Foreign students of the VSUES Summer School expressed their impressions of Vladivostok in creative projects

The first joint Summer School of VSUES «Vladivostok Summer School» for foreign students, started July 15, 2019.

The head of the International Academic Mobility Office (International and Cultural Affairs Department, VSUES), Yulia Kravchenko, explains,

- For a long time, we have been implementing various projects of summer schools for foreign students. This year for the first time we worked in partnership with the Primorsky State Agricultural Academy (PSAA, city of Ussurisk) on a program which allows the students to be trained for two weeks at VSUES and one week – at PSAA. Students from three universities of China came to the training program: Shaanxi Polytechnic Institute, Dezhou University, and Northeast Forestry University.”

Over a period of two weeks at VSUES the participants from China attended lectures on the history of Primorsky Krai and the Far East of Russia, the region\'s economy, political relations between Russia and China, Russian national traditions and culture, and also attended workshops where they mastered the skills of ancient Russian crafts: felting, playing the wooden spoons, painting Zhostovo trays, and decorating ginger bread with coloured icing. These lessons were all held in English by

• Vladimir Shibaev, Assistant of the Department of Philosophy and Legal Psychology
• Maria Zhogova, Senior Lecturer of the Department of Design and Technology
• Ekaterina Goncharuk, Teacher of the Institute of Foreign Languages
• Olga Lee, Teacher of the Institute of Foreign Languages
• Roman Grivanov, Associate Professor of the Department of Economics and Management.

The two-week training ended with the presentation of creative projects. The students made a video and prepared speeches about what impressed them most in the capital of Primorsky Krai. The projects were called: "Vladivostok through my eyes", "Vladivostok in my heart". The bridges and the viewing platform of the Funicular, the architectural ensemble of the railway station and performances of the ballet troupe of the Primorsky stage of the Mariinsky theater, sailors of different nationalities and flocks of white pigeons flying over the streets were all visible through the video recordings of foreign students. With special interest, students immersed themselves in the pages of the history of Primorsky Krai by studying the biographies of the outstanding sailors and scientists.

- Vladivostok turned out to be much more beautiful than we expected, said a student of the University of Gengzhou, Zhang Qi.

- Russian churches with Byzantine architecture, monuments to Lenin, and Russian cuisine, which turned out to be rich and diverse were impressive.

Students will spend the following week in Ussuriysk, in PSAA, where the educational program is formed with a large focus on the environment and involves the familiarization of students with natural resources, and the visitation of the ecological trails in the vicinity of the Ussuri Natural Reserve and Golden Valley.