Sunday 6 March 2011

Maslennitsa


As an interesting side effect of overdosing on Chekhov in Russian class, this entire week my mind has largely been on butter-fried blinis with roe and smetana, and with strawberry jam and mountains of ice cream. Maslennitsa, Mardi Gras, Fastlag or whatever you call it is absolutely the time for snowball fights, swindling toboggan rides down melting slopes and eating too much of crème chantilly and sugar and patisseries, whether or not accompanied by extravagant costumes and colourful confetti.


In the absence of blini kiosks, as well as feathers and sequins, however, I decided that pretending to live in Italy by eating spinach lasagne and chocolate merengues on the balcony while watching the icicles melt in the sunshine would be a perfectly appropriate way of celebrating maslennitsa. All of a sudden I can't understand how we ever made it without balcony glazing.

Red wine in the sunshine. Outside (sort of, at least). In March. In Finland. Not half bad. At all.

In short, another perfectly calm weekend.

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