Казнить нельзя помиловать

Hello all,
The return to school (work) has been less excruciating than expected, both from the point of view of the beginning of the year, when all the parents hang around and all the children scream, and from doing it all with jet lag.  I've almost survived the first week, and no major mishaps!  (A couple of minor ones, but whatev...)

The other day in a store I saw the cover of a magazine that had a picture of the masks that pussy riot wears during their shinanigans with the caption that is the title of this post - kaznit' nelzya pomilovat'.  I knew all the words but couldn't understand the phrase. The first two words together mean "you mustn't punish" and the last two mean "you mustn't have mercy."  I asked Pasha when I got home and he explained it very well.  It's a play on grammar.  That sentence, without a comma, is a mystery.  The meaning is not clear.  One could put the comma in one of two places.  In the first place, it means, "Execute - don't show mercy!"  and in the second, "You mustn't execute - show mercy!"  This is of course referring to the great debate over what is to be done with the perpetrators of a "punk prayer" in Russia's main cathedral.  Read all about it in a former blog post of mine.  Anyway, the story is this: there was a lazy boy, a very lazy boy, who never did his work simply because he was a bad boy.  He ended up in the land of un-learned lessons, where they put him to the test in this way - his task was to put the comma in that phrase.  !

BORODINO

Well well well!  I'm back in Russia!  What a strange sensation, to come back so soon after leaving!  America and Russia have totally different atmospheres, and although I appreciate and enjoy Russia's, I was totally rocking out in my own native country!  Usually after an adventure of so many months, I get to stay home for a while.  Not this time!  I had just begun to forget some of the details of daily life, and now they're all necessary again. Plus, in one day I went from a hot Florida summer to a crisp Russian fall.

The journey was long, but I survived.  It turned out to be 29 hours from door to door.  Stupid airlines.  You buy one thing, then they think they can take it away and give you whatever they feel like giving you, as they please.  And they can!  I ended up having to wait a 6.5 hours in DC, then fly to Germany, then home.  The taxi took me through the middle of Moscow at rush hour, so a ride that should have taken an hour and a half took 4 hours.  When I finally got home, I slept the next day until 4, because of the tiring travel and because of jet lag.  That night, we left for Borodino.

Pasha had been planning to spend the weekend at this small town in the Moscow oblast camping out.  He wanted to see and perhaps participate in the historical reconstruction of the battle of Borodino in the war of 1812.  I told him I probably wouldn't be up to it, having just come back.  But it's the 200 year jubilee!!  I told him we'll see, and decided to go.

The Battle of Borodino (Russian: Бородинское сражение; French: Bataille de la Moskova), fought on September 7, 1812, was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the French invasion of Russia and all Napoleonic Wars, involving more than 250,000 troops and resulting in at least 70,000 casualties. The French army under Emperor Napoleon I attacked the Imperial Russian Army of General Kutuzov near the village of Borodino and eventually captured the main positions on the battlefield, but failed to destroy the Russian army despite heavy losses. About a third of Napoleon's soldiers were killed or wounded; Russian losses were also heavy, but her casualties could be replaced since large forces of militia were already with the Russian Army and replacement depots which were close by had already been gathering and training troops. (-Wikipedia)

We got the 10pm train, arrived at Borodino station at 12, where his father met us.  We had to go on foot to the camp, as it was late and no transport was available.  It took 1.5 hours, but I wasn't tired, having slept all day.  I was only tired from walking so far so fast.  We finally got to the camp where the group of guys who would be playing soldiers (our group of about 10 people, there were of course hundreds of such camps) had already set up a large common tent, their individual sleeping tents, a fire and fire wood, and a table full of food.

The weekend was interesting in a good way; the rehearsal was on Saturday and the "battle" on Sunday.  Many thousands of spectators showed up, and not just from Russia!  The rest of Europe remembers this battle too.  However, most of the players were Russian, even the "French."  It rained on Sunday and things got very muddy.  There were people in various types of costumes based on the rank and nationality, horses, guns, cannons, etc.  There were some pyrotechnics that made pops, booms and smoke.  It was worth seeing.  Here are the pics!  And videos at the end.  -Beth