International Students Testimonials

Li Chan, Vietnam

National Research Tomsk State University

At home, I've never been so happy in Russia

The most important thing in Tomsk for me is that my Russian friends live here, a lot of dear Tomsk citizens. F.M. Dostoevsky said: "Happiness isn’t in happiness itself but in the way to it." In my opinion, happiness is time with your friends, your relationships, and the ability to share your memories with them.

My friend Julia is Orthodox, and sometimes I accompanied her to the church. There for the first time I saw praying people, and though I still can’t understand the whole meaning, I felt that it strongly affects the usual life of Russians, their souls, and their life attitude.

We often had tea together and talked of life, studies, etc. My friend is very kind, thoughtful, and cute; she helped me with packing before my leave. She always sat beside me when I couldn’t sleep at night, spoke to me, and corrected my mistakes in spelling. I think that I really care about that girl, as she has so many good qualities, and I feast my eyes on her. Obviously I have a lot of good friends, but I don’t want to speak about all of them here.

I love Tomsk. I admire the attitude of Tomsk inhabitants towards life. In my country people aim at material wealth, the pace of life is very high, everyone cares only about their own job, studies, relationships, and forget about one thing – joy. But in Tomsk people are joyful. I mean that here one can live the way he or she wants to. And, of course, my best friend is TSU, because here I received a lot of knowledge and became friends with my tutors and Tomsk students.

And Tomsk State University taught me never to surrender to difficulties, never to give up. For example, on the New Year’s Eve I ran across the streets, shouting "Happy New Year!" I ate some Siberian pancakes and enjoyed the fireworks. I was really amazed – I’ve never felt such happiness in my country.