RAJI: On Location in Rostov, Russia

Farewell to Year Three

View the 2005 BLOG, and read about the 2005 Institute in action.

View 2005 photos in our GALLERY.

Year three of the Russian-American Journalism Institute wrapped up last month. Students from New York University spent four weeks collaborating with Russian journalism students from Rostov-on-Don, Russia, and beyond. Reporting teams, consisting of American and Russian participants and translators, reported on topics as diverse as Chechen refugees and Russian Hip-Hop; Cossack politics and gay youth culture. Selected final projects are beginning to be posted. Check back for all the best of RAJI 2005.

Below You’ll find Published the Best of RAJI 2005
More articles from Year Three can be found here.

The Guns of August

By Brad Tytel

At 1:45 a.m. on the morning of August 9th, 1945, Gennady Dmitrievitch Petrov crossed the border. A torrential rain was falling. The day before, the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan. Now the Red Army was invading Manchuria. Petrov, an artillery radioman in the 261st Rifle Brigade, was stationed near Vladivostok. But at 4 a.m., as the sun began to rise, he found himself at Tungning, fighting to take the border city. The Soviets were split on either side of the river, pouring fire into the Japanese positions. By 11 p.m., the town was secure, but not at peace. “I looked at the city,” says Petrov. “And it was burning. I was shocked by the scene. There were soldiers on one side, civilians on the other—how could anybody be alive in such a place, with the fire and the shooting?”

Who needs a dump?

By Kate Kanygina
Rostov State University

Many people have heard of them. They go there to think, to take of the pure water, to throw away their rubbish or wash their car free of charge. In Rostov, experts in the occult sciences believe that all the magic powers in the city gather there at night. People show the place to tourists to surprise them, but even they do not know for sure when and why the natural spring started to well out, right from the wall. The mysterious Paramonov stores on the Don river embankment are one of the oldest architectural monuments in Rostov. They have been standing there for many years waiting for a good master’s hand.

Hip-Hop on the Don

By John Matson

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia – On an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday night in June, the entrance to the underground club Lila became a portal to another world.

Inside the smoke-filled club, just a few feet below the narrow Rostov street, stood two teenage boys, one in an Adidas jacket and the other in camouflage and a Yankees cap, declaring their independence.