So much snow! So little heating...

Today we woke up to the joys of no heating or electricity, which means no shower. Also, it had snowed. And then continued snowing for the rest of the day, but actually it was really nice, and now everything looks really pretty (especially as the electricity is now back on..!!) I was surprised that during our lesson with the 6th form, Zhenya and Roma kept looking out the window at the falling snow. I mean, I can understand it when kids do that in the UK, because we normally only get snow a couple of times a year, but this is Russia! And, for Russia, there is barely any snow! So I don’t understand why this was such a novelty?? Also, Max kept begging us to join a snowball fight, but since these kids are used to snow, and we are not, and also Lois is on the verge of being ill, we declined this time. Apparently everyone has to make their own fort, and then the battle begins. Maybe next time…!

The cold also brings other hilarities, like when we tried to mop upstairs, the mop was frozen solid (they keep mops outside here). So we poured hot water over it until it had defrosted a bit.

On Saturday we had our mini party to celebrate a month to go til we return to the UK, so we watched Lost in Translation complete with the drinking game, which was a good film, although a bit ironic, since it’s about people being in a foreign country but missing home, and having communication problems…!

Sunday was pretty rubbish, everyone forgot about us, and Katya was away, so we had to fend for ourselves (we’re too British to go round asking people to have us over for meals…). This meant that we had to go to the shop, where we successfully found some pasta sauce and cheese, which was pretty good, although the sauce was ridiculously spicy after months of bland food here! (They use nothing except salt and pepper, no spices or herbs etc…) So we were feeling a bit down and homesick, especially as the sky was so grey. But we watched the Inbetweeners’ film, and that cheered us up.



Some really great cereal

On Monday, we had a lesson with the 1st form, which was successful, as they remembered the words for different colours, and we taught them some new colours, and they got to colour in, which they love. We then had karate. The first few exercises were pretty extreme, and Lois had to leave as she felt ill, so I was left to practice my blocks against a pillar (not joking..) Then, since most (if not all) the kids have passed to the next belt colour, Sasha taught them a new sequence of moves which were very confusing to me. She then got them to practice individually in the middle while everyone else watched. Since she’s never asked Lois and I to do this before, I assumed I’d be okay to just sit down and watch, but after the kids had their turns, she asked me to come up. Umm..?? That was pretty scary, since I had not mastered the new moves in any way!! Luckily all she wanted me to do was to practice how to stand properly with my ‘fingers’ (she meant ‘toes’, but I didn’t want to correct her, since she was helping me and all), towards the centre, and how to move backwards and forwards with my foot making the letter ‘C’ on the floor. It doesn’t sound particularly complicated but it kind of was.. But it was much less embarrassing than I was expecting, and I was proud of myself for staying in the class!

After lunch, we had our first ever Game Club. This was brought about after Max said in a meeting that he wanted to play more games, but no one had the time to watch the kids. So Lois proposed the idea that we take it on. It took quite a long time to get the okay, but finally it happened, and I hope they keep it going after we leave because then we will have left something really good in Orion! Unfortunately Lois was too ill to come with me, so, with Ira’s help, I ran the club. At first, I thought it was going to be the biggest failure ever, since when I arrived, only Ira and Zhenya (who was curled up on a sofa attempting to sleep) were there, and there were no games out. Luckily, Max soon arrived, and I got him to go and get his two favourite games (the Game of Thrones game, and The Settlers of Catan). Then Dima turned up, and started playing a game with the pack of cards I’d brought. Roma, Zhenya, Vanya and Petya also turned up, and started a game of Twister. Max attempted to teach me how to play The Settlers of Catan, and Ira joined in, but because some of her set of pieces were missing, she had to borrow some from the other set, which meant that only the three of us could play. This then meant that Dima had nothing to do, so I taught him to play Solitaire, but it was a bit complicated, as I was trying to teach him that while trying to learn to play a different game! In the end I understood basically what I was doing, so it was good, even though I lost magnificently…! At the end, Ira said thank you, so that was nice, and I was very grateful for her help! So overall I think the Game Club was a success!

