Minnesota Watch

Sorry, I will be busy for a while..

2009-11-21T20:02:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody!
I hope you guys are still checking my blog once in a while:-)
Thanks for not forgetting me!

I hoped to resume blogging after I get used to my new MBA routine. But so far my school-life balance is still unbalanced and I'm still fighting with time-management and prioritizing:-) So looks like where won't be new posts for a while:-(

But please, everybody, keep in touch!

P.S. And check my blog sometimes, I still hope to catch up with you all and blogging soon:-)

Perfect Symmetry - Keane

2009-07-01T15:53:00.000-07:00

Keane at Myth Club

2009-06-30T20:21:00.000-07:00

I actually believe that in relatively new rock music, British rock bands and singers really rule now. It’s just amazing how many great young music talents this small country has produced!
And last month we were lucky to see two of the best young British rock bands – Franz Ferdinand (my post about it is here) and Keane.
Keane performed at Myth Nightclub - the same place where we saw Motorhead last year. I actually like this place, not big, but spacious. That time we managed to get a great view, not crowded and not far from the scene, and for once in a way we enjoyed a concert in comfort:-) And it was a real pleasure!

What music! Very gentle, romantic and very rock-n-roll at the same time. And what a voice!( I’m talking about Keane’s lead vocalist Tom Chaplin). He sounded like young Morten Harket (A-HA)! Wow! Just great!

So, I’m almost happy now! I saw two of my most favorite rock bands on small stages in one month. If I’m lucky enough to see Amy Winehouse live I will be completely happy! (which is less possible; due to her bad temper and some legal issues Amy Winehouse is denied US visa)

BEN - MICHAEL JACKSON

2009-06-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

Sukay - Carnavalito

2009-06-25T21:12:00.000-07:00

Pachamama Band

2009-06-25T12:53:00.000-07:00

HA! Surprise! This is me (to be precise, it’s the back of my head:-)), playing tarko (an Andean folk music instrument) with the Pachamama Band for the for the participants of the Ethnomusicology Conference at the University of Minnesota.

The song that we are performing is called Chofercito de la Mala Suerte (a driver with the bad luck). Enjoy!

Pretty unexpected, isn’t it? Actually, I didn’t expect it from myself:-) It all began from taking a Spanish class, where we were required to turn in “contact hours”. “Contact hours” – is the time that was “to be spent making an effort to become more aware of people, communities, and cultures who speak Spanish” (it’s a quote from the syllabus:-)). So these were my contact hours and were a great pleasure, because playing music is actually fun, and Andean music is very-very beautiful!
In our master-class we also learned to play jula-julas:

P.S. How do you like our drum?

Franz Ferdinand - No You Girls

2009-06-13T20:20:00.001-07:00

Franz Ferdinand at First Avenue!!!!!

2009-06-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

I just love love love love them!!!! So I was really excited about this concert and began to talk about it a long time before the event! And … to my surprise, none of the Americans whom I asked about Franz Ferdinand new them and no one showed the enthusiasm to figure out who they are. Mda… You guys are missing out!
Another great thing about the concert was that it was that it was held at First Avenue, the legendary nightclub that was the starting point for almost every famous singer and band that came out of the Twin Cities, including the Twin Cities favorite –Prince. By the way, First Avenue appeared in Prince's 1984 film Purple Rain. Along with Twin Cities’ native musicians a great number of important artists and bands have performed on First Avenue’s stage.

Every star on the building's exterior has the name of an artist who has played at First Avenue

When we got to First Avenue that evening we learned two things:
First, that the club was completely sold out, so I have to take back my words that Americans don’t know Franz Ferdinand:-).
And second, that we are not getting younger:-) Opposite to Seal’s concert this time we were some of the oldest people in the audience. The concert was scheduled to start at 8 p.m. and we spent 2 hours standing and listening to front runners. Franz Ferdinand didn’t begin to perform until 10 p.m. and finished about midnight. And it was Tuesday, after a work day. And, frankly, I began to feel my age:-). But, anyway, we pulled ourselves together and I enjoyed the concert (I mean danced, sang and yelled with the audience, as it supposed to be at good concerts).

Floranova - Macy's Spring Flower Show 2009

2009-05-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

Floranova, Macy’s Show, is one of my favorite Minneapolis traditions for two reasons:
First, because it is always a great pleasure to look at gorgeous flowers.

And second, because it is usually held in March or April, the time when winter just has finished, but it is still a long time to go until summer, and I, personally, have a craving for sun and flowers.

This year the show was even better than before. It was held on the 8th floor auditorium in downtown Minneapolis, so the floral installations were organized in one space, rather than spread through the first flore among counters as in previous years (you can check my post about Floranova 2008 here).

This year the show presented the gardens of seven countries, including gardens inspired by Greece, France, South America, Japan, Russia, Italy and Spain:

Of course, I liked the Russian garden the most:

Birch trees and lilacs, and even a cat, sleeping in a chair near granny’s book and eye glasses. So sweet!

And look at these two magnificent flamingoes – each hand-planted with 2,500 Kalanchoe plants!

It’s a real piece of art!!!!

And a few weeks ago, after the show had already finished, Mika and I were sitting in a coffee shop downtown and saw this picture through the window:

Sad, isn’t it?

But actually it's OK, because while I was writing this post, spring finally came to Minneapolis and now we have a flower show outdoors!:-)

P.S. A bird of the day - the American Goldfinch (Sorry, it didn't let us get closer:-)

BTW, as it turned out, the bird in my previous post is not the American redstart, but the Red-winged Blackbird.

Thanks Mika for enlightening me!

Victory Day!!!

2009-05-08T18:48:00.000-07:00

May 9th is the most important holiday in my country. Victory Day marks the capitulation of Nazi Germany in the Second World War (in Russia and some post-Soviet states we call it the Great Patriotic War).

About 27 million Soviet people (14% of the total Soviet population) died during the war, which means that EVERY FAMILY in Russia and other post-Soviet states lost their loved ones during this war.

And this is my favorite song about the war, it is called "Zhuravli" ("Cranes") and is heartbreakingly sad:

"It seems to me sometimes that our soldiers

That were not to return from bloody battlefields,

Were not buried,

But turned into white cranes..."

The video is also from the very famous Soviet movie about the WWII -"Cranes Are Flying" (1957) (Winner of the Palme d'Or award at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival). It is heartbreaking too, but I highly recommend you see it:

When I came to the US, I was really surprised to have learned that the undisputed common knowledge in the US is that the US has won World War II, more or less by itself (for comparison the number of the US casualties is 418,500, 0.32% of the total population). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties. In reality, the US contribution to winning the war was less than that of the many countries in Europe and far, far, far behind the Soviet Union, where Germans lost 80% of their army and where it was broken in Stalingrad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad) and Kursk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kursk) a full year before Allies landed in Normandy.

Not only is this reading of history ("U.S. have won the World War II") wrong, it is also dangerous in that it creates an idea that wars are cheap, and easy to win. I bet you'll easily find recent examples of this mentality. And I also have a question: "If you guys won WWII, the most horrible war ever, why don't you celebrate the victory?"

Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton / New Museum, New York

2009-04-29T22:16:00.001-07:00

“Live Forever” - Elizabeth Peyton at Walker Art Center

2009-04-29T21:43:00.000-07:00

If you have not seen this exhibition yet, I highly recommend you to go there.
I’m not an art critic and I judge the pieces of art by my own scale.
It is very easy and has 6 grades:
1. I hate it
2. I don’t like it
3. I don’t care
4. Interesting
5. I like it
6. I love it
So I gave Elizabeth Peyton’s paintings the highest grade in my scale: I loved it. Especially the colors she uses: so deep, bright and vibrant. And I won’t mind if she offered to draw my portrait: everybody is so beautiful in her portraits :-)

The images above via the New Museum website: From left, “Jarvis and Liam Smoking” (1997) and “Tokyo (Craig)” (1997)

And we also spotted two new things near the museum:

1) There is a new sculpture on the lawn right behind Walker Art Center. Probably it have been there for a long time, but I’d never seen it before. This is the sculpture by Angus Fairhurst called “The birth of consistency”. But actually is an orangutan looking in the mirror:-):

2) In the Sculpture Garden I saw an interesting bird:

I checked it on the internet, I think it’s an American redstart, but I’m not sure. If you know the name of this bird, please, tell me! I’m very curious about local birds lately:-)

Seal - It's a man's world

2009-04-27T20:24:00.000-07:00

Seal at the Orpheum Theater

2009-04-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

I think it’s true, that most Americans are more interested in their own culture, than in foreign cultures, so many foreign musicians and actors are not as popular in the US as in other parts of the world. But there is a good side in it. Here, I can see my favorite European musicians on small stages (that would not be possible in Europe). And recently we were lucky to see Seal, a British singer, performing in the Orpheum Theater.
And I won’t say that Americans don’t know who Seal is. The Orpheum Theater was completely sold out.
Because the Seal’s music is not mainstream and could rather be called sophisticated, the public that came to see him could be called sophisticated too: well-educated, well-dressed, ages 30 up.
And that’s why I was amazed to see how well-dressed, sophisticated and well-educated ladies went wild during Seal’s performance:-):

I’ve heard that something similar is happening on Julio Iglesias’s concerts.

WOW!!! What can I say? This is what is called the power of art!!!:-)

HAPPY EASTER!!!!!

2009-04-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

HAPPY EASTER TO EVERYBODY!!!!!!!

ХРИСТОС ВОСКРЕСЕ!!!!!

taco john starring whiplash the cowboy monkey

2009-04-10T19:06:00.000-07:00

World’s Toughest Rodeo

2009-04-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

We gradually continue exploring American culture and our next step in this direction was going to see the World’s Toughest Rodeo. It was the first rodeo I’ve ever seen, so I can’t say for sure that this rodeo was really the world’s toughest or not. Anyway, the World Toughest Rodeo is the name of the TV show and the tournament we attended at the Excel Energy Center in St. Paul was held as a part of this TV show.
Rodeo is a traditional sport for the United States and some other countries sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding and it is based on the skills required of the cowboys. Professional rodeos generally comprise the following events: tie-down roping, team roping, steer wrestling, saddle bronco riding, bareback bronco riding, bull riding and barrel racing.
At the show that we attended bronco riding and bull riding was presented. Although Minnesota is not on the list the official rodeo states (like Wyoming and Texas), the Excel Energy Center had a pretty full house. I loved the show, although I still regret that I didn’t put on my cowboy hat and boots that day; I don’t know when I will have an occasion to wear them next time:-).

After I told some friends that I saw the real American rodeo they asked if I felt pity for horses and bulls. Not at all. The horses and bulls were fine. Actually I felt pity for the cowboys. Some of them were pretty badly injured and crippled. I hope that the ranch in Wyoming, the prize for the tournament winner, is worth all these injuries.

The only cowboy for whom I didn’t feel pity was this monkey cowboy:-)

We forgot our big camera that day, so the pictures are not as good as they could be, but, anyway, these pictures speak for themselves –cowboys are tough guys who have a tough life:-).

