Маселницa и вех/Maselnitza iy vech/Maselnitsa and Milestones

The past week (Sunday to Sunday) was a Russian holiday called Maselnitze. It is a festival to celebrate the end of winter, and I think it also had some distant relationship with lent/fat tuesday before the soviet union came along and removed religion from the picture. If you were wondering about religion, most people here are Christian (eastern orthodox) but not very religious, or at least most people I've met. 

    On last Friday we got let out early from school, and all stood outside while these elderly men and women sang folksy songs about winter ending. There was lots of dancing and jumping. Then we played carnival sort of games in the snow, and afterwards everyone gathered around in a giant circle around a doll, and set it on fire. I'm not sure what the signifigance of that was, but it was a treat to watch. 

      On last Tuesday, I think it was, I came home to find that my host mom was making блины (blini), these extremely thin, extremely buttery pankakes that you can eat plain, with jelly, or with something called sweet milk, and tastes a little like caramel sauce but not really. I'm totally adding them to the list of things I need to learn how to make before leaving. 

       Another festivity was on last Sunday I went to a park in my city with a few friends from my class and there they also had a celebration of maselnitze. There was folk music, pop music, and lots of doll burning. It was quite the celebration, though the 20 foot tall slide made entirely out of ice made me question whether winter is actually ending. 

IF YOU EVER GO TO RUSSIA: Do not eat sharma (middle eastern meat burrito type thing). I made this mistake on sunday, only to find out by way of my host mother yelling at me when I got home, that the meat used is 70% of the time from a dog. Is that disgusting and horrible? To Americans, yes. To Russians, also yes. Its one of those things that, for better or worse, society convinces us of because we have dogs as pets and therefore love them, and therefore do not want to eat them. Dasha was joking around with me afterwards and said that I ate Richi (our dog)'s brother, upon which Laura made a face and proceeded not to talk to me for a few hours. Gotta love my host family. 

Milestones

1) Today was the first day that the temperature was above freezing. I can't believe I'm saying this, but seeing puddles in the streets kind of made me sad. I feel like it won't be Russia without the snow. 

2) It's officially not dark outside when school starts, I mean, it's still dark when I wake up, but progress is progress. 

3) My Russian is coming along. I'm now at a point where I understand about 70% of what I hear (this varies however with context, I understand a whole lot more when people are talking about what they did yesterday as opposed to politics or algebra). As for my speaking, I'd probably say I know enough Russian to get by, and then some, but I'm by no means fluent. 

Another interesting note: In Russia, the 23rd of Febuary is a holiday: День защитника Отечества. This translates to something like Protector of the Homeland day. It used to be called Soviet Army day, but that sort of had to change back in January, 1992. To commemorate this special day, you give boys of all ages (reguardless of whether or not they protect the homeland) presents and cards. 

Singing folk songs

Maselnitze

burning the doll

Me on the 20 foot ice slide. 

                                                        Happy protector of the homeland day!!!

Сообщение для зимы--Soabsheniye dlya zimuy-A post for Winter

                    It is not quite spring here in Russia, but the good news is the temperature is getting a bit warmer. Now it is on average about 5 degrees farenheit as opposed to -15. In a few weeks there is this thing called Maselnitza which is a festival to say goodbye to the winter and hello to spring. I'm pretty excited for that.
           For now though, while it's still winter, I'll do another post with a few things that come along with this sometimes unbearable though usually enjoyable (and beautiful) season.

1) Before you can experience the winter for yourself, you'll need to go outside. It'll take about ten minutes to одеватся, which for those of you who don't speak russian, means to put on clothing, in this context for going outside. Even if you're only going to the store across the street you'll need a few things:

• куртка (jacket)
• воришки (mittens)
• шарф (scarf)
• шапка (hat)
• колготки (leggings)
• джинцы (jeans)
• носка (socks)
• ещё носка (a second pair of socks)
• рубашка (a shirt)
• ещё рубашка /(another shirt)
• свитер (a sweater)
• ботинки (boots)

Also, if you are a girl anywhere from the age of 16-35, you'll need to dress fairly nicely and wear makeup. Of course, this isn't true of every young woman in Russia, but if I were to pick one off the street at random, it is more likely than not that I'd find her in a dress and at least partially fur coat with a fair amount makeup. 

