The Waterstraut Waterspout: WWII Week: Russia

Ok, I'm seriously behind- like Asa is currently cooking the dinner to make me FIVE countries behind. But, the good news is they are all pretty common ones, so I'm going to blur through them.

So here we are at Russia. And oh my goodness, the things we could say about Russia these days. And the Trump jokes we could make. But, I'm trying to stay above that, so onward we go....

We've been at Russia before with our Olympics, way back in the Sochi Winter games, so the boys were already familiar. Plus, you know, current events and all.

Our landmark was the Kremlin, we talked about a lot of the leaders from Ivan the Terrible to Putin (Russia/The Soviet Union doesn't have the best track record there). But we also talked about the Soviet Union and how it became Russia, complete with the Soviet Gorbachev stepping down and handing the nuclear codes over to Boris Yeltsin to form the new Russia.

We also talked Beard Taxes (Peter the Great wanted everyone to be clean shaving, so if you wanted to have a beard you had to pay him 100 roubles- but if you did, you got to have a beard and carry a cool token, that you can buy on ebay for somewhere around $37- not that we checked or anything.)

Of course we mentioned matryoshkas (Russian nesting dolls- which when I draw looks like Patrick from Spongebob), the world's first satellite in Sputnik (I would have loved to have gone to the Space Center for Russia day, but that just didn't work out), the world's oldest lake at 25 million years, the TransSiberian railway, and the unique architecture, including that of Saint Basil's Cathedral.

Over at the World War II Board, I introduced to the boys to Stalin. Just because he sort of fought with the 'good guys', doesn't really mean he's a good guy, obviously.

We discussed how Hitler invaded Poland (we also celebrated Poland this week, all be it a bit late and discombobulated), setting off World War II, how Stalin and Hitler had a pact, and how Hitler broke it, sending Stalin right into the arms of the Allies.

Obviously, Asa knew what to drink for Russia day. Fun fact in case you didn't know: Vodka comes from the word Voda, which means water. And people in Russia drink it as such. They drink it straight, and the average person drinks 4 gallons of pure alcohol a year in Russia. In some really remote areas, teachers have been paid in vodka when money was tight.

We did have some extra info for Russia. Last year we were getting these little Kitchen Table Passport boxes. I had a coupon code for six months at half off- so we got the six months. But not far into it, we decided we were going to do this whole country project, so we tucked away the remaining ones to pull out later.

We got some other fun facts:

The largest country in the world, as we all know, spans two continents. But while 75% of Russia's land is in Asia, the majority of Russians live in Europe.

And it has roughly the same surface area as Pluto!

Russia accounts for 1/8 of the world's landmass! (And at one point in the Bering Sea it is just 2.5 miles from Alaska- though that's nowhere near Sarah Palin's house, just sayin).

It's the second largest oil producer in the world, after Saudi Arabia

In Russia you bring an even number of flowers for funerals, but an odd number for a happy occasion.

The Russian language does not require a subject and a verb. ('was walking' is a complete sentence)

The co-founder of Google was born in Russia

There is a mayor in western Siberia who banned the use of excuses.

There's a resturant in Moscow that only hires twins to wait tables.

Russians have drilled the deepest hole ever drilled. It was 7.5 miles deep (and only 9 inches in diameter).

The Russian Olympic team was 12 days late to the 1908 Olympics because they weren't using the Gregorian calendar yet.

And finally, my favorite: the game Tetris was created in Russia in 1984.

Along with the box you get some trinkets. We got some Matryoshka dolls that were hand made in Semyonov in Western Russia, which is famous for traditional crafts along with a Khokhloma spoon, made in the same area. Khokhloma is the name of the Russian woodcraft painting style and is their national ornament. The craft started when people started making tableware out of soft wood and they wanted to strengthen it.

For our activity, we made Faberge Eggs, which were made for the Russian Tsars. There are 50 of the elaborate eggs, and something like seven of them remain missing.

We did read an article about a guy who happened upon one that he bought because he was going to have it melted down! He ended up with 33 million dollars instead.

Anyway, our Faberge Eggs were just some decorated Styrofoam Eggs. But the boys did a good job on them, and got a little lesson the Tsars which were in place before the Bolshevik/ Russian Revolution in which eventually led to Lenin taking power, which led to Stalin- so it all fit in! Plus, that Revolution is when a bunch of the eggs got lost.

All done! Calib didn't want to add too many jewels to his (in the middle there), he liked that he had colored it like a Russian flag and wanted to leave them alone.

We colored Russia in on the table in shifts through out the day hoping to help the overwhelming smell of nailpolish. We bought three bottles of a new color, not knowing how much it would take to get it all colored in. We picked the color based partially on it's name: Hazard. (It seemed fitting given the times we live in).

For dinner we took some help from the store with Cheese Bourekas (which apparently are very popular in that whole Baltic area, but originated with the Ottoman Empire), Drankini (Russian Potato Cakes- although we substituted Latkes, it was close enough!), and Borscht (which I wasn't going to get if it was expensive, because, ewww.. but it was $2.50 so I went ahead and sprang for it).

You can see how the kids felt about it, but I told them we had to try it!

Asa made dinner, as always, but I did realize I should take a few more pictures of him, since he's the one that cooks all these crazy meals! We also had our first repeat recipe, the Apple Sharlotka (Russian Apple Cake), which we also had for Kazakhstan day.

The rest of dinner was Russian Stroganoff and Russian garden salad- not to be confused with Russian dressing, which isn't Russian at all. This is like that whole Chinese cookies aren't Chinese things. Also: German Chocolate Cake isn't German. And French Fries are likely Belgian (of those life altering developments, Calib says :" How do I know if anything is real anymore? I've been living a lie my whole life!")

We did end up having to eat outside though, the kitchen just could not get rid of the nailpolish smell.

Dinner earned 5 spoons up.

Although before Peyton voted he said 'just to clarify I am not giving the Borscht a spoons up.' We'd all try it again if it was served at some authentic Russian place, or in Russia. But that stuff was not good. Honestly, it wasn't as gross as I thought it would be, but it was not something I'd ever eat out of a jar again.

The rest of it was pretty good- but the sour cream on the salad was a little weird for some of us., I know that Russia is supposed to have like the best sour cream of all, so maybe it's better there. But, it was like eating the insides of a taco without taco meat- or a shell. Something was off about it.

After dinner we came inside for the boys to share their post cards.