Anything Goes - AC/DC

2009-03-31T21:35:00.000-07:00

AC/DC!!!!!!!

2009-03-31T15:06:00.001-07:00

Who could have imagined even 5 years ago that I would see AC/DC live once, let alone twice? HA! Things happen!
First time when we tried to buy tickets to the AC/DC concert in the Twin Cities online, all affordable tickets were sold out in ten minutes, and we decided that it would be more fun to go to Washington D.C.: to see the city and to go to see AC/DC there. But as it turned out AC/DC love their fans very much too and later they announced the second concert in the Twin Cities in January. That time we didn’t miss the chance and bought the tickets to this second concert.
There was no a big difference between the AC/DC performance at the Excel Center in St. Paul and the Verizon Center in Washington D.C. Of course both shows were great. The only difference was the audience. In both cities the public welcomed the band in a very enthusiastic manner and even went a little wild, but in the Twin Cities everybody stood up at the beginning of the show and was standing till the end of the show:

And I also noticed this fact before: the smaller a town is the warmer the reception the public gives to its favorites.
Watching the AC/DC performance I felt a kind of jealousy to the guys: I would like to yell, jump and run (let along sing:-)) when I am 61 like Brian Johnson and to do a striptease like Angus Young when I will am 55:-):

Winter, go away!

2009-03-13T13:27:00.001-07:00

This year winter in Minneapolis was pretty crazy. One weekend it could be -15 F so it was too cold for skiing and the next weekend it could be +35 F, so you couldn’t go skiing again, because the snow was melting. When a week ago people were thrilled about the first signs of spring, I was skeptical and was expecting new wave of winter weather. And here we are! Today is the middle of March and we have plenty of snow and it’s +17 F outside! I’m sick and tired of this! But I got an idea. Maybe if I write that winter has already passed, it will really go away? It’s worth a try.

It was our third winter in Minneapolis and some activities and events traditional for the Twin Cities have become a tradition for us too:

1. Skiing and skating

Although we live in a great location near the Сhain of lakes (I would call this place a ski resort:-)) and have a skating rink and ski trails right near our place, the weather was so crazy so we got to go cross-country skiing and skating a couple of times this winter:-(. Last year we did it every weekend.

But! We began to pick up downhill skiing! It finally happened! After all Zhenya’s coworkers from India had already picked up downhill skiing, we decided that it was kind of embarrassing for us, people from snowy Russia, not to try it. We were so busy with all these “French fires” and “pizzas”, that could hardly think of taking any pictures:-) So, I don’t have any pictures to confirm this fact, but it was almost exactly like in this South Park episode:-):

2. Ice fishing

I didn’t try it, but Zhenya did. Actually he said that it was very different from Russian ice fishing. Here people install warm cabins right over the ice-hole, watch TV and wait in comfort for stupid fish to be caught. And even if they caught something, they let the fish go back into the lake. For me this ice fishing doesn’t makes any sense at all!! The main point of ice fishing is to sit in cold and wind above the ice hole, drink vodka, think about meaning of life and after that bring home a bunch of fish.

Instead of fishing Zhenya is driving a snowmobile:-)

Anyway, that time Zhenya was the only one who caught a fish, but it was so tiny that he let it go back into the lake:

3. The Holidazzle Parade and the Macy’s 8th floor thing

We are talking about Twin Cities winter traditions and these events could be called traditions number one and two.
These year we went to see The Holidazzle Parade in Downtown, but we managed to miss it, because we decided to have dinner first. So when we got to the skyway above Nicolette Mall, we saw only the tail of the procession. But my post about The Holidazzle Parade last year was pretty detailed, so if you’re interested you can check it here.

As for the Macy’s 8th floor thing I think this year it was not as good as in previous years.
These year the theme was “Elves”, but there was no story behind the exhibit:

I also recognized a lot of dolls from previous years. Looks like the financial crisis influenced Macy’s as well.

4. New Year Russian Dinner

It also has become a kind of our personal tradition to have our multinational friends over to celebrate the New Year and to eat Russian food. Last year we ate pirogi and borsht, these year – Russian dressed herring, Olivie salad and Russian pickles with vodka:

This year some of our friends left Minneapolis and others couldn’t make it, but we had a new member in our company –Suresh’s and Anu’s newborn babygirl Anjali! She was only two weeks old when she joined us for this party!

5. Ice sculptures exhibition in Saint Paul

Although this event is traditional for St. Paul, this was the 1st we saw it.
Very nice! I love how beautiful downtown St. Paul look in winter and these ice sculptures were a great additional decoration for it!

6. City of the Lakes Loppet

Last year I swore that we would take part in the Light Race in the City of the Lakes Loppet this year. But the $20 member’s fee per person cooled us down a little bit. Furthermore, we had a downhill ski lesson that evening. So this year we only went to see the ski race with dogs. The race was great; dogs were very happy:-)

7. Birding in Red Wing

Photohunter:-)

If you want to see real bald eagles go to Red Wing.
We went there in February and took some pictures.

Our photo equipment was not good enough to get really good shots, but I promised Zhenya, that after finishing my MBA and getting my dream job I’ll buy him cool professional lenses, so he can take pictures of bold eagles from long distance!:-)

So, in short, these are the main events of the PAST winter. And winter, please, GO AWAY!!!

P.S. Who ate the cherry????? (I have nothing to do with it!)

Washington D.C. Part II: The White House, the US Capitol, Museums, AC/DC and Mika

2009-03-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

White House

Ask people what the most famous place in Washington D.C. is and the answer will be – The White House. So, being typical tourists we went to see the White House the morning after our arrival. Mmm.. Can’t say that we saw anything special there…We did not see the President or even his dog. Furthermore, because the fence, where tourists usually hang out, is far away from the White House, we could hardly see anything interesting. Anyway, now I can tell everyone that I have seen the White House:-)

US Capitol

The US Capitol is not only the seat of government for the US; it is also the place where people come to protests against whatever they want to protest. We also were lucky to see a demonstration of protest:

Actually it was very fun, but it was not clear against what these people were protesting. I would call it “democracy in action”: twenty people are protesting against nobody knows what and sixty policemen in police cars, on motorcycles and bicycles are safeguarding them. And a good question is what the money of American taxpayers is spend on?:-)

By the way, this is the picture of the place from which legendary radio station “Voice of America” broadcasts:

I still remember how we listened to its programs, while soviet security service muffled the broadcasting.

National Gallery of Art

Excellent!!! What I liked a lot about the National Gallery of Art was its size. You can cover the West Building in one day (which is great if you are short of time) and see works of great masters from 13th to 20th-centures: El Greco, Bruegel, Van Dyck, Rubens, Botticelli, Rafael, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Picasso – and many others. The only Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Western Hemisphere hangs here, his Ginevra de' Benci, just another masterpiece among this bevy of masterpieces:

Right across the street from the West Wing there is The National Gallery Sculpture Garden with 17 sculptures by renowned artists like Barry Flanagan’s “Thinker on a Rock”:

Roy Lichtenstein’s “House”:

George Rickey’s “Cluster of Four Cubes”:

National Air and Space Museum

The museum is really great. It has hundreds of must-see items from the history of air and space exploration.

I was surprised to see a lot of items from the Soviet space exploration history (including Gagarin’s spacesuit).

I’m not sure, but I think I saw these items when I was a child in the Space pavilion at VDNKh (Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy) in Moscow. Probably, the National Air and Space Museum bought these items from VDNKh in 1990-s. During this troubled period in Russian history a lot of unique historical pieces were sold from Russian museums cheaply. Good for National Air and Space Museum, very sad for my country:-(
According to tour guides this is the most-visited museum in the world. It is definitely true, I could hardly pull Zhenya out of the museum:-)

National Museum of Natural History

And Zhenya could hardly pull me out of the exhibition of precious stones in the National Museum of Natural History:-)

Especially from this 45.52-carat Hope Diamond:

Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery

Frankly, we didn’t have enough time to study these two museums. That day we had a flight to Minneapolis. I hope next time we’ll have enough time for it.

Both museums are located in the same building. I liked the exhibition of posters from the 1920s-50s and the hall of “America’s Presidents”- the nation’s only complete collection of presidential portraits outside the White House.

AC/DC

The concert was held in Verizon Center and of course it was superb.

Actually, we went to see ACDC one more time in St. Paul in January. My next post is going to be about it.

Mika

Another interesting object that we observed in Washington D.C. was Mika:-). Her husband is a neurologist and she was visiting "Neuroscience 2008" with him– a scientific conference. Actually crowds of neuroscientists were roaming in the city those days.

After visiting the National Museum of Natural History with Mika (Mika is a great connoisseur of precious stones too:-), we decided to have lunch in Chinatown. Our logic was that as a real Japanese, Mika knew everything about eastern cuisine and could recommend some delicious Chinese dishes to us.

Ha! No such luck! After trying to get into several Chinese places (there were huge lines everywhere) Mika gladly gave up the attempts to try Chinese food and rushed into Burger King, where she had two hamburgers and French fries and looked very happy after it. After that, who can explain to me how a real Japanese person does Chinatown? I know for sure, that it’s definitely not like Mika:-)

P.S. I don’t have any pictures of squirrels from this trip to post any more, but this is a nice picture of a dinosaur (or something like that) from the National Museum of Natural History:-)

More pictures from Washington D.C.

Dear Ladies! Happy Women's Day!!!

2009-03-07T21:06:00.000-08:00

The 8th of March is the International Women's Day!!!

Dear ladies,

All best wishes to you!!!! Be loved and happy!!!!!

Washington D.C. Part 1: Monuments and Memorials

2009-02-20T16:53:00.000-08:00

Actually I loved Washington D.C. even more than NYC for several reasons:
1. It’s not as crowded and hectic as New York
2. Washington D. C. looks more like a European city. The architecture of downtown is more European like: there are no skyscrapers (it’s not that I don’t love skyscrapers, but sometimes they make you feel very tiny and insignificant;-). Downtown Washington D.C. is organized very logically and conveniently. Even if you don’t know the map, you can easily guess where a subway station is located, etc.
3. There are a lot of good museums and memorials. The most famous of which are located along one street – The National Mall, so you don’t have to waste time commuting from one museum to another. Almost all museums are free, but most of them close at 5 p.m. (so early for tourists!)

Planning is the best thing that can help when you are visiting a great city and you are short of time. We had only three days in Washington D.C., so I did my homework before we went where and made my plan:
Day 1 – Memorials, U.S. Capitol and National Gallery of Art
Day 2- National Gallery of Art, National Space and Air Museum, AC/DC concert.
Day 3. Meet Mika, National Museum of Natural History, National Portrait Gallery and a plane to Minneapolis.
My strategy with planning worked out, so we visited all the places we wanted to.
So, let’s start with memorials:

The Thomas Jefferson Memorial

The last thing I want to do is to undermine the importance of Thomas Jefferson in the history of the United States, but I just don’t feel comfortable when I see gigantic statues of nations’ leaders.

They remind me of huge statues of Lenin and Stalin and of the brainwash about the idea of the World leading nation (I’m writing about Soviet propaganda now. And what did you think:-)?)

