Little darlings.

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In Zhanna's lesson we watched one of my favourite films, Vozvraschenie. No-one else had seen it before so I was ordered not to give the ending away.

At lunchtime Aleksandr Ivanovich took some of us 15 minutes out of town on a trolleybus, to see a gala at the Tverkskaya oblast' House of Culture. About a hundred children from schools all over the region had prepared songs or sketches. Before the curtain went up the woman in charge of the event gave a very long and clichéd welcome speech, then a monk in a long red robe came up onto the stage to bless everyone.

It was the type of performance where you needed to be related to one of the children to enjoy it. They were all very brave for being so confident in a theatre with a lot of people looking up at them, but it certainly didn't sound good. The best parts were the six children of about 12 who had organised a really good dance routine, the adorable little girl with a bucket and spade who told a story about going to the woods to fetch some berries, and an argument between two boys and three girls about how important school grades were.

When I got back to Tver I spent the afternoon walking around with nowhere to go, which takes up most of my time at the moment. The weather is still beautiful; the sun was shining brightly all day and the sky is clear blue.

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