The Slavic culture club held its first meeting on Monday, Sept. 16. Students introduced themselves and explained their interest in the club.
Club leaders explained their goals for the club, including for students to learn about the culture and traditions of Slavic people. At the end of the meeting, they gave out Russian candy.
BHS has had clubs that have exposed students to the culture and traditions of, for example, Chinese and Indian traditions, and now the Slavic community is also spreading awareness about Russian and Eastern European cultures as well.
“I thought it would be a good idea to make a culture club [open to] people who don’t particularly belong in the affinity group,” junior club leader Anna Tonyushkin said. “The school has a big community of Slavic kids, and it would be a great idea to introduce a culture club for people to learn more about their cultures and for the rest of the school to be more educated about these countries.”
Club adviser John Kaminski explained the meaning of the term ‘Slavic.’
“Slavic is a language group found mostly in Eastern Europe and also an ethnic group,” he said. “People who are Polish, Serbian, Russian, Ukrainian, for example, would be some of the most common Slavic ethnic groups that people would know about.”
The meetings will be aimed at both education and having fun.
“Our main goal is to introduce Slavic culture to the school, to expose more of our students and classmates to it,” Tonyushkin said. “[To educate] more people about it and eat some good food, have some fun, and have a space for people to feel like they belong.”
Students will also have the opportunity to share their own interests.
“People want to show some cartoons or videos,” Kaminski said. “We have some students who were born in Russia or Ukraine or some other Eastern European countries and they want to share some of the cartoons or TV shows that they grew up with or remember from when they were little kids and share those.”
Both Kaminski and Tonyushkin want food to be a big part of the club.
Club leaders Anna Tonyushkin and junior Shasha Kheyfets said they want to either cook some food of Slavic origin or to go to a Slavic store and buy food or candy from there.
With more support, when the club becomes large enough, they hope to organize events such as volunteering at the Slavic cultural gardens.
Students who attended enjoyed the first meeting, especially the candy.
“I’m a member of the Slavic culture as a certified Bulgarian, and I am excited about what this will be about,” senior Nikolay Geube said.
“I thought it was interesting. I like how they introduced Slavic cultures. Me being Slavic myself, it’s an interesting look. They got a lot of people at this meeting,” said junior Oleksandr Rabochii.
The Slavic culture club will meet on Mondays once a month. Students who want to join should start by joining the Google Classroom, where there will be updates on upcoming events. The join code is [JJBVGWW]