The Franklin Roosevelt Memorial

I liked it very much. Visitors to the memorial move through four outdoor rooms, one for each of his terms in office (four terms in total!). Very impressive and very unusual:

Franklin Roosevelt was definitely one of the best America’s presidents. And I was surprised to learn that Roosevelt was handicapped and moved around in a wheel chair. What a strong in spirit man! (I need to read up more about him).

The Lincoln Memorial

I got the same impressions as from the Thomas Jefferson Memorial: Gigantic and pompous.

But the view to the Reflecting Pool from the steps of the memorial is very beautiful:

The Korean War Veterans Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and World War II Memorial

All three war memorials are very impressive and powerful and drove home the idea that whatever the goal of the war, its price is always measured in the lives of people, who have nothing to do with political games and ambitions:-(

The Korean War Veterans Memorial:

World War II Memorial:

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is the mirrorlike wall with 58,256 names of soldiers inscribed in chronological order of the date of death. Although more than 30 years passed since the war, a lot of people still come here to see the names of their loved ones on the memorial wall:

From The Vietnam Veterans Memorial we made a loop around to the National Academy of Science and engineering to see this Einstein monument:

Although I didn’t see any other monuments to Einstein, I’m sure this one is the best monument to Einstein ever!:-)))

Washington Monument

Just loved it! I think it’s really cool! Actually It’s an obelisk 555 feet tall (about 170 meters long) made of capstones. Construction of the monument began in 1848. In 1858 construction stopped due to lack of funds. In 1876 it was resumed and finished in 1885. And you can clearly see the place on the obelisk, where construction was resumed. After 1876 the shadow of the capstones changed:

We took pictures from the windows on the top of the monuments. Four great views! You can see all the main points of interest of the National Mall:

The U.S. Capitol:

The White House:

The Thomas Jefferson Memorial:

The Lincoln Memorial:

Looks like the National Mall is the place of work not only for people, but also animals. Near Washington Monument we were stopped by fat Washington squirrels, who were hunting for tourists and begging for treats.

Later, we saw this nice squirrel skeleton in the National Museum of Natural History:

Nothing in common with this fat animal:-)

Actually I understand these animals. Who wants to live in the forest struggling for food? Definitely not American squirrels:-)))

TO BE CONTINUED

More pictures of Washington D.C.

Me gusta….Me gustan….. Me gustas tu!!

2009-02-06T23:13:00.000-08:00

Who told me that Spanish is an easy language?!!!! O my! It’s as crazy as Russian (from a foreigner’s point of view).
So far (and I’ve only been studying Spanish for three weeks) I’ve found several similarities between Russian and Spanish:
1) In both languages non-living things have genders. But the genders are different. For example, if in Russian the word « компьютер» ( a computer) is masculine, in Spanish it’s feminine («la computadora»). Uff ..Confusing… And actually it’s funny. How can «a computer» be a male or a female?:-)
2) In Russian and Spanish endings of words change depending on gender. In both languages you change the last latter to «a» if the gender is feminine (Encantado/encantada, доволен/довольна):
3) Endings of verbs change depending on a case (in Russian we change not only endings but also beginnings, suffixes and not only in verbs, but also in nouns and other parts of the speech. Poor foreigners!)
4) A lot of words in Russian and Spanish are just the same ( la biblioteca –библиотека and etc.)

And what a wonderful phrase: “Me gusta(n)….”!
This phrase is not possible in English. Literally “Me gusta la pizza” in English means “Pizza is pleasing to me”, but…. it is possible in Russian – «Мне нравится пицца».
But, anyway, I’m still wondering what was I thinking by taking a Spanish class?! To start learning a new language from a scratch! Tons of hard work and no guarantee that I will be able to speak Spanish in the next few years! O my! But I know it’s good for me:-)
Anyway, I think it has begun to pay off.. I can now understand some words in Spanish songs! Here we are - Manu Chao – “Me gustas tu”:

¡Adiós!

Mitsuyo’s debut and what not to wear to your concert

2009-01-23T21:32:00.001-08:00

In my previous post I was complaining about the instability of my social circle and that a lot of friends, whom I met in Minneapolis, have already left the city for good.
But! Let’s look at this problem from another side! At the same time I meet a lot of good people! And along with their personalities, these new people bring new interesting things into my life.
Mitsuo is a shining example of what I just said. She came to the Twin Cities from Japan not long ago, but looks like she is already fully submerged in American life and is already very busy.
Thanks to Mitsuo’s active nature Mika and I had a pleasure to attend her first concert in Twin Cities (one of the activities in which Mitsyu is engaged is playing piano in a band).
It’s not every day you get an invitation to your friend’s first concert, so Mika and I drove to St. Paul in spite of a snowstorm (at the speed of 20 miles per hour it took us 1 hour to get there:-))
The concert took place at “The Coffee Grounds” coffee shop in St. Paul – a small, but very cozy place. Two members of the band were Americans and two were Japanese – so the band can be called American-Japanese.

I liked both: the music the guys were playing and Mitsuo’s piano-playing.

But there was one thing I didn’t like. This thing was minor, but annoying. I’m not sure if I need to write about it or not. OK, this is my blog and I can be frank:-) Although after two years in the US I learned to be more tolerant of what other people are doing and what they are wearing, and not to yell: “OMG! Just look at this!” when I see an awfully dressed person, Americans’ lack of attention to how they look like and what they are wearing in public (and to their cocerts:-)) is still beyond my understanding! So the American part of the band definitely has to learn from their Japanese colleagues how to dress up for their concert! OK. No more comments on this topic. It’s none of my business and I need to be more tolerant!:-)))).

Anyway, that day we had a wonderful evening during the cold Minnesota winter, sitting in a small coffee shop, sipping coffee and listening to live music at the hand of our friend!

Thanks Mitsuo!

Happy New Year to Everyone!!!!!!

2008-12-30T21:35:00.000-08:00

What I like and what I don’t like about my social circle now

2008-12-15T19:02:00.000-08:00

My life definitely has changed a lot since I moved to the US, and the thing that changed the most is my social circle: the change that I enjoy the most and hate at the same time.

First, let me tell you what I love the most:

Before moving to the US the thing that I had feared the most was loneliness. The older we become the more difficult it is to make new friends, let alone dealing with culture shock and language problems. And I am so happy that I was wrong and my dark prognosis did not come true. Actually, things appeared to be quite the opposite: the lonely feeling of being far from our family and friends makes us get along much more easily and forces us to be more supportive of each other than would probably happen in more familiar environment. I’d never even dreamed that I would meet so many good and interesting people from all over the world. And, as I’ve said before this is the thing that I enjoy a lot:

Secondly, the thing that I hate. Although my social circle is so interesting and diverse now, it is also very unstable. And I hate it. Even if in Russia my friends and I were busy with work and could not meet very often, I always knew that they were around and all I needed to do was call them. Here good people come and go. As soon as you become attached to new friends they have to move somewhere. Usually it happens after a loud and cheerful farewell party:

And after that our lives go different directions:-(

Isn’t it sad? As Inna (one of our friends, who have already left the US) said, it’s better not to take it serious, but just to keep in mind that we will see each other in the future.

P.S. Inna and Witaly! We miss you here and hope that everything is OK with you now. Looking forward to hear the good news from you very soon!

P.S.S. Hello to everyone, who is not in Minneapolis now, but still follows my blog!

Pictures from Inna&Witaly farewell party

Motörhead - Rock Out

2008-12-04T18:18:00.000-08:00

Motörhead in St. Paul!!!

2008-12-03T18:13:00.000-08:00

We started preparing for the Motörhead concert a long time before the event.

First of all, Zhenya ordered Motörhead t-shirts:

This is Zhenya’s t-shirt with Lemmy’s quote on it. All Motörhead fans at the concert were jealous of this cool T-shirt:-))

Second, our friend Sergey, a heavy-metal fan, who lives in Switzerland, figured out for us, that Motörhead was going to meet with their fans before the concert at the Hot Topic music shop. So, on the day of the concert we arrived at the shop, waited in line and … got autographs and shook hands with all Motörhead band members!

Zhenya, Lemmy and Mikkey Dee

Zhenya and Phil Campbell

Zhenya and Lemmy

And finally, the concert itself was superb! It was a real pleasure to listen to pure rock-n-roll – two guitarists, one drummer and minimum show-effects. This is what real rock-n-roll is!

Looks like Motörhead is not as famous in the US as in Europe and this fact gave us a rare opportunity to see Motörhead performing on a small stage. The concert took place in Myth Nightclub in St. Paul, with the audience no more than three hundred people. I don’t think it is possible to see Motörhead so close on such a small stage in Europe.

And, of course, Motörhead lived up to its reputation as the loudest rock band in the world - after the Motörhead concert I felt kind of deaf for two hours:-)

South Dakota

2008-11-21T20:50:00.000-08:00

We always complain that vacations in the US are so short and the country is so big that we still haven’t traveled around it enough. That’s why when Zhenya gets a day off we don’t waste time - we go somewhere. Last time we decided to go to South Dakota.
Although South Dakota and Minnesota are neighbor states it takes 9 hours to get from Minneapolis to the West of South Dakota by car. So we took off early in the morning in order to get to the place before dark.

It’s interesting that as soon as we crossed the border between states, the landscape changed dramatically. Any signs of industry disappeared and farming lands began:

This is the map of South Dakota with main points of our trip marked:

1. Mitchell

We made our first stop in the small city of Mitchell. The main (and I think the only) place of attraction in Mitchell is a building decorated with corn and is called the World's Only Corn Palace. It was interesting, but not extraordinary, as it was advertized in the tourist guides. The interesting fact is that the tradition of decorating the Corn Palace goes back to 1892 when the first Corn Palace was build. Since that time its exterior is redecorated by murals made from corn every year.

Inside the building you can see the photographs of the Corn Palace taken in different years.

2. Badlands

Badlands National Park was our next stop that day. Although we had been told that this place was great, we still were not prepared for what we saw. Absolutely amazing! I had never seen anything like this before.

The Badlands formed as a result of erosion. Because erosion rapidly exposes territory of the Badlands is still expanding. Erosion of the Badlands reveals sedimentary layers of different colors: purple, yellow, orange, white and gray:

And this is how the Badlands look on closer examination:

We first stopped in the Badlands National Park in the evening and enjoyed the incredible view of the Badlands in the dusk:

Another thing that attracted our attention was this sign:

Pretty scary, isn’t it? But since we didn’t see any rattle snakes around, we thought that it was just an over-caution. Instead of a snake we saw a hare:

Three days later on our way back to Minnesota we stopped at the Badlands again and took pictures of the Badlands in the morning. The colors were absolutely different:

And unexpectedly we spotted a rattle snake! I was so scared that I didn’t dare approach the grass anymore!

3. Custer City

During our three days in South Dakota we stayed in Custer City. Custer City is the oldest town in the Black Hills and it still looks like a classic cowboy town from a western. Actually all small cities in South Dakota bring memories of the history of Wild West and Gold Rush times.

Custer also has a great location – within 30 minutes drive of major South Dakota landmarks: Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Jewel Cave and Wind Cave National Parks and Custer State Park.

4. Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore National Memorial is the number one tourist attraction in South Dakota. It is a massive (18 m height) granite sculpture of the heads of four American presidents:

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson:

and Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln:

The sculptor Gutzon Borglum conceived Mount Rushmore Memorial as a memorial to the history of the US and the memorial is also called - “Shred of Democracy”. Another interesting fact is that the memorial was carved on the Lakota sacred hills after natives were forced to leave their land. I guess this sad fact is also symbolic for American history.

Mount Rushmore also became very popular after the Hollywood hit “National Treasure 2” was filmed there.
Frankly, although I’ve heard about Mount Rushmore a lot and was eager to see it, when I finally saw it I was not really impressed. What really impressed me was the beauty of the Black Hills, the place where the memorial was carved.

While listening to the flowery words of the audio tour, how “millions of people –representing many cultures –find inspiration in the ideas of freedom and democracy that Mount Rushmore represents”, I felt a déjà vu, as if I have already seen and heard all these things before.

Uff da! If we change the word “democracy” to the word “communism”:

everything clicks into place:-) The same brainwash...

5. Harney Peak

After Mount Rushmore we headed to Harney Peak. To get there we had to pass through several narrow tunnels in the mountains:

Harney Peak is the highest mountain in South Dakota. It’s elevation is 7,244 feet (2,208 m) and we were determined to get to it:-). We reached the top of Harney Peak by the trail from Sylvan Lake, it was 6 miles (9.7 km) long and pretty challenging in the end. But all our efforts paid off when we saw the view from the summit:

Although we were tired at the end of the day, we decided to take the Wildlife Loop Road on our way back home. And we were rewarded! We saw elk, deer and buffalo. Actually, I’m not sure, who was studying whom :-) (I mean we were studying animals, or animals were studying us). We even had to wait about half an hour until the group of buffalo sniffed our cars and examined us, and let us continue our route:

6. Wind Cave

There are several big caves around Custer city, but we were short of time and decided to visit only one of them – Wind Cave, which is the fourth longest cave in the world with 120 miles (192,5 km) of mapped passageways.

Our guide demonstrates the natural entrance into the cave

Wind cave is notable for very unusual formations, called boxwork:

Every time I visit caves I recall Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer who once got lost in such a cave. Brrr.. I wouldn’t like to find myself in such a situation:-)
In the field near the road to Wind Cave we spotted prairie dogs and stopped to take pictures. Looked like prairie dogs were not afraid of us at all and enjoyed posing for pictures:-)

So cute!

7. Homestake Gold Mine

The next point on our route was Lead, a city in the north of the Black Hills. This small city is famous because of Homestake Gold Mine, the oldest, largest and deepest mine in the Western Hemisphere. The mine was founded during great gold rush of 1876 and was forced to close in 2002.
We took a tour to the Gold Mine. Our guide was a former miner, he told us about the history of the mine and how the mine worked, showed us the open mine from the observation deck and gave us a short bus tour over Lead.

The tour was interesting, but we were a little bit disappointed, because we were not allowed into the mine itself. I’m still wondering why we were asked to put on hardhats. Probably the purpose of putting hardhats on was to help us feel like real miners, but it is difficult to feel like a real miner without going down into the mine:-).
The sister city of Lead is Deadwood, a town known for its rough and tumble past. In the 1870s, Deadwood was the site of the last big frontier gold rush in North America and was composed largely of saloons, card parlors and bordellos. Today Deadwood is also the city of casinos.

By the way, the Black Hills was also the place where the famous “Dances with Wolves” with Kevin Costner was filmed. Looks like Kevin Costner fell in love with the Black Hills after that and even started his own business in Deadwood.

8. Sturgis

Sturgis - the legendary Mecca of motorcyclists. It is called so because of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which is held annually in this town each first week of August.

Actually, we saw a lot of motorcyclists everywhere in South Dakota. I think that nowadays cowboys changed their horses to motorcycles:

This is my favorite photo:-)

But surprisingly, we met only few of these guys in Sturgis. All the rest of the year after the motorcycle rally Sturgis looks pretty pitiful: the only one main street with few souvenir shops on it, trailers and dilapidated cars.

And it looked like most of the residents were strong McCain’s supporters. These signs were everywhere:

It’s amazing, the worse life is the more unhealthy patriotism people exhibit (actually I noticed the same thing in Russia too):

When I see such signs I always wonder, how about the rest of the world?

9. Bear Country

Bear Country is a drive-through wildlife park, with more than 25 different species of North American wildlife:

I had not been in such a place before, so this experience was very exciting. It's not every day that bears and wolves are roaming around your car!

But the territory was too small for these animals. Bears definitely did not know how to entertain themselves and were goofing around or sleeping:

Although none of the animals were kept in cages, I felt pity for them:-(
But the Babyland Main Street was really fun! Kids are always kids. Even if they are animals:

Just like in Ivan Shishkin’s painting “Morning in a Pine Forest”:

When we were driving home this day, the colors of the sky reminded me of the paintings of another Russian artist –Arkhip Kuindshi:

Adorable beauty!

Of course, three days are not enough to see all the great places in South Dakota, but at least it is enough to get an idea of how beautiful this state is.

P.S. Uhh! Finally this post is done:-)))

More pictures from South Dakota

OBAMA - MAMA!!!!!!!

2008-11-04T21:35:00.000-08:00

Leningrad - Election Song

2008-11-02T13:47:00.000-08:00

Interstate Park, Wisconsin

2008-10-30T21:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I've been busy recently. I was writing essays on different topics and it really wiped me out. But my essays are done now, so I’ll try to catch up with my blog shortly.

So we gradually continue to explore Minnesota and our next point was Interstate Park.

Interstate Park is divided by the St. Croix River into two parts: one part is on the Wisconsin shore, and another – on the Minnesota shore:

This time we went to the Wisconsin side of the park, close to the canoe place in Taylor Falls.

Interstate Park is a part of the “National Ice Age Reserve” and is famous for potholes – circular pits and holes seemingly bored into lava. Some of the potholes are over 60 feet deep and 10 feet in diameter:

I can’t clearly explain what potholes really are and how they appeared, so I'll post a picture of this sign and give you this link. Maybe it will clarify this question for you:

Interesting, isn’t it?:-)

Interstate Park is a good place for climbing. Some enthusiasts even jumped from the cliffs in the river:

We haven’t picked up climbing yet, so we went hiking. It was not the best hike we’ve ever taken: too easy and too many people around (because of park is close to the Twin Cities). But it was interesting. The park’s landscape was sculpted by glaciers during the ice age about one million years ago. Now it is composed of bluffs, rocks, and pine and oak trees and is really beautiful:

Once again we saw the “Taylors Falls Princess“, but this time from the cliffs:

And look at this cliff. Did you notice anything?

Do you see the face of a Native American on the top of the cliff?

It’s amazing how Mother Nature sometimes records the history!

And our photo-hunt was also successful that day. We caught a chipmunk (I mean we took a good picture of it:-)):

So, we liked the place. Well worth a visit.

Taylor Falls

2008-10-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

Taylor Falls – is a small city located close to the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin, on the shore of the St. Croix River. One of Zhenya’s colleagues recommended Taylor Falls to us as a great place for canoeing and kayaking. We were told that a canoe trip takes more than 3 hours and even after you are completely wiped out you can’t turn back and have to finish the trip, after the trip you are and your reward is a good sleep at the end:-).

So, we came to the place, rented canoe and prepared for long exhausting hours of paddling. To our surprise it took us only one hour and a half to finish the trip and we were not tired at all! I don’t want to say that we are pros at canoeing, but we had tried it several times before at the Chain of Lakes.
Actually, Taylor Falls is the great place to try canoeing for the first time. The St. Croix River at this place is knee-deep, so there is absolutely no risk of being drowned, even if you can’t swim. Furthermore, the St. Croix River scenery is very beautiful – the route goes along cliffs and pine forests:

Several times the “Taylors Falls Princess“, a pretty paddlewheel boat, went by us. I’m wondering how this big boat managed not to run aground in this shallow river?

I liked the American’s approach to canoeing. They loaded huge coolers, great amounts of food and portable chairs in their boats, landed at the nearest scenic place on the shore and had picnics. Of course, with such a fundamental approach to canoeing it can take more than three hours to finish the tour:-)
But this approach won’t work for us, because there was also an abundance of different forbidding signs on the shore:

Especially frustrating was this sign:

There is no way we can extend a 1,5 hour tour to 3 hours without an alcohol :-)

P.S. And this is just a great picture we took that day:

Let it always be sunshine!!!

2008-09-17T18:24:00.000-07:00

HA!

Look what I found on YouTube:

Actually, I know this song as the famous Soviet antiwar song:

In this version the choir sings:

Let it always be sunshine,

Let it always be blue sky,

Let it always be Mummy,

Let it always be me!

But in the English version the guys sing about their love to Gabrielle. How unexpectedly!:-)

So now I can’t stop guessing which version was the original:-)

But, anyway, I like the Russian one more:-)

Duluth Air Show

2008-09-05T20:15:00.000-07:00

Zhenya began talking about the Duluth Air Show and planning our visit there more than a month before the event. At first, I was neutral about it, but since Zhenya was so excited, the more excited I got too.
So, on the day of show we got up at 6 a.m. and headed to Duluth, which was about three hour’s drive from Minneapolis.
The air show took place at the local airport and parking for visitors was organized in an ordinary field:

Every visitor was carrying a portable chair with him, and we were too. What can I say? Looks like we assimilate into American culture more and more, we even have our personal portable chairs:-)
Another interesting fact was that regular flights to the Duluth airport were not canceled because of the Air Show and once in a while the show stopped to let incoming planes land. I think that passengers were pretty surprised to see the landing field full of people who were seating in portable chairs and waving to them:-)

Besides the air show itself there were many other things going on at the airport.
Vintage cars exhibition:

Recruitment into the US Army and Navy:

And of course planes exhibition:

We were surprised to see this Czech airplane L-39 with signs and instructions in Russian on it:

As for the air show, in the first part of it individual pilots performed. There was even one female pilot - Patty Wagstaff, and I can tell you, she was as good as all male performers:

The aerobatic individual performers were great, but everybody was waiting for the Blue Angels – the US Navy’s precision demonstration squadron:

But when the Blue Angels began their show the rain began and it was getting worse, so after showing few aerobatic tricks, such as diamond and others, the Blue Angels had to stop their performance.

Frankly, we were disappointed and frustrated. Not only did we not see the whole Blue Angel’s performance, but we also got soaking wet and spent about two hours in the line, trying to get out of the parking lot.
Hopefully next air show we’ll be more lucky.
But you know, now looking at the pictures and videos we took that day, I think that air show was not so bad:-)

More pictures from the Duluth Air Show

So ends another day

2008-08-25T15:12:00.001-07:00

I have a hobby: once in a while (to be precise, one or two times a year:-)) I make music videos.
This is my last masterpiece, enjoy:-)))):

Happy Burrito!

