Humans of Honours: Irina Morozova

By Merel Hol, in association with Ongehoord Journal HHP

Irina Morozova is an international BA Literary Studies and BA Linguistics student. She’s 20 years old and originally comes from Moscow, Russia. This is her third year at Utrecht University and second year in the Humanities Honours Programme. For our series Humans of Honours, she tells us part of her story, living in the Netherlands and social distancing.

 I travel around a lot. It all started, obviously, with the trips to the big cities, to Amsterdam, The Hague; but now, I visit smaller towns and villages. They might be more Dutch – they are cozy, small, not so international. I enjoy that side of The Netherlands; all towns seem to be similar in some way, but have little parts that differ. For me it’s very engaging to walk along the streets that I’ve never walked along before, looking at the buildings, at the people, having my camera always with me and actually enjoying the weather. I know that a lot of people say that Dutch weather is not that good, but I feel like most of the time it is. I enjoy that it hardly ever snows in winter. In Russia, we have snow every winter obviously – it’s very cold, from October to mid-April, it’s snowing. Here, it is very warm, in autumn, in spring. Much warmer than in Russia.

Now, I can’t leave or travel. I happened to be living in Maarssen with the virus outbreak; I was «stuck» there for the entire lockdown in spring, which is unusual for me, since I usually travel a lot. The situation actually repeats now. It isn’t as bad, though, since Maarssen is a very nice cozy little town: a lot of small houses, canals, birds, trees. I enjoy the rural landscape, since it is something that I am not used to, coming from Moscow originally. I’m struck by the beauty of the nature here, perhaps more since there is no other place for me to go.

Being an international student is better in every aspect in the second or third year. You know where to go; which supermarket to choose, what bus to take. I was supposed to be back in Russia during any break/vacations; it is a bit difficult not to be able to go back, since I miss my family and my friends, but I am getting used to this new kind of living. It’s been almost three years, so it is not that traumatic not to be able to go back now.

I am trying to stay away from the news about the virus, because it affects me mentally. I know my family is safe and they know I am; we are constantly video chatting to keep seeing each other. But I am not afraid. Ironically, my Kafka calendar kept me company for the entire 2020…

Ongehoord Editie V
Ongehoord is voor de volgende uitgave weer op zoek naar stukken die de afgelopen periode geschreven zijn, bijvoorbeeld bij Terreinverkenning, maar ook papers van reguliere vakken. Heb jij  iets geschreven dat je graag wilt delen met je mede (Honours) studenten, stuur het dan op via de website van Ongehoord.