Спортивная ходьба

Позвонила Лена: «Давай встретимся!»

«Конечно! Предлагаю в Коломенском» (всегда рада случаю прогуляться с хорошим человеком по своему любимому московскому парку)

«Договорились, как насчет того, чтобы устроить пробежку?»

***

Раньше я очень любила бегать.

В школьные годы с легкостью преодолевала дистанции в 3 км на городских соревнованиях. Реакция у меня замедленная, а вот выносливость – хоть куда. Поэтому спринтер из меня не вышел, а наматывать круги на стадионе мне очень даже нравилось.

Когда я поступила в университет и стала ездить в Москву, то безумно полюбила этот энергичный, стремительный город. Здесь все всегда куда-нибудь бежали. А те, кто предпочитал ходить, либо уступали дорогу, либо учились бегать.

А мне и не нужно было учиться. Я любила в день побывать в 7 местах на разных концах города, с легкостью вписывалась в повороты и с точностью до секунды отмеряла расстояния в метро, чтобы успеть везде, где стояли разноцветные флажки моей беговой дорожки.

А еще мне было сложно с теми, кто не любил бегать. Я не могла (или не пыталась?) понять этих чуднЫх людей. Ну как можно быть такими медлительными? Да что вы успеете в жизни, если будете передвигаться как улитки? Что, даже не поедете кататься на коньках в крылатское после утреннего похода по магазинам? Какие же вы скучные…

Иногда мы с ними бегали вместе. Но они все чаще и чаще сходили с дистанции, не добегая до финиша. А однажды, сильно разогнавшись, я совсем про них забыла. Про этих, а также про тех, кто сидел и болел за меня на трибунах городского стадиона. И про тех, кто ждал у финиша с сиреневым махровым полотенцем. Забыла, потому что мои болельщики были другими людьми – они не любили бегать. Но мне было спокойно, ведь рядом бежали такие же, как я, а многие даже выносливей. Так мы и бежали.

Кстати, походы я тоже очень любила. Но после них всегда хотелось снова побежать.

… Уже и не помню, как это вышло, но очнулась я на снегу, с побитыми коленками. Все болит, и вокруг никого и ничего, только горы. Ноги болели так сильно, что больше я не могла бежать. И я пошла пешком.

***

«Лен, я бы с радостью, только, знаешь, я … совсем не люблю бегать»

***

По вечерам люблю смотреть на дерево за моим окном. Это самое обычное дерево. Но если погреть молока, пить его медленно-медленно и долго смотреть на дерево, то все вокруг вдруг обретает новый смысл.

Недавно заметила, что мне не нравятся люди, которые бегут по эскалатору. Так и хочется их спросить: «Ну куда вы торопитесь?? Так всю жизнь пробежите… Неужели не жалко? Неужели вы готовы променять красоту мира и теплые щеки близких людей на блестящий приз за победу на спортивной гонке?»

Я разучилась поддерживать разговоры о модных выставках, на которые нужно обязательно успеть в наступившем сезоне, и о том, кто куда продвинулся в компании. Родители купили мне спортивные сандалии, чтобы удобнее бежать до Европы. И рюкзак, чтобы увезти из Москвы десяток достижений. Нет уж, я лучше на плоту до Венесуэлы, с дорожной сумкой, а там пешком. В Москве скоро не ждите – это больше не мой любимый город. Мне стало сложно с людьми, которые любят бегать.

…А недавно я сидела на трибуне и заглянула в глаза бегущему по стадиону человеку. Потом встала и принесла ему махровое полотенце.

***

Лена: «Ууу, а что же делать?...»

Я: «А давай ты побегаешь, а я почитаю на травке и посмотрю на тебя!»

***

Моей радости нет предела, если я слышу слова о том, как кто-то что-то ЛЮБИТ.

И неважно, любит ли он бегать или ходить. Теперь мне одинаково хорошо с теми и другими. Главное, чтобы за руку крепко держаться.

Я вот люблю ходить. И дышать. И слушать. Но если у человека есть свое «что-то», что приносит ему счастье, и пусть это не ходьба, мы все равно найдем, о чем поговорить.

***

Лена: «Отлично! Я только схожу переодеться. Встречаемся в центре зала в 19.30!»

Benches

You know, I love exhibitions in the open air!

There is the one opened a month ago in Moscow, Lavrushinsky side street (near Tret’yakov gallery). Young artists paint … benches! There are a lot of them put together one by one on the street! Now I have my favorite ones :)


First time when I came there, some artists were still painting and I was just excited by the beauty of the pictures.

