Susannah Powell

Здравствуйте! My name is Susannah. I am originally from a small town in Georgia (the state, not the country 🙂 ). I took my first Russian class in high school and went on to study abroad in Moscow and St Petersburg. After graduating from Davidson College in 2004, I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Eastern Ukraine during the country’s Orange Revolution. I pursued my master’s at Johns Hopkins, including a summer program in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

I currently live in Alexandria, Virginia with my son and my husband, whom I met 10 years ago at a GLN happy hour. This will be my first semester with the organization in several years, and I am excited to return! I owe my career and, in many ways, my family to my pursuit of the Russian language. Teaching reminds me why I fell in love with it in the first place and allows me to see through fresh eyes something that has been part of my daily life for 25 years.

My favorite Russian word is not only a word, but a life force. Бабушка (bábushka) may translate as grandmother, but that does not fully convey the social, cultural and even economic load that older women shoulder in Eastern Europe every day.