That evening, we watched the Bridge to Terebithia, thinking it would be a nice heart-warming children’s film. We were so wrong. (Spoilers if you’re thinking of watching it!) Josh Hutcherson (looking sooo much younger than he does in The Hunger Games) plays a boy who makes friends with this creative girl, and then out of the blue, she dies, and he has to escape into the imaginary world they created together in order to escape his grief. Not exactly cheerful!

On Tuesday, we thought we didn’t have any lessons, but as usual plan change! So we had to plan a lesson for the 5th form at short notice. It wasn’t a bad lesson, but they had a lot of energy and weren’t exactly focused! But some of what we taught them did at least stick. We’ve had to correct the English textbooks before (the 6th form book, for example, stated that there were 6 continents – there are 7 - and that Australia is one. Which it isn’t), and this time it was trying to teach them ‘animal hospital’, so we changed it to ‘vet’, since no one calls it an ‘animal hospital’… Also, it taught the word for ‘greengrocer’, but that is pretty outdated now, so we taught them ‘supermarket’ as well. And today and dinner, Dima repeated this, and knew that ‘animal hospital’ was wrong, so we were very proud!

We then spent about 2 hours getting the White House ready for all the guests who will soon be arriving. Basically the whole village was in our house, cleaning and getting beds ready, fixing things, and sealing up one of the doors which is no longer in use. So now everything looks very clean and welcoming!
We also had a Russian lesson in the evening, which was really good, and for the first time, I think I understand verbs of motion and their prefixes properly! Lena is a very good teacher, and it helps that there are only the two of us, so she knows if we don’t understand something, and can help us easily.

My parents rang very late in the evening. Basically Russia is now four hours ahead of the UK, because, after a lot of confusion, we finally found out that they weren’t changing the clocks this year. I can’t believe how disorganised it was – no one knew, we asked people in the village, and Google etc! But it was really good to hear from them, and to hear some motivating and positive things! Plus I got to speak to Chris twice which was really good since I haven’t been able to speak to her for ages!

Today, we had just one lesson, as we were supposed to have one with the 4th form as well, but they were both ill! There is an illness going round the village, so every morning less and less people turn up for breakfast. I’m surprised that we haven’t got it yet (although Lois looks like she’s on the way to getting it, which means that I probably am too, but I came prepared with Lemsip and lozenges etc so it should be fine….) since we aren’t used to Russian illnesses…. Then we had two hours cleaning in the White House again, which involved hoovering up lots of flies from upstairs, and a lot of ironing.

On Friday, lots of people will be turning up to run this sort of wide game, where the kids have to defeat the ‘ogres’, and Katya is going to show us the film that this is based on, so that we understand and can take part too, so that should be pretty good! It lasts a few days, as it will be half term for all of the kids, except the 9th form, as they are preparing for their scary university entry exams. So we have a week off of teaching, so I don’t know what we’ll be doing instead…

Although the teaching can be hard at times, I do find it rewarding, especially when the kids finally get something, or are really enthusiastic.

And now we have just over three weeks left! I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone. Although I will be happy to go home, it will also be hard to leave this village with people who have been so kind to us (except maybe Galia….!!) for three months. And all the lovely kids!

Also, although today might be Halloween, we aren’t allowed to celebrate as it’s deemed to be ‘too evil’. So yeah. Bit odd not to do anything, but oh well! It will be strange not see any fireworks on Guy Fawkes night either!

Thanks for reading!

A trip to Moscow and some soap!

On Sunday we got to go on our trip to Moscow with Sergei! We had to leave at 8.15, only we weren’t told that we had to be exactly on time – we thought Lyosha was driving us to the city, but it turned out we were actually supposed to be catching a bus, Lyosha was just driving us to the stop! Oops. Plus Galia was coming with us to catch the same bus to visit her family, so she was angry at us. The fact that one of the cats had left a mess on the carpet the night before and she’d stepped in it didn’t exactly help (and we got the blame for forgetting to put the cat out, despite the fact that we put him out twice, and didn’t know he’d managed to get back in….).

