Even though he’s an elephant, I’m sure he won’t remember…

Even out of difficult situations, like the current bitter cold that has hit Russia for the last few days (and isn’t projected to snap until the end of next week), there are still humorous situations. Now, let me ask, you this: If you think about Russia, what is a stereotype that instantly pops into you mind? Among others, I imagine that Russians’ love of vodka is one of those stereotypes. Now, I can hardly dismiss this stereotype, for it is most certainly a widely used (and, unfortunately, an often abused) part of Russian life. And, well, what I heard today does little to dispel that stereotype.

On Thursdays, Olga, my language teacher, brings in a daily newspaper that she picks up on the way to class. She always buys the Thursday edition because it has the TV schedule for the next week. So often, we flip through the journal, discussing articles, practicing reading, and the like.

Well, today there was a story about the recent cold weather and its effects on the animals of the circus and zoos, particularly elephants. It seems that elephants have a rough time dealing with this weather and there when it is this cold as there is a chance that they will freeze to death. So, what do the do for the animal? Of course, along with their other food, they are given a bucket of VODKA!!! According to a quote in the paper, this amount will warm them up and dull their sense of cold, but not make them drunk. Well, I guess one trainer must have given his elephant a bit more (or the elephant was a novice drinker), because the paper went on to say that one of the circus elephants tied one on and ripped the heating register right out of the wall!!!

As my teacher and I were talking about this story, it almost seemed to stereotypical to be true. SO, during a break, I went on a computer and googled “elephant, vodka, Russia” and sure enough, there were a bunch of stories about Russians giving elephants vodka—though not the particular story that I read. CRAZY!!!