Archives for: "July 2010, 29"
Record-breaking heat
July 29th, 2010Kazan is having its hottest summer on record. It's already clear that the dry spell has destroyed the grain harvest for the year; this year they will harvest at best 20% of last year's amount. Food prices are already rising. In the winter and the… more »
Germans in Tatarstan
July 29th, 2010A former student just wrote to me:
I've enjoyed your pictures (can't believe how "modern" (i.e. Western?)) some of the scenes look. To what degree is Russian still a lingua franca in Central Asia? How about German? I know that there had been a sizable… more »
Okroshka, beer soup
July 29th, 2010Sometimes Russians seem insane, particularly in their desire to drink hot tea and eat hot soup for lunch in the middle of summer. But they have one soup that is cold that they also like, and it is called okroshka. Essentially it is a cold vegetable… more »
