Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
I think the fact that you were there (as an American, during the Cold War) shows they were more open minded than I thought!
I doubt ANY American TV channel invited people from the USSR to work for them, unless the person was a defector being interviewed. I would imagine this was during glasnost etc, but still!
It's really interesting to hear that you did this! What was your job there? What did people in the USA think about you going there? They must have thought it very radical!
Well, I've been writing about the whole thing right here at MR, in the blog section LOL

It was a very unusual experience, really one of a kind. I was employed by the Soviet government and I worked in Television there. I was a consultant and I helped develop some programs and advertisements. My primary project was a dating game show called Найди Меня.

When I returned to the US, most people were uninterested in the experience. Others called me a "communist" and some resented me for going there to help "the Russians," insisting I should only help "my own people." I had a letter of recommendation from the President of the Lenteleradiokomitet, who was a personal friend of Yeltsin, but it meant nothing in the US. Less than nothing, really. I ended up having to start my career all over again from scratch, and I worked my way through the ranks of local TV news as a field reporter, covering crime and other beats in the US. I finally left the business when I became too disgusted with the state of newsmedia in America.

For a long time, I stopped even talking about Russia because I got so many negative comments whenever I tried to bring it up. Mostly people laughed at me or called me a communist, although I never was a member of the communist party, nor was I affiliated with any political party in Russia. I lost touch with my friends in Russia. It is a long and complicated story. But a couple years back we all reconnected, thanks to Facebook, and I decided to go back to studying Russian with the hopes of potentially teaching English in Russia one day.

The current propaganda laws there have me concerned, however. I am not gay, but I have many friends who are and I support their rights in the US. I am worried that if I returned to Russia, I would be arrested for simply speaking my mind. I find the ambiguity of the "propaganda" laws very concerning, really. Not that I want to launch into this subject. There is a lot which I love about Russia, but I think since I lived there as long as I did, I also came to hate some things about it, just as there are things I hate about my native country, the US.

I did teach some English classes when I was in the USSR, although it has been so long ago that I need a refresher on how to teach again. I am currently studying for my TEFL cert, just in case.

I consider myself a global citizen, and I am very open minded about all cultures and all people. The only thing I have no tolerance for, really, is hatred, oppression, cruelty, and greed.