International Relations Course and Russian Ambassador at IRIM

Yesterday I attended my first class as a student at the Institute of International Relations of Moldova (IRIM) where I’m teaching the negotiations course. The professor that asked me and Chris to teach that course gave me information about courses related to my interests that are taught in Russian. The office assistant gave me one piece of paper that had the professor’s name but no hint of the course subject and listed the times the course meets but not the room number. The other piece of paper was for another professor’s courses and listed what I think are the titles of specific lectures and the times and dates when those lectures will be held. The dates and the corresponding days of the week listed, however, do not match up so I think I have to do some more investigating before I can check those out.

At any rate, the course I went to yesterday was “The History of International Relations.” From the information I received, this course was meant to be held from 5:10-6:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays. In reality, however, the lecture lasted until 8:00. There were only 5 of us in the class so it felt very seminar-like except for that there wasn’t any discussion. Part of this might have been because the professor was trying to catch me up on the material that they had already covered. It’s possible that this bored the other students. The guy next to me was blatantly texting the entire time. Not even under the table. Anyway, the professor talked, without notes, for the entire time. The lecture focused on the end of WWI and the Genoa Conference of 1922 but the professor went off on several tangents as well. It was a bit difficult for me to understand everything he was saying but I tried especially hard to take it all in when he was talking about the United States just in case he might ask my opinion on something or give me a reason to feel like I needed to defend my country. He was very positive about the US, however, so that wasn’t a problem.

I think the most interesting topic that came up was the fact that so many Germans went to work in factories in the Soviet Union after WWI. The Germans weren’t allowed to build tanks or do any kind of war-related work in their country and were under strict monitoring from the French. The Soviet Union needed help with its goal of rapid industrialization. So, the two countries helped each other out. Skills that were important for war preparation did not atrophy during this time among the Germans who helped the Soviets by working alongside them. There were a lot of Americans working in the factories as well because of the Great Depression. I remember reading a really interesting book written by a US citizen who worked in one of those factories but can’t think of the name of it now.

I really liked the professor of this course and he is clearly a fountain of knowledge. He was an engaging speaker as well. He told me that the Russian ambassador to Moldova would be speaking at the school the next day and that I could attend the lecture. I thought that sounded like a cool opportunity, so I went. I sat in the back which was unfortunate because there was a lot of noise outside the door and it was hard to hear at times, but I could get the gist of what he was talking about most of the time. Most of the topics you would expect to come up, including the Russia-US missile defense system clash, the situation in Transnistria, the price of gas, the European integration of Moldova, and the political instability in Moldova that is annoying the Russian government as much as everyone else. I saw some students from my negotiations course at the lecture so I’ll ask them what they thought was most interesting tomorrow.