The
Russian Language TeachersI was born in Moscow, and hope to live happily (ever after I finish writing these Web pages) in the U.S.
I have a degree in English from The University in Leningrad, Russia, and a degree in Russian from The University in Ithaca, NY.
While living in Russia, I translated many respectable books from English into Russian, and my translations were published by respectable publishing houses. The most difficult book to translate was Washington Square by Henry James. I took up pipe smoking while I was at it. The most lucrative one was A Whale for the Killing by the Canadian environmentalist Falrey Mowat: it was reprinted several times by several publishers, while the Soviet whaling fleet continued killing whales.
Books about saving whales were popular in the USSR both with the readers and with the publishers. The readers read them and thought that they belonged to a civilized nation. The publishers published them and knew that they had the readers fooled. I let my hair grow very long in an attempt to disassociate myself from the respectable publishers. I still ate the food that I bought with their money.
When Lora, our son Maxim, and I emigrated to Ithaca, NY, I stopped smoking and translating, and cut my hair very short. I thought I was in a perfect country, where no one tried to fool anyone else. I made wonderful new friends and met an interesting animal called The Computer. Working with my friends, I designed and published computer software, a few books and dictionaries, and most recently, a pretty interesting Web site on communal apartments in the Soviet Union, all for my students and for other students of Russian around the country. It was all very respectable.
But a few years ago I met another exciting animal called The Videocamera, and made more wonderful friends. We made TV documentaries together, mostly in Russia, but also in the U.S., and I discovered that in this part of the world there are also plenty of respectable people who try to fool everybody else. I grew my hair very long again.
My son started his Ithaca career by fixing cars and playing percussion instruments at the local nightclubs and, of course, at the GrassRoots Festival (yes, he's in that video, and so is my granddaughter). He still does that today, but most of his time is now spent running his own Internet company. His hair is fairly long, I don't know why. It must be something we ate together back in Russia. We all love what we do. We are a very happy family. In the world of Russian philology, we span the globe from St. Petersburg to Berkeley.
The
Russian Language Teachers
The
Russian Language Program
e-mail
box for the Russian Language ProgramRussian Language Program
Department of Modern Languages
Cornell University
Morrill Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-4701, USA
tel. 607/255-8350
fax 607/255-7491