I remember I visited my relatives for the first time in the Russian countryside when I was 9 years old. I was accustomed to watching TV, going on the internet, and playing video games back home in the United States. When I arrived in Russia, my relatives had none of those. They didn’t have a computer or anything similar to that in the household. They did have a TV but only had about 15 channels.
Visiting again seven years later, everything was different. It was almost like the technology caught up in that area. My relatives had laptops and used Skype and Facebook. The younger kids had video games such as Nintendo DS and Playstation. My aunt who is a lawyer said that purchasing the laptop made her job that much easier. She was able to have all her documents in one place- instead of keeping paper documents.
It was interesting to see how quickly technology changes. During the first visit, it seemed that there was almost no technology in this area. This didn’t affect anyone because they were accustomed to this. However for me- it was like traveling back in time. Seven years later, I was surprised to see so many changes in technology in the household. I’m sure during my next visit, it will be even more interesting to see how technology got upgraded!
-Alex Aleksandrovski
