My name is Melanie Stam, and I was clearly excited to see Lenin’s Mausoleum after YEARS of waiting!

Thanks to the Fleet scholarship, I was able to spend a fascinating, roller-coaster-ride 7 and a half weeks in Moscow, Russia during summer 2009. I stayed with a host family near the metro stop Юго Западная (which rather boringly translated to “Southwest”) and took the remaining 9 hours of Russian studies (language and culture) to finish my Russian certificate.