State holiday, parade and promenade, touch of Eurovision and film festival

A bit late, but about the Victory Day. Not going in for history now, but just showing pictures of nice promenades in lovely weather.

The Victory Day Parade outskirts. The city center is empty. Nobody and nothing is allowed inside. Usually this is a crazy and busy street.


Quite a crowd. The house which looks painted is a special net to cover the reconstruction works. Usually it repeats the original building design.



The “orange color” represents cleaning people. After enjoying the parade among the crowd they started to clean the streets which were not that bad. Nowadays, that is the job for those who came from “our” Mid-East, which is southern former soviet republics (like Uzbekistan). Just for the record, as far as I understand, Tajikistan provides labor for construction sites, Kirgizstan – for other low-qualified jobs such as carrying things when moving. Being the capital Moscow always was quite international. Now it is becoming more brown-eyed, black-haired and Turkic-languages-spoken (nothing to do with Slavic. If being an English speaker you are interested, then it is the same as French and Arabic, for example).


Others and me on the fence. Better view obviously.



Helicopters to start with



Military cars and tanks near the Kremlin wall – after exiting the Red Square and finishing parading. Looks a bit surreal – peacefully moving in the town, and no other cars.













The final salute


Continuing holiday walks.
The pedestrian bridge with metal trees. People put locks there to celebrate weddings (hum...). Nice tradition, but sometimes a bit aggressive, when promoting “love for always”, “love forever” – when it is written together with certain (wedding) dates it looks a bit too pre-determined to me. And like nothing can be changed after, which is a bit sad to some extent. What about surprises which might happen? (*promising not to start reflecting about modern love and relationship). The most heavy trees were transported to the quay this year, and a couple of new ones appeared. Temporarily decorated with flags.


The cleaning technique already working. The picture is also about fancy fountains.


The Red Square



The shopping center full of boutiques inside. The first mall perhaps – it was built in the end of the 19th century. Decorated for the Victory day.


This year the Eurovision song contest takes place in Moscow. The town is decorated with banners, there are Euro-café and Euro-buses. The Euro-House is organized in the large exhibition hall near the Kremlin wall – so called Manege. Being a French enthusiast I am excited to report that last Sunday, while having a lovely sunny promenade with Slava, we met Patricia Kaas on the street who was going to rehearsal in the Olympysky hall. For those unlucky who is not informed, she is one of those several (very few) French personalities well-known in Russia. And more important, she was the first person from whom I started to be interested in French (modern and not) culture. We made a small but nice chat with her and wished her "bon courage". The final competition will be tonight by the way.

The rest of the holidays was also quite a fun. I had an acquaintant of mine from Novosibirsk visiting Moscow (one day between the plane to south). We met in the musical theatre (she wanted to see "Maugli"), and we both really enjoyed this modern musical with several crazy in a nice way twists (I totally fell in love with Baloo the Bear as a rap singer) . More interestingly, unexpectedly we met other girls we know in the theatre, and had a great walk afterwards. Sunny weather, crazy laughs, funny memories.

Then the working week started which partially decreased all fun mentioned above, but which was not too bad. I managed to get my new Shengen visa (always handy to have), so quite pleased about that. My landladies are going out of the town for three summer months, which is a good news and a source for some plans. Yesterday I also had a meeting with the editor of Russian online magazine writing about French cinema, so start collaborating there (as a volunteer and will see later).

There is also a film festival in Moscow now, called ExpoCinema - to celebrate 100 years of Russian-French relations in cinema business. Good old classics and a few modern films. On that cheerful note I will stop today. Have fun and take care.

May, Victory Day, Parade, planes, eye-eye

Hello. Lovely sunny spring turning into rainy dull weather. Pretty quite working days, as it is holiday season: May Day, plus Victory day, plus all the weekends in between. Most of the office gone for vacation, generally nice time.

The Radio day today. Russian scientist Popov invented the principles in 1895. “Party” in my apartment today, because both of my landladies were working in “radio” business, like thousands of years ago, what gives them an excuse to celebrate today (they are very good with other excuses, but here is sort of there professional day).

Repetition of the Victory Day parade is in the last stage. This morning the air part was on air. Lots of noise, but quite cheerful. Rainy weather stops that from looking really exciting, but it is still possible to see something on a few pictures of mine. Shot from my antique window-sill, across the rain, with shaking hands, my morning coffee almost spilled. Also with half-working eye-sight, as (too private but why not) there is some problem with my eyes, blue (left) eye turning into red (something with cornea, not infectious and almost gone now, hurray!).

Okay, the pictures.

Going pretty low. Just above the Kremlin Palace (click)

The parade with terrestrial technique, soldiers and all sorts of V.I.P. will be on the Red Square, which is situated along the other wall of the Kremlin territory. Roughly, I am watching the Kremlin wall from the south, and the Red Square is on the east of the Kremlin wall. Location, location…





It`s not fantastic weather today. And though the planes were different and exciting to watch, you can hardly see it, unless you click on the photo – that might give a better view.



I have not won, by the way, whatever was announced in the previous message. There is a theory that the value of participation is the same as of victory. Nomination is definitely better – you are chosen because of yourself, and the final decision has often something to do with politics, strategy and stuff like that. In my case I totally understand that was also my special English. Anyway I am quite pleased with myself. Following the deadline, having the task accomplished, having some will to share – good for me.