A Clever Name Goes Here

I miss this smile - a lot!

2012-01-02T13:33:00.000-08:00

My cousin

2011-11-20T13:17:00.001-08:00

My cousin, Gleb, flew to Ufa last Thursday for the 2 international singers competition. He's been studying opera singing for the last 6 years. And I think he is a promising star and has a bright future on stage. Watch the video of him performing in the first round of the competition.

photography master class

2011-10-01T02:45:00.000-07:00

2 weeks ago I attended a master class on studio photography. The speaker was a young but promising and and experienced photographer from Moscow Alaksei Dovgulya, who works with fashin magazines, shoots photo advertisements etc... The master class that lasted 2 days - shooting techniques, tricks and tops on the first days, and secrets of editing photos on the second. Both days cost $180 - a reasonable price for the knowledge. I learned quite a lot and started to use some of the techniques in my shoots. I found a good photo studio in Ufa that I can rent by the hour. S soon there will be more studio photography. Here is a picture from the master class! Try to find me :)

Only in Russia... driving

2011-10-01T02:42:00.000-07:00

Only in Russia you can be rear ended on a highway while trying to pass someone.

My Awesome green monster :)

2011-09-27T14:11:00.000-07:00

I was looking through old pictures that I never edited and found this one!

Terra Language School

2011-09-26T12:15:00.000-07:00

I never thought I would be a teacher, and especially a teacher of English as a foreign language. The thought of leading some university level classes in multimedia or photography appealed to me in the past. But not English. To tell you the truth it is a hard work. To keep class interested in what you're saying and make them understand all the grammar. The worst part is that I have to explain the same thing to all my classes. That is a big disadvantage. Instead of moving forward and talking about more creative and interesting things with each new group I have to go back to all the same rules and sentences and explain them :)
However my students give me a lot of good and positive feedback. They give me energy sometimes. And this is a big advantage.
I know I won't be a teacher all my life. I really want to go back to video conferencing when I move to Alaska. I started to read some literature about networking and stuff not to loose all the knowledge I gained working for Video Conferencing Services at UAF.
However Terra Language School is an awesome place. First time I heard about it was in 2009, wen it was called First Linguistics Center in Ufa. My folks decided to attend courses there to learn some English before coming to our wedding. When Cass and I moved to live in Russia they eagerly hired Cass to work as one of their International Teachers. The way they structure classes is that they have 2 teachers in most of the classes at the same time. A Russian speaking teacher, who explains the grammar, and an international teacher who speaks no Russian and participates in role games and speaking exercises. We had no car at that time and lived with my folks in a town called Chishmy (I still live there by the way). Chishmy is 30 miles away from Ufa. So we had to take a bus and got to the city and then take 2 more buses or a tram to get to work. Cass was unfamiliar with the city, and frankly speaking I also forgot how to navigate there after 6 years away. So I was coming with her and hanging out in the office with the managers of the school, while Cass was in class. However 2 weeks later - I was offered to teach classes there as well. They saw that I have a really good English, better then some of their teachers and hired me as well.
Now I still work there, teaching both kid and adult classes. And they all miss Cassandra!!!
The picture to attract attention - this is our office at work and our "ex" boss Natalia. She got married to a Turkish man this year and sold the business. They are moving out of Russia. But I thought Alaskans will appreciate the flag that I hung on the wall!!!

thoughts... on saying "I love you"

