Zdravstvuyte!
We “went” to Russia this week. That involved watching Anastasia for the kids and Hunt for Red October and The Saint for us. Slim pickings, I know. But I also found an amazing adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace by BBC. It was wonderful!
We celebrated Kupala Night (or Ivan Kupala day, the Feast of St. John the Baptist) on July 7. This is a holiday celebrated in Slavic countries like Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Poland. It’s related to the summer solstice and involves some neat traditions around water and jumping over bonfires! We celebrated by learning about it and going swimming at an outdoor pool. Whatever works!
For our project, we painted matryoshka dolls! I found these at Hobby Lobby, and they conveniently had 6 pieces.
We started by drawing our designs with pencil, then Sharpie.
Then we painted them with the tiniest of tiny brushes.
I’ll post a completed pic of them soon! Mike is still working on his.
We also made plov (memories from Kyrgyzstan!) and Russian spice cookies called pryaniki. They tasted a bit like gingerbread, but with a honey flavor rather than molasses. The kids loved them and kept popping them in their mouths!
We also did our usual library book gathering and photo viewing.
Dosvidaniya, Russia!
