{"id":1223,"date":"2018-05-17T09:43:11","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T13:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/international\/?p=1223"},"modified":"2021-01-11T19:55:54","modified_gmt":"2021-01-11T19:55:54","slug":"spring-in-st-petersburg-2018-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/international\/2018\/05\/17\/spring-in-st-petersburg-2018-4\/","title":{"rendered":"David Bushhouse: Post 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Bushhouse
\nAIFS, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University
\nSt. Petersburg, Russia
\nFall 2017<\/p>\n

I fly home from St. Petersburg today! And while I have really missed America\u2014the English language, the following of traffic laws, the common courtesy of wearing deodorant\u2014I thought I would write about how America is unavoidable while abroad. While most Americans have never thought of traveling to Russia, many American brands have; from food to movies to clothing, American products are unavoidable in Russia.<\/p>\n

\"\"American fast food dominates every food court and touristy street corner of downtown St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n

\"\"There are plenty of Russian chains as well, but I thought it would be neat for you all to see what American logos look like in Russian; no matter how many times I see a familiar logo in Cyrillic, it always strikes me as a little odd.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Even if you have not learned the Cyrillic script, I bet you can guess which restaurant is in each picture.<\/p>\n

\"\"One interesting fact: most fast food chains in Russia sell beer. Here you can see banner advert in a Burger King advertising a \u201cbesplatna vtopoy pivo,\u201d a \u201cfree second beer.\u201d At first I was taken aback whenever I, walking through a mall food court, would see people eating McDonalds with beers out on the table\u2014something you would never see in America\u2014but now I think I\u2019ve grown accustomed. The Russian attitudes toward drinking, despite stereotypes, are much more accepting of casual drinking and much more critical of binge drinking than those in America.<\/p>\n

\"\"But the influence of American culture on Russian culture goes further than fast food. I often stumble across English words in the strangest of places. For example, there is a thrift store near my apartment in the northwest region of St. Petersburg literally called \u201csekond khend,\u201d a mere transliteration of \u201csecond-hand.\u201d This is just down the street from a large desert-themed shopping center called \u201cGrahnd Kanion,\u201d a mere transliteration of \u201cGrand Canyon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"And then there\u2019s movies. Around 4\/5 of the movies screened in Russian theaters are from Hollywood\u2014dubbed in Russian\u2014and Russian teenagers are probably more obsessed with the Marvel Universe than American teenagers. Once I was walking down the street with Tanya, a Russian friend of mine, when suddenly she pulled me aside to say \u201cI can\u2019t wait for Deadpool II come out!\u201d At right is a photo of the Russian advertisement she saw on the street.<\/p>\n

I have had a tremendous time in Russia, and hope to return some day. In my semester I learned an unbelievable amount of language, tried all the traditional Russian foods, and made some unforgettable memories and even more unforgettable friends. If you\u2019re thinking of studying abroad in Russia, and up for an adventure, I would really encourage you to go for it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Bushhouse AIFS, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University St. Petersburg, Russia Fall 2017 I fly home from St. Petersburg today! And while I have really missed America\u2014the English language, the following of traffic laws, the common courtesy of wearing deodorant\u2014I thought I would write about how America is unavoidable while abroad. While most Americans have never thought of traveling to Russia, many American brands have; from food to movies to clothing, American products are unavoidable in Russia. American fast food dominates every food court and touristy street corner of downtown St. Petersburg. There are plenty of Russian chains […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[63],"class_list":["post-1223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-fall","tag-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2346,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions\/2346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}