January 25th is the day when every Russian student has a good choice of reasons for celebration.

First, the official one – this is a Students Day in Russia, officialy established in 2005. Secondly, on January 25th the memory of St Tatiana – the patron saint of students – is revered. And finally, the Moscow State University was founded on that day a long long time ago.

Even then the student’s street revelries and spree were tolerared by the police on Tatiana’s Day. Still, it’s all about fun, discos, contests, comedy nights and dancing parties. I went to one of those parties at the open-air skating rink in Sergiyev Posad.

It’s minus 23° Celsius (that’s minus 9.4° Fahrenheit) outside. In this heavily cross-faded sound recording you will hear skates vs ice grind, laughter and voices, the upbeat music that played there, the hosts and the lord-mayor’s brief speech at the opening ceremony, possibly a few frost-broken cables and laptops, and the senior generation of staff – Galina Vasil’yevna at the skates hire point and Irina from the cloackroom – being asked to describe the youngsters with only one word. ‘Smart’ and ‘flippant’ they said.

Photo by Alexey Sevastianov.


Recorded January 25th, 2010
Published February 5th, 2010 (2.4 mb).

/ 05.02.2010

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