Mooc2 2xnewsletter

College Writing Workshop - Minsk A Newsletter for and by the students of the Facilitated Sessions at the Pushkin Library

Facilitated Workshops for Module 2.2x took place at the Pushkin Library from the 30th of January27th of February. Check out pages 311 to read the excellent academic essays produced by local students!

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MOOC 2.3X FYI

Experiencing Writer’s Block? by Katie Subra

(For your Information) There is one more module of

Many of the world’s best writers experience writer’s block at some point in their careers. How can you break through the wall and keep your marbles at the same time? Here are three tips to help you give it your best go:

the series College WritingX, which will begin in April.

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Stayed tuned for information sessions and workshop dates, by checking the Pushkin Library’s website and Facebook page.

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Join the online course by creating an account at EdX.org and by registering for the class College Writing 2.3X.

1) Keep writing – even if you think it is crap! No one has to see the jewels of anguish that you produced along your path to the next contemporary masterpiece! Don’t undervalue the 99% of perspiration!

2) Actively look for the 1% of inspiration – It isn’t necessarily going to come to you through your computer screen. Go for a walk, write in a new atmosphere, read a book, take up a new hobby. Any new experiences you collect will fill up your toolbox when you settle in to your craft.

3) Easy does it – You have time. Don’t lose your friends (or your head) over a little writer’s block. You are in good company!

Idiom Key: writer’s block: lacking ideas/struggling to write; break through the wall: overcome struggle; keep your marbles: stay sane; give it a go: make an attempt; jewels of anguish: results of your struggles (which may or may not be good); “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Quote from Thomas Alva Edison, American inventor; come to you: you will think of it; take up: learn/practice; fill up your toolbox: give you more techniques and ideas; easy does it: don’t get too stressed about it; lose your head: get frustrated; in good company: many good people are experiencing the same thing as you

March 2014

MEET THE TEACHERS of COLLEGE WRITING 2X Teacher Feature #1: Kieran Ficken Where are you from?

I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvani a and lived there until I went to college. I moved to Vermont in 2009, and lived there for four years.

What are some of your hobbies?

I enjoy knitting (especially socks), as well as reading, cooking, and baking.

I also like camping and hiking, particularly in the fall.

What was your major at university and why did you choose it?

I majored in Environmental Studies.

As a child, I was always fascinated by the natural world and loved to be outdoors. Studying the environment as a natural extension of that. I also minored in Russian Language.

What brought you to Belarus?

After I finished my degree, I wanted to try something new. I had been teaching environmental classes at my university while I was still a student, and decided to give teaching abroad a chance. Because I had studied Russian before, the US Fulbright

Program placed me in Belarus.

Where will you go in the future?

In July, I am planning to move back to the US for at least a short period of time, perhaps back to Vermont, or to Philadelphia. I’m not sure where my next trip abroad will be.

What role does writing play in your life?

These days, I write for myself. Most of my writing is in my personal journal.

Teacher Feature #2: Katie Subra Where are you from?

I grew up in Southeastern Minnesota and spent my whole life in a handful of cities in Minnesota. I come from a small town of 5000 people called Byron, but I have also lived in Minneapolis, and most recently Wabasha (another small town on the Mississippi River.)

What are some of your hobbies?

I enjoy jogging, making crafts (usually collage, photography, and framing).

I also couldn’t live without music, cooking, and reading!

What was your major at University & why did you choose it?

Well, based on my hobbies as a young adult (reading, writing prose and poetry), I chose to major in English Literature and Cultural Studies as an undergraduate student. Later, I was volunteering to teach adult immigrants English and Civic skills, so I decided to go back for a Master’s in teaching ESL. What brought you to Belarus?

I didn’t have much chance to travel while in school and I wanted to teach abroad to improve my intercultural teaching skills, so I applied to the U.S. English Language Fellowship Program and was matched at MSLU.

Where will you go in the future?

I hope to teach abroad in more places, but also do more travelling abroad for leisure!

6) What role does writing play in your life? I do a lot of emailing, lesson planning, and academic research in my job. I also want to get back to writing prose.

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March 2014

Tourism Development Versus Heritage Preservation Written by Polina Burdyko The cultural heritage of every country, every city, every town is always under threat. Time, climate and sometimes even wars make the heritage very vulnerable. But these are not the only enemies of heritage. Nowadays one more enemy is sometimes defined: tourism.

Today tourism is one of the fastest-growing and developing industries in the world. About 600 million tourists a year now travel around the globe, and vast numbers of them want to visit the world's most treasured sites such as the Parthenon, the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge, the national parks of Kenya and so on.

