Russian Language - today we learned about the 33 letters that make up the Russian alphabet. Our handout divided the letters into five sections based upon pronunciation as each letter they use has one distinct pronunciation. When you know what is going on, I think it might be easier than English. The five sections were English friendly letters (same pronunciation in both languages), false letters (like B which pronounced like a V), Greek Orthodox letters, Hebrew letters, and Russian stragglers. The Russian alphabet was created in the ninth century when Prince Valdamir chose Christianity for the official religion and had to devise a way to put the bible into a written language the people could read. We learned a song to sing to help remember greetings ( to the tune- Are you sleeping) DObraye OOtra, DObraye OOtra, KAK diLA, KAK diLA, haraSHO spaSEEba, haraSHO spaSEEba, paKA, paKA (This was written phonetically. ) It means "Good morning, how are you, very well I thank you, Goodbye".
Russian fairy and folk tales - Have their origin based in history and help children learn lessons about life. For very small children the stories are animal based and often not scary. Some of the members of our trip acted out the story about the turnip (Stephanie was the young granddaughter.) It was the story of an old man who planted a turnip and couldn't pull it out so he asked for help until there were finally enough people and animals to pull the turnip out. Moral of the story - many people working together can accomplish great things!
Russian Saying, "It is as simple as a steamed turnip!"
We were also told the story of "Round Bun" which is very similar to the story of our Gingerbread Man. I really liked the chorus: I was scraped in the bin, Ground in the mill, Shaken in the tin, Baked on the grill, Cooled on the sill, from granddad I then fled, From grannie I soon fled, And soon I'll run away from you!

Tea- the directer of food led this lecture on tea with Masha translating. we were told that Russians like tea with lots of berries and leaves. The Russian tea cup is bigger and saucer deeper so you can cool your tea in the saucer. At a Russian Tea party you will have tea and pastry. They told us that they often have perogies. (I wonder about this part of the translation.)We had some at our vodka tasting party and they looked and tasted like kolaches. At the vodka tasting party we also had blinis and three kinds of vodka, cranberry vodka, plain vodka, and Three Old Men. In addition we had caviar, fruit filled rolls and tea. This was very very filling. The red caviar burst like bubbles in your mouth and really didn't have any taste, so I ate all of mine. I still liked the blinis the best, especially the ones I made at the blini class.