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News & Record (NC)
Posted on September 29, 1999

By   Michelle Cater, Staff Writer

WENTWORTH -- Twenty students at Rockingham County High School glimpsed into life in Russia last week as three Russian visitors answered questions and asked a few of their own.

Leo Sobolev, Alex Roshenko and Slava Zverkov were visiting the United States through the Russian Leadership Program. The program, created by Librarian of Congress James Billington and funded by Congress, was designed to bring Russian politicians to the United States to examine our daily life and government.

Roshenko, 33, simply described himself as a bureaucrat. Zverkov is a member of his republic's General Assembly. Sobolev, a college senior who attended a year of high school near Atlanta, Ga., served as their translator.

As part of the program, the United Methodist Church was asked to be the host of about a third of the 3,000 politicians staying in the United States. Michael Jordan, the pastor of Woodmont United Methodist Church in Reidsville, volunteered to care for some of the visitors, bringing Sobolev, Roshenko and Zverkov to Rockingham County. Roshenko stayed in Jordan's home, while Sobolev and Zverkov stayed at the home of a local doctor.

Roshenko arrived Sept. 16 in Greensboro. The others arrived the next day. All three men left Saturday. Other than a brief layover on their flights and a day trip to Washington, the men spent all of their time in North Carolina. They said they were not told what state they would visit until after they left Russia. The three Russians chatted with the members of the RCHS Future Business Leaders of America club, whose adviser attends Woodmont United Methodist. They discussed Russian life after the collapse of the Soviet Union and compared it with what they had seen of American life.

Zverkov said life seemed slower in North Carolina than in Russia. He said he thought it was because people, farmers in particular, didn't have to work as hard and fast to get the crops in before winter.

"In Russia the weather is a lot more unpredictable," he said to the students gathered in the high school's media center.

Roshenko said he enjoyed touring such a prosperous country. He compared the economy in Russia with that of the United States during the Great Depression. When a student asked if the men hoped they would become rich, Sobolev answered for them with a laugh: "They are rich."

The Russians asked the students what was their biggest fear growing up in America. One student spoke up with "Y2K."

Y2K was does not seem to concern the Russians, however.

"Nobody expects anything to happen. Why should anything happen? Our computer programmers are good," Sobolev said, joking. He is studying math and computer science.

Teenagers in the two countries seem to have much in common. Roshenko said he has a 10-year-old son who likes to talk on the phone. The visiting men said teenagers in Russia like to go to clubs and listen to music and hang out with their friends. Computers and the Internet are also popular.

"Basically, everything American teenagers like to do," Zverkov said.

The Russians asked what American teenagers considered to be successful and why success was important to them.

"Because the more successful you are the better things you can afford, at least if you're successful financially," student Cole Perkinson said.

The Russians then asked Cole if he needed to be rich to be successful. He said it wasn't necessary, but "it seems like it's a lot easier to be happy if you're rich."

As the conversation started to die down, one student asked the Russians if the trip met their expectations. Zverkov said that before the trip, most of what they knew about the United States was seen through movies, news and TV.

"This is a trip that's supposed to show us the real America -- what people think, what they do -- and it did," he said.

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