I lived in Russia for 22 years. On this picture you can see me with a girl I was teaching Greek while I lived in Russia. I visited her recently and that’s when this picture was taken.
I started working as a teacher for the Greeks that lived in Abkhazia, not only the children at the school, because they had arranged to go to various schools around the area, in villages where many Greeks lived, so they could start learning the Greek language. Except from the fact that I was working in two villages at the schools, I gave classes to elder students, or parents that were leaving to go to Greece, and I was getting them ready to go. I have many students like that here, who really respect me, and love me, and I have pictures of some women that were among my best students.
I was teaching evening classes in two groups: I had a beginners’ group and an advanced group. This girl was attending both groups to learn faster and indeed she became one of the best students. Last summer when I went with some friends to Aggelochori, which is where she lived, I told them, ‘Guys we should go and visit an acquaintance of mine.’ We went and we met her and I said to her, how did you learn Greek so well, and she said that she learned the basics thanks to me.
