Russ

So I promised in my last post (which was too long ago!) I would tell you about the Norwegian phenomenon called “Russ”.  It is essentially a 3-week party by the graduation seniors in high school celebrating finishing school and their freedom.  Russ officially starts on May 1 and ends on May 17 (Norwegian Independence Day) but many “Russers” start earlier then May 1.  It is easy to pick Russers out because they all wear the same outfit everyday for 17 days.  The outfit is either red, green, black, or blue overalls that say Russ 09 on the leg that are covered in patches and drawing.  They also wear funny hats in the color matching their pants and lab coats.  The lab coats have all kinds of drawings on them as well.  The color of their overalls denotes their major (red is general studies, black is technical studies, blue is business and economics and green is agriculture).  There is also an official Russ sweatshirt.  The tradition is they don’t wash their outfit for the duration of Russ (gross!).  The also hand out “Russ Cards” which are basically business cards with their picture, name, school and a funny joke or quote.  The children in town collect them like baseball cards – I swear I saw a kid one day who was about 7 who had probably 400 cards! 

But the best part, as you might have guessed, is the Russers are basically drunk for the entire 17 days.  The best way to describe it is a combination between senior week and Mardi Gras.  Russ is very organized with committees and officers so they are pretty smart and clean up their mess and have organized events but at its heart it is a drunken 17-day party.  But to their credit they are legally allowed to drink and in public as well.  They graduate a year after us so the kids are all 18 or 19.   It puts US high school parties and senior activities to shame and they are pretty proud of it.  We have spent many afternoons and evening laughing at the Russers.  Here you can see a picture of Jason and Kathryn talking to a group of them – they had to act like tourist to get a Russ card but it was well worth it.  Russ is specific to Norway and truly is a sight to be seen.