The Exchange Student

The Exchange Student
Nikita Nesynov

The book is based on actual events. The book tells about the author’s memories about his year in the United States, living at host families as a youth exchange student of Rotary. The book shows different cultures of Russia, the United States of America and Japan through the eyes of a teenager. The events are taking place in a difficult time for Russia – the country was moving to a new era and was way behind western countries.

The Exchange Student

Dedicated to Rotary International

Nikita Nesynov

This book is dedicated to my American host families and Rotary International.

It is based on actual events.

© Nikita Nesynov, 2016

© Tatiana Nesynova, translation, 2016

© Vlad Nesynov, illustrations, 2016

Created with intellectual publishing system Ridero

Siberia

I was born in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. When I was one year old, my parents moved to Irkutsk city (Eastern Siberia). At first, we lived in a hostel. Looking from the window, I could see a prison. By seeing the prisoners walking in circles, I learnt how hard life was in that place. Then, we lived in our friend’s studio. After a few years, the local government gave to my dad a two-bedroom apartment for his hard work at the union of artists. That’s how we started living in the neighborhood named “Pervomayskiy”. Almost 18 years of my life passed in that “wonderful” district.

The whole new world took me into its dreadful arms; it was the world of fear, grey nine-storey buildings, street gangs, guns and fights. I couldn’t escape from this system; I became a part of it.

Crimes in that area were all over the place: there were fights, robberies, even murders. Up to a hundred people came to massive fights, which always resulted in people getting fractures, bruises and other wounds. For such actions lots of young people were sent into jails. My parents started to worry about me, because they often noticed me smoking with my friends and sometimes saw me dealing with illegal affairs. If it hadn’t been for my music school, where I had been going to since I was six years old, I wouldn’t have been different from the others.

Because of the fact that my parents were members of the local Rotary Club, which dealt with international programs, there was a wonderful opportunity for me to live in the United States for a year as an exchange student, so that I could experience a different lifestyle, meet new people and change my outlook on life.

At the age of sixteen I left my country. I knew little English, that’s why, when I came to America, I had some difficulties understanding people.

I’ll start my story with the arrival in Vladivostok city (Far-Eastern Russia), as I got my visa there. I flew from that city to Chicago, changing planes in South Korea. My mom accompanied me till I left Russia, and my father said, “Keep a diary!”

I made his wish come true. Hearing the roar of huge engines of a 2- storey Boing 747 heading to Chicago, I started taking down all memories from my Siberian childhood.

    From my diary

The City of Vladivostok

When the train arrived in Vladivostok, no one met us and my mother ran to call someone, leaving me with all the suitcases. She got back and said, “Let’s go and look where we can rent a room for some time here.”

One bus stop later, we were in the city center. We entered a huge building. My mother ran to look for accommodation for newcomers, and I was waiting for her on the first floor. After about an hour, she came and said, “Let’s go Nick! They’ll show us apartments where we can stay.”

Having come out of the building, we got into a black car and drove away from the center. We came to an old apartment building; an elderly woman opened the door and let us in.

We came inside. The smell was disgusting. The woman showed us our new room. There were an old sofa, a bed and a TV. We paid her 10 dollars a day. She introduced herself as Tamara Ivanovna. Tamara was 65 years old.

The same day we went to see the city. It was beautiful, the fountains with colorful lights created a special spirit of the city, the spirit of the far-east. We waited for my visa for almost a month, so we had a lot of time to spare and we used it for walking along the seashore. It was my first time when I saw the sea. The view of it was magnificent: the never- ending horizon made me think about my future. Every day we left our room at 9.00 am and returned at 7.00—8.00 pm. At first glance, the old lady Tamara was fine, but after a while she became pretty annoying.

She violated our privacy quite often by turning on her favorite TV series very loud, despite the fact that we asked her not to do that. Finally one day she said, “I’ve got high blood pressure, could you please go and buy some tomatoes and a watermelon for me?”

We bought her what she had asked for: ten kilos of tomatoes and a big watermelon. After that, my mother and I thought that Tamara would leave us. But we were entirely wrong. It reached the point where

Tamara asked my mom to wash her old mother. My mom refused to wash the person she had never met.

The whole time we spent on the beach, we saw many weird people. There was one with a hole in his shorts. Before jumping into the sea, he prayed, then threw his rubber slippers into the water and dived to get them. There was another guy, whose name was Shurik. From early morning till evening he spent his time on the beach with a book in one hand, but he did not read it. In the other hand he was holding a long stick and was drawing some words on the sand.

He did all this to give girls an impression of being a smart guy. Then Shurik put on his swimming goggles and did pull-ups on the bar.

One day my mom and I were sitting on the beach. Our two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola was lying nearby. Shurik came up and said, “Hey man, can I drink your Cola?”

I looked at him, he was well physically developed. He reminded me of Arnold Schwarzenegger. How could I say no to him? “Sure!” I replied.

He started drinking greedily from the bottle. Then he said, “Thank you, now, go and play chess!”

I looked around and no one near me was playing chess. Then I thought, “What a weird dude.”

The next day we went to the cinema called “The Ocean”. We watched the “Bruce Almighty”. We really liked it. After that we decided to have a walk along the sea. It was 6.30 pm and my mom said that it was time to get back to Tamara. On our way we met Shurik. It was the first time we saw him without the book. We were very much intrigued by it, and my mom asked him, “Well, Shurik? Where is your book?”

Shurik turned and replied, “I hear that you are asking with sarcasm! You shouldn’t treat me like that!”

“Okay, but can you drink my Coca-Cola without asking me permission?”

Shurik frowned, “Your son allowed me!”

“But the Coca-Cola was mine!” my Mom joked.

After this ridiculous conversation we went back to our room.

The time passed and I had to talk with the Consul. The official interview was on the sixth of July, at 10.50. The meeting went fine. He gave me the visa and wished me good luck. At the time I couldn’t imagine how this trip would change my entire life, but first I would like to tell you a few stories from my life before I got to America.

The Terminator

I was about 12 years old. My friends and I constantly played war games with pistols, which fired with plastic bullets. I remember it was quite painful when such bullets hit the body, but that’s where the fun was. We always played in places where big buildings where being built, in the construction areas.

Now, in our district there were two big age groups: the seniors and the juniors. The seniors were the people who were more experienced and who gave us, the juniors, advice on criminal things.

So, one day, when we were playing there, we saw the senior guys. They were standing near the building crane. I approached them and asked why they were hanging around there and whether they were waiting for someone or something. Vampire (that was the name of the guy, whose face was very much like one of a vampire) replied to me, “We are going to check, whether Ivan is a real man or not. Ivan’s nickname is Terminator.”

We stayed to see how Ivan would prove it. He was a true daredevil. The terminator began climbing the ladder which led to the top of the crane. At first I thought he was going to climb into the crane cabin, but when he reached the top, he turned to the crane arm. It was frightening to watch what he was doing. When Terminator was at the very end of the arm, he hung on the crane arm with his legs and turned over! He was hanging upside down at the height of 25 meters (82 feet)! He shouted, “Look at me! I am a real man!”

He waved his hands at us. Any wrong move could kill him! Then the seniors shouted to him, “Okay Ivan that’s enough. Get out of there!”

Twenty minutes later, Ivan was on the ground. Our seniors began to shake his hand, saying, “Good for you! Now you’re a real man!”

Terminator turned to us, “And you, young people, watch and learn!”