Journey to the Colder Side of the Earth: Basketball and Politics

Hello again!

Once more we have had a bit of a gap between posts here. The semester has continued and the busyness and fatigue of it all has gotten the best of us in terms of blog posting frequency. Right now we are enjoying a four day weekend for Defenders of the Fatherland Day which we are very glad for. This year has definitely been more taxing and we have both been feeling a bit drained as of late, so it has been good to get some rest and recharge a bit.

The title of this post may seem a bit odd, but it focuses on the two things that I want to cover in this blog post. I'll save the fun of IA's recent basketball tournament for last and begin with Russia's interesting political situation. As you may or may not have known, March 4th is the presidential election in Russia. As you also may know, there have been widespread protests and political frustration since the parliamentary elections in December owing to the widespread fraud that seems to have occurred. The large-scale demonstrations that have taken place throughout Russia are the largest protests since the fall of the Soviet Union and are symptomatic of more than just political frustration. Increasingly younger Russians and the emerging middle class feel a sense of frustration at a country that is increasingly perceived as offering no real opportunities for the future owing to systemic corruption and the Kremlin's program of "managed democracy."

We don't usually focus on political events here, but this is definitely something that we would appreciate your prayers about. It is a strange feeling to compare the political situation here in Russia with what is going on in the United States. While the U.S. has been experiencing a very public presidential campaign for over a year now, in Russia there is barely any signs that a major election will take place in less than two weeks. Largely in response to the negative public reaction to the December elections, the ruling powers have run a very low key campaign. You could be forgiven for living in St. Petersburg and not realizing that there is an imminent election.While it seems almost certain that Putin will win the presidential election, it is not at all certain what the reaction to this possibility will be or what the future holds for Russia. These are interesting times to be a foreigner living in Russia. We pray that meaningful changes would take place in Russia and that the clouds of fatalism that have covered this country for so long would begin to break.

Shifting gears to the other topic of this post, IA hosted a basketball tournament featuring its varsity and junior varsity teams these past two days. We invited our friends and chief rivals from Hinkson Christian Academy in Moscow to come up and play us and we also invited a few Russian schools to join in. Last month was a momentous event in the history of IA basketball as we defeated Hinkson for the first time in school history at the Anglo-American basketball tournament in Moscow. Our team proved that the hard fought victory in Moscow was no fluke as we beat Hinkson for a second time with a score of 67 to 48! It was an exciting game to watch and we were very proud of our students for playing so well. Hinkson was able to exact some revenge on us in the junior varsity tournament, handily defeating our j.v. squad. Our team played hard and never gave up, even though they were playing against a more experienced and physically larger team. It's always fun to watch our students play and to be able to cheer them on.

IA's year of transition (if there is ever such a thing as a normal year for an international Christians school) continues as well, with our interim headmaster and his wife leaving after finishing their time with us. We have a short window of time before Mrs. Plaster returns to finish out the year and before our new headmaster for next year comes. We greatly appreciate your prayers for our school during this time of changing roles as our school grows and adapts to new challenges and situations. Next year is shaping up to be interesting as well with more changes on the horizon, but I'll set that aside for a later blog post.

Here are some photos from the basketball games for your enjoyment: