The Princeton in St. Petersburg Program (P-i-P) gives Princeton undergraduates the opportunity to take Princeton’s complete second-year Russian course (Intermediate Russian) in eight weeks over the summer. Typically, students are in class from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM Monday through Friday, with a break for lunch. In keeping with the intensive nature of the program, the classes are supplemented by homework. However, the workload is not all-consuming; students still find time to take advantage of St. Petersburg’s rich cultural life.

The Program has had unmatched success in preparing students for advanced work in Russian. In addition, the city has led many P-i-P students to return in subsequent summers for further study. In the summer of 2009 the program will run from June 1st to July 27th. For additional information contact PiP or the program director Ksana Blank.

Admission to the program

In order to be eligible for the program, students must take the entire sequence of RUS 101-102 and have a B grade or higher in RUS 101. In addition, they should have demonstrated seriousness of purpose through excellent class participation and attendance.

Program Calendar 2010
Applications available on P-i-P website	Early October
Application deadline	February 5th
Deadline for financial aid applications	April 1st
Notification of acceptance to the program	March 1st
Deadline for a nonrefundable $500 deposit	March 12th
Orientation meetings	TBA
First day of classes Last day of classes Last day of the program	TBA                                 TBA                                TBA
Arrival to St. Petersburg	TBA
Midterm break - trip to Novgorod	TBA
Departure from St. Petersburg	TBA

Health care

The students should check if their medical insurance is valid overseas (those who are on the Princeton Health Plan are covered overseas in the summer). The P-i-P program provides an additional local insurance that covers all medical expenses related to accidents or illness.

Visas and passports

Visas to Russia will be obtained through the Slavic department. Passports must be valid for 18 months beyond the anticipated return date (i.e. until April 2011). The Russian visa stamp is the size of one passport page, please make sure you have a blank visa page in your passport. For information from U.S. Government agencies about political, cultural, and personal security issues relevant for travelers to Russia, see the consular information here.

The academic program consists of three parts

RUS 105R (June). Grammar is taught jointly by Prof. Shvabrin and an instructor from the Nevsky Institute. 8 hours per week.
RUS 107R (July).  Grammar is taught by Nevsky instructors. 8 hours per week.

We learn second year Russian in an environment more conducive to language learning than Princeton. You never have to take a term of five classes, you finish your language requirement, and your Russian is advanced greatly. (P-i-P participant, 2006)

RUS 105R and 107R are taught by Nevsky instructors. 8 hours per week.

It is the only way you will really learn the language well. You will get to hear native speakers all around you. If you are considering a Russian major you will get yourself a whole year ahead. (P-i-P participant, 2006)

RUS 105R (June). Reading and analysis of Russian short stories and poems. Taught by Nevsky instructors. 4 hours per week.
RUS 107R (July). Dostoevsky module taught by Prof. Blank. 4 hours per week.

There are some urban novels where the city itself becomes a major character—and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment is one. By this point in the course, students read selections from Crime and Punishment in Russian (having already read the entire novel in English). They “make the acquaintance” of their hero through tours, buildings, streets and canals, many of which have not changed significantly since Dostoevsky’s time.

This was the best part of the program. The excitement that was generated by reading Dostoevsky in Russian reminded me of why I had begun to learn the language in the first place, namely, to read its literature untranslated. The work, along with so many others, obviously has such strong ties to the city of Petersburg. Walking around the city added a certain everyday, real-world weight to a work that was already so influential on me… I don't think that one has to be in St. Petersburg in order to see what is great about Dostoevsky, but the direct experience with his immediate surroundings gives you a rich source of images, scents, and general atmosphere which you can draw from in order to recreate the novel for yourself, as you read through it. (P-i-P participant, 2006)

Ksana Blank received the equivalent of a B.A. in French Literature from St. Petersburg (Leningrad) State University and a Ph.D. in Russian literature from Columbia University. Her research interests include nineteenth-century Russian prose (especially Dostoevsky and Tolstoy), Russian religious thought, Oriental philosophy, and interdisciplinary approaches to literature, particularly the relationship between literature and the visual arts. In 2000, she joined the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University, where she teaches upper-level language courses, Stylistics, and the Russian component of Caryl Emerson's graduate seminars on Russian literature and literary theory. She has published articles on Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, and Nabokov. Prior to joining Princeton University, she taught courses in Russian language and literature at Columbia University, Middlebury College, and Hunter College. To learn more about Ksana Blank, please visit his Princeton University faculty  profile.

Stanislav Shvabrin has taught Russian at a number of institutions of higher learning in Russia and the US. Shvabrin’s language-teaching portfolio includes courses on introductory, intermediate, advanced, advanced-plus and professional levels of Russian; in addition to this he has designed and implemented a variety of courses teaching Russian as a heritage language and has worked as an accent coach for major international cinematic enterprises. To learn more about Stanislav Shvabrin, please visit his Princeton University faculty  profile.