(my friend took pictures:)

Second time the pictures weren’t new for me, so I was thinking about the whole idea and how it can positively influence people’s lives, and suddenly a question popped up in my head:

If I have my own bench on this street, what would I draw on it?

This question became soo interesting and worth thinking about, so I spent my trip home carrying it in my head. So, I came up with some ideas =)

If I have my own bench, I would likely to draw … happiness=)

However, happiness may be different for each of us, thus my bench wouldn’t show exactly what it is (who am I to give answers?). While looking at the picture, everyone would find his/her own answer.

Moreover, I would like that people that are coming to see the bench, find a new idea/thought for themselves every time they see it.

Another point, I would like my bench to be extremely beautiful that no one would ever want to draw something else on it. At the same time, I would like it to be so shiny and nice-looking that everyone would want to sit on it for hours.

It's should not be beautiful for everyone. But a few people would love it and come to see it from time to time.

Finally, it would be a little bit magic. Being near it you would want to join hands. To call your parents. To help your grandfather. To show this bench to your best friend.

It's a luck to have your own bench, isn't it? How much could we say, thus make a little change in people's souls.

Will Russia compete on a global market?

Since school years we have been listening to the standard ‘facts’ about Russia. Living conditions are not that high. Political system is too bureaucratic. There is too less care about people.

We have been consuming all this information with a great pleasure, and now every student of economical faculty starts his/her diploma with something like: “Relevance of this topic is proven by the fact that there is a big problem in Russian … sector…” More than half of the news end like in the saying: “They wanted to do it better, but did as usual”. Everywhere on the streets, in cafes, on TV screen people are blaming their country. Is it a flash mob? =)

My parents dream to see me living in Europe, at least working in Moscow for an international company. “We will see how long you are going to stay excited developing Russian economy”, - smile they. Some of my friends would move to another country straight away if they get a lucky chance.

Once I got fed up with such an opinion and applied to the Summer School for young economists.
If you want to make a change, you should have a clear idea about the current state and possible needs of the country. That’s what I was eager to find out leaving for this seminar which has the theme - “Competitiveness of Russian business on a global market”.

I have been to a lot of seminars, but from this one I expected to gain theoretical knowledge and define my own opinion about the situation in my country.

***

Summer School exceeded my expectations!

26 participants is not a big number, but these are the people who want to know reality and challenge perceptions. I have never seen so many questions during the lecture! It must be exciting to be a professor for such auditorium =)

I learned about emerging markets, WTO regulations, modern production systems (e.g. Toyota Production System), global competitive industries and scenarios for Russian economy development till 2020. Besides, we had a project of making a national industry competitive on the market (we took automotive industry), in the end each group presented their solutions for professors.

The most impressive was to find out about 3 scenarios for Russia till 2020 which are being prepared by the Ministry of Economical Development and Trade (Director of the assigned Committee came to us to make a lecture).

Second thing is tourism that is truly the industry of the future: the most competitive will become countries that will create an infrastructure which attracts tourists from the globe (by professor of London School of Economics).

The third one – about successful business by O.S. Vikhansky (very famous Russian professor of management): why do some businesses succeed and some fail?
I had a lot of learning points after his seminar, but was impressed when realized that you are likely to fail if you are using strategies that were successful some time ago! Really, things change so fast nowadays, that you must always create new strategies, new methods, and new ways if you want to succeed.

All these people who facilitated our learning – I am sure – had a strong belief in the future Russian economy, and they transmitted it to us! That’s amazing: good to have knowledge, great to have skills, but that’s an attitude that makes a difference!

***

I remember the moment during one of the nights when we talked about what each of us would change in Russia if he/she has a chance. I do remember the feeling of harmony inside me when I was talking about my passion – life and business coaching to help people find what they really want to do in their lives.

I am not afraid to listen to the news and talk about Russia with my parents any more. I know what is a fact and what is an opinion. I believe in the third scenario =) and my abilities to make an impact.

***

On the third day we had excursion around Moscow. It seems I was mentally repeating again and again: “Such a beautiful city we live in!” And this is me - almost Moscow citizen for 10 years!! =)

***

Read more in Russian (with pictures:) http://www.icss.ac.ru/summerschool2007/

1000 years back

I have just come back from a trip to Velikij Novgorod, which is the city on the north of Russia that has a history of more than 1000 years. We went there with Sveta, a friend of mine.

It’s even difficult to imagine – 1000 years! Yet, many historical monuments are still on this land, although were badly destroyed by wars.

You may read about the city in web: www.novgorod.ru/english while I will put some pictures that we did there and my personal impressions about the trip.

