"Thousands of Greens..."
Russian Money
Linda Elder's students at East Salisbury School enjoy writing to Olya.
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 20:19:01 -0500
From: Gary Elder gelder@shore1.intercom.net
Dear Olya,
We are sorry that it took so long to write back to you. We really like the letter you wrote and we want you to write back again. We have some more questions to ask you.
What do roubles look like? Do they look like United States money? Are they coins or paper money?
What kind of bike do you have? How many speeds does it have?
Here are some of our favorite restaurants: Penny - Burger King; David - Dominos Pizza and Pizza Hut; Roger - Burger King; Tyron - Pizza Hut. Do you go to eat in restaurants very often?What is your favorite restaurant in Russia? What do you like to eat when you go out to eat? What is your favorite meal to eat at home?
We like candy. What kind of candy do you have in Russia? You said you have M&Ms and Skittles. Are they your favorites? What other kinds do you have? Penny likes grape gum. Roger likes Snickers candy bars. Tyron likes Reeces Pieces. David likes Bubblicious bubble gum.
Where is Ekaterinburg? We found the Ural Mountains on the map but we don't know where your town is. Can you tell us where. It is not in our atlas.
We want to know if you will write something to us in Russian. We want tosee what your words look like. Will you tell us something in Russian and then tell us what you said in English?
If you buy a Coke in the United States it costs about $.50. In Australia a Coke costs $2.50. How much does a can of Coke cost in Russia? Can you tell us in roubles? How much is that in American money?
Roger would like to know if you have ever been to St. Basil's Cathedral. We also wonder why your schools have numbers instead of names. We like our school to have a name.
Here are some things about us:
This is a long letter, Olya. We hope you will write back to us and tell us some more about yourself and about Russia and answer our questions.
Your friends,
Mrs. Elder's class
Dear friends,
Your letter is very nice. I'll try to answer all of the questions, it's interesting for me. Well, sometimes Russian call dollars as "green paper", for example: "This thing costs a thousand of greens". Different rouble bonds have different colours: red, blue or green. Roubles is not only paper money. We have 10-, 20- and 50-roubles coins. One American dollar is near 4500 roubles now. It's not very big. Usually one chewing gum costs 200 or 300 roubles.
You can buy tasteful ice-cream for 5000 (Snickers, Mars, Opal Fruits, Twiks or Bounty). And one chocolate bar costs near 2500 (Snickers or Hershey's or others). One can of Coke costs 2800 roubles and it's about 0.62 dollar. I can't tell you about all candies because we have lots of sorts of it. I just like delicious and tasteful food. So I haven't one favorite kind of candy or gum.
I don't going to restorants. Always I'm eating at home, like most Russian people. I don't complain because my mom (but sometimes me) cooking really good. I heard only about McDonald's restaurant in Moscow. We have no restaurants at every street in Russia because people prefer to eating at home.
Ekaterinburg is not very small city (about 5 mln. of people) but I think it just not very famous. You must search it to the east from the south part of Ural Mountains. And this detail can help you too: it called Sverdlovsk about five years ago. Maybe you can find it on the map now.
I'm sorry, but I can't tell you anything about St. Basil cathedral,
I haven't been there.
I'll try to make a .gif file with some Russian words in it, also I'll try to write Russian in my text editor. Well, this letter is not small too, so
Best wishes,
Olya
olya@kids.ubd.e-burg.su