The winter way, a lot of grey

Hello :) Just want to show some pictures from where I live now. Done today at noon. I was walking towards metro.

There are just pictures from my way, across the housing and a school yard, because it is a shorter way. Pictures are clickable, if you manage to find something fancy to want a more detailed view.

It is a snowy winter. There were almost minus 30C frosts this season, but right now here are quite comfortable minus 11.

The school. With bás-reliefs of Russian literature classics. Building is from the middle of the twentieth century, so here is some architecture (modern schools are generally like boxes).

The school stadium, occupied for Saturdays for football (soccer). Yes, it is played on the snow.

Announcement board. Used as adverts boards mostly.

Somebody`s Saturday morning. Winter reflection.

Empty.

According to some horoscopes 2010 is the year of Tiger. So some people decorate cars (or anything else) with toy-tigers. For good luck or just without any particular purpose. Perhaps just because you`ve got several tigers as a gift. I think I got three or four. You know, all that stuff about commercialized holiday season. As for the photo, it is awful, but I was not going to attract attention picturing somebody`s car.

Not the Abbey Road, but sort of close visually. In fact, the road ahead is the Volgogradsky prospect (the Volgograd avenue, and by the way it is huge). "Volgograd" is the current name of the town "Stalingrad", for those who are in the history. For those who are more in linguistics, "Volgograd" means "town on the Volga", and the Volga is the river (for those who are in geography :))

So is the Kuzminky underground station in Moscow (named after the village which was here before). South-East, overcrowded. It is not very light without sun, I decided not to Photoshop to show the real light. It may start snowing soon, if it is that dark.

M n` M. One “M” is for underground (or metropolitain, or metro). Another one is also quite well-recognized.

That was grey, I agree. But hopefully you enjoed it :) See you later!

My Father`s Day

Don`t remember if I posted this picture. It is one of my favorite ones. In fact, it is the only photo of our family together. Made like twenty years ago, I guess, in Kovrov (Vladimir region) where we lived before.

My father was from the family of a military officer (Ivan), though his parents divorced when he was little. His elder brother (Valery) was sent to a boarding school somewhere far away, because he had hearing and speaking problems, in fact he was mute and deaf. His middle brother (Victor) was living less than a year. My father (Vladimir) was the third son.

When he was seven, he was already living in Kovrov where they moved after the Far East. As far as I know, his mother (Anna) had a stroke and was paralyzed, so my little father at the age of seven was the only one to take care of her. And he was taking care. By the way they were living in a communal apartment – it was sort of wooden barack, to put it clear. There were couple of dozens rooms for couple of dozens families, one kitchen and one wc. The bath was somewhere in the district. My father was a successful pupil, though the one with a character, the one who is ready to question things and make discussions with teaches – not the best quality for Soviet schools. Anyway he was good with his studies. Anna died when my father was finishing them.

At the age of eighteen he went to the army, compulsory military service. He was definitely a natural born leader, always caring about people around, doing things and making changes. He was a strong personality, a successful professional, with great sense of humor. He graduated the university as a lawyer. Having started his career in the public prosecution office, he very soon switched over to administrative work and became what may be called a high official. I think he did it because he just wanted to make a bigger impact. Power and authority are needed if you want to do things, and he had this high social responsibility. When he achieved everything in Kovrov, which is a provincial town with well developed industry and population of 200.000, we moved to Vladimir.

I do remember his phrase when the country, the USSR, started to collapse. He definitely understood that something was wrong with the system, though when you live within the system, you may function and you see positive results – you just live according to the existing rules, I guess. He definitely had a lot of insider information, but when all the new information appeared, the archives were opened and so on… Once two of us were watching the evening news and he just dropped, mostly to himself, I guess: “I can`t believe that the whole idea was criminal from the beginning”. I was still too young to participate in such conversations as an equal party and I really regret about it now. As for the country and my father`s role, I think, that when you feel responsibility for you country, for your people – you just do things. You just care. Even when living in the system which is wrong.

My father was born on the Russian Far East (town of Korsakov, the Sakhalin island). When he was 39 he went on a business trip to Ukraine (town of Zdolbunov, Rovno region – it is almost Poland). It is nine time zones in between. He never came back. He had a heart attack, as far as I know he just felt asleep. It was early afternoon and he was going on a car as passenger. It was February 2nd, 1992.

I remember a huge crowd we had around us eighteen years ago, shock and tears of so many people, talks and small remarks. Little pieces of information, and that was all we were left with. Crowd that disappeared, another crowd that remained, still many people who remember him. He was a huge person, my father. Think about him today.

