Originally Posted by
translations.nm.ru Your pictures from Torino were terrific. I really did not know all that stuff about your political system.
In Russia, we can vote right after we are 18. We have neither Senate nor House of Commons here. Our State Duma is a sort of senate; the President (Mr. Putin) is above the State Duma. He is very popular in Russia. I can’t really imagine that the president of Italy could say, “We’ll be killing terrorists anywhere, even in WCs”. Probably you know that Russia has some problem in Chechnya. There are a lot of terrorists whose evil minds are full of destructive thoughts. Some time ago, they blew up a block house where 200 people lived, took over a theatre and held the spectators as hostages, and so on.
It is very hard to be a Russian. Never mind, just a joke. But, as a Russian saying goes, "Every joke has some truth in it."
I want to wish you a happy Easter.
By the way, do you dye eggs in Italy? Сhocolate eggs are not traditional, so I want to tell you a village recipe for making colored eggs:
Take 200 grams of diced onions, put them in a saucepan and keep it on until the water boils. Then put the eggs in the water and wait till the eggs are cooked. This way the eggs acquire a beautiful, lustrous, brown color.
When I was young, I would wake up early in the morning, get some eggs from the fridge, put them in my pocket and take a stroll. Whenever I met anyone, I exchanged eggs with them. Moreover, we woud say to each other, “Christ has resurrected”, and reply “Indeed he has”. (Perhaps that sounds silly in English). This is an old Christian tradition. After that, the entire family would gather in the kitchen for a holiday supper. Only after 12 p.m. would I go to church with all my friends. But Easter is not the kind of a holiday that Russians celebrate “with gusto”. But anyway, HAPPY EASTER and “Christ has resurrected”…
Did you really build a casa sull’albero?
In my childhood, I built so many tree houses that I lost count.
The Russian word for it sounds like “shtab”. I even had a sort of a spy game. We used to hide our “shtab” far away in the forest, so our opponents wouldn't find and break it. It was great!!! We had a weapon of sorts, a long pipe for shooting small rowan tree berries. When you blow into the pipe, the berry pops out with great velocity. It can hurt one's body hard enough to make it bleed (a cruel game).
Your Grandma's house is great, I can’t imagine that it could be better some time ago… (<---I can't figure out what that sentence means)
Waiting for a picture of your grandmother’s old house with the garden.
Poka
Your friend Ilia.