2008-08-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

Ugh! Posting my Russian tour reports took more time than I actually planned and now I need to catch up with the events that happened since that time.
So this post will be about Independence Day. Yes, I know that almost 2 months have passed almost two months since Independence Day. But it is never late to do something and I have some great pictures and good memories from this day which I want to post.
The beginning of this story sounds pretty funny, like a typical joke: “Two Germans, two Russians, one Japanese, one Iraqi and one Argentinean got together to celebrate American Independence Day”:-)

But, actually, Independence Day was not the main reason of why we got together. The real reason was that this year our German friends rented an apartment in the building right in front of the Mississippi River and that the balcony in their apartment is an excellent observation point for watching fireworks, and the fireworks on the Independence Day are always great. That’s why our company got together:-)

So we enjoyed each other’s company, fireworks, Russian food (our German friends are originally from Russia) and drinks. Everything was excellent.

It looked like all the residents in this apartment building had parties that day and had their friends over. So everybody gathered on the balconies and were watching fireworks and yelling: “Happy Independence Day” and “Happy freedom”. But because most of these people were already drunk, their shouts were not clear and it sounded like: “Happy Burrito!”
The idea to yell “Happy Burrito” from the balcony over the Mississippi seemed very appealing to us, so we began to yell “Happy Burrito” too, until someone from the upper balcony pronounced very clearly “Happy FREEDOM”, obviously addressing us:-). In order not to offend anyone’s patriotic feeling we stopped yelling “Happy Burrito”. I also had a great temptation to yell “Happy Democracy!” but decided to forego it for the same reason:-)

But anyway, Americans did a good job that day. They got drunk almost like Russians and definitely had fun. Kudos!

London

2008-08-17T19:44:00.001-07:00

We didn’t really stay in London during this trip. We only changed our plane there. But we managed not only to see the most famous London landmarks but even to take pictures of them:

In this picture (we took it while our plane was landing in London) you can clearly see The Thames, the London Eye and Big Ben. There are also supposed to be the Houses of Parliament, but at the moment the picture was taken, the buildings were obscured by clouds. But if you try, you can easily imagine that you really see the Houses of Parliament right across the London Eye, on the left shore of the Thames:-)
While we were waiting for our flight to Minneapolis in the London airport, we killed some time by plane spotting. That time the result of our spotting activity was very satisfying: we took pictures of Airbus A-380 of Singapore Airlines - the largest passenger airliner in the world:

St. Petersburg: the White Nights and the bridge lifting

2008-08-13T20:15:00.000-07:00

One of the most notable things that St. Petersburg has is the White nights. The White Nights is a period of time, the few weeks in June-July, during which sunsets are late, sunrises are early and darkness is never complete. So, during this season one can easily read a book outdoors during night time without any additional light.

The peak of The White Nights falls on the middle of June and it is a time of celebration in the city. During this time of the year it looks like people in St. Petersburg totally mix up days and nights. At night in June downtown St. Petersburg is crowded and you can easily get stuck in a traffic jam.

Most restaurants, cafés and even stores are opened all night long. Once, we stopped by McDonalds at 2 a.m. and couldn’t find a vacant table!

The most favorite entertainment of St. Petersburg locals and tourists during the White Nights is to watch the raising of lift bridges. Because St. Petersburg is a port city, its river traffic is as intensive as its land traffic. During the day time lift bridges are closed and serve as traffic arteries for ground transportation, but at night time St. Petersburg’s bridges are lifted to let large and heavy ships pass through the Neva River.

Every lift bridge has its schedule of closing and opening. Usually the bridges are lifted about 1a.m. and closed back down about 5 a.m.

Around this time people get near the bridges to watch the bridge lifting. Look how many people, cars and boats gathered near and on the Neva River:

And the time was 2 a.m.! The city lives full life during the White Nights!

While the bridges are lifted it’s impossible to get from one part of the city to another anyway but by boat, so people stay downtown all night long, walk around, spend time in cafes, bars and clubs.

A lifted bridge looks very impressive: you can clearly see road markings, light poles and telephone wires, but all these things are perpendicular to the ground. A lifted bridge looks like the real “road to the sky”:

This year we watched bridge lifting two times.

First time, we got to the place right in time to see fireworks and laser show, in honor of the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum which was held during these days.

I’ve never seen Rostral Columns lighted before:

The view of fireworks, laser show and lighted Rostral Columns altogether under the accompaniment of classic music was tremendous:

Second time, we watched the bridge lifting with our old friends and everything was like many-many years ago, except the fact that we were leaving for America the next day:

So, it was our goodbye to St. Petersburg:-(. But anyway, we spent a wonderful time there and now have a lot of great memories!

Peterhof

2008-08-02T19:56:00.000-07:00

Peterhof – is one of St. Petersburg’s suburbs; during 18-19th centuries it was the residence of the Romanovs family (Russian monarchic family). For the luxury and beauty of its palaces, gardens and fountains Peterhof is sometimes called the "Russian Versailles". One of my friends, who has been in Versallies, told me that he found Peterhof even more beautiful than Versallies. I’d rather not confirm (contend) my friend’s statement until I go to France and see Versallies myself:-) But taking into account that Peterhof was built under the influence of Versallies architecture and that Russian tsars even wanted Peterhof to excel the French kings’ residence in luxury, my friend’s words make sense to me.

I’ve been in Peterhof numerous times, but every time I’m excited and impressed by its majesty and beauty as if it was my first visit to this place. I wondered if Russian tsars were so used to their residence that they didn’t even pay any attention to all this luxury and took it for granted?:-)

This time our route in Peterhof was the same as during our previous visits.
We started from the Grand Cascade:

and Samson Fountain:

and after that we systematically went around all the fountains in Peterhof’s park.

And near this fountain the memories of my childhood overwhelmed me. It was my favorite entertainment in Peterhof too:

When I was a kid I also thought that the fountain started working when you steped on one particular stone and tried to determine this stone by experimenting. As a result after these experiments I was soaking wet, like these kids on the video:-) But in reality, the explanation is very simple:-) Did you notice this gentleman, standing behind the bench with an indifferent expression on his face?

He is a Peterhof’s worker and operates the fountain by the remote control:-). But children think that he is just an ordinary bystander like the others.
As usual we finished our walk in Peterhof near the Chessboard fountain:

and decided to save some time and to have more fun by returning to Saint Petersburg not by bus, as we usually did, but by boat. The boat took us through the Finland Gulf and dropped us off right in the center St. Petersburg’s downtown, on the Neva bank near the Hermitage.

More pictures of Peterhof

Saint Petersburg: the Hermitage

2008-07-28T20:25:00.000-07:00

During our visit to St. Petersburg we hardly found time to visit the Hermitage. At first, ten days seemed to us to be enough time to catch everything: to meet with all our friends and relatives, to walk around the city, to visit museums. But in reality we were not able to fulfill a big portion of what we initially planned. One of the reasons why was that we didn’t feel like tourists in St. Petersburg, who have limited time and need to see everything. We felt as if we were at home and didn’t have to hurry anywhere. As a result, we relaxed and lost a lot of time during the first days of our visit. However, later we pulled ourselves together and tried to catch up with everything.
Eventually, bad weather helped us to get around to seeing the Hermitage. Rain is the best time for museum visits, isn’t it?

Everyone who has been in the Hermitage knows that one visit is not enough to take in everything in this museum. To explore the Hermitage’s collection thoroughly you’ll need to settle down there for at least one year. So, usually our strategy of exploring the Hermitage is to see one or two pieces of its collection. This time we decided to take a good look at paintings from Flanders and the Netherlands.

To be honest, we are not art connoisseurs. We only can judge it with “I like it – I don’t like it” categories. So, during this visit to Hermitage we liked everything:-)
We especially enjoyed inspecting paintings on the subject of the smallest details of that period’s everyday life:

what people used to wear:

and what they used to eat:-)

And I also looked with envy at Rubensian women on the paintings. They all were plus sized, to say the least, but considered to be unearthly beautiful at that time, and didn’t need to count calories and to work out:-)

And of course, while we were browsing the Hermitage’s halls we admired its interior.

Even such seemingly elementary things as doors and ceilings were real masterpieces:

But, you know, guys, although, we paid our visit to the Hermitage that time, I still have the feeling that we didn’t catch up with everything and missed a lot:-( But! ...Modern technologies make it possible to have a virtual view of the Hermitage. You can do it here.

More pictures from the Hermitage

Saint-Peterburg: the city of rivers and canals

2008-07-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

One of the things that makes St. Petersburg stand out among other cities is that Peter the Great conceptualized it as a water city. All it’s numerous rivers and canals were projected as equal to ordinary streets. That’s why St. Petersburg is often called “Northern Venice”.

Where else you can see this road (river) sign? It means: “No boats’ parking” or “Don’t anchor here”:

So, if you want to understand and get a better feeling of this city, you should look at it from the water. From this unusual perspective you can see a lot of things in this city that you would never notice from the ground:

Just look at this breathtaking view:

I took this video from the Neva River and you can see here all the formal part St. Petersburg: the Stock Exchange Building and Rostral Columns, Admiralty building, Saint Isaac's Catherdral and of course the Winter Palace.

So, guys, if life someday will bring you to Saint-Petersburg, to take the tour of the city’s canals and rivers is a must!

But, anyway, St. Petersburg is amazing from any observation point, no matter what it is: ground or water!

More pictures of St.Petersburg

Moscow

2008-07-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

To be frank, I’ve never liked Moscow. I find it hectic, pricy and showy. So usually I try to avoid Moscow in my trips, or to spend as little time there as possible.

This time we only planned to stay in Moscow long enough to transition from plane to train on our way to St. Petersburg. But we didn’t really succeed in it. As it turned out it was not easy to get from Sheremetievo airport to the railroad station (I’d better not elaborate on this topic, otherwise I’ll get really annoyed:-)) As a result we missed our train and got a few free hours before the next train to St. Petersburg. So, we decided to take a walk around Moscow downtown.
But it seemed that Moscow also didn’t like us and started storming, so we spent most of this time we spent in a coffee-shop, hiding from the rain.
But even so we caught a couple of hours of nice weather, so we walked a little bit on the Red Square. There’s no argument, it’s very beautiful!

And right near the Red Square I spotted this advertisement of Rolex:

It says: “Rolex – all power is in your hands”:

Ha! This is the Moscow that I know:-) Very symbolic for this city

More pictures of Moscow

Guamkskiy canyon

2008-07-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

Guamsky canyon is a scenic pass which overlooks the mountain river Kurdzhips.

Actually this place is located not far from the plateau Lago-Naki, but the direct road between those two landmarks lays in the mountains and is insurmountable by Sedan. So, instead of taking the 15 km direct road, we had to make the 100 km loop from Lago-Naki to Guamka.
Similar to the entrance to Lago-Naki, a new hotel has been built near the entrance to Guamsky canyon since our last visit. Evidently, the tourist business is flourishing in the Krasnodar Krai.

We didn’t ask how murch the suites were in this hotel, so I didn’t have the opportunity to evaluate the hotel’s pricing policy this time:-)

But another thing made me giggle when I looked at the hotel. There was a rainbow on the hotel sign:

I bet the hotel owners don’t have any idea what the rainbow sign means and would be very surprised if sex minorities came in droves to their place :-)

The canyon itself is 3 km long and 400 m deep.

