January 25th is the day when every Russian student has a good choice of reasons for celebration.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
It’s minus 23\u00b0 Celsius (that’s minus 9.4\u00b0 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.<\/p>\n
Photo by Alexey Sevastianov.<\/p>\n