Today was our group's first excursion, we have eight to complete during the course of the semester. Our trip took us to the Russian State Library, Rossiskaya Gosudarstvennaya biblioteka, or Российская государственная библиотека. This library is enormous, its the second-largest in the world, and home to millions of books published in 247 languages. Its also quite old, the foundation was laid in 1862, and was renamed to the V.I. Lenin State Library during the Soviet Union times.
Entrance Columns to the Russian State Library
In Front of the Statue of Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The library has books from every famous Russian author, like Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gogol, and the like. In addition, we got a great tour around the private reading rooms, which featured some ancient texts, including Russia's largest (and smallest books!) There are thousands of musical records, military records, visual arts and illustrations, maps, a exhibit on the Russian-French wars of 1812, and others. Too bad our libraries in the United States aren't this exciting!
Inside View of the Library
Also, I met my academic tutor yesterday. Her name is Maria, and she's half-Kazakh, half-Russian, and knows both English and Russian fluently. In the coming months, she will be a great resource for homework assistance, speaking practice, and she's even offered to introduce me to sights around Moscow. In addition, my abroad group is awesome and I'll continue to connect with them. We went to a bar and restaurant called My-My, literally translated to Moo-Moo. Its almost considered gourmet cafeteria food for an extremely affordable price. It was delicious.
My meal at My-My ("Moo, Moo") - Курица с грибами, картофель фри, и салат ("Chicken with mushrooms, french fries, and salad)
Countdown to returning home: 102 days
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