“Like there, do not offend?”: Same-sex couple about moving to Estonia
Masha and Sasha moved to Tartu some years ago. Then they did not know that this city would play such an important role in their life: Tartu is not only a place of study, but also a place where they met and fell in love with each other.
About moving and changing activities
Masha: It all started in the senior class when I studied in depth the philology at the Lyceum "Sparrow Hills". Once I went to the annual conference of young philologists, which is held by the Department of Russian Literature at the University of Tartu. This was my first trip abroad. I immediately liked the city: spring, cozy streets, new acquaintances - all this made a strong impression on me. I immediately applied for the undergraduate program. I was told that the competition will be small, so I almost did not worry. So I ended up in Tartu.
True, since entering the program of Russian philology in 2012, much has changed. I realized that I had chosen the wrong profession for myself. In your youth, you can very much take over some business and you do not realize that your plans for life are far from reality. At school I really liked literary criticism. It seemed to be pure magic: here is a text before you - and you feel like a real magician, extracting from it meanings that are inaccessible to most. When I mastered the profession a little, it turned out that everything was not so simple. At some point I became depressed, because I realized that I could not devote my whole life to it. I began to console myself with drawing and at the same time I thought about choosing a more applied occupation. Then I decided to try to enter the “Media and Art of Advertising” at the Tartu Art College and went there through a competition.
Sasha: I also came to Tartu for the first time, having arrived at a youth conference in 2012. I then studied in the last year of the HSE journalism department and felt that I wanted a change. A year later, I arrived at the University of Tartu in exchange, which turned out to be quite difficult to organize. Philological departments of two universities are friends, students and teachers often go to conferences, but few have used the opportunity to go on the exchange. I had to go through chore-bureaucratic procedures, to the extent that no one in HSE really knew what documents I needed, and I had to deal with this on my own. After studying for six months, I applied for a magistracy for the department of semiotics.
On the study and heritage of Lotman
Sasha: I liked the city and my studies, but I cannot say that life immediately became cloudless: undergraduates were granted scholarship only if you are a round high-school student. Doctoral students receive a scholarship equal to the subsistence minimum, and at the junior levels of education there are only small financial incentives. I studied at all A, so every month I received a hundred euros, and I also remotely worked as an editor. True, when the euro rose, several hundred shrank in half.
Masha: A bachelor’s scholarship is also not allowed, although until 2012 it was possible to receive a small amount every month, if you don’t have a single F. True, if you are under twenty-five years old and from a low-income family, you can qualify for seventy to two hundred twenty Euro. I lived mostly with money that my parents sent me, and I also worked remotely, for example, once I helped to add slogans from rallies to the database. Transferring money from Russia to the EU is not such a simple matter. At first parents tried to transfer to my local account. It looks like this: you come to Sberbank, fill out a bunch of papers, pay an impressive fee, employees will say twenty times that they do not do this, and will try to send them to another department. Then everything became simpler, I got a bank card: my parents transferred rubles to me, and I withdrew the euro from it. The commission was much less.
Sasha:Despite financial difficulties, even in Tartu, it was somehow easy to live. On the one hand, my life has not changed much; it is still being built and is being built around the university. The “tower” gave me a very powerful humanitarian base, so that, being in a new interdisciplinary field for myself, I felt comfortable, unlike other fellow students. Although the difference between Russian and European universities is very much felt, especially at first. The relationship between teacher and students is completely different. In Russia, you, already an adult, are treated like a child, whose knowledge must be endlessly checked, it is considered that you should be admonished and cared for. At Tartu University, everything is different: your supervisor treats you as a colleague.
Now I am already in doctoral studies and I am engaged in educational technologies, mainly in the field of literature: I study digital books. I began to be interested in this topic even at HSE, but at the philological department it caused such confusion that it scared me away. When I arrived in Estonia, it turned out that I have like-minded people. We organized a research group, which includes Estonian and Russian students of the semiotic department. Professor Peeter Torop, junior colleague Yuri Lotman, is in charge of us. We develop multimedia educational projects. Now we are creating a course dedicated to film adaptations of literary texts. This year, our research team received a university grant, and we are trying to scale up.
About life in Tartu and the difference of mentalities
Sasha:I adapted quite easily. The most popular question asked to us with Masha: "Are you not bored here?" In terms of mood and rhythm, Tartu is more like my native Noginsk. People here live leisurely, measured, there is little that happens by the standards of a metropolitan resident.
Masha: I am never bored in Tartu. I don't know, maybe I'm just a homebody: I look at a laptop and read books. When people say that Tartu is small and nothing happens here, I do not immediately understand what they mean. When I lived in Moscow, I didn’t go to concerts and exhibitions every week - I simply didn’t have the strength for it. In this sense, adaptation, as it were, was not - so naturally I felt in this city. The biggest problem for me was the language barrier. I realized that I suffer painfully. While I was studying philology, I existed more in a Russian-speaking context - now I am studying Estonian and am in an Estonian environment. I can explain myself and understand what they say to me - it’s just hard to live with the thought that I can be wrong and speak with an accent.
Studying in the Estonian group, I realized that the mentality of Estonians is significantly different from the Russian. My classmates and I have roughly the same interests, we listen to the same music. But there are some almost elusive moments, for example, when you just do not understand how the interlocutor reacted to your words - maybe he was offended, or he was uncomfortable, or, on the contrary, everything is fine. In Russia, people have everything written on the face.
There are many myths about Estonia and the Baltic States. One of the most stable stereotypes that Russophobic sentiments prevail here. When you come to Russia, the first thing you are asked is: "Well, how are you there, do they not offend you?" Do not hurt. During the time that I live here, I have never faced nationalism. You can calmly turn to the older person in Russian, and he will answer you. Many sellers know Russian, although, in our opinion with Sasha, it’s not very polite to approach a person in Russian: after all, the country has its own language and no one is obliged to own another foreign language.
On the attitude towards LGBT in Russia and Estonia
Sasha: There are many attractive things in Estonia, including the friendly attitude towards LGBT people. Masha and I are a couple, and we don’t hide our relationship. Our relatives are in the know, we spend a lot of time on holidays with my or Masha's parents, everything is fine. They accepted our choice completely calm and happy for us. Our romance began here in Tartu, which, of course, is significant for me and Masha. When it became clear that we were together seriously and for a long time and, perhaps, sometime we want to have children, we decided that this should not be done in Russia, where the society and the law are now most unfriendly to LGBT people. Estonia is the most advanced Baltic country in this respect. In Latvia and Lithuania, a ban on same-sex marriages is implied by the constitution, while in Estonia from 2016, marriages concluded abroad are recognized and there is an opportunity to enter into a civil partnership. With adoption in other Baltic countries there are problems, especially in Lithuania, where the Catholic Church is strong.
Discrimination in the workplace due to orientation is prohibited in all three countries. But in Estonia, different types of discrimination are taken into account - for example, hostile statements. The difference with Russia is felt very strongly: in Moscow it is more difficult to walk, holding hands, and hugging on an escalator, although many do. When our novel was just beginning, we thought about it a little. Manifestations of hatred from unaccustomed shocking, so you quickly learn. Now we just switch to another mode when we come to Russia.
Masha: Shortly before our affair began, I became interested in the life of the LGBT movement in Russia. Then I did not know that I might like girls. We were introduced to each other at the same conference, I subscribed to Sasha LJ and Twitter. My mother, having seen our correspondence on the web, once said that I fell in love with Sasha - and turned out to be right. For a while, our relationship was exceptionally friendly, but then I realized my feelings.
Minority life in Russia, to put it mildly, is difficult. In Estonia, the LGBT topic is present at various levels. For example, in the Estonian state exam for level C1, questions arise about discrimination in the workplace, including due to orientation. There are strong public organizations: volunteers organize educational events on the topic of the LGBT community in schools, which is difficult to imagine in Russia. By the way, they also work with the local Russian-speaking population. All this was another argument in favor of staying in Tartu.
Photo: anilah - stock.adobe.com
