UW Jackson School of International Studies and Slavic Language & Literatures undergraduate Mary-Elizabeth Mayer is currently on a Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowship (FLAS) to study intensive Russian language at the University of Washington in Seattle. As she masters Russian grammar and vocabulary, Mary-Elizabeth is also exploring Seattle’s rich Russian community, which has close ties to the Ellison Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies.
“Discovering new cultures in a foreign city is always exhilarating, but over the past month I have discovered that understanding existing cultures in my own city is equally exciting! While many FLAS recipients choose to travel abroad with their summer funding, I chose to stay in Seattle and continue my Russian language studies at the University of Washington’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. I knew that my class would be interesting, challenging, and that I would end up with more knowledge of Russian grammar than I would know what to do with. What I underestimated was how much I would learn about Russian culture while taking a language class – and how much of it was already around me.
