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Family Forays

Visiting realatives is a favourite pastime. At the weekend, when Westerners will happily drive miles out of town to enjoy a barbecue on a beach, Russians (if it is not a summer and there is no need to water the tomatoes) will go on family visits. The whole family, including great-grandmother and new-born babies, solemnly walks out to the bus stop loaded with home-made biscuits and pickles. Their relatives may live at the other end of the town but it will probably make the outing more fun. Villagers may walk several miles to see relatives in another village (unless they have a car, of course). On arrival, they will drink vodka, discuss different recipes and watch South American soaps (what else is left to view now that they’ve stopped showing the Indian ones?)

Hooked on TV

Watching soaps has become a national craze. When a popular soap opera is on, the police may take a breather since all the criminals are off the streets sitting in front of the (stolen) TV, weeping over the sad fate of Jose and his Manuella or Clara or Rosita. In the past if asked about some event a Russian might have said that it had occurred last year before Easter or after Lent or on All Saints’ Day. Now he may tell you that it was somewhere between the 126th and 130th episode of ‘Santa Barbara’.

Russians no longer go to the cinema – they don’t have to. When you can sit at home in front of your television screen and watch the latest film, live or on video, from Hollywood or by your favourite Russian director, why should you bother going elsewhere to watch the same thing? The culture channel, with ballet programmes and classical concerns, is also popular although Russians enjoy dressing up and going to live performances.

One programme Russians try not to miss is ‘The Field of Miracles’. Viewers shout encouragement at the screen as contestants try to guess a word, then another, then another. The whole country watches them, nervous and sweating over a word of 4 letters which is not what you have just thought it was. They may (or may not) end up with a sum of money. Really big wins are, of course, rare.

Programmes are broadcast from Moscow across the nation’s 11 time zones which means that Moscovites see the 6 o’clock news when they sit down to dinner whereas the citizens of Okhotsk, in far eastern Russia, wake up to the same programme with their breakfast.

 


Date: 2015-04-20; view: 973


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