Anyway, after Lyosha drove us to the stop and a speed which probably broke the limit, we managed to catch our bus, and we were on our way! The bus was hilariously slow, and sounded like it had a scooter engine, but it managed to get to us to the next bus stop, where we waited for the marshrutka, (a minibus), which was to take us to the edge of Moscow. When we arrived, we had some food in the amazing Coffee House (where they sell the greatest selection of cheesecakes ever), while Sergei looked to see if there was a bus which could take us to Red Square. He decided however that it would be easier if we got on the metro instead, and we finally arrived in Red Square about 3 hours after we left!

Red Square is a pretty place, full of historical things, such as St Basil’s Cathedral. There is also the centre of the city there, which you can stand on, as well as the grave of the Unknown Soldier, which is always guarded by soldiers as a mark of respect. Red Square was a lot less busy than the first time I visited back in 2007, but still as nice. We actually went inside St Basil’s this time, which was amazing; it’s full of intricate paintings and tiny churches (small rooms), and it’s very easy to get lost in there! It’s a very religious place still, unlike some of the cathedrals and churches that I visited in St Petersburg; there was a service happening while we were there, which was interesting to watch.



St Basil’s

Next, we walked through гум, which is a huge shopping centre, full of designer shops. We popped into one, and tried lots of cheese, which was good since we were pretty hungry by this point…!

We looked at going into the Kremlin, but the prices and queues were ridiculous, and we decided that we just didn’t have the time, since we were only there for the day! We then went to the Arbat, which is a famous street in Moscow, where we had lunch in Teremok. We were planning to find some kind of Italian food, but we were so hungry that Russian pancakes sounded fine! We then had Dunkin’ Donuts, which I’ve never had before since they don’t exist in the UK, so that was pretty awesome. I also bought a bottle of my favourite raspberry flavoured Lipton’s Iced Tea, which is amazing and I don’t understand why they don’t sell it in the UK!

After that we went to a massive market, which is near the hotel I stayed in when I last visited. When I say massive, I mean that I’m glad Sergei was there, otherwise I don’t think we would have found our way out again…! We managed to buy lots of souvenirs, which was good!

After all that we were completely shattered, so after a quick trip to a bakery for some food for the long journey, we got back on the marshrutka, which took us to Voronovo, where Lyosha was waiting with the car (not sure why we skipped the second bus, no one explained this!) and we drove the next hour back home.

**********

We spent Monday helping the kids make Christmas cards to send to their Godparents (people who sponsor them), which put us in a festive mood! I even made one for my family as well. We had to do some translating for the older girls as well, so that they could write longer letters.

We’ve done a lot of log moving this week, yesterday Yura took us into the forest, but not that far (we could still see the village), to show us the logs we needed to move. He made sure we understood, then left us to it. However, we are not Russian, and do not often walk around in the forest, so after picking up some heavy logs, we tried to make our way back and inevitably got very lost. This was hilarious, and was even more hilarious when Vika found us and couldn’t understand what we were doing…

Today it has snowed, hailed, been sunny, and been windy – wish the weather would make up its mind! However, it’s set to get even colder next week, so maybe the snow will start settling then?

This morning I was told off by Galia in front of everyone, which was embarrassing, especially as I didn’t understand all of what she said, so I couldn’t defend myself! Basically, 2 adults are assigned to do the evening duty every night, which is to clean and mop the floor, and to do the larger pots and pans that need washing. I turned up and did an hour’s washing up, which included the disgusting fish trays which were covered in fish scales (bleeee I really hate fish!!!). After an hour, the guy that was scheduled to work with me hadn’t turned up to clean the floor, so I left, thinking he’d come later, but of course he didn’t turn up at all, so I got the blame! Then he apologised to me, and said it was ‘partly’ his fault. Umm, no, it was completely your fault!! Also, Galia’s door was open today, and what did I see in there? Oh yeah, my missing slippers!! Cheers Galia! We were hoping that she might get sacked today, since last night there was drama in the village; Dimitri Morozov, the creator of the village, yelled at her (banging his fists against the table and everything) in front of everyone – we couldn’t understand exactly what she’d done wrong, but it must have been bad to annoy him, he’s normally so mellow! Also, today we were cleaning the tables and having a laugh, and she told us to shut up because she couldn’t hear herself think. This job takes a few minutes, she couldn’t handle us talking for just that long?!

