139:Alaska

On 9th April 1867 The United States senate reluctantly voted to purchase Alaska from Russia for just $7.2 million. 
What a different place the world would be, geographically and politically, if Alaska still belonged to Russia. Although Winston Churchill's iron curtain has now gone I wonder if there would be an "ice curtain" dividing Alaska from Canada and the US. Still, the world is what it is - a very strange place, especially where different cultures meet.


Here in Moscow I have my fingers crossed that there is no more snow left in the sky to fall on us. There are gangs of workmen breaking up the piles of snow that have amassed during the Winter. 

It makes it easier to melt. The roads and pavements are awash with melting snow and the almost non-stop rain we had yesterday. April showers? Trying to circumvent the pools of water that were everywhere yesterday I was reminded of the old one-liner "I don't care what your name is, you're not walking on my lake while I'm fishing!" 

138:Happy Easter!

Today is Easter Sunday in UK. It is a religious festival to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his crucifixion. Some Christians go to church but not many these days.
As with so many of our present day festivals, religion has taken a back seat. Easter now means chocolate Easter eggs and presents to our children. Easter eggs are on sale in the shops from the middle of January. Cadbury's creme eggs are on sale throughout the year.
      

Over the Easter weekend we eat Hot Cross buns.
 


Here in Moscow I went for my first run of the season. I call it a run but that's a bit like calling a trabant a car. It was a mix of jogging and walking for half an hour.. But the important thing today was to put the running kit on and get out into the park. I can now start to build on the stamina and endurance.

137:A cheeky parrot!

I meant to write this yesterday (Friday) but ran out of day and my grasp of technology let me down. I had upgraded the operating system on my mobile but haven't yet got my head around its intricacies. 
On Thursday afternoon I went to the cinema between lessons. What, again, I hear you say. Relaxing in the cinema is a pleasant way of passing a few hours when there is a largish gap between lessons. Better than taking a 10-15 walk to the metro and then 45 minutes on the metro then 5 minutes on the bus then 5 minutes walk to get home only to do it all again in reverse a few hours later. I saw a new Russian film called Spy. (шпион). I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would but still better than the long trek home and back again.
http://www.kinopoisk.ru/level/1/film/468275/
While I was sitting in the cinema, waiting for the film to start, I was minding my own business and eating some nachos when along comes a parrot (I think!) to help me eat them. A cheeky blighter!

Here also, to finish off the blog, is the classic Monty Python dead parrot sketch from their heyday in the 60s.

136:Maundy Thursday

In the Catholic and Anglican church calendar this is Holy Week week. 


Easter (пасха) is a movable festival in both the Russian Orthodox and the Anglican calendars. This year, in Russia, it will be celebrated on April 24th. 
In UK, most schools are closed this week and next for the children's Easter holidays. 



Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey.


Today is Holy Thursday when we commemorate the Last Supper



Today is also known as Maundy Thursday and the British Queen, HRH Queen Elizabeth II, will distribute Maundy money to (some of) the needy. In the Middle Ages English monarchs washed the feet of beggars but starting in 1932 the monarch distributed silver coins. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Maundy

135:Back to the grindstone*

It is always always strange returning to Moscow. Russian laws, rules, appearance and behaviour are so different to UK that often it feels as if I have landed on another planet.
Having said that, it was a very pleasant, and talkative, young lady border guard who checked my passport yesterday. And I am always impressed in the Moscow metro when young people give up their seats more readily than our youth in UK. When they offer me a seat, which they do quite often, I feel a mix of disappointment (that I must look older from the outside than I feel on the inside!) and gratitude. 
And as for the weather! We've had snow today and there is a strong Westerly wind. In English there is a very old proverb which says "ne'er cast a clout till May is out"! but it will be nice to feel some warm sunny weather here in Moscow.    

*

 keep one's nose to the grindstone

 work hard and continuously.

ne'er cast a clout till May be out

proverb do not discard your winter clothes until the end of May.

134:Happy Birthday to me

Many thanks to my many friends and colleagues who have sent birthday wishes. Does anybody know a way of slowing time down so that the birthdays don't come by quite so fast?
I'm at Heathrow waiting for my flight back to Moscow to be called.

An interesting item on the BBC news this morning: 600 fishermen had to be rescued from an ice floe off Sakhalin. Luckily there were no casualties. Fishing through the ice is a very popular Russian pastime. Unfortunately several (?) people die each year when the ice they are sitting on melts or collapses.

Ice floe

133:A proper Sunday lunch

A proper Sunday lunch (roast lamb and all the trimmings) in a proper English pub. Nice. 
Back to Moscow tomorrow,Monday 2nd April.Wonder if all the snow has gone yet.