Regine Tamba Richards
Nikita Kuznetsov may have been in the U.S. for only three months, but his desire to get involved shows that he has no intention to be joking around by diving right into business.
Although the young Russian man has only been a student at Pierce College for a little more than a month, his required political science course has awoken his interest in politics and how American government functions.
While surfing the Pierce college website, Kuznetsov discovered the Associated Students Organization and has decided to get involved.
“This is a unique organization for me because there is nothing like this in Russia,” said Kuznetsov, who has gathered 30 signatures and needs about 45 more in order to officially represent students.
When 19-year-old Kuznetsov visited the United States for the first time in 2002, he had no idea he would eventually move here as a student, leaving behind what he has known to start a new life.
† “Maybe I’m what you might call an adventure type of person,” he said.
† This tall man with a cascade of curls on his head and a permanent smile on his face, left the familiarity of his surroundings to build his future in a land where he believes opportunity and democracy come first.
† “I just decided that well, I can stay with my friends and my parents forever or I can do something on my own. Of course there are some pluses and minuses of being alone. But if I feel very bad and depressed and sad here, I can always go back,” he said.
† But making friends in a new place isn’t always easy, especially when students rotate from one class to another.
† “Theoretically, it exposes you to much more people, but practically you don’t get to know them well and you just sort of drift through. So it’s all on the surface whereas in Russia we have fixed groups in colleges,” he said.
† Although Kuznetsov has only been living permanently in the U.S. since July 2005, he speaks near perfect English that he learned in his English school in Moscow.
† The first time he visited the U.S., he came to New York with his specialized school called English First.
† The second time was two years later, in 2004, when he gathered a group of 10 friends and moved to an apartment in Wildwood, N.J., by the beach for four months.
† “The desire to get to know other cultures, get to know more people from different backgrounds,” he said.
† A work and travel program helped make his second trip possible by providing him a plane ticket, finding him and his friends jobs and taking care of the embassy paperwork.
“The program … is intended to make students from foreign countries … get a deeper appreciation of American way of life and how regular Americans live. It’s supposed to give you a picture of real American life, not what you see on TV,” he said.
† During his stay, Kuznetsov worked at a deli during the day and partied with his friends at night and on the weekends.
† His second experience, as he describes it, “was more of an intercultural experience.”
“I liked the way New Yorkers lived. At that time it was really exotic to me and … for some reason I got attracted to it. Besides that, I had that interest in English language and culture so that it contributed to my desire to come here again,” he said.
† But New York was not a huge change from the cosmopolitan Moscow he knew, except for maybe the cultural melting pot in New York.
“The only difference is that the middle class might be a little bit bigger than in other countries. Values, beliefs, attitudes, are pretty much different here,” he said, adding that “the population [in Russia,] is not as diverse, of course, as it is here.
† “There are plenty of very rich people in Moscow and there is a poor class of about the same size there, and the middle class is just a small tiny line in the social chart,” he said.
“Russia’s society is not as diverse as American, and I consider it a plus. That is one of the reasons why I’m here. The other reason is that I do believe that American diplomas are [recognized] all over the world and this would enable me to work anywhere I would want to.”
Kuznetsov had never left his home before, or family, and although to some this would be a big step to take, it seemed quite easy for Nikita.
He was ready to break free from his family and take a leap into an independent adulthood.
He went from working at a deli to designing websites and being a tour guide.
This psychology major, who wants to specialize in neuropsychology, came to visit friends in L.A. last year and the weather stole his heart.
† His hosts are an older couple whom he met through a friend who is part of an organization called the Friendship Force that connects people. They have helped him adjust in many ways.
† Kuznetsov, who is planning to transfer to CSUN or UCLA, rides his bicycle to Pierce every morning and tries to be part of his community as much as possible by catching any opportunity offered to him.
“You never know until you try,” he said.