How I left to study in France, but I wanted to go back
I fell in love with France as a teenager: Dumas and Hugo’s grandmother’s congregation read, stuck on programs about kings and dreamed of seeing Paris, which I occasionally saw in girl dreams. I began to learn the language when I entered the first course of journalism, because I decided that now I could make my dream come true and finally understand what Joe Dassin and Mr. Edith Piaf spoke about.
My first teacher was a friend who brought me to tears by forcing me to read long words and learn numerals from the first lesson. French numerals are a test: if you did not die while you were learning, it means that you really want to speak this language. A couple of examples suffice to understand why it hurts so much: ninety is pronounced as "four twenty-ten," and seventy-two, for example, as "sixty-twelve."
I taught French a good deal with three friends for six years. And on my twenty-third birthday, I finally went to Paris - well, I died, of course. I think Paris is one of those cities that either like it very much or not at all. After this trip, I decided to take up French again and even took courses in Institut Français.
In the summer of 2015, I went on vacation to Barcelona and there I met my Russian-speaking peers who lived and studied in Paris. It was then that I had a full turn in my mind. I was fascinated by how free they are, that they live even half-starved, but in the way they want and where they want. I returned to Moscow with the firm intention to leave for France. Immediately after the holidays, I learned what I needed to leave: documents translated into French, a certificate of passing the DELF language exam for level B2 (I had A2, and the distance between them was like from Earth to Mars). The exam is held in Moscow twice a year - in December and in June - but documents must be sent to universities before March 31, so there was no option to pass in June. I thought it over, found the teachers and started training. One prepared me directly for the exam, another trained grammar and increased vocabulary.
My friends won't let me lie: for almost four months, I only left home to work, I did assignments every night, I did listening, I read books, I memorized words. I paid all my salary to pay for my lessons. Fortunately, I lived with my parents and could not think about food and a roof over my head. On December 12th, I passed the DELF B2 for 68 points (passing score - 50) and immediately got drunk for the first time in four months. At about the same time, the Afisha magazine, where I had been working for the last year and a half, was closed, so there was definitely no point in remaining.
The first few days I liked everything: I had a beautiful apartment with a private courtyard and a nice French neighbor.
Then you had to go through the Campus France procedure, which is mandatory for all future students: download an electronic version of all documents, write a motivation letter, select from one to fifteen universities where you want to apply, pay a fee for the work of people from Campus and wait for an invitation to a rendezvous. At this meeting, they ask standard questions about your motivation, about how much money you are going to live with, how study in France will help you and how you yourself can help France if you have to. If everything is in order, the program supervisor approves your dossier, and from this point on, the universities that you have chosen see your application. Now you just have to wait. Interviews are held in February, and universities begin to respond at the end of June.
I didn’t want to go to Paris: by that time I was so sick and tired of Moscow that I decided to go somewhere closer to the sea, and where there are fewer people. To be honest, I just wanted to live in Europe, to speak the language that I learned with such blood, sweat and tears. But I didn't want to learn anything either. I applied for the cultural management course at Bordeaux, Nice, Toulon, Avignon and Rennes. A positive response came only from Avignon and Toulon. A little thought, reading and looking at the photos, I decided to go to Avignon.
Since December, I did not have a job, and I had to save a lot for departure. Fortunately, I quickly managed to find one job, then another, and I calmly continued to wait. Until the very last moment it was not clear whether anyone would accept me at all. The answer came from Avignon at the end of July. After leaving, I flew to France in a month. The first few days I liked everything. I had a beautiful apartment with a private courtyard and a lovely French neighbor. Avignon is very small, quiet and beautiful. For the first week I didn’t even cry, I created the channel “Tremal” in the telegram, where I wrote about my “adventures”, and waited for studies, which was supposed to start in mid-September.
And then hell began. I encountered the great and terrible bureaucratic machinery of France. To buy a SIM card, you need to open a bank account. To open a bank account, you need to go through all the local banks and find out where you, as a foreign student, can offer favorable conditions (I found one in the second week of searching). The card is made for two weeks, after which they send you a notification that you can pick it up - in paper mail to regular mail. You come home, try to buy a SIM card with the most favorable tariff (the cheapest is twenty euros per month), and the operator refuses to accept your card. You go reissue debit card, it takes another ten working days. And in a month you buy a sim card. Sim card! It would seem that.
Also, upon arrival, you need to send your documents and a completed migration certificate to the OFII (Immigration Center) to confirm that you are staying in France legally and to obtain a residence permit. The immigration center is located in Marseille, an hour’s drive from Avignon. But in order to send documents, in the receipt you need to specify a mobile phone number, which brings us back to the problem of buying a SIM card. By the way, I still do not understand why they need my mobile phone, because they send all the letters to me in the mailbox.
I sent all documents to OFII on October 7, 2016. Usually, after a few months, the answer comes that the documents have reached and entered into the database, and then you just have to wait for a call to Marseille for a medical examination and for obtaining a residence permit.
