Деревня/Derevnya/Village

                So in Russia, most families, or at least most that I've encountered have two homes. One in the city, and another in the derevnya (village) which is called a dacha. This is the case because most people were born in small villages and at some point in their life moved to the city. My host dad for example, was born in Suneevo, a small village about 2 and a half hours away from Nizhny and came to Nizhny to study (my host mom was born in Kazakhstan, which at the time was part of the USSR, and also came to Nizhny to study, where she met my host dad, they got married, had 2 kids named Yulya and Artem, and eventually decided to host a 16 year old American girl named Lindsay).
    So we went to Suneevo over the weekend (it was my second time there, I also went during our week long break at the end of March) and stayed in the house that my host dad was born in (its been renovated a bit since). Cool though? If when I say village you are imagining an american style small town, you are not imagining correctly. When I say village, I mean village. I don't think we have villages in the US. It's funny, because Suneevo reminded me in some ways of Harmons, (a village in Jamaica where I've been). My host family got a kick out of my saying the Russia resembled Jamaica, and you probably do too, but I stand by my assertion.

My host parents.

A house in the village. This is what a typical house looks like. I'd post a picture of ours but I for some reason didn't take one.

                              These girls, Natashka (8) and Dianka(3), are our neighbors. They live in the village all year around. They are absolutely adorable. The younger one didn't totally understand what it meant when I said I wasn't from Russia. She kept asking "Why are you talking funny?".

                                        The downside to spring in Russia: Flooding.

                                                   Happy Easter! You'll notice there are some dyed eggs on the table. On the morning of easter about 8 different people came to us and wished us a happy easter, and gave us some of their dyed eggs, and we gave them some of ours. Also something minorly interesting, the white stuff (a sort of cottage cheese yogurt thing called pas-ha) you see on the table, they said that is the body of christ, and the eggs, which are traditionally dyed red, represent the blood of christ. I thought that was interesting because it minorly resembles catholocism.

This is one of the three streets in Suneevo, its our street. Aside from houses this village also has 2 small stores for food and a "club" which is a room with a pool table where kids hang out in the winter. I have no clue what the population is but I'd guess around 100.

Also AFS Russia had a contest, where you had to do something that demonstrated your vision of Russia. I wrote an essay, and got second place. The prize is going on a free trip to the south of Russia for 2 weeks (since I got 2nd place for me its 50% free). So I am leaving on Sunday, and am quite excited for a 30 hour train ride to a completely different part of the country!