Hello Mum! or Selam! (I've started to learn the Tatar language, you can be proud of me
)
Today we went to the post office with Galiya apa, her little one and her sister! It was a nice walk! Some of the time I went in a bag like this:
Or in the sled (where is my troika?
)
In each case I could see everything that was going around!
It was a foggy day, because it was quite warm, only -1C (in fact while I'm writing to you now, the fog is getting even thicker). Here are some photos of the locality:
There are many hostels belonging to different universities around (as in the last photo for example), thus lots of students from all around the world can be seen here. Actually Kazan looks like a city of contrasts: small houses and then suddenly almost skyscrapers, funny!
And this is me and the mailbox
On our way back we went through a local school's yard. I guess the school theme is interesting for you They study till the 11th form here (they go to the 1st form when they are 7 usually, thus they finish school when they are 18). There is an opportunity to finish school after the 9th form if they feel like going to a specialized school called "uchilische", they recieved a vocational secondary education there. If they want to recieve a higher education they have to finish all the 11 years of study, or they can try to enter a university after having the secondary education. Anyway all of them have to pass the Unified State Exam to graduate from school.
And here are the photos:
(and yes, it's a snowman, melted a little though)
(do you see the sparrows sitting on the bush?)
(I'm looking at the ski track left by the assiduous pupils, the snow is cold I must say!)
And this is my place, temporary of course
We have a wonderful staircase decorated by Galiya apa's sister's husband when he was courting her The inscription is translated from Tatar as "I love (you)!"
Well, that's all for now!
Your loving Glenn
