In lieu of studying Russian, I’ve been amassing an army of matryoshki.
Here’s one of the newest additions-
My mom sewed this cool apron and a matching set of matryoshki dish towels as a birthday gift. She knows me too well. 😉
What takes it to “Serious Collector” level is that this is my second matryoshki apron. (Leave me a comment on this post if you’re also known for your matryoshki habit.)
Onward to the the roundup!

Посмотреть
- What do Ghengis Khan, Napoleon, the Incan civilization, and the King of Poland have in common? Russia’s Imperial Bank Ads. Enjoy the WTF weirdness of the 90s all over again.
- Get some practice with curse words: An Mi-8 gunship helicopter lands on a highway in Kazakhstan to ask for directions.
- Фамилия? Багров. Данила сергеевич. Do you know where that famous line comes from? Watch the crime film Брат with English subs.
- Lilia Boyko is a Ukrainian vlogger who glamorously and effortlessly travels the world with husband and baby in tow… or at least, that’s how it seems on the internet. In this video, she responds to the question Откуда у нас деньги на путешествия. (Spoiler alert: Богатые родители? Вышла замуж по расчету? Nope.)
Читать
- Speaking of Ukrainians traveling to Asia, it seems to be a trend nowadays. Here’s another one: как украинец ушел с поста топ-менеджера и начал продавать книги на Amazon, чтобы путешествовать по миру.
- Because you’ve probably always wondered, what is the story on the Russian spoken in Ukraine vs. the Russian spoken in Russia?
- Another beautiful mix of Russian, Spanish, and English, for lovers of those languages.
- In honor of the recent holiday масленица, here’s a fun read. A Russian-to-English translator ponders her visit to a blini chain in New York.
2.17 Progress Report
*crickets*
*crickets*
*crickets*
Okay, there is one thing I can tell you. The courses at openedu.ru started this month. My enrollment in Самоменеджмент ended very quickly. It went something like this…



As interesting as that topic is, this course was a bit… ambitious.
On a different (and more positive) note, I translated four projects this month. One was over 3,000 words! And an interesting thing happened in my other job- we were getting a lot of referrals from a random Russian website. Being the only person with knowledge of Russian on our team, I was assigned to “investigate”. It was a fun change from the usual work. 😉
COMPLETED
Started Русский как иностранный course.
STARTED, BUT DIDN’T FINISH (can this be called делала, но не сделала?)
Russian Step by Step: Verbs of Motion. Just 20 more pages to go!
I did ANKI once or twice, but never in the mornings.
3.17 Study Plan
2 Responses
Jasilyn Albert
That’s so cute that your mom sewed that for you!
My goal is to study more. I’m doing pretty well with the grammar but terribly with vocabulary, and you can know all the grammar in the world, but if you don’t know the vocabulary you can’t say much!
Katherine
Privet Jasilyn! Thanks for your comment 🙂 That’s awesome that you’ve got some of the grammar down. That’s half the battle!
About vocab, what about learning just one new word a day? Like, when you’re at work, ask a colleague you’re comfortable with (or one of your students) about one object that is in the room. Then, since you’re around that object almost every day, you can repeat it to yourself whenever you see it. That way, even if you don’t study later that day, you know you’ve done at least one tiny thing to improve.
Also, do you keep a little notebook with you to write down new and interesting things? Or do you ever take pictures of signs with your camera? If you are using ANKI, you should be able to actually upload that photo into a deck. You could have a deck of “Things to Practice” or “WTF Words to Ask Boyfriend About”. 😉