Master students of ISTU travelled by “Friendship Train” through China

1“Friendship Train” is a project of Association of Sino-Russian Technical Universities (ASRTU) composed of the leading universities of these two countries.

Last year the Chinese delegation visited Russia to give concert tours in four cities of our country. This year Russian students went to win “The Celestial Empire”. For two weeks the students were performing concerts and sharing experience with each other.

Dinara Mirzakhmetova and Ruslan Krysov, 2-year master students of Kalashnikov ISTU, got a unique opportunity to participate in this project. They have already approved themselves as highly professional dancers in our university (and not only in this field).

“Once the vice-rector for extracurricular work Alexander Balitsky”, Dinara says, “offered participating in an international event for which a performance piece was required. And we together with Ryslan Krysov prepared two performances: modern hip-hop dance “Urban Rhythms” and dance-show “Mask”.

The entire journey by “Friendship Train” lasted from October 13 through October 29. On October 10 they went to Moscow and on the 14th went to Beijing by plane. The Russian delegation comprised 59 people. It united students from Yekaterinburg, Saint-Petersburg, Samara, Moscow, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok and Izhevsk.

2During the unexpected holidays they visited four cities: Beijing, Harbin (the inviting party), Dalian and Shanghai. In each city the students performed a concert. The audience always welcomed with loud applause the dance “Urban Rhythms” with which Ruslan and Dinara opened the concert. The concert was arranged wisely and tellingly. The last but one piece “Mask” also didn’t leave the audience untouched. After each performance the public thanked the artists with loud applause. And in Harbin the audience just stood up after the concert.

Our students liked the organization of the concert in Harbin most.

Ruslan Krysov shares his impressions: “Nice volunteers, attentive attitude to project participants… The technical stage in Dalian was so modern that it delighted the eye. Light equipment, advancedtechnologies – everythingwasthere”.

Dinara adds: “China is an interesting country with its specifics, different culture. Each day was special, with many emotions and unforgettable impressions!”

– Ruslan, and what impressed you most?

– In Beijing and Harbin there was heavy smog – fog. People were wearing respiratory masks, saying that the heating season started. As we found out the houses in China are heated with coil which is also extraordinary… The Chinese marketplace was also impressive. It was possible to bargain and decrease the price in ten times. In the first three cities we had such a feeling that people were looking at us as aliens. It is also memorable that there are three beds in their trains against two – in ours. Talking about the streets, it is dangerous to cross them even on the green light, everyone signals, shouts. Very noisy. We also liked daily excursions, especially to the Great Wall. In Shanghai we were impressed by skyscrapers, tennis courts, basketball grounds, bicycle parking lots – the entire streets! We enriched our vocabularies: “nihau” means “hello” in Chinese, “sese” – “thank you”, “meinyu” – “beauty”, “shvaiga” – “cute boy!” But we mainly used body language, thank God some our guys knew Chinese.

– Have you missed Izhevsk and university?

3Dinara: We did, but each day was so full that there was no time to feel sad. A lot of information and impressions, new cities, people, places… Apart from the concerts, we had excursions and lectures in each city. We started at 8 o’clock and returned only in the evenings.

Ruslan: I missed Russian cuisine, salt and bread, normal food. Andfriends, ofcourse.

– Would you like to go again?

Dinara: I would definitely like to take such an amazing trip again. Thanks to such journeys you get acquainted not only with the culture, traditions and customs of China, but also find new friends. When you have so many students from different cities around, the journey turns into an unforgettable adventure!

Ruslan: I wish to come back and immerge into the trip atmosphere again. Concerts, audience, guys who were traveling with us… We have only best impressions.

During the trip all its participants became friends.

“We became one family, all guys are so cool, creative, talented. It was difficult to say goodbye”, says Ruslan.

“We were one team. We stack together and could manage all the troubles”, adds Dinara.

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