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…

In Russia and the former soviet republics there is a special culture of confectionery nowadays. This post is not about why, i just point out some things which are unusual in Europe. Firstly, small pieces of chocolate, packed one-by-one, sold usually in a package of 250 gramms, are very popular.…

Yesterday, on the 9th of May, there was victory day in former soviet republics. Just in case somebody doesn't know, on the 8th of May in '45, in the late evening, the nazi Germany surrendered, and the war ended. The event took place in the central european timezone, but according to Moscow time (2…

 On the 3rd of May with the father of Julia we went to see a football first leage (the second after Premier Liga). The match was not in Tsentralni Stadion because of pereserving the grass for the cup final between Dinamo Moscow and Rubin Kazan on 9th. So it was in the old stadion near the…

In the long weekend of May 1st we went to Kamensk-Uralsky, where Julia is from. It's a town of 200 000 habitants, 100kms southeast of Ekaterinburg. On rail it's on the Ekaterinburg-Chelyabinsk tracks, on road it goes with Ekaterinburg-Tyumen highway (doubler), and then the last 40kms on small road…