Russia Week!

Another week, another country! This week we were off to Russia.

Russia was an easy choice because my in-laws are from the Former Soviet Union, speak Russian as their first language, cook delicious Russian foods regularly, and are a great source of knowledge on Russian culture. Dan and I have also been to Russia, so we were able to share a few memories and pictures from there.

Crafts
This was my week to work (remotely), so Dan was in charge of crafting. He made adorable matryoshka dolls with the kids. You may not recognize their name, but you've definitely seen these nesting wooden dolls. We have a small set, but we saw some really incredible ones in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

He also bought two packs of cheap wooden spoons to make these lacquerware replicas. As with most of these crafts, Zahara gets pretty in to them, Asher...not as much.

Culture
We read lots of books in Russian and about Russia (like Masha and the Bear). We watched the National Geographic kids video about the Russian ballet. And, we got to revisit some of our favorite memories of our Baltic Cruise in 2012 by showing the kids pictures of Saint Petersburg.

Food

Asher may not be that into the crafts, but he loves cooking. This week, we made so many of our favorites. We had borscht, blini (crepes), ikra (salmon roe), smoked sprats, kasha, pelmini (cherry and cheese dumplings), seledka pod shuboi (herring in a fur coat), sirniki (cheese pancakes), and black bread.

We cooked a lot, but we also bought food from our local Russian store (how lucky are we?). We also picked up some yummy Russian chocolates. My favorite is the squirrel one (belochka).

Do Svidaniya, Russia! Now, on to South Korea!

See our other country weeks here.