I’m in Rostov now. I’m here this summer for 12 days with a study abroad group to learn about the Russian health care system. I’m travelling with about 10 other students from IU Bloomington and IUPUI with a good mixture of undergraduate and graduate students from many different departments. A key component is that we are linked with a Russian University, Southern Federal University, and so we will have Russian students with us for many of our excursions.
In typical fashion I had my trip that included 24 hours of travel. We flew from Indianapolis at 11am to Atlanta, Atlanta to Moscow, then Moscow to Rostov at about 5:30 local time. When we arrived in Moscow we weren’t allowed to exit the plane because of the swine flu epidemic. A medical team entered the plane with a thermal scanner and scanned each one of us. It didn’t interrupt our travel so much, it was just interesting that they went through all the hassle. Actually, it was the most pleasant time getting through airports and traveling around the country that I’ve ever had. I was pleasantly surprised to have a nice line meeting us at passport control. The last time I arrived at Moscow there were several flights arriving at once and it was the typical Russian scrum, hard press to push forward to get through customs, which can be pretty daunting after an overnight 10 hour flight. When we went through customs there wasn’t even anyone monitoring the green line so we were a bit confused and hesitant to leave the area, but it seems our whole group went through without being checked.
Many of our Russian students met us at the airport and we went directly to the hotel to freshen up. After a nice hot shower we wandered over to a shopping mall to have dinner. We hadn’t been able to exchange our money so we needed to find a place that accepted credit cards, which is why we ended up at the mall. The mall was surprisingly international, many European brands like NAFNAF. As we were landing I could even see an IKEA in the town. The place we had dinner was an upscale cafeteria. You entered and went to multiple stations, salad bar, hot dishes, pizza, pasta, desserts or sushi. I was able to start of right away with one of my favorite Russian Salads “Olivier,” which is like a potato salad. I was so happy when I saw that they had somsa for sale! Somsa is a traditional Uzbek/ Tajik meat pastry that is filled with meat and onions. I couldn’t believe that they had it and it was sooooo good.
As I’m here, I’m trying to keep a look out for Central Asian Immigrants. This is the first time I’ve been to Russia since living in Central Asia and I’m keenly aware of the importance of labor migration to Russia. At the airport in Moscow I noticed that many of the workers were Kyrgyz. In Rostov there’s a building under construction next to us and they had a group of central Asians working there, but I wasn’t able to get close enough to chat. Maybe I’ll hit them up soon for a chat. We are supposed to write another 8-10 page paper form out experience here. Maybe I’ll write one about Immigrant health issues.
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