Scandinavian (or nordic) walking

Not a long time ago, I got a gift: it was a sticks for Scandinavian walking.

This activity is extreme popular nowadays in my place.

You can see group of people with these sticks everywhere.

The main idea is include the top of your body into movement, and decrease the pressure on backbone and knees.

I have no idea does it work or not, but it's good to have some additional motivation to stand up and have a walk.

It's also good to have two more supporting points when it is slippery outside, or you have a precious load on your neck.

Thus I got involved to this (sport?) activity. But because I am young and strong I wanted to make task harder, and got a passenger with me.

We bought a special device - a saddle, with straps which fix my passenger tight.
You can see a part of it on the photo above - these red straps with lockers.

And now it's a good time to spend together.

I can move in my own place, and have a company in the same time.

We talks all the time, and discover different routes.

And our walking is becoming longer and longer. It is  almost ten kilometers recently.

Currently I am not interested make it longer nor in terms of distance neither of time, but I want to make it more fun.

I think next time we will have a map (pirate's map) with a route to hidden stash and we will try to reveal the stash.

Since I have co-driver, it will be his work.

Any other ideas?

Teaching English by playing word card

My boy's nursery closed for a week or so because of quarantine. It is a good time for having fun for both of us.

I decided to teach him few English words.

We bought a set of sixty cards with pictures, and started to learn these words.

For first two days boy memorized forty cards, and kept making mistakes in other twenty.

The process:

We did it during short 5-minute sessions, twice a day, at the morning and at the evening.

Two days after he memorized almost all, except only a few: city, field, sky.

It is an interesting story why they are special.

He had already known words like blue and green and when I showed him card with a green field, he said "green" and got stucked on continuation.

I call it "background issue".

We don't concentrate on mistakes, it will disappear over time.

One day after we changed the process, now he did it by himself:

He need not father anymore, but he is looking for approval, for compliment, you can see it on video how he always looks at me.

What is interesting in this:

1. He not only memorized all these cards, but also the history of them.
Those 20 which he had problem with I call "complicated" others "simple", and sometimes he pronounces the list name after the word.

2. If I hide one or two cards from the set, he always knows these cards and after he finished he asks me "where are <words from missed cards>".

3. Many cards for him not only a word, but a story. For instance after saying "food" he continues "Apple, Lemon, Juice etc", because I gave him these words as example of food.

How fast he memorized all these cards, and how easy it was for him - exceed all my expectations.
I already prepared forty more cards, but quarantine is over, so we will work on them once a day at the evening.

The last day of maslenitsa - forgiveness Sunday

The last day of maslenitsa week is a pretty special.

We call it forgiveness Sunday.

Everyone asks everyone for forgiveness.

The idea is sometimes we do something offensive even we don't notice that. 

It is the very day to forget all these insults and just start with a clean slate. (turn over a new leaf) (start over from scratch).

Nowadays it is just a tradition, just a ritual, I don't really think that you can get indulgence from everyone, but it won't hurt to try .

A funny video with scene about this:

So it's the time for me to ask for forgiveness there on  ;)

Please, forgive me!

Ice drift - end of winter fishing

Since the spring is coming, sometimes we have temperature above zero in
the middle of day.

Ice becomes thinner each day.

Look at the photo above, the places where ice is darker are more dangerous to walk.

We well see liquid water soon:

We (my family) cease our fishing immediately when it is not safe anymore.

But problem here, as ice become thinner, the fishing improves drastically.

More air come to the water, fishes are more active, they preparing to swarm, and they need more food.

That's why it's conflicting - you can have the best fishing when it is not safe.

Many, many fishers fail through the ice because of that. They just can't stay out of fishing when it's so rewarding.

Ice drift may start suddenly, and in that case fishers move on the  piece of ice like on boats.

Special department rescues hundreds of them each year, by using boats, and helicopters.

But some people have fun of ice drift.

They wait for it, to make something weird:



It takes courage to make a picnic in this place.

Ice can break in any second, but some people like to challenge themselves.

International women's day

International Women's Day is celebrated on March 8 every year.

In my place it is a pretty big deal. It can be compared to New Year celebration.
But it's not so common to celebrate it in the world.

This year we have four days long holiday for it.
There are a lot of jokes, that it is not the Women's day, it is a flower seller's day.
Flowers are everywhere.

You can buy it in everyplace.
It's very common to buy a lot of flowers and make gifts to every woman who you know.
In my place even the road police stops car with woman and give flowers

Usually we have party on the work and also with friends.
I am not sure how it is for other families, but in my family it does not looks like family holiday.

Leap Day — cultural difference

29 Feb is an additional day of year — leap day.

Well known fact that we have these days each four years, and there are astronomic reasons for that.

But let's talk about how we consider this day (or year with this day) from cultural point of view.

In Russia, I don't know anything special about this day but this bissextile year supposed to be unlucky.

I was thinking is a common thing to treat such years as "unlucky" before I've seen an episode from "30 rock" where they are referred to 29 Feb as a "free day for additional opportunities."

That made me think for awhile.
This optimistic way of thinking is much better than our way. It is really just a additional day, why it should spoil the year?
I decided to switch to another side, from now I will consider that day as a good one for any unusual fun!

Quick googling shows me these facts:

In Scotland, a leap year is thought to be bad for livestock. This is why the Scottish sometimes say, "Leap year was ne’er a good sheep year."
In Italy, where they say "anno bisesto, anno funesto" (which means leap year, doom year), there are warnings against planning special activities such as weddings. The reason?
"Anno bisesto tutte le donne senza sesto" which means "In a leap year, women are erratic."
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12177017/Leap-Year-2016-Why...

Tell us more:
1. Is this day something special for you?
2. Do you have special plans for it?
3. Do you think that these years are unlucky?

Maslenitsa is coming.

Maslenitsa is a holiday that marks the end of winter and the beginning of spring
We depict Winter as a woman like this:

And then burn her in effigy.
Sometime we write our wishes on small pieces of paper and put them in this woman's pockets.
Maslenitsa comes from the word "maslo", which means butter, and it refers to pancakes!
The boys are getting ready to mass pancaking.

He uses two dipping sauces, one is  sweet condensed milk, second is sour cream.
When time arrives there will be more filling for pancakes. Caviar, fish, sweets, meat, many, many of them.

Depending on number of guests, my wife uses from two to four pans simultaneously:

And usually, we have a lot of guests on this day:

Let's celebrate it !