Pushkin Summer Institute

Ешё раз привет, друзья! 👋

PSI “Independence Day” week was eventful 🎆Even when the fireworks show was cancelled last minute due to rain, the students made the best out of their evening and finished the day with their own celebration.

We also went Bowling 🎳 so effortlessly they demonstrated their skills and with good sportsmanship cheered their competitors on to the last minute. We find it important to highlight the amount of different activities offered in our Student Union because we had so much fun. 🧗‍♀️🎱🎯🍦

Throughout the week, the students had a couple of cultural workshops. Anna and Emil taught us about Russian Rap influence and the array of ethnic diversity in Russia. Another guest speaker, Olga, introduced the importance of fairy tales in Russian literature and the role of creative expression in contemporary culture to sustain historical practices and the use of classical illustration in education.🪆

This week there was no pool-time for students, but instead we went paddle boarding in the Mendota Lake. 🏄 The evening benefited our activity, for the sunny day and calm waters made a day in the lake, perfect. ☀️.

We concluded our week with the Pushkin pre-Lecture hosted at the house of our lecturer, Professor Bethea who along with Bear 🐾 welcomed our whole group with sport games and snacks to make the most out of the experience and our dinner пицца 🍕 We are so grateful to have a Pushkin Scholar to facilitate Pushkin’s literature and thankful towards his family for their generous hospitality.

Happy Tuesday PSI friends!

A little late but honored to kick off our first introduction by showing a brief overview of our first week.

Everyday was full of course materials and activities, so we are very thankful for our students patience, engagement, and enthusiasm through it all. Students began their journey by visiting Picnic Point, a popular place in the UW campus. There, they made s’mores, hiked, and appreciated the afternoon away. ☀️The day was long and sunny so concluding with a water balloon battle- felt perfect.

On Tuesday, students had their longest school day. We are proud to have an amazing mentor and Pushkin scholar like Professor Bethea who guided our group through their first lecture. The students also had their first writing workshop with Diego and Natalia, who guided them through the process of writing an essay and will continue to do so along with personalised writing tutorship throughout the program. We are so proud of our group for their dedication and hard work to complete their assignments from the get-go. ✍️

Wednesday and Thursdays were days we facilitated study hall, and our students took advantage of the time to complete their essays and class presentations to enjoy the free time afterwards. We are so glad for their interests in outdoor activities like volleyball and tennis 🎾 and as counselors we enjoyed playing them as well.

The highlight of the weekend was the Capitol tour and exploring more of downtown State St. Students have shown a great effort to lead and respect the schedule and transitions, so they are now able to move in groups and explore our campus freely.

We are excited for the many more memories to come!

#покапока ✌️

Hey everyone! We are thrilled to introduce the amazing staff who will be guiding and supporting our students throughout this summer 🎉 With their passion and dedication, they’re ready to create an amazing summer filled with fun activities and unforgettable memories

This was our final week at PSI. We’re really sad to say goodbye to our amazing kids 😢

These 5 weeks flew by, but at the same time we’ve done so much! On Monday, we had a culinary workshop where we baked Russian pancakes (blini) 🥞 and a concert by “Karavai”, a Wisconsin folk music band 🎵 🪗 Everyone enjoyed learning more about the Russian culture!

During their Russian lessons, the students practiced the topic “Clothes” and had a fashion show on Friday where they demonstrated their extravagant costumes 👗

Apart from the Russian classes, the students had a Pushkin lecture by Professor Bethea, a global leadership class with Valeria, and writing consultations with Masha and Bryan. In addition, they exchanged their experience with the PSI participants in Latvia 🇱🇻

At the end of the week, each student got tested on their language skills during their final exam 🙇‍♀️📚 Everyone showed a great progress in Russian in these 5 weeks!

Besides school, we also had numerous extracurricular activities. We played kickball with the BEL (Business Emerging leaders) program ⚽️ and enjoyed the ice cream social with the ESP (Engineering Summer program)🍦 All of us had a lot of fun and made new friends! 🤝

Finally, on Friday night we had our graduation dinner and ceremony with all the members of the PSI 🎉 All the students presented their final projects (each of them was a true masterpiece of art! 😅) and received their program completion certificates and lovely presents 🎁 We also nominated the best students of the program and wished everyone good luck with their Russian studies. After the ceremony, we threw a graduation party with BEL and ESP students and had a blast on the dancefloor 🪩💃🏻 The celebration went on by late night when everyone headed to State Street to enjoy the last hours in Madison 🌃

Saturday morning was followed by tears and warm wishes since everyone was leaving and had to say goodbye to each other 😭We made a big hug with the whole group and made a promise to stay in touch 🤗

We’re hoping to see each other again next year!

Pushkin 2023 forever ❤️❤️❤️ Гип-гип, ура!!! 🎉

The fourth week of the program was full of joy 🤩

We had plentiful cultural workshops: reading Russian fairytales with Olga Trubetskaya, singing Russian songs with Alexey, and dancing Russian folk dance with Anya 💃🏻 We also had a UW Admissions workshop and a lecture about Pushkin by Professor Bethea.

In their Russian lessons, the students learned how to talk about food and prepared gorgeous presentations, in which they demonstrated their own menus 🍱 🥗

On Friday, we had our weekly award ceremony, and a lot of students were nominated for the first time. We are very proud of everyone since they all have improved their Russian and writing skills throughout the past month👍

On the weekend, we visited the Maxwell fair, went to the gym and the pool, played bowling, and had a social event with the Badgers pre-college program where we fried S'mores and competed in kickball. But the highlight of the week was our trip to Wisconsin Dells. Everyone had fun riding the rollercoasters and slides at Mt. Olympus🎢

We’re excited about our final week at PSI!