Good Day, Language Enthusiasts!

Давай познакомимся с Россией or Let’s Get to Know Russia was a meet-up held on 24th of June. This Polyglot Indonesia Jakarta Chapter meetup attracted 58 language aficionados who were curious about the culture and language of the host country of FIFA World Cup 2018. This meet-up was also attended by Vitaly Glinkin, the Director of Russian Center for Science and Culture and Denis Tetyushin, a Russian diplomat currently posted at the Embassy of the Russian Federation. The Russian Coordinators team of Polyglot Indonesia Jakarta Chapter - Tio Thamsiel and Dyah Rahadyani Paramarini (Ririen) - wore Russian traditional costumes and gave an interesting presentation about Russia. The two Russian student alumni used this occasion to introduce Russia, so that participants would gain a wider perspective of Russia instead of only what is based on media stereotyping.

Tio and Ririen talked about the geographical position of Russia, different time zones, its big cities (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan), the famous Russian people (Mendelev, the Russian chemist who formulated the periodic table of chemical elements, Yuri Gagarin, Alexander Pushkin), Russian food, and a little bit of Russian history. The presentation was combined with some interactive quizzes and Russian language lesson. Tio and Ririen introduced Russian alphabet and encouraged the participants to memorize the cyrillic letters including the pronounciation. They also taught simple phrases in Russian to our language enthusiasts.

Vitaly Glinkin – the Director of Russian Center for Science and Culture delivered a short speech about the benefits of learning Russian language and promoted the education programs from the Russian Center for Science and Culture. He also gave away Russian cook books, guide books, matryoshka and matryoshka key chains to participants who were able to answerthe quizzes correctly.  At the end of the session, nearly allparticipants were able to recognize and even memorize most of the Russian alphabets, read short Russian words, do tongue twisters and even introduce themselves in Russian. Denis Tetyushin, the Russian diplomat, together with his spouse joined the Russian table and conversed with the participants there while encouraging them to practice more the language.

We hoped that after this meetup, participants gained more knowledge and acquired new impression about Russia, its culture, and of course the language. Polyglot Indonesia Jakarta Chapter would love to see more Russian language enthusiasts at its regular meet-up. So, if you know Russian and you’re willing to practice, we would be glad to see you! Special thanks to Hoshino Tea Time for the amazing meetup venue! Hope to see you again on another Polyglot Indonesia Jakarta Chapter's special meetup! (For the photo documentation, please check our Facebook fanpage album)