Tourism means money. It can help to revive old forgotten customs, traditional arts and crafts. It can provide local population with new opportunities. As a result it’s not a surprise that every country, especially the poor ones, is trying to do everything in an attempt to attract a great number of both foreign and local tourists. Local people benefit from tourism development by finding work in this industry. For some it’s the main and the only source of income. Authorities try to build/create more and more facilities, recreational areas in order to find favour in the eyes of tourists, but at the same time they forget about local people, local nature, local cultural heritage. We can say that in some cases tourism is destructive, as it destroys the very things tourists come for.

In some countries their nature is their heritage, but they can’t preserve it because of the tourism development. Such a development has already caused great environmental damage: polluted beaches, air pollution, traffic jams, etc. For example, in Jamaica there used to be corals covering 50% of its surface area 30 years ago, now it is less than 2%. We can also remember that skiing nowadays is very popular among tourists in winter. As a result in the Alps hundreds of square kilometers of green forests have been destroyed in order to build ski pistes, cable cars, and access roads. Tourism development around the shores of Balaton in Hungary has turned it into a biologically dead lake. That’s why nowadays fishing is the activity, which is no longer available for tourists. And these are not the only examples.

Every country also has its ‘built heritage’ – architecture. And tourism can destroy it too. For example, today in our capital, Minsk, we are the witnesses of the building of new hotels, hostels etc., which on the one hand are necessary for tourist accommodation, but on the other they are being built in inappropriate places and they simply destroy the existing atmosphere and architectural ensembles. Unfortunately our officials are obsessed only with earning more money rather than architectural preservation. By the way, the buildings are being built in the shortest time; no wonder they are poorly planned, and the quality leaves much to be desired.

Tourism development must be carefully managed in order to avoid turning a peculiar tourist destination into another tourist town or city where ‘Coca-Cola culture’ (I mean ‘foreign culture’) dominates traditional lifestyle. It happens very often that this foreign culture changes traditional lifestyle of the locals beyond recognition.

To my mind, different traditional cultural events/festivals should be held at their proper time but not according to the time-tables of tourist agencies, otherwise they are not real, but pseudo, artificial events created just for tourists’ entertainment. With time these events will lose their uniqueness and cultural value for local people. But life of the locals mustn’t be changed in order to satisfy tourists’ interest.

Attention should also be paid to restoration. New modern materials are used during this process and it happens very often that everything looks attractive to some people, but to the others authenticity has been lost. I’d like to revise our famous castles such as Mir Castle, Nesvizh Castle, they were restored a few years ago, they look beautiful now, but I do not perceive them as ‘ancient heritage’, they are modern for me, the mysterious atmosphere has been lost.

I think every country/city/town should have (and I hope most of them already have) a plan of heritage preservation which: • regulates construction of new objects (infrastructure) in so-called cultural areas; • controls restoration process; • forbids destruction or alteration of existing monuments and places of interest; • decides what kind of tourism should be promoted in their area etc.

In the end I would like to say that tourism development mustn’t be versus heritage preservation. They should go hand in hand as partners, but not opponents or enemies. If tourism doesn’t help to preserve heritage, then such tourism is not necessary for the development of the country, but at the same time heritage preservation mustn’t make troubles for tourism on purpose. The tourists’ demands should be balanced with the necessities, needs of the locals, their culture and heritage, and they should improve their quality of life. There should be a golden middle in everything.

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March 2014

Role of the United Nation Organization in the Modern World Written by Tania Dabrynina The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization, established on 24 October 1945, which plays a significant role in today’s world politics.

They first established, the League of Nations, which was created following World War 2 to prevent another conflict.

At the beginning the UN had 51 members stated. The Republic of Belarus was one of the founding members.

The Headquarters of the UN resides in international territory in New York City, with main offices in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna. The organization is financed by, assessed and given voluntary contributions from its member states. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, promoting human rights, fostering social and economic development, protecting the environment, and providing humanitarian aid.

The system of the organization consists of the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, and the International Court of Justice. Many of UN’s institutions are located throughout the world.

The United Nations has six official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

There are also special agencies, research and training institutions, programs, funds and other UN entities. Nowadays, United Nations has 193 members including all undisputed independent states apart from Vatican City.

Such a variety of nationalities, languages and countries, that is united in one organization, gives us an opportunity to believe that we all live in the common world and it is possible to live in peace and understanding.

The main issues of the UN are peacekeeping and security that prove,which fill a significant role of diplomacy today.

The UN sends peacekeepers to regions where armed conflicts were recently ceased or paused to enforce the terms of peace agreements and to discourage combatants from resuming hostilities. Since the UN does not maintain its own military, peacekeeping forces are voluntarily provided by member states. In September 2013, the UN peacekeeping soldiers were deployed on 15 missions, among them the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which included 20, 688 uniformed personnel. UN peacekeepers with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization have been stationed in the Middle East since 1948, which was has been the longest active mission.

It is hard not to mention the importance of the international legislative process in which The UN has been involved:; with arms-limitation treaties, such as the Outer Space Treaty, the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Seabed Arms Control Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Ottawa Treaty, which prohibits landmines.

