host families

[Renee Stillings]

Generally the universities hosting foreign students have a network of hosts,
although obviously they would prioritize allocating those hosts to their
students. But if it were a quiet time of year and they wanted to keep hosts
busy, they might be willing to arrange host family stays without study. 

While some tourist companies may be able to make such arrangements on a
limited basis, HOFA is the only organization that seems to provide such a
service regularly. The one other organization (really just a couple, I
think) that used to do this in Moscow up until a few years ago gave up on it
- I think as things got more and more expensive in Moscow it wasn't
practical for him to make any money at it, particular considering how much
Russians like posredniki. :)

If anyone else has heard of other organizations doing this though, I'd be
interested in hearing about it as well. 

Renee

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Shannon Spasova
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 2:26 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: [SEELANGS] host families

Does anyone have any recommendations about organizations that help match
students to host families in Russia (St. Petersburg and Moscow especially)?
I searched through the SEELANGS archives but couldn't find many suggestions
except for HOFA in St. Petersburg.  I remember that when I was studying in
Russia there were a good number of families willing to host because of the
income that it brought in. Is that still the case, and how would students go
about finding them?

Thank you,
Shannon Spasova
Dalhousie University

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