Only once a year…

18 September 2021

It was my birthday yesterday – time to upload again the charming birthday song sung by Gena the crocodile from the Cheburashka cartoons. Here it is.

К сожаленью,
день pожденья –
Только pаз в году.

‘Unfortunately your birthday comes only once a year’…

As usual, there was something of a Russian theme to my presents. My friend Sarah sent me this beautiful lacquer box, painted in Kholui –

I think the title translates as something like ‘an urgent assignation’. It looks like she has something important to say…

I’ve seen a few clips from this Russian-made series about Catherine the Great and it looks gorgeous, so I’m really looking forward to watching this DVD:

My daughter bought me this crazy Russian card game in an English language version, featuring the iconic raspberry jam. The rules look incredibly complicated – basically you have to collect pies and jam – but we’ll try and figure out how to play it. I was pleased to find it includes the lovely bear from ‘Masha and the Bear‘.   And my two favourite Nordic berries – Cloudberry and Sea Buckthorn.

One of the books I was given was ‘The Apartment’ –

– created by the same writer and illustrator as the wonderful ‘Транссиб’ (about the Transsiberian Railway), which I’ve had for a while. An English version of the Transsiberia book will be published by Thames and Hudson in October.