The crisp morning last October I had been anticipating for months finally arrived. After a two-day orientation organized by Fulbright Ukraine, I flew to Dnipro and arrived at my new apartment in the city center. I felt mild culture shock as I walked the streets, encountered the Cyrillic alphabet on storefronts, and heard Russian and Ukrainian being spoken by everyone around me.
Little did I know that in a few months, this tranquil Eastern European city would face the dropping of bombs and that Russia’s dictator would cite language as the rationale for starting a war.
Because Dnipro is in eastern Ukraine near Russia, I was led to believe that I should study Russian, and not Ukrainian, in preparation for my Fulbright. I set aside an hour a day for study, but when my progress was slow, I took a university course in the spring. This allowed me to achieve a basic understanding of conversational Russian.