There’s this guy Han, who’s helping to teach maths and physics, who we think is from Vietnam, who is literally the complete opposite of Galia. The other day, he did the washing up for us, and he offered to do it today as well, only Galia stopped him (cheers again Galia – I don’t think she realises how much work we do……). Today we cleaned Sergei’s house, where Han is also staying, and he made us some really nice coffee, and refused to let us clean his room too, saying he could do it himself. But we did it anyway, to return the washing up favour!

We had to give the 6th form a test today, just to check what they had learnt, but it felt mean and really weird! But they need it, since they haven’t been taught how to conjugate the verb ‘to be’. Also, I have seen many many variations of ‘one’ from the fifth form, but none of them were right, which is worrying! We taught them 10, 20, 30 etc, but we didn’t know they didn’t know how to write numbers 1-20. My star pupil Vanya actually stayed behind at the end to ask me how to write these, and today he made me give him extra work! So cute.

After lunch we were set a mountain of potatoes to peel, which was a bit more fun today since instead of the lovely Radio Dacha, which only plays incredibly dull Russian music, we listened to probably the equivalent of Radio One or something, anyway there was English music, as well as Russian club music, which was pretty funny.

On Wednesday, the craft people who we made the tote bags with came again! This time we made soap. We made friendship soap first, only me and Lois misunderstood, and put scent in, which we weren’t supposed to do, as if everyone did that, it would’ve been a disgusting mixture! But now it just smells like peach and biscuits, which luckily go together relatively okay….! (oops..) I then made a watermelon smelling soap, which has a bright red and bright green layer, and a mandarin and vanilla soap, which is gold and blue. It was good fun, but made an absolute mess (there was glitter everywhere, even in my hair – thanks Lois haha!!).



Our soap

That evening we had another ‘party’ for being here for 2 months! This meant more beer. We also had beer in order to be able to face the cat poo on the carpet like men. (It was still gross). We played the Fifty Shades drinking game, which was funny, and even funnier once the Ana and Christian had chavvy accents…
And yesterday, we had pizza for dinner, which was awesome.

We were going to celebrate a month til we come home today (being the 26th), but since tomorrow is a work day, we decided to put it off til tomorrow evening, when we won’t have classes the next day! This means more weird Russian beer and zephyr (the actual name for the squishy marshmallowy goodness), and Chocopie!

Falling into a routine...

After Halfway Sunday, which involved watching The Science of Sleep while playing the drinking game that goes with it, we weren’t exactly on the ball when Monday morning arrived! However, the day was good, after our usual washing up, we had our first lesson with the 1st form, which went surprisingly well. We then had a humongous amount of potatoes to peel, which we kind of felt was Galia’s way of getting back at us…!! The community meeting took place after that, which had been put off from Sunday as Sasha wouldn’t have been able to attend otherwise. We were supposed to have a Russian lesson with Lena that day as well, but she was too tired after a busy day, which is fair enough. (We had a lesson on Wednesday instead, which was very useful – I think I finally understand participles now!)

On Tuesday, we had two lessons. Lois was feeling too unwell to help teach the first one, which was with the 4th form, so I took my first ever lesson by myself! I was a bit nervous, which wasn’t helped by the fact that Arina was half observing me (I say half, she was on her laptop at the back of the room, but I had the impression that she was keeping an eye on the lesson)! Anyway, it went well, we sped through the lesson plan, which left time at the end for them to draw, which they love! Lois was able to join me for the second lesson, which was the 5th form, where they learnt numbers to 100, and we played a game with them that they liked, because it was competitive.

We’ve spent a lot of our afternoons getting through the huge amount of laundry that Katya set us to do, and we still haven’t finished it yet, which has led to lots of moaning from Galia, as I don’t think she realises that it’s actually part of our job! Oh well.

