This is your daily culture, news and weather update from the Dallas of Siberia!
As usual there isn't much to report so I shall have to rely on my imagination, memory and cultural stereotypes.
Uhmmm,,,,,
This week when I haven't been working (which is most of the time it seems – I mean, not working, these lazy Russians don't want to learn English in the summer) I have had my head stuck in a book, but I also managed to find time to watch the USA in the football showing support for my new American buddy (she even had pin badges that we could wear), but our support didn't get them anywhere and we lost interest halfway through because there was a bottle of vodka in the room, it seems 5 months in Russia gets you accustomed to certain, er, customs. So that was fun, I always like to drink vodka and feel the next day like I've been poisoned. Talking of which, the Russians keep trying to convince me that their wild mushrooms are the best thing since ready-made pilmeni and that I could do nothing better than go to the forest and pick some, take them home and boil them for 5 hours to take all the poison out and then, get this, eat them. I tell the Russians that the reason we eat our mushrooms raw in England is because they're not poisonous and any mushroom that will kill you when eaten raw is not a mushroom that should be eaten by me! They even eat those big red ones with the white spots – are they called toadstools? The kind that Brownies sit on and that I thought were the thing of fairies and legend, but no, they are alive and poisonous here in Tyumen forest.... and no I haven't seen any fairies. The frustration.
Russian: Do you have mushrooms in England?
Me: Yeah
Russian: What kind of mushroom?
Me: ....the normal kind. Oh and big flat ones and little button ones.
Russian: (bragging now) We go to the forest and pick our mushrooms, they're everywhere, and we love our mushrooms we have hundreds of different kinds.
Me: Yeah ? Well in Britain you're not advised to eat mushrooms that you find in a wood – er that's a British forest, I saw an episode of Neighbours once when Harold and Jim did that and it had terrible consequences, even though that wasn't in Britain cos it's an Australian programme, but even so I think it would be the same in Britain....
Russian: Huh? (ignoring me)You mean you haven't been mushroom picking? (shock and disapproval on face) Well we always go mushroom picking. Always and we love mushrooms, have I told you that we love mushrooms?
Me: YES, and you've been telling me since January, but the only mushrooms I've seen have been in a tin or in a jar, pickling, in the supermarket and I wouldn't buy poisonous mushrooms from a crazy mushroom-picking dirty fingered babooshka on a street corner if you paid me!! (this bit I say in my head, whilst nodding and clenching my fists underneath the table).
So mushrooms and the Tyumenites have this strange relationship – and it's all down to Oleg Ivanova and Irina Irina the mushroom queen... it goes like this: Oleg was walking along the River Tura one fine autumn day, long ago before you or I were even born, when suddenly he saw a beautiful lady in the distance and heard her laughter which enchanted him and he followed her into the forest. He caught up with her and fell in love with her instantly. 'Let me take you to my village Tyumen, one day it will be prosperous for I have had a vision that oil will be found in the north, and you will be my wife' – he said to her. She took him to meet her mother, Irina Irina who as it turned out was the queen of the mushrooms which was unfortunate because Oleg, well, he just hated mushrooms. NO - he screamed when he found out that he would be related to a mushroom, and his hatred was sent forth from his body killing the Mushroom Queen and in turn making all the mushrooms in her land poisonous for ever more. As you can well imagine Irina Irina's daughter was none too pleased and to seek her revenge she married Oleg but cursed the people of his village to be obsessed with the mushrooms that had been tainted by his hatred and to speak of them to all visitors who would ever come to the village, enough to make the visitors want to leave and never come back. Some say that on a fine night when you are mushroom picking in the forest you can catch the sound of Irina Irina singing as she attempts to heal the poisoned mushrooms, Irina Irina the mushroom queena the mushrooms are not all they seema ....
As usual there isn't much to report so I shall have to rely on my imagination, memory and cultural stereotypes.
Uhmmm,,,,,
This week when I haven't been working (which is most of the time it seems – I mean, not working, these lazy Russians don't want to learn English in the summer) I have had my head stuck in a book, but I also managed to find time to watch the USA in the football showing support for my new American buddy (she even had pin badges that we could wear), but our support didn't get them anywhere and we lost interest halfway through because there was a bottle of vodka in the room, it seems 5 months in Russia gets you accustomed to certain, er, customs. So that was fun, I always like to drink vodka and feel the next day like I've been poisoned. Talking of which, the Russians keep trying to convince me that their wild mushrooms are the best thing since ready-made pilmeni and that I could do nothing better than go to the forest and pick some, take them home and boil them for 5 hours to take all the poison out and then, get this, eat them. I tell the Russians that the reason we eat our mushrooms raw in England is because they're not poisonous and any mushroom that will kill you when eaten raw is not a mushroom that should be eaten by me! They even eat those big red ones with the white spots – are they called toadstools? The kind that Brownies sit on and that I thought were the thing of fairies and legend, but no, they are alive and poisonous here in Tyumen forest.... and no I haven't seen any fairies. The frustration.
Russian: Do you have mushrooms in England?
Me: Yeah
Russian: What kind of mushroom?
Me: ....the normal kind. Oh and big flat ones and little button ones.
Russian: (bragging now) We go to the forest and pick our mushrooms, they're everywhere, and we love our mushrooms we have hundreds of different kinds.
Me: Yeah ? Well in Britain you're not advised to eat mushrooms that you find in a wood – er that's a British forest, I saw an episode of Neighbours once when Harold and Jim did that and it had terrible consequences, even though that wasn't in Britain cos it's an Australian programme, but even so I think it would be the same in Britain....
Russian: Huh? (ignoring me)You mean you haven't been mushroom picking? (shock and disapproval on face) Well we always go mushroom picking. Always and we love mushrooms, have I told you that we love mushrooms?
Me: YES, and you've been telling me since January, but the only mushrooms I've seen have been in a tin or in a jar, pickling, in the supermarket and I wouldn't buy poisonous mushrooms from a crazy mushroom-picking dirty fingered babooshka on a street corner if you paid me!! (this bit I say in my head, whilst nodding and clenching my fists underneath the table).
So mushrooms and the Tyumenites have this strange relationship – and it's all down to Oleg Ivanova and Irina Irina the mushroom queen... it goes like this: Oleg was walking along the River Tura one fine autumn day, long ago before you or I were even born, when suddenly he saw a beautiful lady in the distance and heard her laughter which enchanted him and he followed her into the forest. He caught up with her and fell in love with her instantly. 'Let me take you to my village Tyumen, one day it will be prosperous for I have had a vision that oil will be found in the north, and you will be my wife' – he said to her. She took him to meet her mother, Irina Irina who as it turned out was the queen of the mushrooms which was unfortunate because Oleg, well, he just hated mushrooms. NO - he screamed when he found out that he would be related to a mushroom, and his hatred was sent forth from his body killing the Mushroom Queen and in turn making all the mushrooms in her land poisonous for ever more. As you can well imagine Irina Irina's daughter was none too pleased and to seek her revenge she married Oleg but cursed the people of his village to be obsessed with the mushrooms that had been tainted by his hatred and to speak of them to all visitors who would ever come to the village, enough to make the visitors want to leave and never come back. Some say that on a fine night when you are mushroom picking in the forest you can catch the sound of Irina Irina singing as she attempts to heal the poisoned mushrooms, Irina Irina the mushroom queena the mushrooms are not all they seema ....
posted by Girl Least Likely To at 9:12 AM
1 Comments:
wow, I did not know that about mushrooms.
You might find if you eat enough mushrooms you see fairies though.
Post a Comment
<< Home