2011-09-25T05:45:00.000-07:00

Cass and I come from completely different backgrounds. Haha what a surprise, one might say. Yes I was born in Soviet Union and was growing up in Kyrgyzstan and Russia, while Cass spent her years in America. However we both we growing up watching pretty much the same movies and reading similar books.
Back in 2008, when we just started dating I remember Cass telling me once that I do not say "I love you" quite so much. As I was thinking about it more I realized that I do not remember hearing my parents say those words to each other. They just don't. I do not know why :) but it was never a thing with my parents. Mom can tell me that she loves me or the same thing to my brother, but that is about it. Also when I was 16 or 17 I remember having a conversation with my aunt Natalia, my mom's sister. Well I need to mention that my aunt is a philosopher of a kind. She reads A LOT of stuff and has a degree in literary studies. She's been teaching at a university most of her life so she has to interact with young people on daily basis. So she was telling me that my generation is a dead generation. Young people are not interested in anything but clubs, discos and hanging out. Not like it was when she was young. To tell you the truth she was right. At that time in Bishkek where she lives the moajority of youth were not a very interesing and creative crowd of people. They still lived in post soviet Kyrgyzstan with some taste of the West and western life. Everybody wanted a good life with its pleasures but nobody wanted to work for it. If you had money you were cool and if you didn't - well you were an outsider. Nothing to say about community service, volunteering, no creative projects etc. So I cannot fully blame her for telling me that young generation was a dead generation. However this is not the main point of this post. The thing she told me to remember was: "Do not say I Love you to anybody, those words do not mean anything. When you say 'I love you', in reality you're saying 'I love myself because you are with me' 'I love myself because I am worth being with' and there is nothing in those words about caring for other person. In Old Russian language there was a phrase that can be translated as 'I have a pity towards you' and that meant that I care for you and it described the feeling much better then simple 'I love you'" Also she said "do not simply say - mean it and do it instead of just saying"
So I guess for me these words had a bit negative meaning. However later watching my American mom and dad (Stan and Michelle), I saw a completely different thing. I saw a loving couple, people who truly love each other, who deal with each others strengths and weaknesses, who support each other and sometimes put their own wishes and desires on the second place to make the other happy. And they are not afraid to say those words. In fact they say it quite often to each other. Like a song, or like a magical spell. Words are magic. When you say something - you send a message and the words turn into things and events. Words come true!
This was a completely different look at these words. And I am grateful I had a chance to see it.
Cass, I love you!

favorite pictures

2011-09-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

Well pretty much everyone knows that I love pictures. I love taking pictures and I love looking at them. I am a visual person, I guess.
Recently I was asked what my favorite pictures if "Cass and I" are... I thought I could share a bit here.

Above is one of the "oldest" pictures of Cass and I, with Travis Larsen taking most of the photo. But I like how this image symbolizes our relationship. We are together. Cass does not like her picture taken - and the fact that we are in the far right corner, with Cassandra almost disappearing makes this photo alive for me :)

this photo (above) is the greatest photo of all times that tells a lot about who we are. And of course - how awesome Cassandra is!

Cass and Tomas - two best kitties in the entire Mother Russia ;)

And of course these 2 pictures, I love this smile!!!

A new beginning

2011-09-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a long time. many things happened but I know one thing for sure - I miss Cass a lot. Time and distance teaches to appreciate small moments and little things that I rarely paid attention to when we were living under the same roof - little smiles, the way her eyes were shining each time I was coming back home from work and many many other beautiful memories!

Vacations in Alaska

2011-02-21T02:17:00.001-08:00

Great memories! This was the best vacations in my life so far!
Thank you to Stan and Michelle, and of course to my beautiful Cassandra!

256 pieces without sharp edges

2010-11-13T06:29:00.000-08:00

Published specially for Emily

Artem

My two favorite kitties

2010-11-13T06:26:00.001-08:00

Artem

mushroom picking

2010-11-13T06:19:00.000-08:00

The summer was supper hot without any rains, consequently there were no mushrooms in the woods for a long time. However as it started raining in September we were able to do some mushroom picking in early October...

The woman on the left on the picture above is my mom's best friend Natalia Matveeva.
I jokingly call her my Russian mother in law :)

Getting Russified

2010-10-10T12:27:00.001-07:00

No words needed! Picture says it all!

Back in Russia

2010-10-02T00:44:00.000-07:00

This was a quick trip. Cassandra's visa was expiring on October 1 so, we left Chishmy at 10 pm on Thursday, September 30. My dad (Vladimir) drove us to Kazakhstan in his car. It took us about 8 hours to get to the border. The sleepy guards looked at our passports and informed that Cassandra would not be able to go through that particular entry post as it was not international. Only citizens of Russia and Kazakhstan were able to pass here. So we had to turn around and drive to a different border crossing station about 80 kilometers away. There were 2 ways to get there: 1) drive 400 kilometers back to the city of Samara on a paved road and then about 200 kilometers to the border or 2) drive about 60 kilometers on the dirt road and about 20 kilometers to the border. The only trick was that it was raining. What's so strange about it, one might ask. Well Russian dirt roads are basically undrivable for a small vehicle when it rains because of the mud. Sticky slippery MUD!
My dad, who has gotten himself a new Mitsubishi Pajero in the last month ( a big off-road vehicle) decided to brave the mud and 1.5 hours later we were at the border. 30 minutes and 2 borders later (we had to go through a Russian border control, then through Kazakh) we were in Kazakhstan. Sadly we didn't do a lot of sightseeing, since we were on a mission to renew Cassandra's visa. My dad made a series of calls to his friends and they arranged a meeting with a Russian consul for the next day. We spent all Thursday relaxing and driving around Uralsk. Uralsk is a very ancient city, with a lot of history very cool architecture and good people.

