TEENS
At Spotlight on Russia we get a lot of emails from children all over the country. Here are two of them written in completely different parts of Russia.
Spotlight on Russia hears from two young Russians from very different parts of the country
Hi. My name is Sergey Demidov and I’m 13 years old. I live in Yakutsk which is the capital of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in northern Siberia.
I love my city in the winter when the clean, crisp snow covers everything. The temperature often falls below −40 degrees, so we wear fur caps and coats, thick woollen mittens and unty which are fur boots made of deer skin. Today it’s bright and sunny. It’s only −25˚C outside, so I’m going skiing with my family for the first time this year.
I go to a Russian school, but we have lessons in our native Yakut language as well. My father plays the khomus – a traditional Yakut instrument, and my mother does embroidery with beads. She also makes hats and her friends sometimes ask her to make outfits for our national summer holiday. It’s called Yhyakh, and it’s a great chance for me to perform a dance called Ohuokhai and to drink kumys – a national drink that’s made from mare’s milk.
Hello, I’m Irina Smirnova. I’m 14 and I live in Kolomna – one of the biggest and most beautiful towns in the Moscow region. Kolomna is over 800 years old and a lot of tourists come here to see the old Kremlin, the churches and monasteries, as well as the museums and art galleries.
I love my town because there’s so much to do here. In the summer, I like to go rowing and sailing on the Oka River, and we can go ice−skating at any time of the year in our new Ice Palace. Dmitry Dorofeyev, the Olympic silver medallist (2006), and Ekaterina Lobysheva, Olympic bronze medallist (2006 and 2014), are from Kolomna and we have a long history of success in this sport.
There are more than 30 schools in Kolomna and mine is one of the new ones. In the spring and autumn, my class goes to the Park of Peace after lessons to look after the plants and flowers. Tomorrow is Sunday and we’re going to see a play at the Maly Theatre in Moscow. It only takes us an hour and a half to get there by bus and I’m really looking forward to it.
DISCUSS
• How similar/different are the teens’ lifestyles? Why?
• What does your lifestyle depend on?
ACTIVITY
• What is your lifestyle like? What is it like to live in your town/city/area? Write to Spotlight on Russia and let us know!