as a waitress and photographer at several restaurants for five hours in the evenings, leaving her days to go surfing, go to the beach and get a tan.

 “I was kind of scared to start surfing,” she said, “but it was one of the best experiences of my life. It was just awesome.”

During her visit to ECU she met current exchange student Dimitry Safronov of Moscow who is majoring in crisis management at the State University of Moscow.

Safronov said international students are curious about life here and want to take part in as many activities as possible.

He also seems to be taking as many ECU classes as possible. He’s enrolled in 21 credit hours of French, Spanish,  business and economic statistics, international business, and business strategy and policy as well as a Russian culture class which he takes as an exchange student.

“I came here especially to study and get some knowledge,” Safronov said, “to prepare myself professionally.”

Although he lived in London for two years as a teenager when his father was a diplomat at the Russian embassy, he didn’t have many occasions to speak English. He tried reading British newspapers and books and listening to radio and television programs.

 Several years later he later returned to London and realized he was starting to enjoy languages.

“I couldn’t believe I was starting to get pleasure from it,” he said.

“When I came here, I started to talk and made a lot of bloopers at first,” he admitted. “It was very challenging. It’s a most curious thing. It’s not the economics language. That I understand. It’s the interpersonal communication, when people use rare words or slang. These people are hard to understand.”

In addition to American slang, Oklahoma slang (“ya’ll” and “I’m fixing to…”) complicates things, he said.

“There is no consideration for the fact you’re a foreigner,” he sighed. “People talk (to me) as an American to an American. And they talk fast. Not only do I not know the words, I have to get a fix on what they’re saying.”

He said the opportunity to study at ECU for one semester, though, is “a gift from God. Why not take a chance to dramatically improve your language?”

Like other exchange students, Safronov “Skypes” with his parents daily and sends them photos to keep them up to date.