Privet!
I can just tell that you’ve been dying to know what’s been happening in Moscow and that what has been missing from your life in London/Cambridge/LA/Kiev/apparently Saudi Arabia according to the blog stats (?) is a mini rundown of the events of the last few weeks in my little bubble here.
Well, this is your lucky day!
As I mentioned before, the third best day of the year rolled around (after birthday and Christmas, of course): the high class/quality musical event that is Eurovision.
All I will say is that there were many many empty bottles in my flat the next day, the neighbours hopefully enjoyed the loud singing, and Julia broke out some stunning moves.
In the style of the ESC queen, Loreen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfo-8z86x80
A couple of weeks ago I was very lucky to visit the SOS Children’s Village at Tomilino, in the outskirts of Moscow. It was the 17th anniversary of the village, and to celebrate they invited lots of guests and had a concert and party.
The vision of the charity is to provide “a loving home for every child”. The children we met had been taken out of state children’s homes to live in the village at Tomilino, where they live in families and can lead as close to a “normal” life as possible: living with loving parents from the charity, staying with their brothers and sisters if possible, going to regular schools and being able to do the extra things like piano lessons, tennis, football, and going on holiday which wouldn’t be feasible in the state children’s homes.
We heard some beautiful singing, poetry and playing.
And met some new friends :)
It blows my mind that there is an 8-lane motorway running through the city.
Culture?
It is SO HOT and the lawns in the parks are just crying out for you to lie on them!
Gorky Park
Tsaritsyno
Alas, this does result in a huge number of mozzy bites :(
Now, that’s an attractive leg if ever I’ve seen one.
Sadly I don’t have any photographic evidence of this, but rest safe in the knowledge that Joe and I whilst having dinner in a park were interrupted by a very drunk actor who claimed to be “a little alcohol”. Yes mate, sure you were!
Universal truths?
Talking of truths, I was approached earlier in my building by a (strangely too) friendly man who told me that he hoped I would convert to Russian Orthodoxy. Having thanked him for his wishes I hastily said my farewell and scrambled up the stairs only to find that he had taken the lift and is apparently my neighbour- yey! I’ll really look forward to those not at all awkward in excellent Runglish (a word?) conversations happening more often.
On Saturday I got my first electrichka (a suburban train) in Russia all on my own to visit Faye and her friends 'up north'. So much pride to have arrived at the correct destination.
Church is lots of fun and gradually getting easier to understand. Faye and I did pretty well I think this weekend, given that we’d had only about 4 hours sleep.
Hopeful purchases. Something tells me I may not get very far with the Ukrainian text book made for Russian speakers. But it will look EXCELLENT on my shelf next year, and that is the important thing.
And some more pictures.
Lanterns over the River Moskva