Impression 1 – Kremlin, cultural center of the city and a good place for rest in piece and silence.

Impression 2 – Cotton hare. Surprisingly, we came to Novgorod in its birthday, so took part in the celebration that impressed us a lot! The event was organized in such an interesting way that everybody could get involved in different activities: painting, weaving, sewing, dancing!

As for us, we learned to make cotton hares :-)

Impression 3 – Monastery life. There are a lot of churches and monasteries in Novgorod. Wherever you go, you will find them on your way. It’s strange and frustrating how some of them are surrounded by cafes, clubs, beaches etc. without any respect to monks. Yet these are just exceptions. And there is the one which impressed us the most, because of its blinding beauty and spiritual silence…

We heard the story about novices (“послушники”) who have to obey all requests of a parson (“батюшка”). No words back, no complaints, if you are told to do something you are to go it. Are we able to live this kind of life?

And this is an old church destroyed during Warld War II, now a home for some Novgorod citizens...

Impression 4 – House of Dostoevsky in Staraya Russa (town in Novgorod region). Fedor Dostoevsky is the famous Russian writer, we saw his small house where he lived with his family.

Impression 5 – Weird things. Some of them are funny, some are frustrating, the others are completely senseless. One of them is just STRANGE… like this drama theatre… :)

***

Thank you, my dear, for such a pleasant trip!

Corporate Responsibility

2 weeks ago I attended a round table devoted to Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR (organized by AIESEC in Moscow).

CSR is one the areas I am passionate about, so I was extremely glad to participate in the mentioned event.

In order to keep the key learning points that I go out of discussions, I am posting them to this blog.

Some of them might be seen as obvious; however, it was important for me to clearly understand basic things, although I read books about CSR before.

First presentation got us into the topic and underlined 3 main challenges of CSR in Russia:

* not developed reporting system for CSR activities
* CSR is not a part of the general strategy of the company
* CSR is still perceived as a charity activities, although it includes 2 additional aspects

Eugeny Tutkevich, top manager of MDM-bank, pointed out another interesting question, and instead of talking about importance of CSR for companies, gave 5 reasons why companies should not do CSR:

* CSR is not the first priority for the company as it aims on making profit
* Companies pay lots of taxes, so it’s the job of government to do social work
* Charity attracts attention of government
* The more you give, the more people will ask you for
* “If I am asked to sponsor road building, why should I give the money if a road will be built anyway?”

Conclusion: company that doesn’t do CSR activities has far more benefits than the one who does!

So WHY CSR in this case? Because of 2 main reasons:

* Sustainable development: operating at present times company creates sustainable future for itself
* Stakeholders

Then, there are 3 aspects/levels of CSR in a company:

I – stakeholders (company acts in sustainable manner with its stakeholders, e.g. ethic way of doing business)
II – personnel (programmes for employees: corporate culture, motivation, rewards & recognition, promotion within company)
III – regional community where company operates (e.g. environmental programmes)

Another interesting point that caught my attention is that company should have such CSR policy that reflects its core work.

After introduction several companies shared their examples of CSR policies:
- bank declines credit interest rate for some groups of people e.g. young married couple with children;
- educational projects about healthy food of food company
- building a computer club for school children (example of IT company) or scientific institute (FMCG company)
- “green products”: TV set that consumes less energy, much higher lifetime reliability etc.
- providing opportunity for disabled young people to do internship in a company
- free professional education for employees
- developing pension system for a city for free

The concept of sustainable development for a company is based on the idea that it helps society which will consume company’s products in the future. As in the example of education of healthy lifestyle: company increases amount of healthy people, thus ‘create’ healthy society. Many companies focus on a help for children, because this is children who are future society!

And, the last point that was mentioned: it is government that should show to business what areas to focus on.

***

I really feel like reading more and more about the topic, besides will be certainly looking for CSR internship at one point of time!

One

"Streets and highways connect every place with every other, but each driver chooses where he wants to go. He can drive to a beautiful countryside or to skid row, to a university or a bar, he can follow the road over the horizon or he can drive back and forth in a rut or he can park and not go anywhere.

He can choose his climate by where he drives, Fairbanks or Mexico City or Rio, he can drive a race car or a sedan or a track, he can keep it in perfect shape or let it go to pieces. He can drive without a map and make every turn a surprise or he can plan exactly where he's going to get there.

Every road he will take is already there, before he drives on it and after he's gone past. Every possible trip already exists, and the driver is one with them all. He just chooses, every morning, which trip he'll take that day"

This is an extract from the book I've read recently - "One" by Richard Bach. Interestingly, how it works with me & books.. when I have some problem, or a difficult question in mind, I usually find the book that gives me an idea on a possible answer.