Today the situation in Syria, North Korea and Central African Republic shows the essentiality of such a unique organization as the United Nations. The organization that put strong contributions into the peacemaking of everyday life for the whole humanity. It’s hard to define the importance of UN’s work, but it is essential to remember the asset of those people who try to make our world live in peace and commonality.

Why Should Drugs and Prostitution Be Legalized?

Written by Kate Dorozhkina The society of today has many issues to battle. The debate not about the issues, it is about how to battle them. When looking at social problems the real discussions are hushed because of their taboo nature. I would like to shed more light on two hot issues – drugs and prostitution.

The world is probably tired of hearing about drugs. “Drugs are dangerous!” “Drug abuse must be stopped!” But it seems that no matter how much the world fights the drug plague, not only does not go away, it seems to augment. The reality is that the measures chosen are not feasible. A simple destruction of the drugs and punishing the drug dealers is a vicious circle and there seems to be no way out. But in the end, the question remains – how to deal with the drug related problems?

I think that we should look one of the countries that has been successfully dealing with drugs in its own way – the Netherlands. The government has legalized the light drugs such as marijuana, which can be bought in specialized stores.

Such a decision seems irrational – instead of fighting and banning, the country is engaging in indulgence. Moreover – does it work?

Surprisingly, it does. Such a decision is based on a simple psychology. There is something that is forbidden, i.e. people want it. So they try any way possible to get it, which in the case of drugs, becomes a serious criminal offense. But when something is available, of course in small dosages, it is no longer a “forbidden fruit”, so what is the point of trespassing a law? This is a simple kind of decision.

The same can be done with prostitution. Prostitution, as with drugs, is illegal. But the question is - why? It was banned because it was found immoral by the ruling parts of the society and was banned. But nothing just goes away, so it

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March 2014 stayed in the form of an illegal doing. The thing is, that because of its illegal state, prostitution can cause serious problems, like when young women are kidnapped or are held in a brothel by force - where any misbehaving action can result in severe corporal and psychological trauma and even in death.

Here comes the solution of legalizing prostitution, which is not a dirty and demeaning job, when looked at another angle. The legalization might contribute to freedom of women who were trapped in the business against their will. The moment the business stops being illegal, their “captors” can’t fear severe penalties for their previous actions. Then comes the medical sight – after being legalized, brothels may become “sexual centres”, with clean rooms and service. This will of course diminish the numbers of STD’s, because both of the sides – the women and their clients will have to have a medical examination as it’s done in Australia. There situated a legal brothel with high prices and obligatory medical check ups for both the women and their clients. Nice rooms and service of high level – why not? And no one is held by force or threats.

Moreover, the situation is viewed through respect. It really doesn’t matter what a person does, there will always be someone who will need this like lonely people or even cripples. In other words people, who find it difficult to a physical connection with someone.

Thus, instead of fighting and turning our heads away, we can embrace the problems and find solutions to them, and make the problems our strategy of winning. I think people should shake off their stereotypical opinions, and finally see the whole picture. Sometimes it’s not the fighting, but a cunning plan that helps to win the day.

Couchsurfing Written by Maxim Garny The best topic for writing is something that you are interested in or are fond of right now. And such a subject exactly for me is a kind of nontraditional way of travelling that is called couchsurfing.

The first time when I’ve heard about this service was in the capital of Ukraine Kiev about two years ago when I was travelling to Crimea with my friends. There was a stranger that just got acquainted with us in the street. We were a little bit tired of our travelling by that time and decided to spent some time together doing nothing. One of his stories was exactly about couchsurfing. This service seemed strange for me that day and I didn't pay any attention to it. Soon I forgot about this encounter and man's story at all.

But recently I've heard about it again. One girl, a friend of mine, told me some general information about this service.

And this time couchsurfing became interesting for me, I started looking for different information about this service on the internet. And have found several inspiring stories and even videos about how different people used this service and what was their opinion, emotions and general impression after such a trip.

So, what is couchsurfing?

Couchsurfing system provides its users with hospitality exchange by means of social network service. Its website provides a platform for members to "surf" on couches by staying as a guest at a host's home, host travelers, or join an event.

In common words to couchsurf means to practice moving from one friend's house to another, sleeping in whatever spare space is available, floor or couch, generally staying a few days before moving on to the next house.

If you want to become a couchsurfer and to join people who have already practiced this service you can just register yourself on the site and put some information about yourself for other people involved could learn something about you before you become their guest or host. By the way, the registration is free. Members are encouraged to provide information and photos of themselves and of the accommodation they offer, if any. By the way, you don’t have to provide other couchsurfers with your own accommodation if you just don’t want to or simply have no free space for this purpose. More information provided by a member improves the chances that someone will find him trustworthy enough to be his or her host or guest. Members looking for accommodation can search for hosts using several parameters such as age, location and gender.

