High School Graduation

        Our Institute classes ended last Friday, so this Friday, May 24th, Karen and I had a little down time in the afternoon so we decided to take a walk to a park not far from our apartment.  We were entering the park at about the same time as a group of young teen-agers.  They were all dressed nice with suits, nice dresses, and most of them had a sash across their shoulder.  The girls had large white bows in their hair, heels, dresses, and white lace aprons.  We went into the park with them, talked to a few of them in the best russian we could (which is not very good by the way).  Turns out it is a high school graduation tradition.  We talked to one of our young single adult girls today in church and she remembers doing the exact same thing dressed the same way when she graduated from high school.  The park we went into is an amusement park somewhat like Lagoon but on a much smaller scale.  (You might remember from an earlier post last September that  the younger girls in primary school wear similar bows in their hair on the first day of school.) The next day we saw another group similarly dressed with the bows and sashes but the girls had longer dresses and pant suits and heels.  How you dress depends on the school.  (There are approximately 200 high schools in Krasnoyarsk)  But the bows and sashes are worn by all of them.   Here are a few pictures.