1. Study programme
For a spring semester I studied at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia.
Although named ‘Higher School,’ it was a university. This university is one of the more modern and liberal schools of Russia. You can arrange everything for your programme online and make it exactly the way you want it to be. The system was sometimes a little confusing though, as the school asked me to choose courses before departure just to see the students’
interests, which meant that these courses were not really already yours and could very well be cancelled after arrival. So when arrived, we had to choose courses once again. The great thing was though, that they gave us a so called ‘shopping period.’ This meant that the first two weeks, we could visit all classes whichever we liked, just to have a taste, and only after these two weeks we had to decide whether we wanted to stay in that class or not. This really takes off the pressure of having to choose courses you’re not certain about, and then later having to drop those when finding out they were a bad choice. The teachers at HSE were all of course qualified, but most unexpectedly, very nice and friendly (at least the teachers I had). They gave a lot of freedom to do or present in or your own way, fully aware of the different backgrounds all these international students come from.
2. Language
Language can be a difficult barrier in a country like Russia, where most people do not speak English and are not at all used to people not speaking Russian. Of course nowadays you can get very far with Google translate and as a foreigner you are extremely interesting to Russians, so they will go the extra mile to help you out. At HSE you can expect everyone to speak English, because it is such a modern university with its eyes to the West. Nevertheless, you will feel so much better and more comfortable if you know the basics of Russian before departure. The alphabet is different, so you won’t be able to read anything if you never studied Russian, since only the airports and metro signs translate to English. Even if you do manage to find every location you need with your phone, think about visiting restaurants or museums. You won’t understand a thing! Make sure you can at least read Cyrillic before departure. Knowing Russian well really made me feel like an insider, instead of an outsider.
3. Finance and other conditions
Finance was not a big issue in Moscow. The city has of course expensive shops, malls and restaurants, but most of your basic needs like food or household ware are very cheap. You can easily buy twice as much at a supermarket but pay halve the price you would pay back home. Transport is also cheap, best thing to do is to buy a troika card for all public transport.
Unlimited metro/bus/tram rides cost about €30 per month, which is nothing compared to how much you are going to be on the metro. Moscow is almost the size of the province Drenthe, so wherever you go, you will need the metro. At night the metro is closed, but not to worry, the taxies are super cheap if you order them correctly from your phone. The app you need for that is Yandex. Don’t use your arm to hold a taxi, they will charge too much.
4. Preparation and contacts with the faculty
You will probably be mostly in contact with the mobility office of the university, which at HSE is a very good one. They reply very fast and informal and are very willing to help you with anything. The only faculty I was ever in contact with was the Foreign Languages one, and the same can be said about them.
5. Housing
Housing at HSE is just amazing. The have wonderful dorms that only cost €100 for the whole semester… The dorms are outside of the centre, but not too far, which is the perfect location for a huge metropolis like Moscow. They have guards working 24/7 which can help you feel safe and the staff is mostly very sweet and helpful. They don’t speak English though, so be ready to say ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you’ in Russian, otherwise you will insult them.
Since you’ll live with many internationals in one dorm, you will always find someone to hang out with, whether it’s party or culture related. Every dorm has a whats’app chat group in which everyone gets together or helps each other out when something like sugar is needed.
6. Culture
Moscow is a huge mix of cultures of course, coming with its size and around 20 million inhabitants. It is also the centre of everything in Russia, they really only have one big city in which it all happens. Entertainment, government, business, politics, culture, education:
just everything. Russians have a saying that there is no life outside of the highway that surrounds Moscow. So as it attracts people from all over the world, it also attracts all young people from all over Russia. You will see many people from ex-soviet states doing construction, selling their cuisine and driving taxies. But no matter the numbers all these hard working people show up with, the dominant culture is of course Russian. You will see enormous communist buildings, beautiful rich Orthodox churches, public parks with playgrounds and vodka bottles, sketchy shops that are in fact wonderful and old ladies in scarfs judging everyone. Do not fear the cranky faces though, Russians are extremely nice to strangers.
7. Free time
There is of course so much to do in Moscow. Beautiful parks, museums, bars, night clubs, streets pretty enough on their own, malls, festivals and maybe most interestingly:
Russian holidays. Be sure to check the dates from time to time to make sure you don’t miss them. Almost all of them include wonderful fireworks shows in many parks and little markets around red square. Holidays also mean no school so your classes won’t be in the way. If you’re having trouble with finding nice events or people to have a good time, you can join the facebook group of ESN. They will organize meetings and parties for internationals.
8. Traveling
I never much travelled outside of Moscow, except for St Petersburg and Belarus. I did both trips by trains and really, Russian trains are a great experience. It’s a comfortable and nice chance to really see what Russia looks like and not that expensive. Russia is huge, so there are of course many options for you to visit, but don’t forget to really enjoy Moscow.
9. Other
The number of bureaucratic rules in Russia is insane, so prepare for a lot of paperwork. But don’t panic if you don’t understand how it works, just ask the HSE mobility office or someone who works at your dorm. Also don’t think you can escape these rules with the excuse of ‘I forgot’ or ‘I never saw that email’, because that is not at all their mentality.
Especially with registration and migration rules (you will find out what I mean by this when you get there), do never violate them! It can cause you visa or residential problems in which they are super strict. Also don’t forget that everything is possible in Russia so go into every interaction with an open mind and no expectations, you will not be treated the way you are here. But really, that is what makes living in Russia so much fun!