Photo: My Dad in the army. 1976

Kristen Wiig and fun stuff

Give a book of lyrics supposed to be dramatic to a real comedian, and you`ll get this ->



Kristen Wiig, currently in Saturday Night Live and already in several movies. She is so talently funny :)

Women in Technology

A short inspiring video supporting women in technology.



The source: www.fastcompany.com/blog/caroline-simard/advancing-women-technology/anita-borg-institute.

A bit late, but happy holidays! :)

Small video created by our program director Victoria. The faces presented are the actual staff, meaning my colleagues and me. Just nice :)



How to make it: elfyourself

Best wishes!

Metro, un peu (*a bit about underground)

The crowd in the metro today. Traffic light was broken and that has stopped the trains. This is not my photo, have taken it from news websites, where there were no authors. Sorry, the author :)

That happened only on the Orange Line (see the map). I was living there once when staying with cats before. If interested - just in case - now I live on the Purple Line (again, enjoy the map), and to be honest, being on the south-east of Moscow, my station - Kyuzmynky - looks the same almost always. The Purple line is famous for that, almost a hell in the sense of a crowd. And I work - if that is still interesting - where the Orange line meets the Green line in the centre of the circle. And here where you can see the Kremlin from my window.

By the way, circle/radial system of underground is not the best in the sense of changing the train when you go from - for example - from south-west to south-east, but it is like this here, in Moscow. And for example the Paris idea of metro (and for sure I like examples about France) gives more options for changing the lines.

That was only the way to say hello to you. I love Moscow. I love Paris.
Quite clear, rather sunny, pretty snowy day in Moscow with minus 15C or close. See you later.

Emmanuel Carrere, Romain Gary, moving out, conference also out

Survived after the conference… The bags were quite successful, all gone, all colors were in high demand, and now participants are – hopefully – fully enjoying The Quotations :)

After Monday as a compensation day – I still want to sleep. Tuesday was okay: job and after it – even visited the meeting with French writers. Had to visit the French Cultural Center anyway – to return My Debts :), several DVDs collected within a couple of weeks.

So there was Emmanuel Carrere yesterday presented by Olivier Rolin (he is the editor of this program). Emmanuel Carrere, the one who wrote “La Moustache” (The Moustache) and “L`Adversaire” (The Adversary) as books which later became movies, which both are presented in my boxes (I just moved out!), which I yet never watched. So that was a good surprise yesterday to find out that he is the actual author. And now I have a better motivation to watch and read all that exciting stuff I had on my shelves and now have in boxes which were so heavy to carry! (the moving out process was organized in quite extreme circumstances and held in record-breaking period of several hours, all thanks to our inadequate landlady, god bless her(c).

But back to literature! The series is called “Aimer la literature” (Love literature), organized by the French Center and perhaps the Embassy. The meetings are about reading and commenting. Modern authors – exclusively French for obvious reasons – read extracts from books of their predecessors. Yesterday it was Mr.Carrere reading Romain Gary (“Promise at Dawn”). It was a good meeting, with some laughs and some thoughts, in a big cold conference hall of the library, with quite a lot of participants. Cold – it is cold in Moscow now, and so is in some public buildings (and in my new home, but not speaking about that!).

Back to the writers. Romain Gary is still the only French author who won the Prix Goncourt twice (once under his other pseudonym, Emile Ajar). In reality both of those names are pseudonyms, because in fact he was Russian, with quite a mysterious family story but with a very remarkable mother, whom the book read yesterday is devoted to. Not long time ago, like two or three months ago, the friend of mine mentioned this book and offered it to read. Unexpected acquaintance. As Emmanuel Carrere told yesterday, he also met this book only recently, followed a friend`s advice and was very moved so decided to read it in Moscow. Now it would be good for you to know that this book is well worth reading, to say the least.

Romain Gary was born in Vilnius (Lithuania) and grew up in Nice (France), and knowing these two cities a bit I like to imagine his story. His mother was an actress and quite an independent woman in her epoch, so she raised him alone. In spite of all life dramas she was always fascinated by France, so when Romain was still a boy they moved to France. Through Poland, in a goods wagon I presume, through illness and lack of food. She continued to love France even when in Nice, working hard and continuing to tell wonderful stories about France, their new country. She made her son a French person and a French citizen. He also became a courageous pilot during the war, a journalist, a Consul General of France in Los Angeles… And a so French writer.

As for Emmanuel Carrere, just checked Wikipedia
– it is his birthday today! :)

And as for me, we also have Internet back in our new home. So… all is rather well, I would say.

Interview with Valerie Mairesse

Hey! It`s FINALLY published!
http://cinema-france.ru/interviews/1241-interview-valerie-meress

"Enfin veuve" is in Russian cinemas since today. And my interview with Valerie Mairesse, one from the cast, is published. My first experience of that kind, so useless to ask me avoiding such an excitement. Was taken during the festival "French Cinema today", organized by UniFrance in Russia in October.

