My name is Alina Selyukh. I am a junior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, majoring in broadcasting, news-editorial and political science.
It is my fourth year on the American soil; originally I am from Samara, Russia, a home of about 1.5 million people. My entire family as well as hundreds of other people I care about are scattered all over Russia, Ukraine and Asia. I visit them as often as I can (whenever a $1,200 for a round-trip ticket comes around), but mostly spend my time following Russian news, answering questions like “How do you get to Nebraska from Russia?” (“umm, by plane usually…” or “I like corn”) and advancing my journalistic skills on the other side of the globe.
In Samara, I have reported for Rio-TV’s daily evening news for four years in high school and freelanced for numerous local newspapers. In Lincoln, I have interned for a semester for NET TV, Nebraska PBS station, and been involved with the Daily Nebraskan, an independent student newspaper. I started with the DN almost two years ago as a news reporter, later becoming a beat reporter and now working as an assignment editor in the news section. I spent the summer of 2008 in Moscow, interning at CNN’s bureau, living in my sister’s kitchen and observing the life in one of the (hands down) strangest cities of the world.
I am now part of News Net Nebraska, an on-line publication of the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. That’s how I ended up here, where I will try to unveil the other side (the everyday side, the one less familiar, less reported to Americans) of Russia, the country on the other side of the world, (often) the other side of the playing field, and the other side…just in general.
P.S.
So, how did I get to Nebraska? I was an exchange student in high school, went to Lincoln High for a year and took some classes at UNL as a visiting student. Then went back home and threw an idea of coming back for college at my parents. My beloved host-family came to visit me in Russia that August. Let’s say, “the adults” had a few long conversations, and a year later I was enrolled in my first 17 credits at UNL.
Although, I do normally come by plane. And I do love corn.