Which makes me wonder what the typical (or rather stereotypical) american woman might dress like. If you're in the US right now (and are so inclined) please make some observations and get back to me.

2) So in the US we have strollers. In Russia you probably also have strollers in the summertime, but in the winter, it'd be pretty difficult to wheel your baby around on snow and ice. Don't worry though. There is a solution! I'm not sure what they're called, but I have seen a whole bunch of parents pulling their children across icy roads and sidewalks in these little baby sled type things. You have no idea how cute it is to see a two year old in a  snowsuit being pulled in a baby sled. So I'll attatch a picture.

                 Unfortunately, I did not take this. I haven't been able to get a picture of one of these, because as you might have already guessed, I am not quite familiar enough with the Russian culture to know if it is acceptable to go around photographing babies that I don't know. I am also not quite familair enough with the Russian language to ask. Google images did a pretty good job of supplying me with the following photo. 

I was also going to write about tea, but this post is long enough, and I think tea, and russian tea drinking deserves an entire post all to itself, so I'm going to wait. 

As for the various aspects of my life: School is getting better. I'm understanding more and more (though not enough to do my homework for thу most part) and making a few friends. My family is doing well, on Sunday we went to Tarasiha for Babushka's birthday, the whole family--cousins and all. There was a lot of food, beer and vodka (the latter two were for adults only, don't worry). Laura being her adorable self recited poetry for Babushka. My seven year old cousin David, being his adorable self, took me on a walk  around the village and showed me what everything was. This promptly turned into a race from snow covered house to snow covered house, and I did a lot of falling, and (after making sure I was alright) David did some laughing. He reminds me a lot of my brother Daniel. 

Hm... What else? 

I don't know, I think thats about all for now. I wish everyone in the US a happy presidents day. 

Баня

               So I'm laying down, it is 105 degrees, and I have no clothes on. I am being hit with a plant by a 50 year old Russian woman, who, I might add, is also not wearing any clothing.... I think however that I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.
Three hours earlier
             I am in the car with my family, on the way to the house of a friends of their family, Tamara Alexandrovna and Vladimir Yurivitch. The house is in a small village (not Tarasiha), about forty minutes outside of Nizhny Novgorod. Tamara Alexandrovna and Vladimir Yurivitch are both enthusiastic travelers, so their house is decorated with lots of foreign paintings, posters, coins, and other such items. It also is full of wood carvings, which they made themselves. Pretty neat. So after introductions we all sit down to drink some tea (of course) and eat some chocolate (again, of course). Mama asks me if I want to go in the banya, and, having hardly any idea what a banya was, I did the most natural thing that came to mind; said Да! конечно. (Yeah, of course I do!)
            This specific banya was a small cottage outside their house with three rooms. One with a table for drinking tea, one with a tub full of freezing cold water and a shower, and another that somewhat resembled a sauna. So Dasha, Tamara Alexandrovna, Tamara Yurivna (I'm pretty sure she is Vladimir Yurivitch's sister), Laura, and I all go to the banya. Once we are inside, Laura immediately takes off all her clothing, and tells us that she's ready. I look at Dasha confused, and she tells me that you don't wear clothes in the banya. I was understandably (well understandably to me, not to them) taken aback by this. So I take off my clothes in the corner of the room and wrap myself in a towel, and only to return to find both Tamara's completely naked. Keep in mind that these are 50 year old Russian women, who I met only a few hours ago. So we all wrapped ourselves in these towel-like items and also put this strange sort of hat thing on our heads and went into the sauna room.
           It was 41 degrees C, which is about 105F, which is about the hottest thing in the world when you've been living in Russia for two weeks. So we sit there for about a half an hour, just talking, and I'm about ready to pass out. So I walk out into the room with the cold water tub and shower with Laura, and she shows me that you are supposed to sit with your feet in the cold water. While I'm doing this, one of the Tamara's comes in and starts filling a wooden bucket with more cold water. She gestures for me to stand up and get out of the cool water tub and stand in the shower. She says:
               "Raz, dva, tri!" (one, two three!) and then pours FREEZING cold water all over me. I screamed, and Dasha and Laura laughed. Then the others got cold water poured on them, and afterwards we returned to the sauna room for another few minutes. Every once in a while, Tamara Alexandrovna would take a ladle and put it in a large container of beer, and then poured it all over hot coals, causing a lot of strange smelling steam.
          Laura layed down on one of the seats in the banya, and then Tamara Yurivna got this plant, and started hitting her with it. It is supposed to be cleansing I think. Then it was my turn for the plant (this is where I began my story earlier), then it was Dashas, etcetera. After the plant thing we all just sat down for some more time.
            After I was about ready to pass out again, we all went to the room with a table, put on bathrobes, drank tea, and ate jam and honey. I thought the jam and honey was FOR my tea, not just for eating plain, so I put it in the tea, which greatly amused all present. After tea we went back into the sauna for some time, and then afterwards Laura took me to the tea room, where we put on bathrobes and sandals, and then went outside. The banya is all about going from hot to cold to hot to cold to hot to cold and back again.
           Outside, we put snow on our face and shoulders, and then hurried inside because Vladimir Yurivitch's gigantic dog, Vicki, was running towards us. After the snow we went back in the sauna, then got cold water dumped on us again, then drank more tea and ate more honey, then we went back into the sauna, then into the room with the cold water again to take a shower. We filled big wooden buckets with water, and used this special black cream stuff from Siberia to wash our bodies and face. Afterwards we all washed our hair in the shower, and then went back to the tea room, drank even more tea, and ate fruit. It was a very shocking, very cleansing, very Russian experience.

