We Need To Talk About Cheese

I have officially lived in Russia for one whole month now! Who'd a thunk it. What's more, I am absolutely loving life here. My living situation is perfect, my friends are great, this city is incredible and my Russian is slowly but surely improving.

But there is just this one tiny thing: the cheese. All of my close friends in St Andrews know that some of my favourite evenings there have been spent eating cheese. They will thus know how difficult I will be finding life here without said lactose nectar of the gods. Obviously there is some cheese but only the plastic kind that I'm sure would have to be advertised as "cheese product" in certain places for legal reasons.

Luckily my classmates also share my pain and thus we have spent many lessons discussing the issue. This may lead you to think that my teachers are terrible at directing our attention but this is not the case. The cheese shortage is in fact a very topical issue as it is linked to the word on everyone's lips: sanctions.

Rumour has it Russian people are crossing the border into Finland to go buy quality cheese and fish. According to another teacher supermarkets are looking far more dismal than they did a few months ago and the quality of the fruit and veg has significantly decreased.

Winter is coming my friends...

No shortage of great pickles though, even in modern art galleries