The Russian Family Robinson

The Trip:

Alright... As you may have heard, last weekend Dylan, Megan, and I went on a wonderful trip with real Russians! (Thanks to Megan for hooking us up). It was a weekend of many mini-adventures, which I will cluster artfully into this one comprehensive post. Enjoy!

        The car ride to the dacha (Russian weekend vacation home) was about three hours. We stopped along the way at an area of the road where the trees were covered in scraps of cloth. It was a Russian tradition that you made a wish and then tied a scrap of cloth onto these trees, and your wish would come true. So, we all did!

Here's an action shot, and here's my wish blowing in the wind:

         
We also stopped at a very rustic roadside toilet. It was too beautiful to resist.

The Dacha:

Dachas are a wonderful tradition Russians have. They're rustic little weekend/summer cottages where the city dwellers go to escape. We rented one for 1100 rubles/night per person, or about $35. We got really lost finding the place, and had to drive through some rough terrain to get there...

But it was so worth it! The dacha was adorable. There were baby goats there, and some pretty spectacular decor...

(This is quite possibly the greatest sign I've ever seen. What does it mean? No dumping in the forest? Do your morning squats and/or double-pole ski practice in non-wooded areas? Make sure to shield your ass from dangerously pointy trees? We may never know...)

The Hike: 

We arrived, ate lunch, then the Russians told us it was time to hike to a cave about 5K from the dacha. The hike was quite long, and hilly, and rocky, and even after the dacha owner woman made us a three page map we got a little bit lost. But it was fun! 

As we were hiking along, all of the sudden one of the girls gasped and raced to the side of the trail. We'd found mushrooms! Russians are really big on mushrooms, and she was an expert. We made a collection, marked the trail, and picked them up for the next day's lunch on our way back home. They were delicious!

The caves weren't huge but they were still cool. We had fun clambering about, tiring though it was.

The Shashlik:

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned shashlik before, but it's basically Russian shishkebabs. We cooked some yummy chicken over an outside fire and made up quite a feast!

Dylan had decided he wanted to buy peanut butter when we came across it at the supermarket, and the Russians went crazy for it. We taught them to eat it with apples, and they figured out themselves that it's also good if you just eat it with a spoon.

I finally had a real Russian meal: A big hunk of barbecued meat, cucumber/tomato/mayonaise salad, and a shot of vodka (okay, maybe more than one shot of vodka) to wash it down!

We spent forEVER trying to get good pictures of us writing in the air with smoldering sticks. Dylan kind of succeeded (in Cyrillic and backwards). We probably would have done it a lot longer, except all of a sudden it was time for...

The Banya:

A banya is basically a really hot Russian sauna, except it also involves whipping yourself (or having a friend do the whipping for you) with wet leafy alder branches. Also, you're supposed to wear these funny hats.

I could only really handle the banya in small doses. Then we'd sit around, snack on our leftovers, and chat! (In both Russian and English).

It was a great weekend and we made some good new friends. This has definitely been my most prominently "Russian" experience so far, and I absolutely loved it, even if my legs were a little bit sore the next day... Russian sure do walk a lot.