Finding Fresh Bread .... c'est impossible!

I have been meaning to write about the extremely unfortunate situation of Yaroslavl and bakeries for a while, and how citizens of this um, ahem, lovely city are being deprived of bakeries and fresh bread. The ratio of bakeries to Yaroslavians is ... drum roll.... 1:650,000!!! There is only ONE bakery in town!! Can you believe it?! Yaroslavl has one central bakery where all bread, baked goods and cookies/sweets are made - then all of these goods are wrapped in plastic and distributed to grocery stores and bread shacks all over town. The daily ritual of frequenting the local bakery for bread and goodies has been one of my favourite things about living in Europe - of course, my most favourite thing is eating the goodies. I love the smell of fresh bread and bakeries (so good!!), and the difficult choices and dilemmas I always face once inside: croissant with chocolate or without? Spanakopita or cheese pie? Baguette or cheese bread? All of these questions plus... How many? and... What am I going to eat on my way home?


Bread shacks... where most people buy their bread and baked goods... bakeries are SO much better!!

So... I face none of these difficult decisions here... which may be a blessing in disguise. However, we have not been able to enjoy any fresh bread whatsoever, save for my attempt at making Irish Soda Bread the other day. I'm not entirely sure that I used the right flour (whole wheat flour is not in my mini-dictionary) and so it didn't really turn out as I had hoped. It still tasted good, but the bread itself was fairly dense, and when Dasha came over and I joked that I might be able to seriously hurt someone with this bread, she said that they looked like they could be used for curling. Stones. Yup. The recipe got good reviews, so I think I'll try again with a different kind of flour.

Anyways, the reason why I'm finally writing about bakeries is that I went swimming this afternoon, and was really craving something yummy from the baked good world. On my way home from the pool I bought a cinnamon roll thing that looked good even though it was nestled inside inflated plastic wrap... but it was a major disappointment. I need to bake more. Or maybe not... wait! - I need to swim more AND bake more!

Steve and his team have a big match tonight... they're going for six consecutive wins! So.... I should go and deal with my pool hair. Here's a picture of the gym complex - Atlant - I don't think I've posted it yet!



Atlant - the gym complex: the pool is on the far right in the red part and the gym where Steve's team plays is on the far left