Putting the child on skis
This year we decided to put our 8-year-old child on skis. We were in Andorra in 1999-2000 and decided without hesitation that this is the best place for this purpose. Sunny, snowy, relatively inexpensive, Russian-speaking school, good instructors.
In general, it is still sunny, this year it is completely snowless, it is already expensive, and most importantly, there are no more Russian-speaking ski schools !!! ! A ski school in the sense that you send a child for 3 hours a day for 5 days in a group of up to 10 people and an instructor teaches them from the basics. This pleasure cost 75 USD in 2000. These schools are, but English and Spanish. They cost about 100 euros. With a roar they gave the child to the English, there was no choice. Russian-speaking instructors remained, but during the holidays it was impossible to find a free one and they cost 40 euros per hour. A familiar instructor explained to us that for 5 years they have been asking Russian tour operators about the number of tourists coming from Russia and the need to open a Russian-language school during the holidays, but this is not a royal business for our tour operators. For us, he found only an hour of his free time, everything is scheduled for a week in advance. In general, our child graduated from an English school, without understanding almost a word, received a certificate and the need to learn English urgently.
The ski area is one third open this year. The passage from Soldeo to Pasa de la Casa was closed, but we gallantly paid 180 euros for a ski pass per person for 6 days. In general, knowing all this, there was no point in dragging to a distant sunny country to put a child on skis. But Andorra was famous for its school of Russian-speaking instructors. There are English-speaking schools in any ski country with a larger ski area, with the same prices for instructors and ski passes and guaranteed snow. If not for the sun and not for 3 day Barcelona, but it's not about skiing. I wrote that next year, during the holidays, dads and moms decide for themselves - skiing with a child or duty free in a sunny country.