Homestays are consensual between host and guest, and the duration, terms and other details of the guest's stay are generally worked out in advance. There is no monetary exchange between host and guest except sometimes for compensation some expenses (like food, for example). It is common practice for guests to seek non-monetary means to show their appreciation, such as bringing a gift, cooking a meal or teaching a skill.

And now there will be some figures!

Couchsurfing was founded in 2004. In January 2012 the website had 3.6 million members. In March 2013 there were over 6 million registered profiles at Couchsurfing. By that time Couchsurfing represented about 100 000 towns and cities worldwide. The largest amount of participants were in such countries as the United States, Germany, France, Canada and England. The city with the largest number of registered couchsurfers was Paris.

English was spoken by 71% of registered couchsurfers, French (18%), Spanish (17%) and German (15%).

The average age of participants was 28 years old.

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March 2014 Now Couchsurfing is the most popular free accommodation site.

What about me, I hope I'll have a good chance to try this service soon and enjoy all the pleasures, discovers and of course new pleasant acquaintances during this unforgettable journey! Just try to imagine how many bright moments can be added to your life if you decide to open new places, new cultures and new people for yourself by means of couchsurfing!

The Usage of the Internet Written by Anna Golovach The Internet is a global system of interconnected computers, which was invented un the early 1960s. They say, it was invented to make spies' work easier, but as time goes by the Internet has become one of the most important means of communication.

In Belarus the Internet appeared in the late 1990s. It was something new for people, but they'd use it for work mostly.

Also they used to send e-mails, but it was a rare thing to do. The reason was simple: the quality and the speed of the Internet were very low. Furthermore, almost nobody had a computer.

In the early 2000s people began to buy computers and provide themselves with the Internet. Then they both worked and chatted a lot. But it was not that simple, because in that time many social networks appeared. For instance, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, etc. I think exactly in the early 2000s people got addicted to the Internet, because it seemed to be interesting and comfortable: watching cats on YouTube, looking through some pictures and having a conversation in a chat at the same time! It really is, but not for long hours. Also do such activities make your life brighter and exciting?

With time such gadgets as cell-phones, TV-sets and even MP3-players become able to connect to the Internet, therefore people got used to it, and sometimes people can't even put techniques away and have a simple chat with people in the real life. The Internet consumes people's lives and minds, which is sad. This point is also about health. Spending hours in front of the computer may lead to different problems with eyesight and back, for instance. What is more, people have almost forgotten about their health and now instead of visiting professionals they try to diagnose themselves with help of the Internet. It may turn out an incurable disease for you. So be careful!

But on the other hand the Internet is quite a useful thing, it gives you so many opportunities to realize yourself and do things you enjoy. Obviously, I spend some time on-line. Even a lot. When I'm at home on my own I can't do anything without music (homework, cleanup, having a rest, working out), therefore I have to connect to the Internet.

One more reason of my usage of the Internet is studying. Large part of my university homework is sent out via e-mail.

In order not to miss the deadline I often check it and do the tasks on time. Recently I have become interested in informal education, which is also requires being on-line. To be honest, I thought I'm one of the few who do it, but I was surprised when I had found out that many people enrolled in MOOC courses. The process of studying is always accompanied with classical music, which makes me concentrate.

Unfortunately, some of my friends and relatives live abroad or have no enough time to meet; consequently I use Skype, Facebook and Vknontakte to keep in touch. In Facebook and Vkontakte I also try to find some enthralling events connected with my hobbies and major subjects.

It's a usual activity to have a rest after a hard working day. So thanks to the Internet you may watch movies at home with pauses, you may travel on-line or just vegetate and procrastinate. When you're tired it's a very useful thing to do, and I practise it sometimes.

I think IT-technologies will be improved with time and they will be intruding in casual life more and more. And my point is that YOU choose how the Internet will influence on you and your life. Due to Internet you may either post pictures in Instagram or sign some petitions, either refresh your profile waiting for a message on Facebook or take a strall with your friend, either watch pointless videos or lectures improving your skills. So what's YOUR choice?!

Interesting Facts about Taxes Written by Alina Grusha We are faced with taxes in our everyday life. Under the old English saying: "There is nothing more certain than death and taxes". How some economists think, the first taxes were a sacrifice to the gods. So taxes were burden for people since ancient times. I suggest you learn about the most interesting and sometimes ridiculous taxes that were ever going to Let’s start from the Roman Empire. Do you know that the idiom “Money has no smell� pronounced by the Roman emperor Titus Flavius Vespasian, is directly related to taxes? In search of additional state revenues (including building the Coliseum, which started the emperor) he introduced a tax on public toilets. When the son of the emperor blame father for introduction such "unseemly" tax, Vespasian raised it to his nose money that brought this tax and asked whether they smell.

The answer to this question was negative. It may be surprising but the tax was successful. Romans could not resist the

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March 2014 pleasure of using chic marble toilets, because there, as in the famous Roman baths, went not only on the direct need, but also for meetings and debates.

