ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 8, 1996 TAG: 9605080035
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: JOANNE POINDEXTER STAFF WRITER
SEVENTH-GRADERS at Bedford Middle School soon will be writing letters to students in classes taught by Ruslan Tataritsev's wife in Samara, Russia.
Ruslan Tataritsev doesn't like ice in his soft drinks.
He doesn't own a car or even drive. He has a chauffeur.
He's not rich, but he and his schoolteacher wife do well in Samara, Russia, he told seventh-graders at Bedford Middle School during a recent interview.
He owns an information agency, lives in an apartment, is extremely proud of his 3-month-old son, doesn't fancy fast food, and is concerned that the Communists might regain control of his country in elections next month. His favorite thing about America: "When we come back to our house, we remove our footwear. You do not remove it here."
Tataritsev, 25, told the students many things in his country are "similar to you."
People in Samara wear about the same clothes - Calvin Klein, Reebok, Nike and Puma - that people in the United States wear. Also, teens like to listen to music and go to the movies.
There are McDonald's restaurants, and "everybody in the world knows Michael Jackson," Tataritsev told the 80 students who are participating in the "Lest We Forget" project this school year. The students are compiling oral histories of Bedford County veterans or their survivors.
Nancy Henry, one of the seventh-grade teachers, thought the histories would preserve the veterans' stories. She also thought the project was appropriate, because Bedford County will be the site of the National D-Day Memorial and the school was featured in a video promoting the memorial.
As part of their project, students have studied World War II and interviewed the veterans. Each student came up with 20 questions, which were then pooled.
The students, using a video camera and tape recorder, have interviewed 16 people, including several World War II and Vietnam veterans and a teacher who served in Operation Desert Storm. The students still have about a half-dozen interviews to conduct before they present their project to the Bedford Central Library and Bedford City-County Museum on May31.
Henry said students received $375 in donations to help with the project; four parents have volunteered to transcribe the interviews onto acid-free paper to preserve them.
The students got more interview practice with Tataritsev, who has spent the past month visiting newspapers and radio and television stations in central Virginia. He was at the Bedford Bulletin two days, observing marketing and advertising operations as part of the federal program Business for Russia.
The Bulletin's editor, who had worked with the Bedford students, suggested that they interview Tataritsev. Henry said she and the other teachers agreed because it's important that students are exposed to all cultures.
Tataritsev is taking the students' names and addresses home to his wife so they can become pen pals with her students.
He showed the Bedford students how to write in Russian. He answered questions about the government, weather, housing, clothing, food, sports and entertainment.
His main worry, he said, is that communism may return. "At this moment, it's so very easy to start your own business. But this June, I think Communists will come back; and that's not good, because they want to return to the old time."
He doesn't think he'll lose his information agency if communism returns, but he said it will be hard to run it. He distributes business and consumer information to newspapers, radio and television.
As far as the economy, he said, a dollar in U.S. money is equivalent to about 5,000 rubles in Russia and that will buy you a newspaper. He paused and added that a dollar "would buy not many things."
Most people in Samara live in apartments because, with a population of 2 million people, there is little land for single homes. He said some apartments he saw in New York reminded him of his home.
Education is free, but Tataritsev, 25, quit the university "because they wanted me to teach" and he wanted to be a journalist and dreamed of being a famous writer.
Although some Russians pay for additional care, medical care also is free.
Cars made in Germany seen to be the most popular in his home, but he sees a few Ford and GM products.
His favorite American food, he said, is Mexican. He said it has been hard for him and the other six business owners in his tour group "to eat American fast food because we prefer home cooking."
Russians, he told the students, don't like ice in their drinks "because we have ice on the streets."
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ARNE KUHLMANN/Staff. Seventh-graders at Bedford Middleby CNBSchool ask Ruslan Tataritsev about his country and his impressions
of the United States. color.