At the same time, studies began. On each pair, teachers were forced to talk about themselves. I am a sociable person, but at first I feel very constrained, and it was difficult for me to speak a foreign language with the entire audience. Already in the first week I realized that the French I taught and the French that is spoken here are two big differences. I understood about 40 percent of what my groupmates were saying - now I already understand eighty-five.
The steam in the first weeks was not enough, there was nothing to do, and I listened all day to Ivanushki, roared at Naadiu, watched the TV series Brigade, cried to friends, and they told me that I was struggling with fat, they say, you live in a country of cheese and wine - enjoy. But I couldn’t enjoy it: I suffered from loneliness, from the impossibility to speak Russian (for seven months that I live in Avignon, I still didn’t speak my native language), I cried until I fell asleep, and I also managed fall in love, meet and part with the guy - in short, a complete failure.
I see in my dreams not Paris, but my mother's borsch, father's dumplings, my district in Moscow. And dreams I dream in Russian
At about the same time, I began to think that I had made the biggest mistake in my life when I came here and could not find a single positive moment. Every Skype conversation with friends and parents was like a breath of fresh air for me, however it may sound. I had a crisis, I did not understand what I was doing and why. Studying at the university also did not bring joy. The local education system shocked me: neither you of textbooks, nor of understanding for what you study this or that subject, nor normal examination procedures. Despite the fact that I am a foreigner, I didn’t do any indulgences during the educational process. For almost every exam you need to prepare a twenty-page collective dossier with an oral presentation. In general, on all fronts everything was not something alien, uninteresting.
Gradually, I began to get acquainted with fellow students, but I communicated mainly with the Italian guys from the Erasmus program - the French remained strangers to me. Many people treat Russia negatively, and I was surprised to find that it really offends me. It offends that you can blame a person for how the power of his state behaves, it offends how little everyone knows about my country, it is surprising that everyone thinks that the Russian people will never freeze, even when Avignon mistral sneaks to the bone.
The required document from OFII did not come to me by the end of December, and without confirming that my file was registered, I did not have the right to return to France if I left. My tickets were gone, I roared and went to celebrate the holidays in Nice, where, fortunately, my Moscow acquaintances live. I managed to go home only at the end of February. When I flew back, I roared the entire terminal E Sheremetyeva.
Now I am writing a diploma in French about censoring culture in Russia. My scientific leader does not know the topic at all, but we do not choose leaders: they distribute our topics among themselves randomly. By the end of April, I will finish my diploma and go to Nice to work as a bartender for the whole summer. Nice little more than Avignon, but much more alive, very similar to Barcelona, and there is a sea there! Plus, in Nice, it is easier to find a job for the summer: Avignon has few bars and restaurants, and even waiters have unrealistic demands.
I never thought I would miss Moscow. Last year, before leaving, I was annoyed by absolutely everything: I did not understand why not everyone wants to leave, why everything is so bad, why we have no place to work, why everyone is spending money on parties, if you can use them for something useful. But it was only here that I realized that you could go anywhere, but you cannot get anywhere from your luggage. Plus, none of my Russian acquaintances here likes to study. Someone wants to stay, because he has found a boyfriend, someone hates Russia so much that he doesn't even want to hear about her, someone has not made friends in Moscow, so he does not care where to live, someone just does not want to admit to himself that here he did not succeed.
I have the opportunity to enroll in the second year of the magistracy of the University of Nice, but I still think. To be honest, do not want to stay. I really miss the comfort of Moscow life (an elementary opportunity to go to a beautician, pedicure or to the doctor), I miss talking in the kitchen with friends, if possible buy fish, meat and dairy products, which I used to, I miss work, because here you can only work in a bar or train at some office for five hundred euros a month - this money is enough only for renting an apartment and a little for food. Of course, I work in my spare time: I do transcripts, translate interviews, write materials, but I don’t have enough money at all.
I was never afraid to admit my defeat. In the end, I fulfilled my dream, and where it brings, it doesn’t depend on us. I can not say that my departure was a mistake from and to: no, I met interesting young guys here, who also do not know what to do with their lives and are looking for themselves. I pulled up the French language, fell in love for the first time in a long time, learned to live away from my parents and found that there was nothing wrong with that, learned to appreciate my friends and relatives and listen to myself. I began to understand what is important and what is not.
Now I see in my dreams not Paris, but my mother’s soup, father’s dumplings, my district in Moscow. And I dream dreams in Russian. The devil knows, maybe in July, before the end of my visa, I have something in my head clicks and I decide to stay, but it's hard to believe in it. It is always easier to suffer when you can call up with friends at any time, drink wine with them and eat khinkali, and be drunk and happy to leave for your real home.
Photo: Claudio Colombo - stock.adobe.com, fotografiecor - stock.adobe.com