On Wednesday, we had a lesson with Sonia and Vika, which I thought might be quite good for Sonia, and for Vika, as it would be revision, but unfortunately Vika was acting up, and setting a bad example for Sonia, which we had to remind her of quite a few times.

We were supposed to help out with the job of getting the trees ready and warm for winter (we had mental images of us putting scarves and jackets on them, but it actually just meant putting a thick layer of manure at their bases), but we were kept behind in the kitchen doing a lot of washing up etc, and then when we did get there, Arina sent us away for not being warmly dressed! The coat I brought is good for keeping me warm, but is totally impractical for working, as is Lois’, but luckily we managed to find some coats in the boutique which are good for working in – yes, they don’t look good, but c’est la vie! It’s better than being cold!
We had to clear up the rubbish from around the school, which was made more fun by playing Russian word games with Vika and Zhenya. I also helped clean the two guest houses in the village with Ira and Lera. These two houses are adorably small, they’re like wendy houses! The slightly bigger one has a living room, a bathroom, and a bedroom in the attic, but the smallest one has a living room/bedroom, with a small bathroom which you reach through a tiny door. Very cute! The cleaning was quite fun, as I spent the time talking to Vera about music and films etc, which was really interesting. She even knew One Direction……

The one remarkable thing this week is that we have fallen into a routine, which means that the weeks are beginning to fly by. You might think that being only just over halfway through, it might start to drag, but its even faster!

Also, we have had some ‘arguments’ with Galia, when she’s got angry with us for using the washing machine, or something, and I got annoyed her when she lets the cat in her room, and then just lets it out in the corridor – there is not cat flap so how is it supposed to get out? Plus I was in a rush to get to our Russian lesson, and having to sort the cat out made me late.

However, I am beginning to see improvements! For example, she offered me some coffee the other day. Also, she’s remembered that Lois doesn’t like egg, and that I hate fish, (although she did call me a ‘poor girl’). She even made me an ‘omelette’ (it was actually 2 fried eggs, but that was even better than an omelette because I could dip bread in the yolk and it was amazing) when it was fish day (every Thursday), which was really nice of her, because she didn’t have to, so I was very grateful!

And that’s it really, apart from the fact that our trip to Moscow was postponed to Sunday! And nothing’s been said to contradict that yet, so yay! (Or ‘oora’! as they say here...)

Halfway Sunday!

Today, unbelievably, marks our time in Russia as being halfway through already! So naturally this led us to wanting to celebrate, and so we have bought a few kinds of strange-looking beer, some odd flavoured crisps, some of the squishy meringue things, something called ‘Choco Pie’, which claims to be healthy, as it has vitamins and minerals in it, and some ice cream, despite the fact that it is now pretty cold over here. The other night both of our boilers broke down due to a power cut, and we were reduced to huddling in our duvets with thermal socks on, attempting to keep warm. We found out that it was minus three that night! And just to make things even worse that day, we couldn’t shower because there was no hot water. Luckily they have been fixed now, and we are toasty warm again! (So hot in fact, that we’ve had to turn off one of the radiators in our room….)

This week also marks the end of our ‘lessons’ with the kindergarten. They could not behave themselves, even though they knew that this was their ‘examined’ week, and Katya decided that this experiment must come to an end. She has instead given us classes with the first form, which is made up of Sonia and Dariona, who hopefully will be able to learn from us. With Nastiya and Danya in the same room with them, it was impossible to teach them. Danya was ill for a few days, and so Nastiya took to copying the example set by the two older children, and actually learnt a few words, but as soon as Danya returned, she began fighting with him at every possible moment once again. After Lois and I suffering many near heart attacks, we are very relieved that we won’t have to go through that again..!

Sadly Starsik, the really adorable dog who was the size of a small bear, had to be put down this week. It turns out he was Sasha’s dog, who came with her when she moved to the village, so it was especially sad for her. He was very docile, and even let one of the kittens cuddle up to him when it was raining a few weeks ago.

