На Даче/ At the Cabin

Today was awesome. We took a trip to the family Dacha (cabin), where I met some more of my host family: Uncle Zhenya, Aunt Valya, Sasha, Tanya, and "Kotek" the cat. We drank some of Aunt Valya's homemade wine (Best I've ever had), tasted some of her homemade Plum-Apple jam (to die for), and ate a huge homemade Russian meal of Borsch, Salat, and Pirozhok (meat, cabbage, and veggies baked between two layers of pastry bread). Omg so good.


My FAVORITE part was our Traditional Russian banya at the Dacha. The banya is like a sauna: It's a small cabin, and inside is a stove filled with rocks. You heat up the rocks and then pour water on them to steam up the room --- it gets really intense. Then of course, your banya buddy takes a handful of soft, water-soaked (birch?) branches, and HITS you with it! Over and over, like a massage. It sounds crazy, but it was very relaxing. Also, the whole time you wear a felted wool hat, to protect your head from the heat: Something about veins and capillaries, I didn't completely understand... Anyway, you alternate between sitting in this room, and walking into an adjacent room filled with buckets of cool water and splash yourself down. Then you take a break to drink hot, black tea (To help release toxins?) before going back into the room with the hot rocks. After a few rounds of that, you scrub yourself down with braided rope sponges and soap, and you are clean! It's extremely dehydrating, but very therapeutic (and liberating --- I just spent half of the day wearing nothing but a wool hat).

Click here to see all my photos from Russia!

Now I need to do my HUGE pile of homework, that I have neglected until 11pm the night before class. Poka/Bye!

Sarah