Me and Cass with a lion we met at the entrance of an old building (that used to be a theater and now is an administrative building). The lion was friendly enough to wave with his paw for the picture. Cassandra says this is a very old style of sculpture, she thinks it was made when there were no pictures of lions yet and the description was delivered to the sculptor by the spoken word.

The next morning (Friday, October 1) we drove to the consulate at 10 am led by father Feodosi (a very high ranking Russian Orthodox priest in Kazakhstan and a very good friend of my folks) who knew the consul personally.

Above is the pic of Father Feodosi and my mom taken last April.

There was a huge line in the consulate but Father Feodosi phoned the consul and we were let in right away. Well, let's say it would have taken us longer without help. But 2 hours later Cassandra had a new visa!!!

Uralsk is named after the river Ural that flows through the city. It is a big river that forms in the Ural mountains about 600-800 kilometers away from Uralsk and flows into the Caspian Sea. No wonder Uralsk is also famous for the abundance of fish that is sold in the stores and on the markets in many different ways. The most popular treats are fish that are either smoked or salted and dried.

In the picture below you can see that Cass on the fish market:

We left Uralsk the same day, as my dad had a church service back in Chismy on Saturday. On the way back we took a different road and went through Samara, spent about 3 hours touring the city and finally arrived home at 2 am.

Above is a picture of us on the bank of Volga river in Samara and below is just a portrait of us in a restaurant at the same city.

All pics were taken with a cell phone so the quality is not supper good. I do apologize for that!

Road trip!

2010-09-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, blog posts few and far between make for too many topics in one post.

Fall has happened, it's nice. Evidently, in places other than Alaska, trees keep their leaves once they turn colors for more than the 15 minutes I'm used to. I helped dig potatoes and picked some apples, which are now living in the root cellar. (I gave it up as my room when the temperature here normalized.)

We have a car, it's a teensy little Kia Picanto with 60000 kilometers on it. So far, it's been great to be able to get around on our own, without having to rely on Art's folks or the bus.

Now, as for the title of this post, I'll be going on a road trip Wednesday night. My Russian visa expires October 1st so I need to get to Kazakhstan before then. The only problem is that I'm still short an official letter of invitation back to Russia. So, there's some paperwork maneuvering happening now and tomorrow morning, but if that's unsuccessful I may be stuck in Kazakhstan for a few weeks. Yes, I debated the "thumbs up" picture of Borat, but was lazy. And if the letter gets delayed even longer than that, I may have to make an emergency trip back to the US, or some closer European country that won't require I have a visa. Adventures abound! I'll also be sure to update the blog about the invite before too long, I know nobody wants to wait on a cliffhanger.

UPDATE FROM ARTEM:
Cassandra is exaggerating a little bit. She won't be stuck in Kazakhstan for weeks and she won't have to fly out to a European country that does not require a visa from her. Everything will be settled in a day or two. Maximum we'll have to stay in Kazakhstan is a week. Besides I am going to be there with her, and we will be staying with very nice people. So I think she'll enjoy the road trip.
PS here are some pictures of Cass digging out potatoes

Paperwork Fun!

