My best friend Alfie was visiting for the weekend and when we were at university together she studied Russian, so that seemed like a very good excuse for some pretend travel. Plus, it was pretty cold outside and I always think of snow when I think of Russia.
Russian Dolls
This was one of my favourite ever activities with the kids. I bought some unpainted Russian dolls for not very much money from eBay and we painted them. Penny wanted a traditional theme for hers and (as Freddie is too little to pick) we thought a space theme would be fun for him, and of course – very Russian!
After the dolls were painted and had dried, Mark gave them a coast of varnish to make them durable and they are going to look really lovely in the kids rooms as a reminder of our weekend and of Aunty Alfie.
We Ate
We went to my parents house for lunch and they embraced the theme very well; from vodka in the bloody marys, to caviar, smoked salmon and potatoes and even a Baltic Sakotis which was like a giant waffle and was absolutely delicious.
For tea later on we had Chicken Kievs… although Kiev isn’t in Russia – Wikipedia told me that they were, in fact, first created in Russia and so that seemed a good (and child friendly) choice.
Learning Russian
We love writing in different alphabets and luckily we had an expert on hand to teach us some simple Russian words and how to write our names in the Cyrillic alphabet. Freddie’s was the best with new and exciting letters for us to learn. If you haven’t got a Russian speaker to hand to help you, I’m sure the internet would step in.
Anastasia
Sky was very obliging by having this 1990s Disney style cartoon available for free. I had never seen it but it was perfect for our day as it is (extremely loosely) the story of the lost Romanov Princess and so was set in Russia and had some (highly inaccurate) Russian history.
Penny loved it very much and Freddie enjoyed the songs and dances. It was very pretty and very Russian.
We read
My sister had a book when she was little which we both loved very very much. We must have read it a thousand times. My mum managed to find it and I read it to Penny and Freddie. It’s the story of a little girl in Russia called Natasha’s new doll. It was every bit as magical as I remembered. To my delight I found you can buy a second hand copy on Amazon!
St Basil’s Cathedral
I think this is the most famous building in Moscow and I’ve always love it very much. Aunty Alfie had even been inside and could tell us all about it. Mark did a pretty good drawing of it on our blackboard for the kids to colour in.
And so the day ended and our visit to Russia was complete. It was wonderful and made me realise that although we have done 22 pretend visits this year, we have so much more to see!
