Merry Christmas--again!

We didn't post pictures last week, so we're making up for it this week.

The Russian Orthodox Christmas is celebrated on January 7, and it's strictly a religious holiday. Hence, stores are open and it's business as usual. However, to show respect for Pravislavian religion, the missionaries didn't contact or do missionary work. The Elders came over to our home to eat and visit. District meeting is usually held on Fridays, but we held it on Saturday instead. All in all, it was a nice, relaxed day.

This last week we've learned a little more about the way they celebrate the holiday season in Russia. Someone told us that they've adopted and adapted all the non-religious things from a typical American Christmas and celebrate them on January 1. For example, Father Frost, not Santa Claus, brings gifts for the new year, and that's when they exchange gifts. They have New Years decorations.

Most of the cities have ice and snow sculptures done in a park or on a plaza. We enjoyed seeing the ones in Novokuznetsk last week. The weather little cool, but not bad. This was the temperature when we first got there:
(Of course that's -13 Celsius. It sounds much warmer in Fahrenheit--a balmy 7 degrees.

The entrance to the plaza

Happy New Year! (directly translated, it says "with new year")

The rest of the snow sculptures are pretty tall

Father Frost

We've never heard anything about a Mother Frost, but we're guessing this is like Mrs. Claus

No, those aren't warts on the dragon. They press kopecks into the sculptures. We're guessing that's like throwing pennies in a fountain.
The decorative tops to the walls and a few of the sculptures are made with blocks of ice. They had "trees" made out of ice around the light poles, like on the right side of this picture.


At the center of the plaza was a BIG New Year's tree. After it got dark the lights flashed and changed colors.




We'd been told about the ice slides but didn't quite grasp what they were like until we saw them for ourselves. They're made of snow; the slide surface is turned to ice by all the sliding. The kids were having a lot of fun, but we didn't see any adults sliding down. They had slides in different areas. This slide started out about 10 feet high.
Some of the kids climbed the stairs at the back and others climbed up along the side of the slide.

They have little vinyl fanny paddles for sleds

Some of the kids used whatever was available--plastic grocery bags, bits of cardboard, or nothing! We were very impressed with the balance some of them had as they slid down on their feet.
As we walked around we saw a slide for younger kids. It was only about half as high and was a little less steep. After watching for a few minutes we realized there was a matching slide on the other side.

Fun ride for the kids, hard for the parents to push
It appeared there was no charge to ride around the plaza in this sleigh.

The celebration continues! We've heard fireworks every night this past week. We're wondering how long they will continue. Next Friday they celebrate the old new year (Julian calendar).

This week in Russia:
Before we left home a few people gave us money to use as we saw fit. It's been hard for us to find a way to use the money in a manner that would be accepted in this culture, not offend anyone or be mishandled. We gave some money to a lady who was between jobs; we thought it was enough for groceries for a month, but it was gone the first time she went shopping, blown on extravagances. The culture really is to live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself. Recently we tried to make a donation for Father Frost gifts to an orphanage. The RS president was making the arrangements through the orphanage and they were all for it until they found out the group wanting to donate the gifts was a church. They turned us down flat. No way, no how. It didn't matter that there were no strings attached, that it was to be anonymous and no one except the orphanage officials would know where it came from. They simply were no longer interested in gifts for the children. We are learning every day that things are done very differently here.

The piano (keyboard) at the branch has presented at bit of a problem. From time to time it would suddenly turn itself off for no discernible reason. The pianist would turn it back on, reset the settings, and within a minute it would turn off again. That would be repeated over and over until A) eventually it would stay on or B) the pianist would give up. We were given permission to get a new one, but it took quite a few emails back and forth to Novosibirsk to find out how to get the money--they don't do purchase orders here. After about three months we finally got it all figured out. A member who plays in church when he isn't working spent a lot of time on his own and narrowed the search down to two pianos. He took us with him to make the final decision. He thought one piano was just under the 40,000 rubles limit we'd been given and the other was just over that. It ended up that they were both slightly more. We went ahead and got the one he recommended and made up the difference with some of the money that had been given to us by family and friends. That's probably not how you thought it would be used, but it will be a blessing to a lot of people for years to come. The music will go on for a long time, thanks to you!

The old keyboard is now in our apartment and will be used for FHE. In theory, it's also available to Arline to practice so she can fill in when the pianist can't make to church, but it's going to take her a L-O-N-G time to get good enough to do that. Fortunately we've got a simplified hymn book that should make it a little easier.