All was done perfectly right, trust me. It was a conversation, with toughts, words and laughs, with a touch of... when remembering Coluche for example. With jokes when Valerie was making fun. Interesting. And it was perhaps quite challenging for her - not being the main personage nor the film maker - to defend the film in a new country. But she sure liked her stay in Russia and the experience involved.

The interview was planned for October 1st, but there was some weather issues for Novosibirsk flights, and the festival group was coming from there already, so finally the interview was on the 2nd.

In the evening of that day there also was a meeting with one new friend of mine, Olya from Tomsk (Siberia), who was in Moscow for a day when going to Germany and France.   

 Pictures are done by my dear friend Ann whom I - thanks to job and landlady`s issues - have not seen for some time now.

Yes, I need another apartment. And that`s nothing to do with the actual photos%)

Back to the interview. Perhaps I`ll translate it into English - sort of can do it - but first of all: have to survive the conference next week (work), and to find another apartment (personal life, hmm). Ciao, see you!

Super bags! Liking work, loving France :)

Hello, here is me with some news. From job! Never fear, nothing terribly exciting about contracts and financial reports...

But! Contracts manager, preparing large conference (for beginning of December) has to have some fun. Productive and positive one, of course.

So! One of my additional tasks is to prepare stuff for participants. Educational conference, so they`ll have books, CDs, some promo materials, notepads, pens – that sort of things which require some sort of bag to put all the stuff in. So the last two weeks were devoted to package-thinking... Not a plastic bag as in previous years – we are ecologically responsible people. Not a textile bag – we used it once, it was quite an ecological touch and also involved additional activity for participants creating their own bags with special paint and patterns, but this time it is a more respectable event so not an option. And not a paper bag – because… Because there was a better idea. A real bag, simple and good enough to carry a notebook if necessary – and we are in IT education, so that makes sense.

And! Believe me, I wouldn`t just mention this quite a tedious work of searching the manufacturer and dealing with all sorts of questions from design to budget. Nothing special with that but searching for some extra sense and fun in that quite a routine task...

...The first idea was to avoid huge logos (usually people are not fond of them, to put it politely; nobody enjoyes to be a walking advertisment, let`s face it). So - just the name of the program. Plus! Quotations... And (here is my favorite part) what quotations?! The ones which are free from copyright of course. But - more importantly – the ones which are not widely known, at least not in Russia. (possible reasons are below). So reading something new and unknown should be at least interesting and search provoking, probably. Again, being "in education", the whole idea is not that stupid.

And now, no more intriguing! Perhaps it is already quite obvious what has happened. Knowing my soft spot for France... Well, yes! Written in silver color on black surface, in perfect Russian letters... Something which was originally in French! Well, they are preceded by Seneca who, thanks to the fact of being an ancient Roman can`t start any possible discussion (I mean his name is quite neutral). But I really love two others mentioned after him: Simone Weil and Sacha Guitry. And even if they are all so totally different... Well, they said something meaningful about education. And I was just making worthwhile bags :)

Now retranslated from Russian, what`s on the bags:
- Teaching others, learning ourselves (Seneca).
- The most important part of teaching is teaching what is to know (Simone Weil).
- Avec tout ce que je sais, on pourrait faire un livre... il est vrai qu'avec tout ce que je ne sais pas, on pourrait faire une bibliothèque (Sacha Guitry). (Hehe, in English: "With what I know it is possible to make a book... with what I do not know - a library").

Ready for any potential criticism of my choice: (1) good phrases anyway = keep thinking (2) make people interested who are Weil, Guitry etcetera = keep reading. Serving educatinal goals in total.

(Simone Weil and Sacha Guitry are not widely known in Russia - if at all - because both of them were quite unacceptable for Soviet times. Simone was too religious and soul-searching. Sacha was too bourgeois. And now it is also considered not to be the best time to promote their values as well, perhaps for the same reasons).

150 bags are made. Delivered this morning to the office. When locked you can`t see the inner color, just black.



Education for the future!

PS: Pictures made on a cell phone, and not even mine, because my camera successfully sank two months ago. Not just sank but in Geneva. Not simply in Geneva but in a toilette. In a public one. Near the lake to be precise. Amen :)

Hello Halloween

Party. Photos. No comments needed. Except... Attention! Some photos are really sca-a-ary!









Such are the people I am working with








And this is a one-room apartment.









That`s not obvious from the pictures but my costume was some mixture of fallen angel and a black fairy, with after-wings scars on the back and a fallen hat.