BU Russian Program Faculty and Students Attend Olympiada of Spoken Russian
On April 2, four students and three faculty members of BU’s Russian program ventured to Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies University to take part in the Olympiada of Spoken Russian for the New England Region.
The Olympiada traces its origins to the 1960s, when the American Council for Teachers of Russian, inspired by the tradition of oral examinations within the Russian educational system, created a forum for students to demonstrate their Russian language ability. This year a group of local Russian language faculty designed and organized a new competition for students at the college level. Twenty-four intrepid language learners representing Boston University, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, Tufts, and UMass-Boston competed in the college division in the three categories — conversation, poetry recitation and reading.
The BU team consisted of two first-year students, Ian Rush and Jack Kayyem, and two second-year students, Nicholas Clark and Liam McParland. All did very well. Liam got the first prize among second-year students. Ian Rush was placed second in the Speaking category among first year students.
“I know that everyone put a lot of effort and time into this competition, and I can’t thank our contenders enough. Congratulations to all! Next year we’ll perform even better,” says Svitlana Malykhina, Head of the Russian Language Program at BU.
