Introducing our new volunteer, Alexandra Koullick
From our Spring 2019 newsletter, Chuck Ritchie reporting–
Meet Alexandra (Sasha) Koullick, Siberian Bridges’ new, enthusiastic volunteer. Sasha is finishing her junior year at the Blake School in Minneapolis where she is actively involved outside of the classroom. She is captain of the cross country team, plays ultimate Frisbee, is a Nordic skier, works on the staff of the student publication Flash, and also participates in a feminist club called “Girl Up”, which raises funds to support feminist groups and activities.
Hers is a fascinating linguistic story. Her father is a physicist from Ukraine and her mother is a chemist from Moscow. They emigrated to the US in 2000. Russian is her native language and remains the primary language spoken at home. However, when she began school her parents enrolled her at Xin Xing Academy in Hopkins, a Chinese immersion school, where she learned Chinese from the age of 5 to 13. Her fascination with the Chinese language and culture led her to China in the fall of 2017 to participate in an international Chinese contest with participants from over one hundred countries. Those three weeks in China proved a pivotal experience, as she saw people from the world over are not that different. At the same time she came to realize the power and the importance of language in a closely connected global world. Her fluency in three languages (did we mention English?) shows her outlook is anything but provincial!
Beyond her senior year she is looking for a college with a strong Economics/Business curriculum, as well as a challenging East Asian Studies program.
When asked why she is interested and involved in Siberian Bridges, she affirmed the value of our mission to foster contact and cooperation between the people of Zabaikalye, Russia and the Upper Midwest, citing the importance of our relationship with Russia in the world today.
Her initial participation was at last fall’s Tri-Country Video Conference put on by ex-officio SB board member Professor Irene Durancyk of the University of Minnesota between students from Dalian, China, Chita, Russia and local students from the U of M and area high schools. As you might imagine Sasha was invaluable with the three languages rolling around in her head!
Since then she has taken on an SB project of editing and transcribing short video clips of native English speakers from here that are then sent to ESL teachers in Chita for use in their classrooms. (In fact, we encourage any of you to submit such a clip—contact us for details.) She has also struck up a digital friendship with a young student in Chita named Polina. And her weekly meetings with Tom, our President, have helped him keep up-to-date with the projects on his plate.
Needless to say, we are delighted and energized to have Sasha with Siberian Bridges!
