Russ!

There is a crazy, fantastic, wild tradition here in Norway, known as Russ. It is a 17 day-long celebration period for the 19 year-olds who are graduating from high school. The school system here is a little different and I'm not completely positive, but I think it's kindergarten through age 7, then 9 years of primary school, until you are 16. At that point, you can choose to go straight into job training and working, or go to a specialty school for your future profession, or you can continue your education for 3 more years, in what I am calling high school, but it is optional.

So, when you have finished this, either vocational training or high school, you go through something called Russ. It starts on May 1st and lasts until May 17th, which is the Norwegian National Day and the entire country celebrates. But, for those seventeen days, these graduating students have to wear red overalls every day! They don't have to sleep in them, but they have to wear them everyday and can't wash them. They iron on all sorts of funny and crazy white decals and patches and have all of their friends sign them and write on them. They also create and carry around these things, called "russ-karten". They give them to eachother, and to kids, who go crazy for them! They are like trading cards, with inappropriate jokes and pictures. They have their nicknames, schools, and a favorite quote on them. Here are examples I found online from Russ 2007:



Also, during these 17 days, there are hundreds of different dares and challenges they can choose to perform. For each dare they do, they get a knot tied onto their red beret which is part of the Russ uniform. Here are some examples of dares I have heard about:

- Eat 6 chocolate covered gummy bears in 1 minute
- Run around a huge fountain in downtown Bergen in only their underwear
- Spend a night in a tree
- Put a tampon in each of your cheeks and drink a beer; the tampons swell up and enlarge as you drink the beer. This is my favorite, and definitely the strangest.
- Chug a whole beer at once.
- Drink a bottle of wine in 20 minutes (very dangerous, definitely not my favorite)
- Stay awake for 24 hours
There are a LOT more options, but I don't know all of them, but... you will read about one of the funniest ones later in the post! (teaser!)

Then, the weekend before the 17th of May, which was last weekend, Russ students from all over their area of Norway (from here, it is all of Southwest Norway and they meet in Stavanger, about 3 hours south of Bergen) take these buses and drive them to a common destination, where they meet with thousands and thousands of other Russ students from other cities and towns for a crazy weekend of partying, in what I assume is an open field... A group of friends will all go in on a bus together and then decorate it and use it throughout the Russ period, but mainly for this one weekend trip. So they board the bus, drive and meet everyone else, and party for the whole weekend. There are contests for the best Russ bus and they get their pictures in the paper and other benefits. Some students pay up to $10,000 each for their Russ bus (a very select few) and get the most "tricked-out" buses, with flat screen tv's, stereo systems, dance floors, etc. they are CRAZY! Here is a more tame, but I think, typical version of a Russ bus:



Because they are only 18 or 19, and most bars and clubs have an age limit of 21, there are only a few places they can go. there is one bar named Exodus here, which has basically become the sponsoring bar of Russ, and all the Russ students go there almost every night. It hosts different theme parties, because I am sure the same bar gets boring when you go every single day for 17 days. (Although I never got tired of Bourbon... ;) )

During the 17 days you can see all the students running around Bergen in their red overalls, usually with cases of beer in hand, being crazy and having a great time. After about 11pm many of them are pretty drunk, running around on the streets, although I have yet to see anyone sick, or looking in that bad shape. So I guess that's a good thing.

Here is the younger brother of a friend of mine, and his friend, at about 3am one night during Russ, in their overalls of course:


And, as promised, two girls whose picture I had to take in downtown Bergen. They were doing another one of the dares. Which is... to drag a dead, smoked fish from the fish market, through the main open area of downtown Bergen, on a leash, and ask if anyone is a doctor who can help save their pet fish. They also ask kids to pet the fish. If you look at the end of their strings you can see the fish. So yesterday they were walking around, going up to everyone and asking if they were a doctor and could they help their sick pet. It was pretty funny, they were having a great time. And then, to my horror, little kids ran up and actually pet the fish! Do they know where those fish have been?! Anyway, it is one of the dares, and I think it's hilarious, totally random, but hilarious!

Here they are:


So, on the 17th of May, the entire country celebrates the national holiday, people wear their national costumes, there are fairs, and there are big parades in every city. Local businesses, organizations, teams, have floats in these parades, and then there are a LOT of floats for the Russ students, and they are usually crazy and drunk on the floats and go through the city waving and yelling, with whistles, and the kids LOVE them. So, you will hear and see more about them when I do my 17th of May post! I am so excited!

Finally... as crazy as it all sounds, Russ is a long tradition here. My 60+ relatives all remember their time as Russ and talk about it fondly. And little kids worship the Russ students and are dying for their time. I was asking a relative the history and he said that although it probably existed before the war, WWII, it was very very different, and the current form started right after the war. But, he also said when he was Russ, it was not this crazy and not so linked to drinking (I'm not surprised). But he said they did drink, they did party, and they did do some crazy things. My uncle/boss Alf's daughter, Karianne, is a Russ right now, and she also works at Cornelius with me, so I am getting a lot of first hand accounts of her experience and what she has been doing. She is really really tired all the time. Only 5 more days!