Happy Women's Day!

So before I dive into my women's day I thought perhaps that some people may want to know the history behind the holiday! Below is cut and pasted from an email I received about the holiday from a gentleman at the consulate- hopefully no copy write infringement with posting it!

A Little Background on International Women’s Day

1908
Oppression and inequality spur women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change. 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.

1909
In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman's Day (NWD) was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate NWD on the last Sunday of February until 1913.

1910
In 1910 a second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. A woman named Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women's Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day - a Women's Day - to press for their demands. The conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women's clubs, and including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, greeted Zetkin's suggestion with unanimous approval and thus International Women's Day was the result.

1911
Following an agreement reached at Copenhagen in 1911, International Women's Day (IWD) was observed for the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination.

1913
On the eve of World War I, Russian women observed their first International Women's Day on the last Sunday in February,1913. International Women's Day was moved to 8 March, a day that remained the global date for International Women's Day ever since.

Now i had not heard about the Holiday before moving to Russia- but I must say it is a great day- much like our Valentines Day men are expected to give flowers, chocolate or other special treats to women. My special husband decided to partake in the celebration too! I had been eyeing/ talking about/ begging for one particular tea cup since the day we arrived- and to my surprise Josh surprised me with it today! Isn't my "Winter fairy tale" cup beautiful!

My husband wouldn't be my husband if he didn't always have an extra treat up his sleeve :)
If I wasn't overjoyed enough- Josh decided to truly spoil me and double surprise me with this beautiful tea cup and tea pot set! Happy Women's Day to me!!!!

A weekend in Novgorod

I (Josh- for some reason my computer does not recognize me as a blog poster anymore, hmmm I'll think about that later.) Regardless I went to Novgorod for a couple of days with a friend this week and I was quite surprised at how friendly the people were in a much smaller town here in Northwest Russia.

At the World War Two memorial they had a tank, so I could not resist a photo op.

This is a city/ state government building, it is quite impressive.

At the end of a walking bridge in the center of town was a statue of this footloose and quite inappropriately dressed (for the weather) young woman. Speaking of inappropriate, this day was the first day since December that it had been above freezing, and the River (the Volkov river) was NOT frozen. The river in Saint Petersburg which is much closer to the Baltic sea and should be warmer then this inland river is frozen solid and has been for months. The relative lack of ice in this river was quite disturbing.

In one of the many Churches in this town (this town is almost 1000 years older than St Petersburg, which means a whole lot of time to build lots of churches) the creation story was painted on the wall. I loved the painting depicting the Adam having to go to work once they were kicked out of the Garden.

In 1862 the Czar (I think Alexander II but don't quote me on that) commissioned this statue to commemorate the 1000 years of Russia, as in 862 the first prince of Russia (Prince Rurik) began to rule in Novgorod. For comparison St Petersburg was not founded until around the 840th year of Russian history.

One of the most special things for me about living in St Petersburg is the large amount of international people that I come into contact with- I feel so privileged to learn about so many different cultures. This past month I learned about “Hinamatsuri” the Japanese doll festive or Girls Day.
Here is the explanation from Wikipedia - The custom of displaying dolls began during the Heian period. Formerly, people believed the dolls possessed the power to contain bad spirits. Hinamatsuri traces its origins to an ancient Japanese custom called hina-nagashi ("doll floating"), in which straw hina dolls are set afloat on a boat and sent down a river to the sea, supposedly taking troubles or bad spirits with them. The Shimogamo shrine celebrates the Nagashibina by floating these dolls between the Takano and Kamo rivers to pray for the safety of children. People have stopped doing this now because of fishermen catching the dolls in their nets. They now send them out to sea, and when the spectators are gone they take the boats out of the water and bring them back to the temple and burn them.
The most beautiful display of dolls is set out to celebrate this holiday. There are 7 platforms set up and covered with a red cloth. The dolls are made to represent the emperor, emperors, attendants, and musicians in traditional court dress of the Heian period. Below is a picture of the display at the Japanese Consulate. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The detail on each doll was truly amazing, not only was each doll is dressed in the traditional clothing but each had hand panted faces and beautiful silky hair. Here is the significance of the doll order and decorations… to learn about the dolls click here.

Just one of those days I guess?

So we knew we had a busy day full of different Russian delivery people- which can go either very well or horrible- today was a bit - well- confusing. The morning started off great our first two deliveries went well- we received our new water cooler which worked- and then our new treadmill arrived- 2 hours late- but they were very nice and patiently and thoroughly set up and explained the machine to us. Two relatively positive experiences, great!

Then all we had left for the day was our two wardrobes- the factory called yesterday and told us to expect the delivery men between 10am-5pm- a small window of time right ? So we wait... and wait.. and wait.. Then about 5pm a delivery man calls and says he will be here tomorrow ...maybe. At this point in the day everyone (meaning me) is cranky and tired of waiting- Josh now has the wonderful job of making this guy understand that he was supposed to have been at our house today, and that he took off work to wait for this guy who is now saying that he isn't coming and telling us to wait around tomorrow too. All I understand is that all parties involved are not happy.
The next phone call was back to the manager, who then calls the driver who then calls us back to assured us that he was indeed coming today but he was running late and wouldn't be there until 6pm but again promising that he was coming.
We believe that things have been straightened out and we again wait... and wait..8pm comes..no word from anyone. It is now soon approaching our bed times.. and we are really cranky. We call all the numbers again- conveniently the manager’s office closes at 6pm- the exact time that the delivery was supposed to have come-(we didn't think it was a coincidence) and when we call the driver back he again claims no he is not coming until tomorrow- and if we can't be there tomorrow- he can't come again until March 15th.
Josh then calls to the store before they close and gets a hold of someone who then tells us that indeed our delivery isn't scheduled until Saturday-
If at this point you are confused with the story- we were too.... Turns out that there were two different companies that we were waiting for- one was coming on Saturday- one was indeed coming on Friday.
In the middle of all this drama- Josh and I began to ask some questions to each other- One of the biggest questions who the hech was supposed to be coming today/ tonight? At this point it is 9:30pm and we are convinced that something went wrong at some point in the conversations, or that someone was just trying to get us off the phone and just told us that they were coming- so we decide to go to bed. No sooner then we turn the lights off- the phone rings- this is a new delivery guy who tells us that he will be at our house at about 11pm.
Only in Russia is this normal working hours.
So at 11:15pm A delivery truck pulls up and my china cabinet was delivered. Yes I said my china cabinet- not my wardrobes like we thought- a third party delivery. The best part of the story is that my china cabinet came in pieces that need to be assembled by their service men--- who are coming on Saturday. SO after all that I am left with a tons of boxes... and yet another day of waiting.
On a positive note- I love my treadmill :)

Preview time

Although we are not moved in yet- we are very excited to move into our new place sometime this week! We couldn't resist posting a few pictures! Many move to come!

Living room ....

New kitchen...

One of the guest bedrooms

Front bathroom- with the rocket shower!
Master bedroom...

Back in St Petersburg

We have been home from our vacation for almost a month now. I had great plans for these couple of weeks before school starts again, alas other things have become the priority. We hope to have big news soon on where we will be living in the next few weeks. As some of you know the record snowfalls here convinced our roof to give up, and we have some water damage in our current apartment. We hope to be in another one soon, more to follow. Also the past two weeks have been the coldest we have seen in our year here (yeah I know we have now lived here longer than anywhere since we got married, weird huh?). Anyhow we have seen temps in the -20's (C) pretty regularly so I was excited when it warmed up a couple of days ago, but check out our forecast, yes it is warmer, but maybe the freezing cold without the snow would be nicer.