04/2014 Sounds of music in Russian and in English

On 11-13 of April we had a traditional joint training with the British students from The Sevenoaks School. There the young people study Russian language and each year, in spring, they come to Russia for practice with their wonderful teacher John Drury.

This time the training took place at the hospitable “Nazaryevo” recreation center near Moscow. About 30 British students and 17 children from the orphanage №4 (who are preparing to participate in the annual Shakespeare’sDrama Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon), our volunteers and friends spent two unforgettable days together.

In the course of the training we played a lot of traditional Maria’s Children games under the leadership of Anya Eliseeva, Asya Segalovich, Sasha Richards and Lesha Golbkin.

As usual, we had “Theatre from wheels”, arranged by psychologist Alexander Kolmanovsky. The brief improvisations were based on songs from a famous musical “Sounds of Music”, which some of the mini-groups presented in Russian and some – in English. And one of our volunteers Elena Orlova held a very interesting quiz about Moscow both for British and Russian participants. 

By the way, the British guys prepared a surprise for our kids – they hid about 500 chocolate Easter eggs on the territory of the recreation center, and there started a real egg-hunt! (To tell the truth, part of these eggs were even quicker found by numerous squirrels, inhabiting the “Nazarievo” park). The day ended in singing Russian and English popular songs under the accompaniment of guitar.

As part of preparation to the abovementioned Shakespeare’s Festival, another two volunteers,