Mazlenitsa

In Russia they have a celebration in March called Mazlenitsa. This is the official celebration of Spring. It is always on March 1st. At school we celebrated it this past Thursday. They send the kids home early and have a big party for the teachers.

First we went outside and all the teacher were drinking hot, spiced wine and playing carnival like games. It was very traditional Russian and so fun. Some of it was participated in and some we just watched. Then we went inside for some music and dancing accompanied by blini (kind of like a crepe). You could have smoked Salmon, red caviar, jam, honey, or sweetened condensed milk on your blini. They also had spiked punch, tea and some cookie like things.

It just really cracks me up that these things would be found at a school! I don't think that they were ever have alcohol at an American school for a celebration, even if it is for teachers only. But this is Russia!

Here is a pic of our drama teacher. He is a hilarious man! He was one of the MC's of the event.

Here is a pic of the American Girls. Kathryn, Truc, Lydia and me

The next few pics are just of some of the games we were playing outside.

This is a video of the teachers singing and dancing around in a circle. I don't know, its a Russian thing.

Here is a video of the teachers at Zaitsevo and the teachers at Presnya having some sort of sing off or something.