I want to move from the Roman Empire to Great Britain. Looking through the history of this country we can find a huge number of absurd taxes. For example, in 1784 The British government was worried about additional budget revenue. To this end Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger introduced a tax on man’s hats. The sellers of this type of headgear were forced to pay 2 pounds per year if they worked in the capital, and 5 shillings, if in other cities of the country. Also it can be said that the tax rate depended on the welfare of each individual citizen, so rich, who wore expensive hats, paying more. On hats attached special badges that showed the payment of tax. Taxes paid everyone - from producers to consumers, and for the tax evasion were charged huge doomages. Those who forged the hat print on the payment of tax were sentenced to death. The tax on men’s hats existed 27 years.

Another famous tax in Great Britain is tax on windows. This tax was introduced in the framework of the Act on good deeds and monetary deficit in 1696 under the rule King William III. When this tax was introduced, it consisted of two parts.

First part is a flat rate of 2 shillings per house. The second is unfixed tax for the number of windows in the house higher than 10. Very rich family in this case could differ from moderately wealthy that could afford to have a home with the greatest possible number of windows. You can indentify rich families by the number of windows in those days. The tax was raised six times from 1747 to 1808. It was easy to collect the tax as you can see all the windows from the street. One of the consequences was building house with fewer windows or even without it. It negatively affected on the glass industry. The production of glass in Great Britain stuck to the same level as 50 years before. One is set wondering that this tax existed until 1851. If you look more deeply in the Great Britain’s history you will much more examples of unusual taxes.

You will be wrong if you think that unusual taxes don’t exist nowadays. One of my favorite is tax on cow farts which is collected in Estonia since 2008. This collection is the part of system of ecological taxation. Nowadays environmental issues are the most important problems facing the world. Estonia isn’t industrial country but this fact doesn’t prevent fight with the greenhouse effect. Currently, cows are the main source of methane - the gas whose effect is significantly superior to the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide.

Te United State of America also has its own list of unusual taxes. For example residents of Arkansas should think twice if they want have a tattoo or piercing. They need to pay a 6 percent tax besides this kind of services. Authorities decided to fight with unprofessional drawing on the body, which can be the cause of such dangerous diseases as HIV, hepatitis or tuberculosis.

There is exists a long list of unusual taxes in the world. I try to describe only some of them. But every strange tax has its own reason. I hope that I show you the other side of the tax and now for you it isn’t the most boring thing in the world.

Go Digital: Traditional Photography vs. Digital Written by Darya Hrusha “Do you know a person who does not own a camera?” This question will definitely make a person you asked it puzzled. If a couple decades ago a camera was a real treasure and was not available to anyone, nowadays in the era of advanced technologies cameras have not just become a common belonging, they have become an essential part of our lives being built in mobile phones, mp3 players, tablets, computers and other devices. Although traditional cameras have lost their popularity professional photographers and amateurs still use them. The paradox is: why to use films when a digital photograph has so much more to offer.

First and foremost, using digital cameras can save you a lot of time. You don’t need to worry of how many shots you have left or spend time going to a store to buy a new film and then to go to a photo studio to have the photos done. Digital photographs though don’t need that much attention, you just take pictures and then transfer them to your computer and can share them with others right away.

Moreover, how many times have you picked up your photographs from a photo studio and discovered that they are spoiled? Unfortunately, it’s impossible to back up a single moment of our life and even if it repeats later everything will still go the other way. Having the opportunity to look through the taken photographs makes it possible not to lose the precious moments of your life. What is more you can edit the pictures right away, when they are still on your camera. Being able to work with Photoshop or any other photo editors opens a number of opportunities in front of you. You can even make a digital photograph look like the one made with a traditional camera.

Finally, a digital photograph is an integral part of a modern high-paced world. With the help of a photo you can share with the other people your emotions, important events of your life, or just small but cute everyday trifles. After all you can disclose yourself in a new way. Moreover, with the development of new technologies it became possible to communicate and make new friends via different kind of application. Just think about it: in December 2010 there were 1 million of registered

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March 2014 users of Instagram. Yet at the end of February this number grew up to 100 million of active users that uploaded more than 16 billion photos.

I’m convinced that the future belongs to digital photography because it saves your time, gives you an instant result and this is a new language for communication. Just make a step forward and you will enter the world full of wonders.

Features of Art Nouveau Architecture in Belarus Written by Olga Ilyina Art Nouveau is famous all around the world. The style was most popular in Europe during 1890-1910, but its influence was global. This is an international style of architecture, sculpture, applied arts and fine arts with common aesthetics, which promotes innovation in arts and consists of the slogan “back to nature”. Surely, in different countries style has local features and as a result, has different names, which are associated with the characteristics of its forms, its practitioners and their works, and schools of thought or study where it was popular. Thus, English uses the French name Art Nouveau (“new art”), Germans use the title Jugendstil after a magazine in Munich which popularized this style, Russians and Belorussians used name Modern, Spanish Modernisme, Austro-Hungarians Secession, and Italians named the style Lyberty.

