The Blog: During my junior year of college, 2008-09, I spent eleven months in St. Petersburg, Russia: first on a study abroad program, and then conducting independent research over the summer. After graduating from college, I spent 15 months (08/2010 – 11/2011) serving as an Education Volunteer in the Peace Corps in Kazakhstan, until the program was suspended. This blog gathers together my impressions from, and later reflections on, both of these extended trips abroad. All opinions expressed here are my own, not those of the Peace Corps or any other organization; all photos appearing in these entries, unless otherwise marked, are mine as well.
The URL: The Bronze Horseman (Mednii Vsadnik) is a statue of Peter the Great, which stands near the Neva embankment in St. Petersburg and is considered by some to symbolize the city itself. When I set up this URL for my blog, I was living in the center of St. Petersburg and passed by the Bronze Horseman every day on my way to school. The horseman faces West – in the famous poem named for the statue, Aleksandr Pushkin describes St. Petersburg as “a window onto Europe” – but for me he’s ended up pointing the way farther East.
Carrie Clark
carolyn.anne.clark@gmail.com
blogging Stateside at Janus Reads
