2020 - Holmiensis 2

NATIONEN
ANYTHING FOR SWEDEN
AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON “THE BEST
COUNTRY IN THE WORLD”
By: Kseniya Kalaur
- I will leave Europe either in a coffin or in January
2021, I literally screamed to the phone when someone
from my “home” university asked me to immediately
go back to the States in the beginning of March.
To begin with, University of Rochester is not my
“home”. Despite most of my friends thinking that I’m
American, I don’t even have a green card. My parents
live in Belarus, which is a one-hour flight from
Stockholm and a twelve-hours flight from New York
City (not counting a day or two of layovers). Going to
the US seemed irrational. Or, I simply wanted to stay
in Sweden. That’s it.
”TURNED OUT, SWEDISH PEOPLE ARE
NOT AS EVIL AS WE WERE TOLD THEY
ARE.”
Kseniya Kalaur.
In March 2019, I landed in Stockholm the first time
in my life. Needless to say, I was desperately in love
with Sweden already when I saw a huge SAS airbus
in a not-super-attractive-and-comfortable Chicago
O’Hare airport. To be honest, I was in love with
Sweden long before that. Why? Because winter
sports and Melodifestivalen. That day, on March 6th,
I was leaving Rochester to go to skidskytte-VM in
Östersund. Stockholm didn’t make a huge impression
on me maybe because our introduction happened
when I was dead after ten hours flight or maybe
because I’m generally not a huge fan of big cities since
they all look the same to me.
My life changed after I came to Jämtland. It was
the first time watching my favorite sports live. And
all that was happening because the organizing
committee needed a Russian-English translator, so I
came not to watch, but to work.
After two weeks, I came to Rochester, knocked on
the education abroad office door and said that I was
going to study in Sweden Spring’20.
- But nobody studies abroad sophomore year, wait for
the junior.
I cried my entire Arlanda-Newark flight and I was
determined they would let me apply. I didn’t have to
argue for long. They let me apply and I was accepted
to Uppsala.
I have no idea what it means to “study abroad”. I
left my family when I was seventeen. I’ve lived in
China, Russia, the US before I came to Sweden. I
never understood a division between international
and national students. Probably because I get on
well with everyone without any necessity to ask,
“where are you from?” What I appreciate about
Uppsala is that students are independent. In the US,
for example, the adults govern everything including
student organizations, sports teams, et cetera. That
automatically means that every student “owes”
something to the school, and one is never able to do
what they want. Back in the States even when fighting
for some sort of flexibility, I always had to do what
my school wanted me to do. In Rochester, we also
have a huge campus with all the facilities combined
together in a small area. That means people are
everywhere and one has no chance to be alone even
for an hour.
In Uppsala I can finally be left alone. I don’t have to
spend twenty-four hours a day with my classmates/
workmates. In addition, the range of activities I can
select from is so huge that I can learn new skills and
get better in previously accomplished skills every
single day. I joined Stockholms nation during my first
week and after Sthlmsveckan I asked Rochester to let
me stay one more semester. They sent me the
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