UCLA Flagship Oral History Project:

In spring 2008 students in the UCLA Russian Flagship Program conducted interviews with Russian-speaking senior citizens living in West Hollywood. The interviewees immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1980s-early 1990s after spending most of their lives in the former Soviet Union. The students created reports based on their interviews, and included essays, family photographs, and video and audio recordings.

The project gave the students an opportunity to enrich their language-learning experience by using Russian in an authentic context. Students also had an opportunity to gain an understanding of the relationship between history and oral history, and to help Russian-speaking immigrants contribute first-person accounts to the historical record.

The UCLA Russian Flagship Program and the UCLA Russian Program express their gratitude to the interviewees:

• Albina Makovestki
• Leonid Manukian
• Rakhil Samuilovna
• Neginskaya Mikhail
• Veniaminoviach Reznik
• Sofia Shapiro

for sharing their lives with us and for enriching ours.