Perhaps I am going too far. I don’t want to give you the impression that Moscow is a land of hardened cutthroat criminals ready to sell their own mother for a bottle of vodka. There is already far too much of this mafia hype in the western press. What I am trying to explain is why the average Russian acts so differently to the average American. The Russian man (or woman) in the street does not smile unless he is happy, he does not engage complete strangers in meaningless conversation, he does not suffer fools gladly. Indeed, there is a Russian proverb that perhaps sums it up-“Only a fool smiles all the time.”

However, while Russians can appear unfriendly and rude, when you get to know them, you will find that they are considerate, helpful and well…friendly. I suppose the Russian concept of friendship is much deeper and less superficial than friendship elsewhere. However, if you are reading this, you’re probably a teacher thinking about coming to work here, so I should start to concentrate on that. I’m a DoS for a company called BKC-IH. It’s the largest language school in Russia and an affiliate of the International House network. Indeed, it may be the largest language school in all of Eastern Europe. To give you some idea of the size of the school, we have about 180 teachers - 100 or more work exclusively for the company on full time contracts and about another 80 do some hours for BKC on a freelance basis. BKC has many locations-there are 6 large central schools and many more smaller satellite schools.

During my telephone interview, I was encouraged to apply for a senior position because of my qualifications (DELTA) and length of experience (6 years full-time EFL teaching). To be honest, I had never considered the possibility of a senior position before. I had always imagined senior staff to be almost ‘a race apart’ and possessing magical organisational powers that mere mortal teachers could not hope to imitate. However, when the position of ADOS was offered to me, I found it hard to say no. Opportunities like that, I reasoned, do not come along every day. Approximately five months afterwards, BKC promoted me to DOS, the position I currently hold. The company has also paid for me to attend an International House Young learner course, and sent me to DoS training course at International House London. I think it is fair to say that for me at least, BKC-IH has been quite a career rocket.

I am not saying, of course, that every teacher who comes here will have the same positive experience. Indeed, many teachers at BKC and the other language schools do not enjoy their time in Moscow and seem to start counting down the days until the end of their contract almost from the day they arrive. In general, teachers who feel like this are new to teaching and to living abroad. Perhaps they arrive with unrealistic expectations of what teaching life is like. In order to try and create a realistic picture of life in Moscow, let me briefly describe what awaits you.