OK

I am being prodded into changing my initial plan of not telling you everything straightaway. I wouldn’t make a good Scheherazade anyway lol

First, a few words about my hometown. It bears the name Izhevsk. The word “izh” comes from Old Russian and means “water, river”. The history of Izhevsk started back in 1760 when the decision to build ironworks on the banks of the river Izh was made. The task was assigned to count Peter Shuvalov whose portrait you can see below.

It took three long years and a lot of hard work to finish a dam across the river Izh; thus the Izhevsk reservoir was built. At that time Izhevsk was called the Izhevsk factory and there were 56 log houses around it. All the factory workers were peasants, at least so they were called in the Russian Empire and it is still considered that there was no slavery in those days. But they were just a little above the rank of slaves. Many of them were trying to run away, those who tried to come out against the brutal exploitation were whipped to death or condemned to penal servitude. The Izhevsk factory came to the 19th century half destroyed by rebelling workers.

Izhevsk was reborn in 1807 when under the supervision of head of Perm factories, Andrey Deryabin, following an order from Alexander I, a small arms factory was build. I will bulk my blog out with his portrait too :)
Izhevsk was referred to as a settlement rather than just a factory starting from 1867. After the tsarist government was overthrown in 1917, Izhevsk was occupied by the Red Army and the anti-Soviet forces alternately. A year later when it became clear that the Soviet power had settled for long, Izhevsk was pronounced and still remains the capital of Udmurtia.

The republic of Udmurtia is a federal subject of Russia; it has been part of Russia for 450 years now. I myself am only half Russian; 50 per cent of me is Udmurt, because my Mum is Udmurt. There are two official languages in Udmurtia (as in most other republics within Russia) – Russian (of course) and Udmurt. In case you wonder, the Udmurt language is not in the least similar to Russian and it belongs to the Finno-Ugric language family. Udmurtia is situated on the European side of the Ural Mountains, about 900 km away from Moscow.

February is considered to be the most snowy winter month, while January is considered to be the coldest. Normally we have cold winter and hot summer with spring and autumn separating them. It’s me wearing my winter-coat. Luckily, there are no Greens around in Izhevsk.

Like you, Trudi, I spent my weekend among children. Not mine. My Dad and me went to a sauna where there were many little children. Here is a photo of people looking like roosting hens (that are being roasted) in the sauna lol Having sat like this in a temperature of +140º Celsius, they all go to a swimming pool which is normally only a few meters away.
So, let’s deal with my mistakes.

1. “a rime of frost” must sound weird. Should have I used the word “frost” instead?
2. “plain ticket”. Certainly it should be “plane ticket”.
3. “that makes me feel shut up in from time to time”. Not quite sure about this one. Well, there is bound to be something wrong with “shut up in”. Will “isolated” be a better choice?
4. “There I, an eighteen years old girl, get impressed by my second cousin…” Poor choice of word. I should have written “become impressed”. Right?

Trudi, there is still something to work at, as you see. You also mentioned some small errors. Do you think you could be really petty as to point out even small mistakes, say once a week (and only from one blog at a time, or I will be discouraged :))?

You ask what I meant when I said ‘I write it out and use’. While reading a book I always pay attention to the vocabulary, i.e. words whose meaning I don’t know but which look interesting to me. Then I write out the whole sentence with the word I am interested in and read my notes later to remember the word and the context of use.

By no means have I given up reading “Wuthering Heights” completely. I know I will read it one day, perhaps not in English, but still… Once I have started something, I never leave it half done. It took me half a year to read “Germinal” by Emile Zola, don’t know why I had chosen to read it in the first place but I did finish it. When I was little I reread “The Chronicles of Narnia” three times at least; “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass” maybe two times and there were another two books by Russian writers I reread a few times too. Now I don’t reread books I finished reading some time ago. I tried doing it once, but it felt like going on holiday to the country you were in last year – nice but not exciting. “Fahrenheit 451” does ring a bell, but I haven’t read it. Do you recommend it? I don’t belong to the type of person reading a few books at the same time. I get too attached to characters in a book, so I feel bad about betraying them :) Has anybody read “Captain Corelli’s Mandoline”? If you have, what do you think of it?

Details of my travel to the UK in further blogs. The only thing I can say now is that I loved it.

I am delighted to have received such nice comments from you all. Please do ask me about whatever interests you, and I will do my best to answer in next blogs.

With best wishes

Anastasia

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