Dear Friends,

Though this site is dedicated mostly to recruiting Russian speaking students we thought it wise to keep you informed of what we are, we do and how we live here.
I guess I have to start from the very beginning because very often we have to explain why while being asked when we started, we produce two dates: 1995 and 2010. In 1995 we grounded a tour operating company called Juventa-Tours and while all the others in Russia were engaged into the so-called "Shopping Tours" we sent our first students to Ireland to study English. It happened so that our first partner (chosen by random!) was Patrick Shortt from Alpha College of English. Hard to believe but he came over to have a proper look at us! Next year we participated in the first educational event organized by ICEF in Moscow. That is how we started.
Until 2010 it was mostly tourism what we did and only a small number of students (ca. 30 – 40 annually) was sent abroad to study languages.
In 2010 we decided to shift our focus on Education. A Dean from Saratov Technical University, Ms. Alena Popovskaya, was seduced to come over and become a managing partner of a new company, fully dedicated to educational matters, Dominanta. Since then Dominanta "dominates"!
In 2014 we sent ca. 350 students of all kinds to programs starting with language courses up to University placements and were quite proud of ourselves.
Our city of Saratov can not be compared to such heavyweights as Moscow or St. Peter, not even to Ekaterinburg or Samara… Whether it is economy or mentality, hard to say… When the crises was announced in Russia, we understood that the "fat years" were gone and we started thinking of new ways to survive and live on. In the meantime we expanded a bit, opening our office in the neighboring city of Penza (200 km from our place) and starting our first attempts as a language school on the spot. As we noticed a downshift in figures we thought about "bringing England to our students" - that is how we named the project! We invited teachers – native speakers, to come to us for a couple of weeks to teach English (French and German) to our students both in Saratov and Penza The project proved to be a success and so we stuck to it.
Even now we are constantly looking for volunteers eager to gain new experience and share their knowledge and enthusiasm with our kids here! As for us, we cover all their expenses like airfare, visa fee, insurance, accommodation, transfers, food and even pocket money – they get the same amount as our local teachers do!
In order to rouse interest to study abroad we organized together with our key partners, Kings Education and BHMS (Business and Hotel Management School, Switzerland), an English Contest where students of our local partner schools took part. Generous prizes from our sponsors helped us gain more new students for them. It is our wish, to proceed with this form of promotion and we invite new partners to join in!
"Road-shows" are another point of our activities: when our partners come to visit us, we go away for a couple of days visiting not only Saratov schools and Universities, but also Balakovo, Penza, Kuznetsk etc, where our students live. The kids there are not spoiled by much of attention on behalf of foreign guests and each such visit becomes a big event for everybody.
The last (but by no means not the least!) event to mention is our Education Abroad exhibition where we invite our partners to participate. Our visitors are students of schools and Universities as well as their parents interested in education abroad. The last exhibition took place on April 22 in Saratov. For more information please contact +7 8452 746828 or info@domiec.ru.
There are certainly more forms that our activities take and we are open to new ideas (and new partners). Looks like I will remain the Editor-in-Chief of this news column at least for the time being, so please share your thoughts and ideas with us, put your questions so you will also gain your share of information and fun (and, hopefully, students as well!).
Sincerely,
Vladimir Manykin
Skype: Primavera305