Soyuz nerushimy respublik svobodnykh..............

Zdrasvuytye

The first line of the Russian Anthem, "translated" from cyrillic into Roman script. It translates as "An unbreakable union of free republics"

I know it's not a great picture but I thought I'd blip some more Russian memorabilia as yesterday's seemed to interest people. So from the back, left to right

2009 Snow Festival bobble hat
Imperial Eagle Vodka Flask from my good friend Vladimir
Omsk Avangard Ice Hockey cap (the team are supposed to be known as Vanguard, but somehow in the translation it went to French-Avant Garde and then a mis-spelling to Avangard)
Moscow lighter
Avangard scarf
Vodka shot glasses from the Russian Parliament
Russian "tonic"
Sobranie
Imperial Eagle cigarette case.

There's a tale behind the tonic. We visited two schools in Omsk, Gymnasium 140 and the Omsk State College of Technology. The head of the College is Sergiiy, his deputy is also Sergiiy, so they were known as Big Sergiiy and little Sergiiy. When we were presented with the tonic the translation went something like this.

Big Sergiiy says this is Russian tonic drink.
It is made from pine.
When you are tired you should drink this.

Pause

You should not drink it from the bottle, you should put it in the coffee.

Pause

Big Sergiiy says you should drink only malinky (little) not bolshoi(big) amount


Longer pause

Big Sergiiy says Do not drink whole bottle in one day

Even longer Pause

Big Sergiiy says if you drink all bottle you will die!


I've opened the bottle and smelled it, it's like disinfectant. I've never been brave enough to test if Big Sergiiy was only joking or if it is as bad as he said!


Da svidanya