The amazing thing here is a narrow railroad which is cut in the cliffs.

The railroad stretches for 9 km and connects two villages: Guamka, which is located near the entrance to the canyon, and Mezmai, which is the ending point of this railroad. For a long time this railroad was the only route of communication between Mezmai and the outer world.

So we went the whole way along the railroad and with the destination being Mazmai.

Although the route of our hike that day wasn’t as challenging as in Lago-Naki, sometimes it was pretty scary. For example, in one place we saw this locomotive below us:

Obviously it had been derailed and had fallen down the mountain side. But people say that, fortunately, nobody suffered in that accident.

And of course the nature on our route was delightful!

So, taking our time, we reached the end of the railroad in Mezmai:

And the railroad ended in a very unexpected way::-)

We had heard that people who live in Mezmai are very artsy and there are a lot of poets and artists among them. But we didn’t have the opportunity to chat with anybody in Mezmai, so we couldn’t check this information.
The only people to whom we talked in Mezmai were two teenagers, who looked very presentable and greeted us in a very polite manner, but after that asked for 10 rublesJ But we decided that it would not be pedagogically correct to give them money, so we spent that money on ourselves: we bought an ice-cream, ate it and turned back to Guamka.

More pictures of Guamsky Canyon

Lago-Naki

2008-07-09T20:05:00.000-07:00

Lago-Naki is a mountain plateau in the West Caucasus, which is 3 hour’s drive from Krasnodar.

So, every time we visit Krasnodar we take the chance to visit this scenic place. This time all our friends in Krasnodar were busy at work, so we rented a car and went to Lago-Naki by ourselves.

This is the car, we rented. I think Renault should buy this picture from me and use it as an ad:-)

The road to Lago-Naki goes through the Krasnodar region and the Republic of Adygea. So we passed by numerous places with Adygean names, which sounded funny to our Russian ears (e.g. Bzheduhabl or Gabukai)

Since our last visit to Logo-Naki 6 years ago a big comfortable hotel has been built near the entrance to the Logo-Naki National Park. But the hotel stayed empty, nobody wanted to pay it’s overprice fee during the off season period. We too preferred to rent an unpretentious small cabin near the Ministry of Emergency Situations base (which is analogous to the US Homeland security).

It was both cheaper and more interesting. Besides a few tourists, there also were other interesting inhabitants in our camp:

Our first day’s hike was not really successful: after one hour of walking on the plateau it became really cold, and knowing that the weather in the mountains can get worse extremely fast, we decided to turn back. But even during this short hike we managed to take a large number of pictures and appreciate grandeur and beauty of the Lago-Naki landscapes.

The next day we were really lucky with the weather. We took a 5 hour hike up and downhill. After several hours of climbing uphill, and jumping over stones and puddles, I really felt that my workouts on a treadmill at the gym finally paid off:-).

While we were walking the weather changed several times. It was raining, snowing and at the destination point of our hike it was warm and sunny. O, mother nature! It is really unpredictable!:-)

The final point of our hike was a scenic precipice with a magnificent view from it.

The precipice was so high, that we didn’t want to risk stepping on its edge and had to snake our way there to look down and take pictures.

The view we saw was so majestic, that of course our several hours of walking were worth it.

We saw a waterfall and a wonderful forest behind us:

It would be cool to jump down on a hanglider. But anyway we didn’t have one and we didn’t know how to use it:-)
The sky above the mountains’ peaks changed every minute, so every picture of them that we took was really different:

The feeling that we experienced at the pick of the mountain precipice was awesome. We were alone for several miles (while we were walking we didn’t see any living soul except a pack of horses, eagles in the sky and some small birds). It was very silent, there was only the sound of the wind.

What else do you need to understand how insignificant you are in comparison with nature’s grandeur?

I think it’s the best relaxation you can ever get:-). If I could, I would stay there forever! But life is life, we began to feel hungry, so we turned back and headed to the camp:-)

More pictures from Lago-Naki

Krasnodar

2008-07-03T14:46:00.000-07:00

Krasnodar is Zhenya’s native city. I’ve only been there a few times, but I can tell you that Krasnodar definitely has two great competitive advantages:

Its first advantage is the great geographical location. The city is situated in the south of Russia, close to the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains. So, lucky Krasnodar residents live 1.5 hour’s drive from the sea and 2.5 hour’s drive from the mountains.

One of our American friends, who lives in Krasnodar, called the Krasnodar region – “Russian California”. It’s so true! Although this visit to Krasnodar fell at a time when the weather was nasty: cold and rainy. Even Krasnodarians admitted that such bad weather was very unusual for summer.

My guess is that we were bringing bad weather along with us wherever we went in Russia. Just look at this sky!

And, by the way, Krasnodar headed the Forbes magazine list of Russian cities (excluding Moscow and St. Petersburg) with good conditions for business development. So, in this respect, Krasnodar is number three in Russia.

The second and the greatest competitive advantages of Krasnodar – is its open and welcoming people. Although it’s a well known fact that southern people are notable for their hospitality, every time the warm welcome we get from our relatives and friends in Krasnodar speaks to the heart. What can I say? A lot of tables were spread and a lot of vodka was drunk in our honor. As Zhenya says, Krasnodarians just don’t know how it could be in any other way.

While in Krasnodar, we unexpectedly bumped into Zhenya’s classmates several times. Once, we even were presented a bottle of vodka out of the blue:-). To be frank, I was a little bit jealous of my husband. During our Russian visit, I didn’t meet any of my classmates, although I attempted to.
Even Americans who live in Krasnodar become active patriots of this city. We had the pleasure of meeting one of them. This guy (his name is Timothy Post) is convinced that Krasnodar is the best city in the world and urged us to settle down there (of course, everybody knows that the best city in the world is St. Petersburg:-)). By the way, this is a link to his blog about Krasnodar. After all this sea of “BS” I’ve heard and read about my country in the Western media, I was unexpectedly surprised by objectiveness of this blog. Take a look at it if you have time.
But to be balanced, I have to mention two things that I didn’t like during our last visit to Krasnodar:-).
The first thing is awful traffic jams. It can take you about two hours to get to the center of the city. The same time it takes in large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg. But Krasnodar is not as large! And in Moscow, or St. Petersburg at least you have a choice to use the subway. In Krasnodar, you are stuck in a traffic jam no matter how you go: by your own car, by bus, or by taxi.
The other thing is the quality of service in some places. Once, while we were walking along Krasnaya street (the central street in Krasnodar) we wanted a cup of coffee. And what do you think? This mission turned out to be almost impossible. In one coffee shop the waiters even didn’t pay any attention to us (I’m wondering, why do they need waiters in a coffee shop?:-))) In another place, when we asked if they had any vacant tables, we just got the answer “No”. They even didn’t say “sorry” or “could you wait a little bit?”:-) Finally, after a wild goose chase, we got our cup of coffee in the “Intourist” hotel.
Later this day we stumbled upon this monument on Krasnaya street:

With this words of Vladimir Mayakovsky (the famous Russian poet) about Krasnodar written on the monument:

I laughed a lot. Sorry, I tried, but gave up all the attempts to make an adequate translation of Mayakovskiy’s words into English. Just believe me, it was very in timely and very funny.
But anyway, even traffic jams and service quality can’t beat Krasnodar’s competitive advantages!

P.S. And look at this picture of poppy field we took in the outskirts of Krasnodar!

What do you think, isn’t it the field from Monet's picture?:-)

More pictures of Krasnodar

Diveevo

2008-06-22T20:37:00.000-07:00

Diveevo- is a town, which is situated 20 km from my native Sarov. Holy Trinity-Saint Seraphim-Diveyevo Monastery is located here, and this place is considered to be one of the centers of Orthodox Christian spiritual culture.

Nowadays the relics of St. Seraphim are kept in this monastery, so pilgrims from all over Russia come here to worship to them.
Since Diveevo is very close to my native city, we come here every time we visit Sarov.

More pictures of Diveevo

Sarov

2008-05-26T06:19:00.001-07:00

My native city Sarov is a unique place. Totally different things coexist here easily.

On one hand, it is literary a holy place for the Russian Orthodox Church. Here, in the 19th century lived monk-hermit Saint Seraphim Sarovskiy - one of the most honored Russian saints. Before the Bolsheviks’ Revolution, the Sarov Male Monastery, where the relics of Saint Seraphim were kept, was located here. Believers from all over Russia came to this holy place, sometimes by foot, to worship the saint and to ask him to heal their incurable illnesses.
It’s amazing, but during the Soviet period everybody knew about the holy places, although they were officially forgotten and forbidden, the monastery was destroyed and most of the churches blown up.

The place where Seraphim lived alone in the forest:

The well which Seraphim dug out by himself:

And the stone in the forest, on which he prayed 1000 days and nights:

All places were preserved by people and restored in 1990s.

On the other hand, Sarov is a place where the hydrogen bomb was invented. During Stalin’s period, the scientific center of nuclear physics was organized here and such genius physicists like Kurchatov and Sakharov worked in this center. Now Sarov is the leading Russian scientific center.

Recently, the Sarov Male Monastery was reborn in Sarov, and now nuclear physics and Christian Orthodox culture coexist in one place.

But in other respects, my native city hasn't changed a lot. It's still the same: calm, quiet and laid back.

Everything is in it's place.
The yard of my childhood is exactly as it was many years ago:

And the tank near the Young Pioneers' Palace hasn't driven anywhere:

And grandpa Lenin is still in his place:

And as always, I felt sad and sorry when I was leaving my city:-(

More pictures of Sarov

Nizhniy Novgorod

2008-05-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

Although I’ve been in Nizhniy Novgorod numerous times, I still don’t know this city well enough. Usually my visits here last no more than 3-4 hours; is just enough time for me to get from the train station to the bus station (where I take the bus to Sarov – my native city), and also to take a walk around downtown. But at the same time, I’ve heard a lot about this city from my parents: they met here when they were students at Nizhniy Novgorod State University, so I can say that this is my second native city – if this city didn’t exist I wouldn’t be born either:-)

The rout of my walk in downtown is always the same – from the bus station to Chkalov Monument at the Volga River.
Usually, after enjoying the Volga view:

I take a look at Chkalov monument (the legendary soviet pilot, one of the Nizhniy Novgorod famous sons)

And walk along Nizhniy Novgorod Kremlin wall:

After that I return to the bus station through Bolshaya Pokrovka street:

So I can judge how the city has changed since my last visit only by the changes of the landmarks on my route.
This time I spotted new inhabitants on Bolshaya Pokrovka street. Marvelous!

Especially these cats:

And this goat:

And you can ask this boy to clean your shoes:

This is Evgeniy Evstigneev - the great Russian actor. He passed away more than 15 years ago, but you can meet with him again here, he sitting on the bench near Nizhniy Novgorod Drama Theater:

All the other sculptures are very stylish and interesting too When you are looking at them, you went back in time (about 100 years ago):

These dilapidated barracks are another reminder of more than a century past:

It’s amazing, but people are still living there!

