Dashika Palipana is the only KFU student from Sri Lanka. She studies in the Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology. During the interview she told us a lot about traditions of her native country.

After graduation from a college she applied to several Russian higher education institutions, then she got an invitation from Kazan University. Dashika spent several days searching for information about Tatarstan and Kazan in the Internet. She took a special interest in researches connected with genetics, as far as she dreamt of becoming a geneticist. That’s why she filled in an application and started packing her things for the distant Russia. Initially her family was against her study in such a remote country, but today they smile when recalling their fears.

When she came to Russia she lived one year in Voronezh to take an intensive course of the Russian language. Dashika speaks Russian fluently – she managed to master it within one year!

It’s very difficult for her to stand low Russian winter temperatures: if the frost is below 25 she stays at home, doing self-study so as not to fall behind her fellow-students. Now she is getting prepared for defense of her annual paper. She hopes to proceed studying the chosen topic in her graduation thesis. Her dream is to become not simply a geneticist, but a scientist. Dashika wants to return back home and continue joint researches with Kazan University scholars.

She is a very active student. In the previous year she participated in the contest “Pearl of the World” and was qualified for the final, but didn’t go to Moscow to participate in it, because the contest coincided with an exam. Still she is not disappointed: she told the audience about her country from the contest stage, but her main goal is education.