Turgenev girls

Last night was Russian 101 night at BTL. The Russian students taught us about the long history of suffering Russian writers, like Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Mayakovsky, and of course, Pushkin. We watched Russian cartoons, we learned how to count to ten. Later this evening Artyom, one of the more romantic Russian men here, recited his poetry in the original. We swooned. At lights out I knocked on one of the girls' rooms, and it opened to reveal twelve of them seated in a circle on the floor, including several Arabs un-hijabed. They are bonding inter-culturally, and it warms me.