Pen pals in Russia

Russia stretches across eleven time zones. When a pen pal in Kaliningrad, on the Baltic, is finishing breakfast, someone in Kamchatka, on the Pacific, is already thinking about dinner. That single fact explains a lot about writing to someone there: "Russia" can mean a flat in Moscow, a wooden house in a Siberian village, a port city in the Far East or a mountain town in the North Caucasus. Ask where your pen pal actually lives before assuming anything about their weather, their landscape or their daily routine.

The calendar that matters

The school year begins on 1 September, known as the Day of Knowledge, when younger pupils in particular arrive for a ceremonial first day. For a lot of families that date marks the real start of the year, after a long summer break.

The biggest celebration is not Christmas but New Year. Families gather on the night of 31 December, there is a decorated tree, and children's presents traditionally come from Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost) rather than at Christmas. The first eight days of January are public holidays, which makes early January a quiet, family-and-food sort of week. Orthodox Christmas falls on 7 January, inside that holiday stretch, because the Russian Orthodox Church follows the older Julian calendar for its feast days.

Other moments you may hear about include Maslenitsa, a week of pancakes and seeing off winter before Orthodox Lent (its date moves with Orthodox Easter), and Victory Day on 9 May, a day of remembrance for many families.

Summers, dachas and long winters

Winters in much of the country are long and genuinely cold, and summers in many regions are warm and short. A lot of urban families have, or have relatives with, a dacha: a country cottage or garden plot outside the city where they spend summer weekends growing vegetables, picking berries and mushrooms, and generally getting away. Questions about the dacha, or about what winter actually feels like day to day, tend to bring out long and detailed replies.

More than one language

Russian is the official language across the country and the one almost everyone uses, but Russia is home to many peoples, and its republics have their own co-official languages, such as Tatar, Bashkir and Chechen. A common outside assumption is that everyone in Russia is ethnically Russian and has the same background; in reality your pen pal might be Tatar, Buryat, Yakut or from any of many other communities, and might speak another language at home. Let them tell you how they describe themselves.

If you are learning Russian, a pen pal is useful because they can show you how people really write online, which is far more relaxed than textbook Russian. Привет (privet, "hi") is the informal greeting you will see most.

Ways to start

• What is the first thing you notice when the seasons change where you live?
• How does your family spend the New Year holidays?
• What is a dish you eat at home that people from elsewhere in Russia might not know?
• What do you do on a typical weekend?

International post and some services can be unpredictable, so most pen pals here keep their letters digital and treat a paper postcard as a bonus. For more conversation starters, browse our letter prompts.