How can the international style Art Nouveau have common features in all countries? The most famous of them are using as inspiration nature in all its fertility; using bent, wavy lines and asymmetry in the composition; using modern materials as iron, ferroconcrete, stained glass; coherence sculpture, painting, applied arts in architecture. Also in architecture and applied arts, there is a heightened appreciation of the role of ornament, but ornament that was novel in its formal character and was not merely applied to, but integrated with structure.

In architecture, the form of art includes all kinds of arts, most glaringly expressed all international and local features of this style. It wants the viewer to pay attention.

As was mentioned earlier, Art Nouveau architecture has several local forms in different countries. Style received national lines in Western and Eastern Europe. Architecture Antony Gaudi in Spain is a very famous example of the national style in Art Nouveau. His buildings have such a personal style, that he is sometimes considered as practicing an artist style different from Art Nouveau. Another sample is Charles Rennie Makintosh. His chairs with straight lines scarcely approach common features of this style. In Russia known Art Nouveau author is F. Sсhechtel, who uncommonly uses forms of Old Russian architecture in modern buildings in the early 20th century. Local features brought Art Nouveau to smaller countries too, such as Belarus. However, they were influenced by larger states nearby.

On the development of Art Nouveau in Belarus, Russian architecture had the most impact. The reasons for this must be sought in history. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the state was part of the Russian Empire. In Russia, Art Nouveau is known as Modern (Модерн) perhaps named after Parisian gallery “La Maison Moderne”. Researcher of Russian Art Nouveau I. A. Azizyan in his book “Dialogue Arts Silver Age” wrote that early Russian Art Nouveau passes steps of assimilation and recycling principles and motives of European gothic and Old Russian art. Russian architects, such as F. Sсhechtel (Ф.О. Шехтель), A. Shchusev (А. В. Щусев) and others, tried to harmonize modern architecture with national motives. However they were well - acquainted with European trends, for example, with creation Joseph Maria Olbrich, Charles Rennie Machintosh and others. Clearly, Russian architects were inspired by the Vienna Secession School, but they were looking for a new tone of national architecture. This was expressed in so called Neo-Russian style (Russian Revival architecture). Naturally, Russian examples of Modern architecture affected Belorussian style.

In Belarus we have some colorful local examples Art Nouveau. Its characterized from European samples strongly enough. Common is that better part houses Art Nouveau built in large cities. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Belarus it was Minsk, Mogilev, Grodno, Vitebsk. Here preserved best monuments to architecture Art Nouveau. For example, in Mogilev is a Museum named Maslennikov; in Vitebsk is the Land Peasant Bank on Dovatova Bauman street; in Minsk are houses on Internacionalnaya street near movie theatre “Victory” and on the Kiseleva Street and others.

The house opposite the factory “Olivariya” on the Kiseleva, 28 Street, is an ordinary building with one unusual detail. This is a window in Art Nouveau style. Curiously, that only window is of Art Nouveau, but the house looks like a usual box. This window has interesting form with curved lines, characteristic for Art Nouveau. It is not so colorful example for European architecture, but very memorable for Belarus. Frequently buildings Art Nouveau in Belarus, in contrast to European monuments, had only details of Art Nouveau style such as windows, mosaics on the facade and others. In Europe in Art Nouveau buildings all details were made in single style.

A More coherent looking building in a Neo-Russian (or Modern) style is the Museum named Maslennikov. Here they used typical Art Nouveau architecture techniques such as mosaics, stained-glass windows, sculptural elements on the facade and asymmetry in the composition of the house. The influence of painting also was dominant in architecture color and texture. Stained-glass windows, majolica and other details – play an important role in area architecture. Features at this building also are at Land Peasant Bank in Vitebsk. These are towers, a rustic base house, complex window frames, floral ornaments and others. These elements remind us of Old Russian style and told us about the influence of Russian architecture

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March 2014 this time. It can be seen also if we compare these buildings with Yaroslavsky station in Moscow, Mansion Sharonova in Taganrog and other Sсhechtel`s buildings in Neo-Russian style.

Art Nouveau style in Belarus developed under the influence of Russian architecture and obtained unusual, not typical for Europe sound. Because architecture is a live form, it changed depending on historical conditions, cultural development and other effects. Art Nouveau Style has its own unrepeatable features in Spain, England, Germany and other countries. It is difficult to compare famous buildings of Art Nouveau style in Europe with Belorussian samples. Each house matches its environment and culture.

The Internet: Connecting People or Making Them Estranged?

Written by Elena Karpenko It took seven decades for the number of North American families who have a telephone to increase from 1 to 75 percent.