But you can find signs of technological development here too:-)

The sign on the old building says: “Computer”

And this is a real masterpiece!

The sign on this barrack says: “Sex-shop “Temptation””:-)

Excellent! I’m impressed!

I also paid attention to a large number of “Volga” automobiles in the streets of Nizhniy Novgorod. These cars are manufactured in this city by GAZ (Gorky Automobile Plant).
Take a look at it, I don’t think you can see it in the US:-)

And this is the barrel with kvas – a Russian traditional beverage. OMG! They still exist! This barrel looks as if it came right from my childhood!!!

So, I had a nice time in Nizhniy Novgorod: I took a walk, took pictures, came back to the bus station, got into another GAZ “masterpiece” called “Gazelle”:

and headed to my native town –Sarov.

More pictures of Nizhniy Novgorod

Welcome to Peter!!!

2008-05-20T11:56:00.000-07:00

When my plane landed, the announcement was made “Welcome to St. Petersburg! The temperature abroad is + 5 C (+ 42 F)” made me laugh out loud. O, yeah! This is my lovely city! Whenever you arrive, the weather is cold and nasty, even it was warm and sunny a day before:-)
Because of the long flight and jet lag I felt pretty exhausted and my short-term goal was to stay awake at least until 9 p.m.:-) But my friends simplified this task: they came to see me and were so emotional and excited about my arrival, that kept me awake until 12 a.m., that made my adaptation to the local time much easier:-)

It’s amazing! We haven’t seen each other for almost two years, but it seemed like nobody and nothing has changed since that time, as if I haven’t left at all!

Next day my friend Tanya (she took the day off because of my arrival!) picked me up and we drove to downtown.

My stylish friend Tanya

(Pay attention, the color of her car suits to the color of her coat!:-))

I didn’t have much time, the same day I had to catch my train to Nizhniy Novgorod at 5 p.m. (it’s the city in central Russia, on the Volga River). But if you manage your time properly you can do a lot even in a few hours!
For example:
To have breakfast in “Teremok” (Blins!! Mmm!)

And to take a drive through St. Petersburg downtown and to recall what a real traffic jam is:

And to walk around downtown and after that have lunch in “Kolobok”(Hurray! Piroshki!!!)

While waiting in a traffic jam I noticed two things, which were unusual:

The first thing was St. George Ribbons, tied to the antennas of many cars. The St. George Ribbon for Russians is the symbol of Russia’s Victory in World War II. Since 1945, Russia celebrates it as the Victory Day on the 9th of May. And now, witnessing how many people tied the ribbon to their cars, as an act of commemoration and anniversary of the Victory Day, I felt this patriotic and proud feeling growing in me. Wow! Great feeling!

And the second thing was - “ZENIT – CHAMPION!!!!!

St. Petersburg football (soccer) team “Zenit” won the UEFA CUP right on the day of my arrival. Although I was very glad for “Zenit”, Peter (St. Petersburg) and for Russia, I was a little bit concerned that next day it would be difficult to walk around downtown because of the crowds of excited and drunken Zenit fans. I have had the experience of living close to the Zenit’s sport arena, and since that time I feel a kind of dislike to Zenit’s fans, who are too active and aggressive, and try to avoid them if possible:-). But my suspicions didn’t prove this time. It looked like people celebrated Zenit’s victory all the previous night, and next morning everybody was too tired to continue. So the next morning St. Petersburg’s streets were calm and quiet, but we could still sense the joyful mood in the city: Zenit’s fan scarves and flags were everywhere:

And, by the way, 4 days later Russia won the World Hockey Championship! We are the champions my friend!!!:-)))

Of course a few hours were not enough for me to enjoy the city:-(. I had to hurry to catch my train to Nizhniy Novgorod.

But I’ll be back soon!!!

Mary Tyler Moore Short Theme Song

2008-05-13T08:48:00.000-07:00

And this is the theme song from "Mary Tyler Moore Show". It's called "Love Is All Around", and has very optimistic lyrics concluding with "You're gonna make it after all!". Great slogan, by the way. I like it!

You can also see shots of Minnepolis: Lake of the Isles (I live close to it), IDS center, Basil's Restaurant (I read that Basil's customers still frequently request the table where Mary sat). You probably you noticed some other Minneapolis landmarks.

And one thing surprized me. The show was filmed 30 years ago, but the shots still look as if they were made nowdays. Even people now are dressed the same way as in 70s. Isn't it amazing?

Say "Hello" to Mary Tyler Moore!

2008-05-13T08:42:00.000-07:00

I think everybody who lives in Minneapolis knows this lady:

You can meet her in downtown Minneapolis. She is standing on the sidewalk in front of the Macy’s store near the corner of 7th Street and Nicollet Mall, and it looks like she is waving her hat. Most of us are so used to her, that we even don’t pay attention to this statue when we pass by. And until recently I knew little about this statue. Someone told me that this is the monument for some actress from some movie that was filmed in Minneapolis, and that in this movie this actress is tossing her hat exactly on the place where her monument stands now.

But who can answer this question better than a real Minnesotan? So finally, my friend Anne (and she is a real Minnesotan!) explained everything to me.

This is my friend Anne, she is a real Minnesotan

and she explained everything to me about Mary Tyler Moore:-)

The name of this lady is Mary Tyler Moore. She is an actress, and the episode depicted by this monument is not from the movie, but from one of the most famous American TV Shows – “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”. The scene is the well-known moment in the show's opening credits where Mary joyfully throws her cap in the air.
And as I was told before, this show was filmed in Minneapolis in 70s and was aired on CBS from 1970 to March 1977. The program was a television breakthrough, and it has also been cited as "one of the most acclaimed television programs ever produced" in US television history.

These are the opening credits from the show:

But, if you watched the opening credits carefully, you must have seen that the real place, where Mary actually tossed the cap was not on the sidewalk, but in the crosswalk in the middle of the street - clearly not the best location for a statue. The other difference from the movie episode is that the actual release point of the cap was around her waist, whereas the statue has her hand high overhead, barely touching the cap, as if she were catching it instead of tossing it.

I watched a couple of episodes from the Mary Tyler Moore Show on youtube. It's fun!

So, guys, next time when you'll be walking downtown and passing by this statue, say "Hello!" to Mary Tyler Moore!:-)

Zimovie zverei

2008-05-08T12:46:00.000-07:00

This is St.Petersburg - the city I love so much!!!! And .... I'll be there soon!!!!

Floranova - Macy's Spring Flower Show 2008

2008-05-02T21:58:00.000-07:00

I didn’t really plan to post it - the show finished a month ago, so it seems a little bit late to write about it now. But the thought came to my mind: since the real spring hasn’t really started yet (we had snowstorms recently and who knows what else we’ll have soon;-)), maybe it’s not a bad idea to recall this colorful flower show now? In any case, I took a lot of pictures of flowers and I want to share them with you.

The spring flower show is held by Macy’s annually. This year the show was called “Floranova” and it brought the spirit of Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Brazil. It was the real floral fiesta!

And as a professional economist I have to give credit to Macy’s marketing service:-) The show was free for visitors, but at the same time the traffic through the Macy’s store during the days this show was held grew significantly. I bet they had a big rise in sales:-)

Anyway, it was just a pleasure to see all those gorgeous flowers!

So, enjoy:

More pictures of Floranova Flower Show

HAPPY EASTER!!!!!!

2008-04-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter to everybody!!!!

P.S. This time I’m not late:-)
The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Easter today!

The Blue Man Group with Venus Hum - I Feel Love

2008-04-22T22:49:00.000-07:00

Blue Man Group in Twin Cities

2008-04-22T11:49:00.000-07:00

Actually it’s pretty difficult to explain what exactly The Blue Man are.
In few words, The Blue Man Group is a show from Las Vegas, which includes three guys with blue faces, who never speak and never change their expressions. Pretty weird, isn’t it? So, what they are doing can be called a show:-) I tried, but I couldn’t find another definition for it.

I suppose that the actors borrowed the idea of the blue men from the famous villain of 60s– Fantomas – the character of Jean Marais from the French movie of the same name (“Fantomas”, 1963).

Find a difference:

The Blue Man Group:

Fantomas:

So we can call Fantomas the first Blue Man:-)

Actually, there is one difference – Fantomus was an evil character, on the contrary, The Blue Men seem to be goodnatured and simpleminded guys.

So, if you feel the need to yell, wave your hands, shake your head and stamp your feet, the Blue Men Show is the right place to go.

Once again I was amazed how childish Americans can be sometimes: they laughed at everything and followed all the instructions of the Blue Men with enthusiasm. I think that Russian public would be tough for The Blue Men, it is not so easygoing and won’t yell and wave hands without a shot of vodka:-)
But actually I loved the show. The performance was good and the music was great. But frankly, I think $50 was a bit too high for the pleasure of yelling and waving your hands, $30 would be enough:-)

Piroshki - Russian Hamburgers

2008-04-05T20:20:00.000-07:00

Of course everybody misses his favorite national food living abroad! I, personally, miss piroshky! That’s why I was so happy to learn about “Russian Piroshky and Tea House” in St. Paul! But there was one difficulty: this place had very weird hours of work: Tuesday –Friday, 11 a.m. – 15 p.m. I was wondering where do they get clients during such an odd time of work? Perhaps, the owners of this place are not interested in money and run this business only for the love of arts (I mean for the love of piroshky:-))
So, I talked Mika into going to this place (it was easy, because she loves piroshky too) and we headed to St. Paul.
And as it turned out piroshki are Russian hamburgers! Well, very unusual view on Russian cuisine:-)

First thing that I noticed - there were no Russians inside the place. Very suspicious...
The café owner explained to me with enthusiasm that they use recipes of her Russian husband’s grandmother. I tried piroshky (by the way, piroshki were pretty expensive - $3/each) and borsht. Hmm… What can I say? Their grandmother’s recipes suck! Piroshki were too big and their filling was too salty. Borsht was OK, but not the tastiest I’ve ever tried. It became clear to me why there were no Russians in this place. Russians won’t eat not tasty piroshky for $3.
But, at least Mika looked satisfied. I suspect she loves all food that contains meat and that is not Japanese:-)

Well, I think I’d better quit looking for good piroshki in Twin Cities and start baking them myself!
Or, I have another idea! There is a great piroshki place called “Kolobok” in St. Petersburg. So, I should go to Russia and eat piroshky there!

St.Patrick’s Day Parade

2008-03-30T21:46:00.000-07:00

Actually St.Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17th and the St.Patric k’s Day Parade in Minneapolis was held two weeks ago. So, it looks like it's a little bit late to write about it now. But! The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the Day of St. Patrikius the Enlightener of Ireland (the Russian version of St. Patrick’s name) today, by the old style calendar (March 17th + 13 days between the calendars = March 30th). That’s why I think I have a great excuse to write about it now:-)

Traditionally, St.Patrick’s was celebrated as a holiday of the Irish people, but in the US it turned into a holiday celebrated by all immigrants. People even say: “We all are Irish today” and it’s enough to wear green on March 17th to become an Irish.

