Getting to know Russia

Winter is slowly knocking at the Russian doors, the weather is getting colder, the evenings are longer and the air fresher. It’s been also snowing already. Such conditions are not very encouraging to go out at night, walk through the city and get cold, especially if you’re still waiting for this damned package with your winter clothes… 😉 Anyway, yesterday in Russia we celebrated the Teacher’s Day and I was pleased to receive some sweet gifts from my students. I thought I was so nice of them to remember about me and to show their appreciation of my work. I immediately thought about me, too. Do I appreciate them? My Russian students? What do I know about their country, culture, customs and habits? Well, the answer makes me blush but apparently I know not more than the tradition of a Kazakh dance, bliny and… yeah, that’d be all, I don’t even speak Russian… (which in the other hand brings me a lot of funny situations so it’s not THAT bad 😉 ).

It’s high time to change it! And because I’d kill anyone who told me to go out and just hang out in the city centre, I decided it’d be a perfect moment to start my adventure with Russian cinematography. Before I came to Russia, I was given some films which were recognized and awarded on several film festivals. I’ve chosen a film called “Travelling with Pets” (Russian: Puteshestviye s domashnimi zhivotnymi). It’s a film from 2007 by Vera Storozheva. It won the Golden George at the 29th Moscow International Film Festival.

It’s a story about Natalya, who together with her husband, lives in a house near the railways. Dressed all the time in grey, she hides her true beauty and expresses the shape of her heart. The only thing she does every day is taking care of the household and watching the trains passing by. When her husband dies unexpectedly and another man, Sergey the truck driver, appears in her life, she finally gets a chance to know a new, maybe better side of life. Together with her animals, she embarks on a trip to know the world around her. A beautiful, poetical story combining  pictures and words in one integral masterpiece.