RTS Staff – Victoria Arkoski

I met Victoria at the University of Auckland. We were both enrolled in the Faculty of Arts programme. Seeing her from time to time on campus, I never gave much thought about it. She, an attractive woman but very reserve, me a mild guy with eyes on the end game and not much of a social butterfly. The connection just never occurred.

That is until I ventured into a Russian language class as an elective. I thought initially, why not try something out of the ordinary. Certainly, the Spanish, French and German language courses would muster the larger class populations and Russian would give me a break from such classes cluttered with students.

I was right – very much so.

I have never taken an elective so complicated in my programme up until I took Russian. In the class, sitting on the professors platform maintaining notes and providing dialect support for the professor, was Victoria. Viktoria Anna Arkoski (changed to Victoria when she became a NZ National). During my struggles with the language, Victoria became more of a teacher to me than the professor did.

I learned that Victoria was displaced from the Ukraine and not by choice. She hailed from a small commons called Zatoka. Now, I am not going to tell you she made her way to New Zealand that is something she will have to share. The story as you could imagine is extraordinary and quite sad. It was during her time helping me that we struck up a friendship. She assisted my pathetic attempts at the complex Russian language and I helped her with the Kiwi dialect.

Victoria and I struck-up a friendship that has survived my movement to America and her brief return to the Ukraine. She is in America now as well and I am most pleased she is. Her tie to RTS comes from my request most recently to add her unique view of things. You see, Victoria experiences are of things most of us only see in the movies.

She is truly from another time.

In time, you will come to read the darker side of Victoria, for now she engrosses us in the world she escaped to as a child, like that which you can read here. Until then…