"Russ" wage war in Romerike (H.S. Senior "sneak days" in Norway)

Aftenposten ^ | April 27, 2005 | tr. Jonathan Tisdall

[franksolich]

Norway's reveling high school graduates, the "russ", tend to concentrate on extreme partying but groups from rival schools in Romerike, a region just outside of Oslo, have loaded up with groceries and launched hostilities.

According to newspaper Romerikes Blad, over 700 russ have pelted each other with eggs, yogurt, milk and flour, and gas stations and the homes of parents have become makeshift battlefields.

Three 'russebil', buses and vans converted into blaring parties on wheels, from Lørenskog High School covered the russ vehicles from two rival schools with eggs, and the desire for revenge led to a frenzy of vandalism and paintball shooting.

Rælingen High is completely covered in eggs, as are two gas stations in Lørenskog. Russebil are covered with graffiti, paint and sit with punctured tires. The remains of various bombs, most of them dairy-based, cover cars and local residences.

The russ presidents of the four schools involved have met for peace talks and have agreed on strong measures to try and get their student bodies to calm down and put things in perspective.

"People think they can do whatever they want when they put on their russ overalls. They do stupid things and don't see that they are ruining things for all russ," said Lørenskog president Therese Wammeli.

"We want peace. This is, after all, the 100th anniversary of Norwegian independence. It should be fun to be russ," Wammeli said.

The presidents said that they would report troublemakers and press to have their russ privileges revoked and authorities would be notified.

[franksolich]

Hmmmm. The Norwegian version of "high school senior sneak days" in the United States.

For a "rite of passage," I don't even recall what we did in high school, and it isn't like I graduated from high school eons ago.

For some peculiar reason, Norwegian seniors don overalls for this "russ" thing.

"Rowdy Norwegian russ" from a 1960 news-photograph; the Norwegian newspaper calls them "rowdy," not my own word:

[RichInOC]

"FOOD FIGHT!!!"

[tet68]

Russ Babe Bump.

[franksolich]

Ping for the Norway ping list.



The last posting of the news from Norway caught me off guard; 3,000 views, which is a thousand more than the story about the guy who, otherwise being distracted, ruined a perfectly-good truck by driving it into a lake, and more than twice as many "views" as the Swede motorist who was threatened by the Norwegian truck-driver.

One never knows what arouses reader interest.

[SIDENET]

People think they can do whatever they want when they put on their russ overalls.

Best line of the story. I'll even steal it for a temporary tag line.

[SoDak]

Whenever I put on my russ overalls, all I can say is LOOK OUT...

[Erasmus]

As I scrolled that image into my peripheral vision, I thought it was the Beverly Hillbillies.

[pierrem15]

What, no moose involved?

[franksolich]

No, thank God.

Too many moose-and-reindeer stories from Norway.

[Eurotwit]

Here you have got some more contemorary russ (from last year I believe)

[XavierXray]

The ritual of the "Russ" goes back to 1905 (the year Norway went out of it's union with Sweden), and was a celebration of the completion of exams, which started around the 10th of May until the 16th of May. The 17th of May is the day Norway got it's constitution and is therefore the big national day of celebration. However, today the Russ start much earlier, around April, they modify their vans (Russebil) in the colours representing their course (red, blue, black and white) with speakers mounted and incredibly stupid rituals to get a knot and/or an item in the string that goes down from their cap. Examples of things that can give you a knot are: Sex in the forest: a pinecone Put an L on a cop car (learners mark for new drivers): a match Say "HALLELUJA!" to everything a teacher says: A poster A case of beer in 24h - Beer cap A case of beer in 12h - Golden beer cap And MANY other. Mostly it's just childish behaviour and being dead drunk, also in this period it's showed that 1in10 had more then one sexpartner in the Russ period and 2% had more then five different partners. 40% never used ANY protection and 30% used only birthcontrol pill or the so called "regret pill" Draw your own conclusions ;)

[Eurotwit]

It is a good time? :-P

[XavierXray]

Dunno, I had better things to do with my time back then, like get a good exam grade.

But I do belive that the guy that puked all over his exam with one hour left on the clock had a REALLY good time cause he did it again the next year ;)

:P back at ya