Our graduate student Christine Dunbar will be on site in June-July, 2009 to help students with practical questions and to guide them through any difficulties they may encounter.

The Nevsky Institute of Language and Culture is a non-governmental higher educational institution. It was founded in April 1996 by a group of faculty members at the Herzen State Pedagogical Institute, which was for years the premier location for Russian language study in Saint Petersburg and in Russia as a whole. The founders all had experience teaching Russian to foreign students, and the Nevsky Institute became a full-fledged academic institution around the base of its outstanding Russian language instruction.

Students in P-i-P are matched with a Russian peer, who is normally an undergraduate student either from the Nevsky Institute or at another institution of higher learning in Saint Petersburg. The purpose of the Peer Program is to give P-i-P students the opportunity to spend time out of class with a Russian speaker around their age. This brings our students the benefits both of speaking practice with a native speaker and access to someone who is informed about the culture of the country and city. A small amount of money is available to defray the costs of activities of students and their peers (e.g. museum entrance fees, movie theaters).

Obviously, there's really nothing better for learning the language than to live with a Russian family and socialize with Russian peers. They don't converse with you in English at all, which I really like because it forces you to learn to communicate whether you like it or not. Improvement is usually very rapid, and there is a great sense of achievement that comes with being able to hold long, intelligent conversations with Russians on all sorts of topics. (P-i-P participant, 2006)

Students in P-i-P stay with Russian families through a homestay program run by the Nevsky Institute. The Program provides our students with a single room and two meals per day from hosts who generally do not speak English. One advantage of the homestay program is that it reinforces students' learning by putting them in an environment where they must communicate in Russian.

I learned the most Russian and had some of the most rewarding moments while talking with my host family. Just after two months, I made a wonderful friend -- I still e-mail my host mother's daughter. She helped me stay motivated and inspired to learn the language (P-i-P participant, 2006)

The program fee, which covers all tuition, room and  board (a home stay with two meals a day), and excursions, is heavily subsidized by the University for Princeton undergraduates. Students are  expected to contribute only $2500 toward the program fee  in addition to  covering the cost of their plane tickets ($1500-$2000), visa costs ($175), and  spending money. Those with demonstrable financial need can apply for financial  support from various University funds and are eligible for loans from the  Office of Financial Aid. For a list of funding sources, click here. 

Bus tour of the city

Giving students a brief overview of the sights, this tour, which is recommended near the beginning of the program, is a great way to orient oneself in St. Petersburg.

Russian Museum

Founded in 1895, the Russian Museum is located in the Mikhailovsky Palace. In addition to rich collections of Russian icons, painting and sculpture, visitors can enjoy its opulent Italianate interiors.

Yusupov Palace

Located on the banks of the Moika river, the Yusupov Palace boasts lovely recreated interiors and a sinister history; this is the site of the 1916 murder of Grigory Rasputin, peasant, self-proclaimed miracle worker and confidante of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra.

Dostoevsky Memorial Museum

Dostoevsky disliked the Imperial neo-classical beauty of St. Petersburg. Unlike the poet Alexander Pushkin, he did not appreciate the solemn side of the Northern capital of Russia. He preferred the somber aspects of the city, and he always resided in the darker areas of it, where his own characters lived.

We will visit Dostoevsky's apartment on Kuznechnyi Lane, where the writer lived during the last three years of his life with his wife and children, and where he wrote his last novel The Brothers Karamazov. This apartment is located near the bustling Haymarket Square, where Raskolnikov makes a symbolic gesture of repentance for his crime by kissing the earth.

From the balcony of Dostoevsky's apartment one can see St. Vladimir cathedral, the church Dostoevsky regularly visited during the last years of his life. Like other places in St. Petersburg where he lived, the location of this apartment was meaningful for him. It faces an intersection, essential for Dostoevsky, for whom thresholds, gates, and crossroads symbolized human freedom and the possibility of choice.

Walking tour through the neighborhoods of Crime and Punishment

Learn about the St. Petersburg cityscape in the time of Dostoevsky on this tour, which includes Haymarket Square, the house in which Sonya, had a room, Raskolnikov’s path to the pawnbroker and two possibilities for the location of Raskolnikov’s garret room. Try to solve the mystery by counting the steps it takes to get between these places as described in Crime and Punishment.

Peter and Paul Fortress

When St. Petersburg was founded in 1703, the Peter and Paul Fortress was one of the first completed structures. Today, it contains the Peter and Paul Cathedral, where Russia’s tsars from Peter the Great to Nicholas II are buried, the Trubetskoy Bastion Prison, in which Dostoevsky, Gorky and Trotsky were at various times incarcerated, and other buildings housing exhibitions on St. Petersburg history. Take a stroll along the Southern Wall for great views of the city.

Organized trip to Novgorod