“Who is the vodka with a match stick?”. Memories about Vietnamese studies in the Soviet Union
Browser AIF, being business in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and talked with Vietnamese graduates of Soviet institutions — what they remembered of the Soviet Union? History was exciting.
Upstairs
“Living arm in arm with battery”
… Minh long from hue city arrived in Moscow to study engineering in December 1982, nineteen years old. In the hostel it was immediately dubbed “Minko”, and then “Bear”. “My first scholarship I’ve spent on blankets,’ he recalls. — Lord, I could not imagine: it turns out that in nature there are such cold weather, when water freezes as hard as stone… and then that same water white flakes falling from the sky. For three days I did not went outside, and lived in an embrace with the battery, but then I… moved from the entrance to the entrance short dashes.
Roommate from Ethiopia said sadly — “Ready, brother. It forever. In the country of Russian every winter is like new — is impossible to adjust”.
He mistaken: for next year, I calmly went “wide open” at minus ten. I am adept in the wars in the Dorm in the days when the Vietnamese fried herring, and the rest of the students because of the smell either ran away or came to sort things out: but we were locked in the rooms. By the way, what are all outraged about fried herring? She really tastes better.”
“Bite of bread and weep”
…Overall, from 1954 (the year of independence Northern part of Vietnam) and before 1991 in the USSR, according to different estimates, was educated 25-40 thousand representatives of Vietnamese youth. Studied to be architects, doctors, officers — the profession in which the most needed the young socialist Republic.
News
Canned in zamarski. That stock up for the winter aliens
Now, not all work in the specialty — someone went into business, others work in tourism. But I recall with pleasure the years of study in the Soviet Union. “I went to the doctor, then quickly got practice at the hospital, says Dr. Phan Thong. And behold, he called me the Day of the doctor to celebrate. Come, and there are bottles of vodka, and nothing more. I say what to eat? I am informed — take these. I’m terrified. Say — I know, your people defeated Hitler… but that’s just the vodka with a match stick!!! Colleagues reassured, said, no, no, I need to sniff… but I did not help, the taste of vodka is not fought. Went out to the store, bought black bread… bite off huge chunks, standing on the sidewalk, and cry… think — as I continue in this country will live?
And then it happened. I married a Russian girl and we left Vietnam. When I really sad and oppressed by nostalgia, I asked my wife to file a glass of vodka with black bread — we bring it from Moscow in a suitcase and keep in the freezer.“Vampire” with a bowl of borscht
… The main thing that shocked first arrived in the Union of the Vietnamese climate, the food and the lack of bananas. They could not grasp why bananas are the deficit, they certainly sell green and ripening them should be kept on the battery. Students shocked that the kitchens tell jokes about Brezhnev — Vietnam many were confident in the Soviet Union around the clock go in the columns under the red flag and a choir singing songs about their happy lives.
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Olivier from lagostina. How live Russian women in Vietnam
“I come to the neighbor of the Russian in the Dorm and seriously say, let’s talk about Lenin — laughing former MSU student van Nguyen. — He — man, why are you overheated? Better come in the evening to the disco take a walk with the girls get acquainted. I remember in the early days of your kitchen I am mortally scared. I go to this neighbor, and he sits and eats blood from the plate, chin flowing, eyes some crazy. I barely whole house screamed… and it turns out he soup in a jar from mom brought — treated then me, but I force myself to eat this crimson concoction then not find. Later things gone — and the soup, and bacon, and cakes, and this… strange, with canned salmon… and salad “Mimosa”! And for tea you are invited mysterious. Say — come on in, have some tea. And then on the table and salads, and the sausage chopped, cognac, and vodka. Wake up in the middle of the night, head pounding with a hangover, I think: Yes, called, looked a little for a Cup of tea”.