Russia, Russia, Russia!

 

 

When I was in first grade, I recalled this morning, I had a TIME Life world atlas and using several sheets of yellow office lined paper I drew outlines – one per line – of all the countries of the world. It wasn't a class assignment, I was just fascinated by maps; my first Sunday school teacher in Florida, Mrs. Donaldson, had to call my attention when I came in class because I was gazing wide-eyed at the Bible lands map (essentially the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea) when I came to class for the first time. Still pretty interested in maps; remind me to share some of my made-up ones sometime (if I can still find them …)

Winston Churchill once said that Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. And with the largest nation on Earth's appearance in recent news, from last month's Winter Olympics to their latest march into Ukraine (one of its former republics when Russia led the Soviet Union through most of the twentieth century) that could split the country in two, with the irony that lately in the world Russia and not the United States has had the moral high ground … if the end times that most monotheists keep crowing about is not coming, THAT and the world's weather gone whacked should be enough to convince us that some change is in the offing.

Two weeks ago I got to finish Alexander Pushkin's The Tale of Tsar Saltan, and this version illustrated by the paintings of Gennady Spirin (ISBN 0803820017) gives the author who's to Russian literature what William Shakespeare is to English literature a grand tableau where the title character's wife and son are locked by her sisters in a barrel – interesting twist on the Perseus myth, I thought at the time – and the son grows to manhood in a faraway land, with contact between him and his dad quite sporadic. But helped by a magic swan, the family is eventually reunited in quite a touching way for an awsomely touching story – even if it is Russian and even if it is not long.

John Colvin's biography of the Russian World War Two general Georgi Zhukov titled Zhukov: The Conqueror of Berlin (ISBN 0297846086) is longer, but it's well worth reading. I especially learned a point about Japan during the war that did not occur to me before because I didn't know it. If it were not for Japan being turned back by Soviet land forces in northern China and Mongolia in the 1930s at a place called Nomonhan, quite conceivably there never would have been a Pearl Harbor for Japan would have supported the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Great biography, and right now I have all the books I will have until the end of Lent, for I am giving up buying or checking out new books.

That sigh of relief you just heard came from my beloved wife! So Saturday night at our house Scottie, Hanna, Josceline, Abbsidy, Addy, Sarah, Jeffrey, Martha, and me had a lot of fun celebrating Sarah's eighth birthday, enjoying chocolate – another thing I'm to give up during Lent – cupcakes made into a Smurf cake after four large cheese and pepperoni pizzas we ordered from our local Nite Train (still got one at home) and assorted sodas were enjoyed and, in a party of nearly all girls, OF COURSE it was a giggle fest laughing over great things, small things, and no things! Sunday morning we brought quite a crowd to church with us, and after that came our Sunday School Carnival and Silent Auction …

 

AND that's my limit while I find out what a “shrove” is, David