Q   Home Q     The Gift

• “It sticks out like a white crow.”  This is the Russian phrase equivalent to our “it sticks out like a sore thumb.”

• Is Siberia cold and blizzardy?  Not in July!  The temperatures got up to 95 degrees F in the shade some days!  Imagine that on a bus with no air conditioning and hotel rooms with no dark shades and no temperature controls!

• How can you tell an American from a Russian?  Russians say Americans dress more comfortably, are loud in comparison, and don’t know how to stroll leisurely when out for a walk.

• Kemerovo is 13 time zones ahead of Rothsay, Minnesota.

• The stereotype of Russians living off of cabbage and beets is the way it really is.  Add cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, and anything that can be grown in a garden, and you’ve got the idea.

• Siberia is a part of Russia and not a country of its own.  It is called Siberia to differentiate it from Western Russia just as we are used to talking about the Deep South or the Wild West.

• The Russian word for “Sunday” means resurrection!

• Most residents of Kemerovo boil their drinking water.

• The Cyrillic alphabet has 33 letters:  21 consonants, 10 vowels, and two letters without sound-- a soft sign and a hard sign.

Q      Home

Contact the Stowmans

Last Updated October 2, 2003