Memories of Russia

Before I started school, I wondered if my school uniform would be boring. I wondered if it would be black and white like a traditional uniform. Dad had told me that when I started school I would wear a uniform. This brought me to my memory of our neighbour downstairs, Костя , Kostyah, who was in the army. He had a uniform and I think he even wore it sometimes. He wasn't in the army at that point though. Then I imagined wearing that kind of uniform and I was devastated. When I told Dad how I hated the bland uniform and actually started crying. Dad chuckled softly, with a hint of the sadness that comes when you imagine yourself in someone's perception. He assured me that I wouldn't be wearing that kind of uniform, but a school one.  The first two years of school the girls got to choose our classes' school uniform. They chose one which was grey with pink and yellow thin stripes. I'm wearing a blouse on the 1st of September though. I was happy that it di...

Anyway, back to school. Russians start school when they are seven years old. Or six. I was seven, since my birthday had been in Canada a few months before. Unlike Australia, they have a specific date that school starts. Different states start on different days in Australia, in the end of January. I don’t know why the cant start on the 1 st of February. It would be so much neater. Although some days that would end up a weekend. Since Russia is in the Northern Hemisphere, their seasons are different times, and the school year starts in September. They obviously couldn’t have the long holidays in the winter, it would be too cold. We wouldn’t be able to paly outside as much if the holidays had been in the winter. Even in spring and autumn, you can only play so long outside before you get cold. So, they gave us the whole summer off. Three months. Because we lived in apartments, we would share a courtyard. The courtyard had a playground and grass and trees. Benches. Laundry racks. K...

At my age, it was time that I would learn how to read. Mum got these English schoolbooks for me to practice learning letters. We called them printing books, because technically that it not cursive writing. Or the books called themselves that. One of things that I particularly remember about this book is that is taught letters related to a c, calling it the magic c or something with a little bunny rabbit in a hat in the top left corner. Letter that started with a c. I think they were c, e, o, a, d, q and g . Or something like that. It helped me remember. Mum and Dad, one found a very clever way to teach me to read and write. They bought me an exercise book, and we headed off to the zoo, writing down the animal’s names as we went. Comparing ostriches and emus. By the way, they have different numbers of toes. Mum also made this little booklet which I still have. Mum and Dad are very good at finding ways so I learn secretly. They also got a small notebook which had a cartoon zeb...

I still have a few things to tell you about my life during this time. You might have noticed that I traced back to art school on a second post even though I thought I had written a lot of about art school. Then I realised I had a lot more to tell and continued. I still have more about art school that I haven’t covered. I need to tell you more about my art teachers. One of them was Светлана Анатольевна - Svetlana Anatolyevna. I already told you a bit about her. She was a nice teacher, younger than the others. She had a blonde bob of hair and smiled often. Her voice was jubilant. One time a new boy came to our class and he was so eager to draw he got out his oil pastels and started before even making any sketchers with a pencil. It was a waste of paper. And I admit it, I was … unimpressed. But how was he supposed to know? I thought I drew better than him. I don’t think that is very fair. Even if that were true, what is the point of dwelling on that? My teacher let out a so...

I don’t remember how old I was at this time, but I was pretty small. That’s why I won’t stay on this topic for very long and move on to something else other than going to China when I was like three to five or something. We came to see the great wall of China. Perhaps they should rename that – the long wall of China. It’s very long. Dad had this backpack when I was little with this pocket in it that I could sit in. I sat perched above Dad’s shoulders being very light and young. It was great for long trips, particularly trekking The Long Wall of China. Do you suppose they were jealous? Its crazy how little kids don’t realise how great it is to sit in a trolley when shopping. Chinese people would swarm around me because I was this cute little foreign kid. Apparently, some Chinese people have this weird superstition that if you get a photo of a really cute kid and you put it under your pillow, your kid would also be cute. Which doesn’t really make much sense, but all cultures have p...

I suppose when I started writing this blog, I decided to take the story to Russia as quickly as possible. Leaving these sorts of gaps, I left out a lot of early memories travelling. Not everyone gets to have early memories travelling, but for me some of my earliest are of traversing the world. One of these memories was when I was five years old and we were on a trip to Kyrgyzstan. I must have really like it, because even when I was like ten, I wanted to revisit Kyrgyzstan. I brought it up often when we talked about holidays. How I wanted to see my friends there. I don’t remember their names or much about them- because I was five and I have met a lot of people. But they must have been good friends because I have subconscious good feelings about my time in Kyrgyzstan. (I hope I don’t end up skipping around times too much on this blog. Overall, I hope to move chronologically but it’s hard to get it perfect) While my grown-ups were talking to other grown-ups, I went to this exce...

One of my favourite birthdays to recall is my seventh birthday. This one was in Canada and Grandparents and their kids and their kid’s kids were there as well. This birthday was an outside picnic. It was bit different from my other birthdays, because this time my Aunty Dorothy made the cake. When she revealed it for the first time, she admitted disappointedly that she hadn’t got the time to decorate it. It was a cake in the shape of a castle, and was wrapped in white fondant. She was disappointed because at that moment it was plain white. But I was overjoyed, because Aunty Dorothy let us decorate it instead. It was like an unplanned activity that I loved. She got out the fondant and my cousins helped out too making it look beautiful. I remember this part very well. We also decided to play some games. We ran around outdoors racing each other. Then I came up with the crazy idea of doing the whole race in somersaults instead. Well, it could have been someone else’s idea. I th...

So now I can tell you about camp Okema and my 7 th birthday. Being the oldest child, you get older faster than kids younger than you. And considering that, by the time I was six years old -it might have been seven. I can’t remember whether it was before or after my seventh birthday. But you roughly know my age. And I went to this camp called camp Okema. I did have a little bit of help with that. Grandma was the cook, so it wasn’t like my family wasn’t there. It was also a Christian camp and my Mum had gone there as a kid and we went as a family when I was little, but I don’t remember that. Going by the forgive and forget idea, I’m forgetting ( a.k.a not mentioning) something I overheard the teenagers there say about kids. But all I can say is, don’t underestimate kids. Each group had to come up for a name for their group. Lots of groups made amazing things. We decided to make a zoo. I don’t remember whose idea that was. But it’s the coolest, cleverest idea when you are 6...

Around this age, me and my little brother Patrick went on a three-month trip to Canada. My Grandparents, cousins, Aunties, Uncles, etc. on my mum’s side all live in Canada. They live in a small town called Borden which is about an hour’s drive away from Saskatchewan. I told you about the apple tree, right? It is in Grandma and Grandpa’s backyard. It inspired my dream to have an apple tree. At first when we got to Canada that time, we were staying with my Auntie Dorothy and my Uncle Dan. I was disappointed because I wanted to stay with my grandparents. But Dan and Dorothy were very nice and cleared up the basement so we could stay there. You should see their basement…. Its great. Dorothy wasn’t able to have kids which made her very sad. Dan and Dorothy thought about adopting. At first, they didn’t. They were foster parents and looked after two kids- Jadice and Ethan. I really wanted them to become my cousins but back then it wasn’t for certain. They are really nice kids. ...