It went just the same with this book. Sergey suggested me reading "The Bridge Across Forever" also by R.Bach, however when I went to the shop I found just a novel called "One", and, as I realized afterwards, that was exactly what I needed that time.

3 main ideas I got from the novel are:

1 - everything depends on our choices (perfect illustration of what it means is in the extract above)

For a long time I couldn't decide for myself what is my phylosophy about this topic: if the things are predetermined or not, if we really choose or just follow what is already planned.

It may seem difficult to live when you believe in idea of personal choice coz it's easy to hope for a planned-for-you-by-someone-else path. I decided to believe in choices.

Now, imagine any situation where you do not have influence. For example, your car gets brocken because some guy drove into it. Couldn't you choose? Almost no. Yet you have at least one thing you can choose, and this is your attitude to the problem.

2 - life is about learning (life is like a book, "when you turn to a page about nuclear war do you despair, or do you learn what it has to tell? Will you die reading the page, or will you move on to other pages, wiser for what you've read?")

3 - ideas are good only when are turned to work ("Ideas aren't thoughts, ther are engineered structure. Notice this and pay attention to the way your ideas are built and you will find dramatic increase in the quality of what you think")

And.. the most powerful message that I found for myself in one of the last chapters.

Main characters of the story (a couple: he and she) come to the place where they live and find themselves in the future.

An old guy reads a book by Richard Bach and then tells to his wife: "I could have done it! Could have done everything in this book! I tell you I damn well could have written that seagull thing he wrote! I used to go out on the jetty when I was a kid, watch the birds to fly. Wished it was me with wings..." His wife replies: "Maybe you could have, Dave".

This extract shocked me so much. After reading it I decided that I will always choose the path that - as I think - is for me, and believe in dreams. I would like to tell my grandchildren about what kind of person I have become and what impact I've made in the world, and what good things I have done for people, but not about the ones that I have dreamed about, yet didn't do.

"I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it?"

True success

There was a competition announced by Procter & Gamble in December last year.
The task was to write a success story of yours.

Fortunately, I got selected to take part in the final event with the other 16 finalists.
This is the link where I read about the results:

http://www.procterandgamble.ru/news/simple_news/&id=119&s=0

Snowy Almaty

* on the way to free wi-fe cafe :)

* love name of streets in Almaty!

* happy me, skating :)

* hospitable people in LC Almaty

Servant of the Tsar

In the end of the busy day in Almaty Maya (LC president), Andrey (ex-president) and me decided to go to the cinema. Andrey guessed our desires and bought tickets for a marvelous movie “The servant of the Tsar” (“Слуга Государев”).

The story begins in Russian army when soldiers are discussing a recent issue, case with black horseman who already killed many people. It’s a time of way between Russia & Sweden, besides France pretends to play a supervisory role. In the beginning we get in France where young queen is unhappy in relationship with a king and finds a lover from the guests of king’s ball. Right after the occasion during cards game envious man challenges him to a duel. Then, a king finds out about the duel he writes letters to Swedish & French kings and sends 2 offenders in the epicenter of the battle…

3 moments that caught my attention:

*scene with burglary of Russian village, one of the saddest moments of the movie. Innocent village people were robbed by Polish partisans and Swedish army just because of the fact that some time ago a Polish village was destroyed by Russians. Revenge doesn’t know concrete people, and you become responsible for actions of your country’s citizens.

*speech of Peter the Great 1 min before the final battle with Swedish army started. He said: “I don’t care what will happen with my life, the only thing that matters is our country, Russia”. In contrast, operator shows us the king of Sweden, who lies on a sofa with broken leg and shouts on doctors: “Do you really want a king to be an invalid?” Then, again, in the culmination of the battle, it was Peter the Great who galloped in front of his army in the fire place and all soldiers went right behind screaming patriotically. And it was Swedish king who chose to escape from the battle being afraid to harm himself…

*French soldier and Grisha (Russian solgier from Peter’s amusing shelving) fight together against Swedish. They went through a hell, and suddenly Grisha notices that his friend fell on the ground. Grisha does his best to help him survive. They traveled to Russia many kilometers. They speak different languages and don’t understand each other. However, human values and feelings are common for every human being, no matter which nation you belong to.

This movie is about bravery, mutual trust and support, true values and true love to the people and the country. I’d definitely recommend you to watch it and discuss with your best friends.

