Passion For Russian

This is the newest and very special addition to my matryoshka family . This one is a gift from my good friend, Amanda, who is currently living in Tajikistan. I love how this set encorporates glitter and those huge central-asian looking eyes. It’s different from any I’ve seen before.

Thanks Amanda!!

And if you want to read about Amanda’s adventures in Tajikistan, please check out her blog, So…tell me a story. She’s a great story-teller and seems to be a magnet for weird things happening to her.

Has anyone ever noticed that Russia has no standard direction for writing book titles on the spines of the books (or DVDs for that matter)?

Don’t you think that makes it difficult to tilt your head to the side and browse at a bookstore/library?

No Dropping Anchor Here (??)

Little old lady (бабушка) feeding the pigeons while we drink our Балтика.

Универсам “Фреш” - our local grocery store while we were stationed at Hotel St. Petersburg.

Универсам = универсальный магазин самообслуживания (literally general purpose self-service store or self-service department store)

This was definitely one of the things I was looking forward to doing during this trip. (I know - ambitious, huh?)

When we found this nice outdoor cafe, I walked up to the counter, looked at the small posted menu, and asked, “Do you have any _____?” (Can’t remember what I wanted, but it was on the menu.) The young woman behind the counter replied very politely, “No.” So I asked, “What do you have?” Again, very friendly and politely, “nothing”.

Luckily, in Russia, there usually isn’t a shortage of kiosks selling greasy little treats. This is a хычин с мясом (fried meat pocket) I originally fell in love with the cheese version (хычин с сыром) in Sochi in 2003. And don’t forget the Балтика (Baltika beer)!

Russians seem to like to decorate their cars more than we do. Муж really enjoyed this. (More to come…)

I found this huge area by the elevators to be a little odd: very quiet, old, dull carpet, no decorations…

One of those pictures that really reminds me of the feel of that building.

Hold the door.

Outside the St. Petersburg Hotel.

More bad parking. (Hint - if you park this bad, you might get a flat tire.)