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NEWS
| October 15, 2004
Community Outreach
Russian society garage sale to aid
victims
The group will also accept donations
for the victims of Beslan, Russia’s attack.
By Robert
Kleeman
Contributor to The Shorthorn
The Russian Cultural Society is reaching out to victims of a recent
terrorist attack in Russia.
The organization will host a garage sale to benefit grieving families
of the Sept. 3 terrorist attack in Beslan, Russia, which claimed
over 300 lives.
The event will take place from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 23 on lot 40
South. Money from the event will go directly to victims’ families,
said Charles McDowell, organization adviser and Russian studies
director. The group will be accepting donations for the sale for
the next week. Sale items may be dropped off in room 221 of Hammond
Hall.
McDowell said the group’s focus has shifted to community service
over the past year.
“Our center is interested in anything that happens in Russia,”
he said. “We just want to help the poor victims of this attack
in any way that we can.”
He said any student can join the organization, not just political
science and Russian majors. There are currently 16 members.
Members say the organization is more than just a club for people
studying Russian — it is the contrast of two different world
cultures and the key to understanding their intersection.
“We’ve had a Russian club since the ’60s,”
McDowell said. “The members this year wanted to give the club
a more exotic name to separate ourselves from other typical language
clubs. Anybody who teaches languages without teaching the culture
is not really teaching the language.”
McDowell said the organization’s commitment to understanding
Russian culture invokes a sense of personal connection.
“By attending a Russian opera, eating food native to the culture
and doing the many other things we do to expose the way of life
in the former Soviet Union, members feel a connection,” he
said. “We feel a very strong link to those who were killed
in Beslan because many society members have been to Russia many
times and love everything about the culture.”
McDowell said the organization does not support communism despite
some occasional accusations. The university has a good relationship
with the country of Russia, he said.
The society’s president, Jonathan Simpson, said there are
benefits unique to studying Russian.
The oil reserves in Kazakhstan are massive, which provides for a
lot of elite oil industry positions, he said. Understanding the
language allows access to some of the greatest works of literature
ever written, he said. Russian is also one of the big 10 languages
of the United Nations.
Simpson also cited the migration of many Russians to the Houston
and Dallas areas as reasons to join the organization.
“There are only three Russian consulate offices in the nation,
and one of them is in Houston,” he said. “One of our
former members is now working at the U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan.
Our society is not just about the language; it’s about living
and applying it to the culture of the country.”
Society secretary Lauren McRoberts received her degree in Russian
in 1975 but came back to the organization in the spring to reconnect
herself with the culture, she said.
“I am enamored of Russian culture,” she said. “I
would encourage students to attend one of our weekly meetings. I
don’t think anybody who attends will leave.”
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