It took about seven years for the Internet to reach the same indicators. Initiated first as a reliable data transmission system for military purposes, the global network became a means of communication and receiving information for millions of people all over the world. People can now contact each other anywhere and anytime, maintain relationships with friends, make a large amount of new ones, or even start a virtual love affair. Social networks, forums, and subject-related sites allow an individual to freely engage in the discussion of issues and news regardless of his demographic and social characteristics. But the more intensively the Internet spans the globe, the more obvious the contradictory nature of the global network becomes. The problem is the following: being a means of connecting people, the Internet at the same time leads to their estrangement from each other and from the real relationships.

First, communication via the computer cannot be called full-fledged. It lacks the nuances peculiar to personal communication, in which eye contact is combined with a non-verbal way of expressing emotions. Intonation helps to understand whether a person says something seriously, or maybe he is joking or just teasing his interlocutor. Electronic messages can not convey a full range of human emotions and feelings, nor can they convey gestures, facial expressions, and voice modulation. Thus misunderstandings and inappropriate reactions occur. Although emoticons were designed to alleviate this problem and make communication more lively, a set of characters will never replace a real smile.

Second, spending much time in the virtual world, people waste the time intended for personal communication, and the number of their contacts in the real world reduces. The researchers from Carnegie Mellon University studied the new Internet users for two years and ascertained increased feelings of loneliness and depression along with a decreased number of social contacts. Ethan Kross, an expert from the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, conducted an experiment involving 82 volunteers who had smartphones and profiles in Facebook. The volunteers received control questions several times a day. The results confirmed that the more time people spent surfing the Internet, the more anxious and lonely they felt.

Dozens of virtual friends, numerous profiles in social networks, and membership in various groups create the illusion of active involvement in a social life. In fact, all these artificial networks pull a person from the real world. Frenetic Internet activity not only fails to weaken the feeling of loneliness, but also leads to its strengthening. Besides, devoting much time to the global network, a person can lose some skills of face-to-face interaction which makes it difficult for him to establish new and maintain existing contacts with others.

Finally, due to the complete freedom of expression in the Internet, its active users can feign personalities they are not by creating a fictional, embellished image, often far from reality. Starting a conversation with each other, Internet-users speak to the “ideal self” that their interlocutor constructs, not to the “real” one. In this sense the Internet is like a theater, where the characters hide their faces behind masks, and it is hard to figure out who they really are. Real individuals become estranged again: it is not they who communicate, but their “projections”.

To sum up, the Internet enables a person to engage in a network with a large number of contacts, but this network will never be as lively and emotionally rich as the real communication is. If a person is too immersed in the World Wide Web, he falls out from the real connections and relationships. Therefore, it is important for active Internet users to remember that cyberspace should improve people’s lives, not replace them.

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March 2014

Informal Education Written by Diana Nadvikova Informal education can soon substitute formal one. It’s an arguable point but informal education is becoming more and more popular nowadays.

Firstly, let’s define the term ‘informal (alternative) education’ which is rather broad. Generally it means getting useful knowledge and skills outside of a standard school setting.

There are different types of informal education. Some examples of them are self-learning, homeschooling, youth work and studying in alternative or non-educational centers. Informal education can be obtained through different means. Mass media, clubs in community-based organizations, museums, libraries and other cultural institutions, online resources or even simply books, magazines, communication with a knowledgeable person can be the means of alternative education.

The education system in Belarus can also be divided to formal and informal. The formal education is mostly governmental and includes studying in secondary schools (which is obligatory), colleges and universities. Informal education can be obtained in alternative educational centers, which offer many kinds of courses in different fields, centers of extracurricular activities, cultural and sport centers, libraries (which often organize open studying clubs along with providing literature). Nowadays studying online becomes more popular in our country. Taking online courses provided by famous universities and education organizations one can not only obtain certain knowledge, but also get a diploma by fulfilling certain requirements.

Considering the great development of the information resources one can assume that informal education is a notion of a modern world. In fact, it’s the most ancient type of education. A primitive version of it appeared when two people could share their skills and knowledge with each other not even using their speech. Definitely today’s variety of technologies and information resources made informal education easier and more widespread.

Informal education has numerous advantages in comparison with formal one. Firstly, it’s more accessible to wider categories of people all over the world, because usually to be involved in the education process you just need a book, access to the Internet, or just another person. As a rule, the access to informal education doesn’t depend on your age, career status, profession, previous education. Secondly, informal education is more flexible and can be adjusted easily to personal needs as it’s not stick to a certain curriculum. Moreover, usually it’s more interesting and exciting and therefore it’s easier for comprehension and memorizing. Many people often consider informal education as leisure time in comparison with often boring formal education. The information material, which is used for informal education is more vivid. It’s easier to implement new methods and technologies in the sphere of informal education as there’s no need to get official authorization to use them. So informal education can be especially useful for graduated specialists who want to get additional or updated knowledge in the main or adjacent field.