We are off to Moscow on Wednesday! Sergei is taking us, and will show us around, and take us to the good souvenir buying places, so that’s exciting!

Last night, Maxim and Vika invited us to play the Game of Thrones game again with them, which was really nice of them, and it was extra good because we sort of understand the rules now! And I earned some respect from Maxim for finishing in second place behind him (I still have no real clue how that happened…)
Galia has been driving us mad with her terrible kitchen hygiene. We’ve seen raw meat left out, things covered in flies, and cats walking through the open kitchen door and helping themselves. We’ve been trying to get her to put the things away after breakfast, but she claims she has no time, despite the fact that there are four hours between breakfast and lunch… I’m surprised we haven’t all got food poisoning yet…!

Now to enjoy my 6 weeks left in Russia!

Goodbye summer...

I want to start with a big thank you to everyone who’s been reading my blog! It turns out it has more readers than I thought, so thanks everyone!

This week has been as eventful as usual. We’ve been teaching a lot of Sasha’a English classes, as she’s still very busy at the farm with Buttercup. We’ve managed to find the teacher’s books for the 4th, 5th, and 6th forms, so we use them, as they have pre-planned lessons in them, although they are pretty dull, so we attempt to spice the lessons up a bit. We’ve found the 4th forms lessons especially repetitive, and it’s not helped by the fact that our two pupils, Katya and Vika, have no enthusiasm. Vika often pretends to fall asleep, and both of them are late to class, which led up to today, when they were 25 minutes late. The lessons are only 45 minutes long! Luckily big Katya was around, so she told them off and made them apologise to us, but it is really annoying, because we are supposed to be helping them, and if they don’t want help, then we could me much more useful elsewhere in the village. Hopefully after today they won’t be that ridiculously late again! Apparently they went back to Vika’s house to fix her shelf or something.

Luckily, our other two classes are much less stressful. The 5th form is made up of four boys, Petya, Vanya, Maxim, and Dima, so I was a bit worried at first that they would just mess around and not listen to us, but they are my favourite class! Although three of them were a little late, they made up for it by being very enthusiastic, and I was especially happy with Vanya because he tried really hard, and did very well. The 6th form is made up of Zhenya and Roma, who, although less enthusiastic than the boys, tried hard, and we tried to make the lesson a bit more interesting, since the lesson plan wasn’t particularly inspiring. So overall, I think the lessons are going okay.

The kindergarten are having an exam in behaviour this week. If they keep up their messing around with us, they won’t have lessons with us anymore. Katya helped us begin our lesson with them on Monday, and that really helped, because she made them listen to us, and I think we actually got something done; Nastiya even learnt numbers 1-5 (Dariona and Sonia already know this, as they are in the 1st form). Today we managed to get them to play a counting game with a balloon, after 15 minutes of them messing around, so it’s an improvement at any rate.

This week, Maxim has been hanging around with us a lot, even convincing us to play his Game of Thrones game with him, which is ridiculously complicated in English, so it was almost beyond comprehension in Russian! We did try though, and I think he appreciated the effort. He’s also been coming to a few of our lessons with the kindergarten, which is helpful.

On Sunday evening, the kindergarten and the 4th form put on an Autumn show for us all, which was really funny. Apparently it’s traditional to say farewell to Summer, and greet Autumn. The kindergarten all recited poetry, and Katya was dressed up as Summer, with a green tutu and green wig with flowers on it, while Vika was Autumn, in a metallic gold dress and matching wig. They gave us tasks to do, such as write a poem about Autumn (one team), and Summer (the other team). We were given Summer, so we helped write a bit of the poem in English, which big Katya translated for us when they were all read out to everyone. Then there were two teams to see who could pick up the most leaves off the floor. Then all of them did a little dance with leaves. It was really nice, and they’d obviously put a lot of effort into it, as they were all almost completely word-perfect. It was great to witness a piece of Russian tradition.