Another reason for the popularity of St. Patrick’s Day is that it is a legitimate excuse for everybody to get drunk like the Irish (that means to get really drunk). Even bus rides are free on this day, so that drunken people don’t drive home. But in sober fact, I didn’t see any drunken people either on St. Patrick’s Day or on the previous weekend. And it was pretty unusual for me, because If a day is considered to be the drunken day in Russia it’s difficult to see sober people (I’m exaggerating, of course you can meet some:-)))).
The history of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Minneapolis dates back to 1968. Frankly, after we saw the Holidazzle Parade last December, I expected more. But, anyway, it’s good when people are having fun even in nasty weather (like it was on that day)! In spite of cold and rain with snow, people came to downtown to see the parade.

Most of the spectators and participants wore green and I even got the feeling that we were in the Emerald city from the Wizard of Oz:-)

The parade participants walked in groups according to which Irish clans they belonged to:

And for some mysterious reason, one clan carried the flag of Ukraine:

There was also the representation of Minnesota Police - for some reason in the Scottish national costumes:

And the delegation of firefighters for some reason dressed like supermen:

And for some reason the delegation of Santas:

And even the delegation of dogs (probably of some Irish dog breed):

Don’t ask me what all those reasons were! I don’t have any idea about it!:-)))

More pictures from St. Patrick's Day Parade

Bruce Springsteen - american land (live)

2008-03-19T09:58:00.001-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!!!

Bruce Springsteen in the Twin Cities!!!

2008-03-18T20:14:00.000-07:00

We didn’t plan to go to this concert, but we unexpectedly got two extra tickets from our friends. What luck! Thank you, Marlyse and Chad!

Frankly, we didn’t know any of Bruce Springsteen’s songs very well. We just had his CD in our car and were listening to it from time to time. But we are always open to a good new music and it’s not necessary to talk us into going to a concert! And we had no doubt that it was going to be a world-class show. So we took this chance.

One of the things that you are expecting from a good concert is to get ramped up by good music and audience’s energy. And our expectations proved true. Xcel Energy Center in St Paul was completely packed with people and overwhelmed with good emotions.

While witnessing how Americans love Bruce Springsteen and give him a warm welcome, the thought came to my mind: “How regretful, that for the most of the world the United States is associated with George Bush and Donald Trump. In fact, few Americans love them. And how great it would be for this country to be associated with Bruce Springsteen! "

So, Bruce Springsteen is in my favorite list now!!!

P.S. And can you imagine? He didn’t sing “Born in the USA” at the concert!

P.P.S Here you can see our pictures of St Paul (just in case, if you are interested:-))

Stand by Your Man by The Blues Brothers

2008-03-12T22:05:00.001-07:00

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman:-))))))

No comments:-)))

Ups! Video isn't available any more:-((
Well, this original version (of the song, not video:-)) is also great:

Let's Make the 8th of March an American National Holiday!!!!

2008-03-12T20:03:00.000-07:00

So, everybody, did you celebrate International Women’s Day this year? Few Americans know about this holiday, but in my country the 8th of March is extremely popular. It can even compete with New Year's in popularity.

Most of my friends from Russia, who wished me a happy 8th of March, asked me, “Are you going to celebrate it in the US?”

You betcha! Of course we are!

Even though I never liked this holiday when I lived in Russia. I always considered it to be the most hypocritical holiday.

Once a year women get flowers and a lot of compliments, but most men use this holiday as a great reason to get drunk and totally forget to be nice to women the remainder of the year.

Furthermore, what can be more stupid than to get congratulations because you are a woman? :-)

But here, in America, things totally changed for me!

Gender questions are so twisted here! Women are fighting for their rights to be truck drivers, policemen (sorry, policewomen), and to serve as soldiers in the Marines. This is beyond my understanding! And it seems to me that some women sometimes need a reminder that they are actually women! :-)

So! I have a proposal! Let’s make the 8th of March the national holiday in the US and a day off!

Now the 8th of March is my favorite holiday! There could be another reason for it – living overseas makes you appreciate your national holidays more.

Anyway! International Women’s Day is a good reason to get a bouquet of gorgeous roses and to enjoy them long after that!

To eat out, to relax finally and not to count calories!
To have one cocktail:

And after that one more:

And even to get trophies from these cocktails:

And after that, even if you feel full, to make an effort and finish the dessert!

And not to argue with your husband about the choice of a DVD, because it’s Women’s day and you have a priority in everything!

And, lastly, the 8th of March is just a good reason to celebrate first sunny days, blue sky and first singing birds - to celebrate new spring!!!!

P.S. By the way, I learned that if you want to make your flowers stay longer you should mix one part of water and one part of Sprite or 7Up. It may seem stupid, but it works! My roses still look great! Maybe, Sprite tastes good for them :-)

Arts of Japan at MIA

2008-03-04T21:06:00.000-08:00

Last week I went to the exhibition “Arts of Japan” at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA).

And once again I had the opportunity to appreciate the advantage of having friends from all over the world. I went there with my friend Mika. And guess what? Not only is Mika from Japan, but she also majored in Japanese art! What luck! I had my own personal highly qualified guide!

We came to the exhibition just in time to join a public tour. The guide (who was a MIA volunteer) gave us a brief, but pretty detailed excursion. And, of course, the tour was fleshed out by Mika’s valuable comments. Exhibition visitors even began to make jokes, that next tour must be lead by Mika. And I have to give credit to the museum’s volunteer - it’s not easy to give a tour about Japanese art in front of an expert in this field:-).

I really liked the Japanese paintings - very fine, and, at the same time, very detailed. Everything from the expressions of the characters’ faces to tiny details of their clothing is depicted very carefully. I was particularly impressed by Japanese folding screens, which portrayed entire historical events and stories from books.
For example, this the fragment of a folding screen, that shows the story of Shining Genji, the son of the emperor and an imperial concubine.

According to Mika’s explanations, Prince Genji was also famous for his love affairs. So, the Shining Genji story, which could be turned into a soap opera, was portrayed by a Japanese artist on this folding screen. Those Japanese folding screens are good substitutes to TV, aren’t they? :-)
I highly recommend to everybody to visit this exhibit! And try to get Mika as your guide! :-) But if you don’t have an opportunity to visit MIA, you can take a virtual tour here.

What’s Going On?

2008-02-24T22:09:00.000-08:00

We have had too many farewell parties lately:-(
WHAT'S GOING ON, GUYS?!!!!
People are leaving one after another. And it saddens me. It’s not easy to make new friends, especially when you’re becoming older and living abroad;-). I think Mika will totally agree with my point of view:-)
No sooner had we said goodbye to Suresh than we got together to say the same to Jose and Ana, who were returning to Spain.

So many people came to this farewell party and, surprisingly, Jose and Ana’s small apartment housed everybody. Someone noticed that this situation reflects Jose and Ana’s personalities: so warm, kind and friendly. To get the whole picture I took this video:

Since Jose has left, who will tease us now and whom we will tease? We got so used to Jose’s sense of humor!
And who will enlighten us about Minneapolis events? Jose’s awareness in everything and his readiness to share this information always delighted me.
We are also losing a great person to talk to! I don’t think we have another such attentive listener among us.
And we are just losing a great friend!

Ugh!
Guys, we have to learn how to do without Jose! :-)

P.S. Jose! I hope you and Ana got to Spain safely and are enjoying meeting your family and friends now.

P.P.S. Who will inform me about free concerts now?:-)

More pictures from Jose&Ana's farewell party

70's party

2008-02-18T18:25:00.000-08:00

So everybody, what do you remember about the 70’s?
I personally don’t have a lot of conscious memories about that time, I was too young for it.

But last week I had a great opportunity to refresh my childhood memories about the 70’s – I went to a disco party.

One of my classmates, Edgar, organized this party for his friend, so some of my classmates and I also got an invitation.

The dress code was to wear something from the 70's.

Although I didn’t have enough time to prepare properly, I did my best and bought a $7 retro shirt in a vintage wear store. I also wanted to buy an afro wig, but it appeared to be not an afro at all (it looked more like a witch wig), so I decided to do without it:-)

So these are some pictures from the party:

For Edgar it wasn’t just an ordinary party. Not only he was an organizer, but also a decorator and his friend Reynaldo was a DJ. This party was a first trial for Edgar and Reynaldo, because they are planning to start their own business organizing events . So we were not only partying, but also rooting for our friend:-)

Good job and good start, Edgar!

Office Space

2008-02-12T22:01:00.001-08:00

The Best People are Leaving

2008-02-12T20:43:00.000-08:00

Another loss in our company – Suresh is leaving for Delaware. And it is VERY, VERY SAD!

Don’t get me wrong, guys. I’m very glad that he got a job and that he is happy now, but nobody wants him to move to another state! Nobody wants to lose this friendly and outgoing guy!

Buy the way, I’m still wondering what he was doing in our school with his perfect English. His explanation that he wanted to pick up an American accent at Lincoln doesn't work for me. Our school is definitely not the right place to pick up an American accent:-) So, I think that the real reason why he attended the school was that he also enjoyed our company:-).

This Friday after class we had our last farewell lunch with Suresh in our favorite Skyroom and gave him our last hugs and presents (O my! I’m almost crying while writing it:-)).

This is our present to Suresh -Office Space kit (a red stapler, a mag and TPS reports are included:-))

So good luck and best wishes to you Suresh!!!!

And don’t forget the old wisdom – WORK SUCKS!!!

Pictures from farewell lunch to Suresh

City of Lakes Loppet

2008-02-03T21:27:00.000-08:00

This weekend we learned about one more Twin Cities’ tradition - City of Lakes Loppet. According to the City of Minneapolis, this is the nation's largest urban cross-country ski marathon. As it turned out, this event is much more interesting than it seemed at first.

The Loppet is held during the first weekend in February and represents different ski activities. It looked like everybody was skiing this weekend – professionals and amateurs, adults and children, and even dogs.

This year we almost missed the Loppet because we became aware of it too late. We only came to the Lake of the Isles on Saturday night to see the "Tour of Light" and to take the pictures.

It was really spectacular! I hope we’ll take part in the "Tour of Light” as skiers next year.

This is our shadow:-)

And unfortunately we didn’t know about the ski race with dogs on Saturday afternoon, and missed it! So! Next year we’ll be better prepared for the Loppet and won’t miss anything interesting!

More City of Lakes Loppet pictures

Belly Dancing in Shiraz Restaurant

2008-01-27T21:18:00.000-08:00

Once again we had an opportunity to enjoy each other’s company in the Iranian restaurant “Shiraz”.

For me it was the evening of discoveries. I learned a lot of new things!

I discovered that:

Iranian food is pretty close to what we eat in Russia:

To put money into a belly dancer’s panties is much more interesting than just to watch the dance:

Surprisingly, the best belly dancers are Indian men:

And Germans are the best at counting money:

And finally……Attention!
Mika’s belly dancing first appearance !!!

P.S.

Guys!
I hope you liked the photos:-) And, please, feel free to take the funny pictures of me and post them on your blogs:-))))

More pictures from "Shiraz" restaurant