On the other hand, informal education isn’t much valued by employers and the government because it doesn’t prove that you’ve obtained a certain set of standardized knowledge and skills. In modern society the value of a diploma and standard education program is still high.

There is also an important psychological aspect in discussing pluses and minuses of informal education. While for some people it’s easier, more convenient and pleasant to study in informal way, others more likely to get better results with formal education. Usually for dealing well with informal education a person should be well-organized, able to make plans and fulfill tasks in time, because this form of education often requires controlling and assessing yourself. So while some people like to study by their free will, others need to be pushed and for the latter formal education is more suitable.

Another psychological aspect of informal education is that it often gives the chance to find your strength and weaknesses, define your real interest and find your true-life occupation. There are many examples when people after taking some courses or attending some social or cultural clubs decided to change their occupation and got employed in the sphere where they got this type of informal education (which at first they thought was just a hobby for them). Some people started a new successful business only after reading a book, getting ideas from another person or going to a trip (which are all means of informal education).

Besides the psychological aspect we can see a social and economic aspect of informal education. Informal education is a good way for educating the society and making workforce more valuable. It could also help to deal with many social problems such as unemployment and illiteracy. The majority of informal education sources are free of charge or at least affordable for low-income people as they’re funded by the government, non-profit organizations or private sponsors.

Nevertheless informal education is becoming popular and it has a great potential to develop. In my opinion, in the future the proportion of informal education can be larger than of formal one. It still can’t be a substitution to formal one but it’s a perfect addition to it. Informal education proves to be rather effective and it’s an irreplaceable means of becoming a good specialist and comprehensively developed person.

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March 2014

Veterinary Medicine in Belarus: Development, Integration and International Safety Written by Alexandra Popruzhenko As a result of my experience, I have come to the contradiction: internationally, veterinary science serves one of the effective tools to monitor the situation of the spreading of infectious diseases among animals and humans by providing food safety and prevention of zoonoses and epidemics. Yet, in developing countries like Belarus, practical veterinary care is mainly about serving agriculture with the emphasis on its profitability as an economic sector.

One of the reasons that veterinary medicine and agriculture in Belarus are failing to succeed is the encouraged belief in the infectious well-being, which to me seems to be the consequence of veterinary science being limited to addressing exclusively animal science issues (zootechnical). As a student of the Academy of Veterinary Science and then as a professional, I could see these limitations being imposed on study programs and research fields; they also steer state standards and regulations that are being adopted. Consequently, the vast number of veterinary doctors employed in agriculture is responsible for sustaining the sector through optimization of animal keeping and feeding conditions, mechanization of cultivation and harvesting, monitoring of dairy and meat products production. Perhaps, such approach could make sense in terms of reaching the short-term goal of promoting the image of a dairy and meat country among other post-Soviet states. However, this approach fails to timely address the issues of diagnosis of animal disease, it blocks the development of effective anti-epizootic measures, and makes adherence to the international quality standards impossible.

Professional experience that every veterinarian has been through reconstructs this failure’s roadmap and helps to figure out what the underlying reasons are. As the Head of biochemical and zootechnical control department in the state veterinary laboratory, I was exposed to the recurrent circle of development and implementation of new versions of protocols on fodder, storage and feeding. Compliance with this management, control and reporting requirements consume significant financial and human resources, but the sector efficiency remains low: biochemical analysis reveals disturbed health resources and the productive status of animals is low as well. When taking my postgraduate course “Physician pathologist�, I participated in diagnosis of cases of high mortality of animals and learnt the patterns of antiepizootic work. I came to think that probably a zootechnical approach is strongly preferred in Belarus as there is no developed structure of antiepizootic work that would be relevant to modern knowledge about molecular, genetic and immuno-pathological processes in animals and humans, and could meet the standards of zoonoses prevention. It becomes obviously that the problem arises from issues of infection prevention and zoonozes safety being unattended because of the limitations of existing zootechnical methods of animal treatment.

As a part of the veterinarian structures that was described above I am convinced that the present system of agriculture and veterinary medicine in Belarus needs to introduce changes. I believe there is up-to-date knowledge and effective methods that could help to determine specific changes and their priority. The possibilities to improve product quality and efficiency of antiepizootic activity by connecting concepts of infectious status of the basic issue (animal health) and the product (humans health) more systematically and deeper on specific biological and immune levels should be obviously widen. Leading position of veterinary sector in agriculture system, which bears a significant administrative potential to some veterinarian, should be definitely used to develop the idea of integration between human and animal welfare to narrowing the gap between veterinary and human medicine in Belarus and Europe.

Thank you to all of the students/writers who contributed as well as to the wonderful librarians in the Foreign Literature Department of the Pushkin Library!

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT OUR SESSIONS, Email Katie Subra: subr0054@umn.edu

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