2010-09-07T23:08:00.000-07:00

The paperwork adventures continue!!! It started back in April, when my folks submitted their part of the paperwork to obtain an official letter of invitation for Cassandra. It took us a month to receive it once the documents were filed to the proper agency in Ufa, Russia. We had to mail the ORIGINAL letter to Cassandra in Alaska, so she could forward it to the Russian Consulate in Seattle along with the other forms that were required. And in 12 days she had her first Russian visa.
On July 30 we finally arrived to Chishmy (the town we are living in) and went to the local Migration Services and Passport Control office to get Cassandra registered. Once that was done we started the paperwork to get a Temporary Residency permit, which is an equivalent of an American Green Card for me - a document letting Cassandra to stay in Russia legally up to 3 years, since her visa is going to expire in early October. We were told that it would take up to 2 months for the whole thing and I was handed a fat file with documents and forms to fill out...
First, Russian laws required Cassandra to get a medical form filled out by doctors in a local hospital. Which means she had to schedule an appointment with 8 different doctors. Unfortunately, our local hospital has never heard of appointments. Everything is walk in! You come to a doctor and stand on a looong loong line waiting for your turn. May I mention that it was more than a 100 degrees F outside and no air conditioning. It was going to be a long couple of weeks before we would able to hit all the doctors. Well, hehe, luckily I met a old school friend - Danis, whose mother works at the hospital, and is second in charge there. Our two long weeks of waiting turned into 2 days. Danis helped us to shortcut all the lines and asked doctors to help out a bit (You know - this is our American guest and we want her to feel welcomed and comfortable in Russia - please just fill out that paperwork and stamp it without actually making her go through the check up and medical tests). Consequently the only things Cass was actually tested on was HIV and Tuberculosis, and that was only because the doctors had to mail her tests to a lab. The rest of the doctors simply filled out her form stamping - Healthy on the documents. I need to mention that we were able to do all that only because it was a small town hospital. Something like that would not work in a big city. Besides it was horrible enough to sit in the long lines without any AC among people who have no personal bubble.
We delivered the medical paperwork back to the migration services and I was told to go and purchase a file with some application forms in an office next door. (yes - they just do not give the forms for free). It took me about an hour and a half to fill out those forms for Cassandra since they had to be filled out in Russian, while she was trying to survive the heat outside under the trees that provided some shade. Later that week I also submitted a bank statement proving that I have money and can support Cassandra while she is in Russia. My dad had to go and make a copy of the House Passport (each home in Russia is registered and has a set of documents describing the size, floor plans, location, etc...) and write a notarized letter that he, as the owner of the house is willing to provide Cassandra with a place to live. And we were almost done. The only thing left was to wait for 2 months!!!
However, 2 days ago we got a call from the Migration Services saying that apparently we filed the wrong forms. The person who sold me the packet with application forms was a new employee and made a mistake. I had to spend another 2 hours filling out new application forms and when I finally submitted them I was told that we have to wait for 6 months!!! It takes 6 months to process the paperwork for citizens of countries that need a visa to enter Russia.
Keeping in mind that Cassandra's visa expires in early October (and that is clearly not enough time for the paperwork to get processed) I started another load of paperwork to obtain a second invitation letter for Cassandra. She will have to leave the country to get a second visa. Therefore in October we are going to Kazakhstan. We already have a Kazakh visa for Cassandra. That is the plan for now.
My dad is trying to find someone who knows someone in the appropriate agency that he can go and talk to (wearing his priests robes and the cross) in order for Cassandra's paperwork to get processed faster. Cassandra might need to get a third visa in late December-early January if the paperwork takes 6 months. We do not know yet where we'll go for that visa...
Cassandra is talking about going to Alaska for winter vacations, or maybe to Japan, since her sister Emily is there. Russian consulates in those places will do the visa for her. However she might have to travel to Japan on her own. I just looked up the info on Japanese visas for Russians - and that looks like a nightmare on its own. There are 2 options for me to get a Japanese visa:
1) Emily and Mike officially invite me (but that means they will have to provide a ton of documents to the Japanese Embassy in Russia - and that does not sound like fun.)
2) Going through a travel agency - but that is expensive.
I always thought Japanese were less bureaucratic :)
But life goes on! The paperwork process is the only thing that Cass does not like about Russia. Here is a couple of pics of her at a wedding of my friend we attended a couple of weeks back

Artem

Employment!

2010-08-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

Artem still has a few weeks before he can (legally) seek employment, but I've got a gig lined up that should be interesting: I'm going to be a cross between a teacher's aide and trained monkey for an outfit that teaches English. My job is to speak English like a native, something that I'm fairly well qualified for! I start tomorrow morning, we'll see how it goes!

Productivity

2010-08-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Today the heat wave finally broke a little! Instead of upper 90s, today's high was 78. Which meant I could go outside and actually do things! My project was the garden, of which I have a blurry picture here:

In my defense, I didn't know it was blurry when I took it; it was waaay too bright out to really see the display. And if we waited for me to remember to take another picture, and then to actually get in the mood for blogging again... well, it'd be the harvest.

Today I cut a lot of stakes for tomato and cucumber plants. For some reason, nobody really felt like doing this when it was 100 degrees out, I can't imagine why. But, it was looking a lot better when I left and now I get to work on the energy needed to hill potatoes (possibly) tomorrow.

Art has been working on making a smoker, and is making some really good progress on it. I got this picture early in the day, which of course doesn't show the walls and roof that got done. Anyways, this smoker will be big enough to fit one medium sized human comfortably and may almost be big enough for use as a tree fort someday (I'm well aware that the smoke residue disqualifies it for actual tree fort use).

Today has also been the first day of a two-week fast in the household - no meat, fish, dairy, eggs or butter. It's currently my duty to finish up the milk and yogurt in the fridge before it goes bad, and of course I have already mapped out the closest restaurant and store with a deli section in case I can't stand it. Possibly whiny blogging about steak to follow!

Impressions!

