I was recently confronted by a fellow Russian student at the Bass library and asked if I owned a hedgehog.
“So, is it you who has a hedgehog?”
“Excuse me?”
“There was an article in the Yale Daily News about how we crazy Russian students have hedgehogs and squirrels living in our dorms…”
The YDN website had been down for over a week, courtesy of Aliza Shvart’s case, I suspect. Now that it is up and running again, I found that article. Entitled “Furry, Feathered Creatures Bring Home Back to Yale,” it describes how some students choose to violate the Undergraduate Regulation by having a pet. The two students who have the weirdest pets –- squirrels and a hedgehog –- are Russian. Apparently, we acquire our habit of having weird pets while hanging out with our pet polar bears (sharing a bottle of vodka with them, of course). Just kidding.
I guess I am a proper Russian Yalie, because I like both hedgehogs and squirrels. And I do have a hedgehog in my suite… a plush one that I got for Valentine’s from a friend. My family kept a hedgehog for a couple of months, when I was a child; we found him in the city in the fall. One of his paws was frostbitten and he looked like he wasn’t doing so well on his own, so we decided to host him for the winter. He was cute, friendly, and nocturnal. He loved sleeping in my mom’s shoes and boots, choosing an arbitrary pair every night, so she never knew which one had needles in it in the morning. We loved him, but he would have been much happier in his natural habitat. In the summer, we set him free in the woods and he ran off happily.
I do like squirrels a lot, but I have never had a completely positive squirrel experience at Yale. I encountered a squirrel in my floor’s bathroom once, and I was more frightened than it was. Another incident involved a bouquet of roses in my room and a hungry squirrel that was trying to feed on it (how it snuck into my fourth-floor suite still remains a mystery). It was chased away by my angry boyfriend, who had given me the flowers.
I still don’t know who the hedgehog-loving Russian freshman is; the only other Russian freshman I know claims it is not her. Go figure.
One final word of advice to the YDN: if you are really concerned with protecting privacy of those you are writing about, do not bother with coming up with a fake English name for her if you are going to refer to her as a “sophomore from St. Petersburg, Russia.” There is only one Russian Yale undergrad from St. Petersburg, as one can easily learn from Yale Facebook. Clearly, Yale really needs more Russian undergrads … to make sure all squirrels and campus are well-fed and taken care of!
PS: Recently, I spotted a really cute pig named Isosceles on Old Campus. It belongs to someone living off-campus and it comes to Old Campus to feed on acorns. Now, that’s an exotic pet. Russians, beat that!
