Sosnoviy Bor

I've just returned from a week in the Russian countryside, where I was teaching English at a Russian camp for kids during their Spring Break. It was held at a former Soviet vacation complex located in the forest. It goes by the name of Sosnoviy Bor, which means Pine Forest. True to its name, there were a lot of pine trees in the forest – and they were massive! I've never seen trees so tall before. It was wonderful to see the green of the trees – it's been months since I've seen anything that's colored green here!

The complex itself was nice enough - it was basic lodging (which I'm pretty sure hasn't been updated since its Soviet days) but each room had it's own bathroom with a shower, which was nice. In true Russian form, the rooms were all over-heated, and lacked good ventilation. They all had balconies, but for safety reasons (kids can't be trusted not to fling themselves off the 8^th floor balcony, I suppose…) the doors and windows to said balconies were bolted shut. The only ventilation and relief from the heat was a small window above the door. After wrestling with mine a bit, I managed to get it open. It helped a bit, but I really would've liked to open the door and get some fresh, non Moscow polluted air in. Believe me, I tried everything to get that door to open, but judging by the coats of paint that were dried in the gap between the door and the doorframe, it hadn't been opened in a very long time, and wasn't going to be opened in an equally long time!

We got fed while we were there, which was both good and bad. It was nice not having to spend money on food, or cook and clean, but it was the same food every day. All meals were served buffet style. Breakfast options were blini (crepes), cottage cheese pancakes, porridge, and various greasy meat. Lunch options were pasta or watery mashed potatoes with too much butter, some type of kotleti (a ground meat patty), more various types of meat, and soup that started out pretty good in the beginning of the week, but got progressively watered down as the week went on. Dinner was an assortment of Russian salads (of which I only ate one, since the others were all meaty and mayonnaise-y), and the same choices as lunch, without the soup. We got a piece of fruit each day as well, and something sweet for a snack in the afternoon. There was always homemade kompot, a Russian drink made by stewing pieces of fruit and sugar in water. For lunch there was an apple and spice flavor, and for dinner it was some kind of berry flavor. The drinks were by far my favorite part of the meals!

I'm not a vegetarian, but I don't eat red meat or pork, and I'll only eat white meat skinless chicken. There certainly wasn't any of that at camp! I managed to force feed myself a few kotleti, as I figured the protein would do me good – but after a couple days I just couldn't do it anymore. So, I ate carbs with sugar for breakfast, carbs with carbs for lunch, and carbs with carbs plus a tiny bit of vegetable for dinner. That one piece of fruit a day didn't make up for the carbohydrate overload!

The teaching part of camp was quite enjoyable. I had three groups, 7-8 year olds, 11-12 year olds, and 14 year olds. The lessons were all based around different themes, and the kids seemed to enjoy all of the lessons, which was a plus! It was a lot of hard work, as we had to prepare all of the materials ourselves – but I was with a great group of teachers, so planning the lessons ended up being half the fun! We certainly had a lot of laughs during our planning sessions, which made all the time spent on it more than bearable. Plus, now I've got lots of ideas and things that I can use back here in Moscow!

The two best things about camp were the fresh air and the cats! There were probably about a dozen cats roaming the complex – half of them were afraid of humans, but the other half were just overjoyed to get attention. I had a couple favorites, but doled out love and petting to all of them who wanted it. I miss my Dascha kitty from home so, so, so much – all these kitties helped make up for my cat-lessness life in Moscow. The fresh air was just as enjoyable as the cats – we don't have fresh air in Moscow. It's all polluted by cars using diesel and leaded gasoline. All the cars, and the snow (which is almost gone now) are black from the pollution. Lovely, no?


*I'll add pictures later - I haven't had a chance to sort through all of them yet!*