2010-08-10T08:19:00.000-07:00

Well, not first impressions as I've been here for a while. (the actual first impression was incoherent whimpering about the 100+ degree heat)

Great: The peach juice. It's liquid candy. Also on the subject of candy, it seems like no dessert is complete without a selection of jams or similarly sweet things. And what's great about that is that the accepted way to eat those is OUT OF THE BOWL WITH A SPOON. My inner child is thrilled.

Good: Kvass! Which is lightly fermented bread... drink. The commercial stuff tastes like a nice refreshing glass of rye bread, but Artem's mom makes it with some regular white bread too. Also in the "surprisingly good" list is Kumis, fermented mare's milk. It's tangy! And slightly carbonated!

Kinda cool: Artem had been telling me horror stories about customer service in Russia for quite some time. And it's true, nobody smiles and they seem to do their job kind of grudgingly. But it doesn't bother me, because we both know their job sucks and fake smiles are creepy.

Not so great: Salad. I'm including a diagram of your standard Russian salad. (Art's mom has been super awesome to me, knowing I don't like mayo so this isn't about home cooking).

PS. Artem forgot to post one of the best things from Dennis and Elinor's house: A sign that was tied to the light switch of the upstairs bathroom:

Celebrating 1 wedding anniversary with lakes and wild fires!!!

2010-08-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

Today my brother and his wife decided to go swimming at a lake Asyly-kul (about an hour drive from our town) and invited me and Cassandra to join them. My parents went along as well. We were all excited to dump our bodies into the warm waters of the lake as we were driving there. However as we arrived at the campground we saw smoke...

Within minutes the smoke turned into a real fire

The fire was far enough and after calling fire department many people returned to their camping sites. However with my father clearly not liking the idea of spending near that flame and keeping a good watch on it...

...we decided to brave the waters! Well the water is the safest place after all! besides firefighter were putting the flames down and police and an ambulance at at the site. No one was injured and there was no panic. So it was quite safe.

After a short swim we all safely returned to our cars and went home.

Later that evening Cass was sitting on a porch by the house and carving. She got a local boy interested and gave him his first carving lesson :) She may become a very good and successful instructor!

Cassandra's room

2010-08-02T12:29:00.000-07:00

Here are the pictures of Cassandra in her brand new room decorated in the latest and most modern style! This is very popular in Russia:

Well, no! All central Russia is suffering from a strange and unexpected heat wave. The temperature rarely goes below 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Forest fires are starting to threaten houses and fields. Well luckily we do not have any big fires in our region. However the heat is unimaginable!!! The first time in 130 years. We do not have air conditioning at the house as we obviously never needed it, especially at this time of the year, and it is impossible to buy an electric fan- ALL ARE SOLD OUT!!! So the root cellar is the coolest room in the house. Cassandra discovered that yesterday. My mom brought down some rugs and a carpet to make it more comfortable and Cass claimed the root cellar to be her new room. She did look more alive down there :)

Moscow

2010-07-31T05:11:00.000-07:00

Taking a nap on historical cobblestones on the Red Square

Cooling down in a fountain on the Manezhnaya Square

Red Square again

St. Basil Cathedral

The church of Jesus the Savior

All the touristy places in Moscow or Equatorial Russia as Cass put it, since it was 106 degrees for both days we were there...

Artem

More New York Pics

2010-07-31T05:02:00.001-07:00

The top picture is a piece of many pieces of Dennis's art

Elinor with her Oscar

The living room

And the counter top is one huge piece of rock

Elinor is obsessed with Communist memorablia. She isn't a communist herself but just finds it interesting to collect communist things from all over the world. Here is Micky Mao for example:

Hobart, NY

2010-07-31T04:46:00.000-07:00

Cassandra is the one with better English and writing skills so I think she will write most of the stories ( Wink Wink to Cass) and I will posting photos. On our way to Russia we visited Elinor Burkett and her husband Dennis Gaboury in Cattskill mountains in New York. You must remember a red headed woman who gave a speech on our wedding a year ago. And many of you have seen her Oscar's adventure on TV. Well there will be a separate post about Oscar in the future, but we took our turns holding the Oscar statuette for pictures. So here is the most unusual house that I've ever seen. The house built by Dennis.

Artem

New York

2010-07-22T22:40:00.000-07:00

Welp, made it across the US safe and sound. We're in upstate New York visiting Elinor and Dennis, who have a fantastic place. I want to take pictures of every carving, but I'm not sure I have the hard drive space for it. No really, there are that many.

Test!

2010-07-19T18:35:00.000-07:00

Not much rhymes or is alliterative with Zhdanov. So, the title goes meta.