On Firday with Julia we went to opera, earlier on victory day we bought tickets for Pikovaya Dama (Lady of Spades, maybe). We wanted to see Swan Lake ballet, but that was in unsuitable time for us, and other things were expensive. So we decided this opera, anyway it was long time ago when i have seen opera (very long time ago), and the same applies for Julia. The ticket costed 150roubles, 4 euros approx, it wasn't for the best places, but i donno what is good place in opera because there is no really such place from where you see both the scene and the musicians well. From our place we didn't see the musicians at all, but the scene quite well. We were on the 3rd level, but the levels were not so high, it didn't feel like that we are looking down to them, and there is even a 4th floor, so 3rd is not too high. The reason why we didn't see the musicians was the wall at the end of the tribune of course.
As outside it was over 30 degrees, and inside maybe 22, and it wasn't sold out, so we could position ourselves comfortably in the anyway comfortable seats, after the play started and they made darkness on the tribune (of course they made), i felt like i immediately fall asleep. And this idea didn't leave me for the first hour, sometimes even reached proceeding regarding the openness of my eyes. The play - what i saw from the first one hour - was good, the singing was pleasant to hear, and the decoration and the costumes were really fantastic.
In the break i washed my face and told myself that i cannot be sleepy at 7pm, no matter how ideal the conditions are for this. The play consisted of 3 parts, each around or a little more than one hour. So it was quite extremely long. I couldn't understand the story from the play, and i forgot to look it up on the internet, but we bought a program in the break and Julia explaned me what happens. After getting into the logics of happenings, i managed to understand some simple conversations in the second and third part. So after this magic first break, i wasn't sleepy anymore, and i really enjoyed every minute of the play, opera is cool, or at least this was cool.
I liked to professionalism, what all performers played with, and i liked very much the view, how they made the spectator not to lose in the details, but also the details were perfectly designed always.
Pictures is not taken by me, firstly because it' taken from around the first row as i see, secondly because my mobile makes an unmutable noise when taking a picture, therefore it's impossible to take one with it on opera. It's shoing the famous final scene (with same actors like in our performance), where German asks what Dama does the other guy have and you won't believe: Spades. It's from here.
So the opera ended at 9:30pm, and it was still completely sunny, even when we arrived home at 10pm (we had luck with transport).
On Sunday there was Maiskaya Progulka (May Walk), many people from Yekaterinburg and from all over the world (one -incl.me- even from Hungary, can you imagine) take a 18, 32 or 50km trip around the suburbs of Ekaterinburg. We with Julia, Dasha and Marat went to the shortest one, also because it was over 30 degrees. In the morning the registration was tipical russian: long queues, no information, what information there is (which queue is for what), has nothing to do with reality. And although the event homepage didn't mention any price, and in the previous years it was always for free, a fat babushka is sitting under a sunroof and asking for 50 roubles (not written anywhere even in front of her, just she tells it to everybody) from everybody in exchenge for empty registration paper (what i could print a hundred if i know it). Of course not giving any receipt or invoice, not even counting how many empty registration papers are gone, and holding the money collected in her hand. If i had to guess, i would give 85% chance for that it's her pocket money, any if she finds out that she wants to buy some new clothes, she will also come to the finish and let's say collecting money for crossing the finish line. This didn't happen (or she already collected enough when we arrived there :) ), but i wouldn't have been surprised.
The trip was good, more than half of it was in a park in the southeast of Yekaterinburg, the rest on the streets of Yekaterinburg. The crowd was really huge, there was no such case when either in front of us or behind us the next people would be more than 50 meters away, but usually it was less than 10 meters. I don't know our time, but we didn't want to do it fast, we took two longer (maybe 30mins) breaks as well. The weather was clearly to hot for this, but in the forest it was ok, and as Dasha said there was such case with 5 degrees and rain, what we wouldn't exchange for this.In the finish nobody tried to collect any money from us (unusual in Russia), but (of course after long queue) we got tea and some biscuits, and a badge for completing to trip. We extended our rewarding by a beer in a nearby place :)