The sauna

The plant

For sitting and drinking tea

Dasha, Laura, Mama, Vladimir Yurivitch and myself. 

The Banya

Добро пожаловать в Россию!-Dobro pozhalovatz v Rossiyou-Welcome to Russia!

Hello and welcome to Russia! My name is Lindsay, and I will now provide you with a few cultural snapshots. 

1) Майонез-Maionez-Mayo

Foods I have seen people put mayo on/in (keep in mind, this is a list in the back of my journal that grows daily):

•  potatoes
•  beef soup
• chicken soup
•  bread
•  cucumber and tomato salad
•  eggs
• pizza
•  spaghetti.

It is the national sauce of Russia.

                                                                                  2)  Лед-Led-Ice
Dear anyone who has ever complained about driving in the snow: you are looking at a road. I know you can't SEE it... but don't worry, it is somewhere down there buried beneath the ice. If you think American roads are difficult, then I suggest you don't plan any road trips to Nizhny anytime soon.

3) Пол-Pol-Floor
This is a hallway in my school. Notice the lights are off; they always are, and I'm not sure why that is... But anyways, I'm not doing a snapshot of the lights, I'm doing a snapshot ofat the moment I am doing a snapshot of the floor. In Russia, the floor is a dirty place. You do not sit on there. I found this out between classes when I happened to take a seat on the perfectly clean (or so it appeared) tile hallway floor. The second I did,  the girls I was with all started screaming. When I finally got them to talk slowly enough for me to understand, I found out that it is absolutely NOT okay to sit on the ground in Russia, even inside. It is also not okay to walk around with bare feet.
4) Шубы-Shubi-Fur Coats
Examine the picture. You will see two out of the three women in it are wearing Shubi. These jackets, which are usually made entirely of real animal fur (so the woman in brown is technically not wearing one), are tres chic in Russia. Not everyone wears them (Dasha for example has expressed a strong dislike for such coats), but I'd estimate about one in five adult women that you see walking down the street is wearing Shuba. PETA would have a feild day.



Well, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed these snapshots. If you have any questions or suggestions of things I should write about in my next post feel free to facebook me/comment here.
Пака! --Линдси