A piece of Russian (or maybe just Orion?) culture that we have difficulty understanding, however, is their attitude towards mice. We have some in our house at the moment, and Galia told us today that she had some superglue, which she was planning to put on some cheese, and then the mice get stuck to the cheese?? We were really confused, and though Galia was talking rubbish again, so we told big Katya, who said that it was correct. Apparently mousetraps don’t work, so they have the option of having a cat, which obviously makes a mess, or the glue method. So we are expecting to find lumps of gluey cheese around the house soon….! I don’t know what they do with these live mice once they get stuck to the glue, but if I find out I’ll let you know…….

I’ll leave you with that, genuine Russian hilarity!

Buttercup, Nutella, and many, many walnuts..

On Sunday, we were supposed to go to Sasha’s for breakfast, as she is house-sitting and looking after Dima and Vika while Katya is away with Yura and the first form in Kitezh for the week. However, Arina came to tell us that because one of the cow’s was giving birth, we were to have breakfast with her instead (Sasha is in charge of the farm). We had a really nice breakfast there, partly because we got to eat Nutella for the first time in ages! So good! Anyway, after that, we decided to visit the farm to see the newly born calf. When we arrived, lots of the kids were already there helping out, and they immediately gave us a slip of paper each to write a name down for the calf. I checked to see if they wanted it in English or Russian, but they said English was fine, so I wrote down Buttercup. Sasha then chose one of the names that we’d all written down in a raffle, and she picked out mine! I was very happy, and luckily I’d looked up the translation for buttercup a few days before, when Lois had found one on our walk to the river, so I was able to explain that buttercup was ‘Лютик’ (Lyootik) in Russian. So now this baby cow has two names!



Buttercup!

We then were invited by Katya and Vika for a birthday tea in honour of Buttercup, and so they prepared cheese on toast and tea etc for us, in a way that I don’t think many 10 year olds in the UK could do! We were then joined by Sasha, who put on one of her favourite Russian comedy films for us, which was about this guy who invented basically a time machine, and accidentally lets Ivan the Terrible through into his time. Even though I didn’t understand all of it, it was pretty funny. She then invited us for a late lunch, so, after checking on Buttercup, we made mini pizzas. We then had to leave straight away to get cooking our dinner for 12! It was a little bit stressful, and it turned out there were no leeks, so we had to use onions instead, but somehow we managed to serve up a dinner almost on time, which was eaten by almost everyone. We had wine, and Masha gave us a toast, which was embarrassing, but really nice! The kids were all drinking this drink which was a mixture of water and jam (I watched Masha prepare it), which sounds disgusting, so I had to try it, and it was actually really nice! It wouldn’t work with English jam though, Russian jam is much more runny. All the kids disappeared before we could serve the apple pie, so we were worried that it wouldn’t all be eaten, but luckily some guests turned up, who, although they’d brought their own cake, all had a piece of our’s, and said it was really good. We also took some to Sasha, Vika and Dima as a thank you for lunch, only they weren’t there, so we left them a note with it. Lena forced us to take some of the huge amount of walnuts that they now have in Orion – they’re fresh from the Caucasus, and I think they bought about 700 kilos, so every available container, including bins, are full of walnuts. I thought I’d try one again, but, as I thought, I really don’t like them! So now we have a big container full, but Lois doesn’t think they’re worth the effort to open either…..!

At the community meeting, Masha thanked us again for dinner, and Sasha, Vika and Dima were very grateful for the pie we left them, so it was all good! The recipe for the pie is on the BBC Good Food website, and I really recommend it because it was so good.

We’ve been even busier this week as we’ve had to cover Sasha’s classes as she is very busy on the farm. Today, I had to look after the kindergarten for 2 hours, only to then return a few hours later for the hour and half lesson with them. However, they were pretty good today, but maybe that’s because half of them weren’t there! We also had what we thought were Jaffa Cakes at Tamara’s house, only to discover they were in fact raspberry flavour.

Lois quest for trying strange Russian drinks continues, we’ve had bark juice, apple and peach juice, cherry juice, and now a tarragon flavoured drink, which is a luminous green colour. Russia is amazing…!



Some strange drinks…

And we have now been here for 5 weeks already!