***

Film finished after a midnight and we appeared in a wonderful snowy Almaty in night!
Thank you so much, Maya and Andrey, for a meaningful evening and exciting excursion around the city!

Training our intuition

Every week we get the economic magazine called 'Sekret firmy' in our MC-office.
Having took one of the issues with me, I found a very interesting article that catched my attention immediately.

I will use the space of this blog to outline the main ideas, as I really want this information to stay in my mind.

The article is about intuition.

First question is pretty clear: "While making business and personal decisions, should we rely on our intuition or our logic?" The answer is almost obvious, they say that intuition doesn't come from anywhere, however it is a result of our experience. Therefore, making a decision, even if we think like 'oh, it's a sign!' or 'I feel I need to do this, not that' we actually compare our past experiences and make connections.

Yet what I was really impressed by in that article is an advice on how to train your intuition.
The main idea is to learn how to connect your inner state with weak signals of external environment.

The author suggest following 3 steps:

1. Learn to describe your inner feelings. You may say: "I feel like a lion" or "I feel like a cat on a sofa". This method helps first to discover yourself and also to choose "whom to be" in a specific situation. For instance, when you are speaking on public informing about difficult situation, you would probably want to be a lion, not a cat on a sofa.

2. Learn to find positive signs of external environment (as you usually have just some parts of information available and known). To practise it you may put a minimum volume on your radio and guess what they say. Another one is to remember objects' bounds on a high speed. Or - to draw the clear some object's bounds when you can't see them correctly.

3. Learn to make a forecast. To do this you should connect your inner feelings to the weak signals - just what I have told about in points 1 and 2. To train this ability, you may guess the end of the story watching a movie or reading a book, finish a picture started by someone else or play improvisation.

It's amazing that we can really train such quality as intuition with these simple methods.

If you are interested, read the whole article (unfortunately, it's only in Russian).

La science des reves

Masha and me planned to watch this movie 2 weeks ago, even before my trip to Chelyabinsk, yet that day there were no tickets any more, so we went to another one.

Yesterday we booked the tickets in advance, and became two of these lucky happy people who saw this wonderful French movie… :)

The story begins when a young design’er OR inventor (how he calls himself) from Mexico comes to Paris, the city where his mother lives. His beloved Mexican father died from cancer, French mother got married for the second time. She promised Stefan (the name of young man) he would have a creative job in France.
So, now he in the country of love! His mother rents a house with many apartments, and he lives in one of the rooms. In his first day in a new city Stefan went downstairs and suddenly becomes a witness and helper for 2 guys carrying piano on the upper floor. Piano falls down, Stefan hurts his hand and has to bandage a wound in the flat upstairs where he meets beautiful girl Zoe and her female friend Stefani. He immediately falls in love with Zoe, however it seems she doesn’t care, just the opposite to Stefani who does like the young designer…

Stefan knows a science of dreams. It was he who in the very beginning told us what all dreams are made of: a piece of day’s doings, adding some memories from the past (portion for 2 people!) and unhappy love.

However during next several months he will experience the real essence of dreams and reality appearing to be a dream…

You have an amazing opportunity to watch Stefan’s dreams mixed of exaggerated memories of the day and sometimes even guess whether it’s a reality or still a dream! :)

Sweet thing about the movie is its ingenuousness! Each of the characters is so unique, but at the same time all the people are different from what we call ‘a normal person’! Crazy employees from Stefan’s company are talking only about sex, boss calls them lesbians (why? – noone knows:) his beloved Stefani makes hand made toys and objects, our dear Stefan is the funniest personage himself as he invents 1 sec time-machine, and other strange devices!

…

Movie finished, Masha and me went out to the street and I started to tell her something about the broadcast I heard on the radio that morning. And you know what, I realized that I was not sure any more if it’s true or I dreamt it!

You start to feel that you became a bit strange as you now can’t define what is your dream and what your reality, what happened with you and what is the story of someone else… such a funny feeling!!!

It reminds me “Khazars’ glossary” (or how is it called in English?) and other books of Pavich, glorious Serbian writer. Pavich's characters also traveled across their dreams... :)

I think that each person is strange to some extant. This marvelous movie helps us to find this strangeness within ourselves.

The movie is a MUST WATCH to everyone no matter what sex, age, religion and creed you are.

Thank you, Masha, for taking me to the cinema yesterday!

Effectiveness

Today I found the key to effectiveness :)

In the morning, if you first do the most important job and only after that check your email, you will achieve twice more!

Why? Just because :)

Done!

***
State exam passed. Studies are getting to the end.

***

Oh, this exam! Of course, it couldn't go without challenges, because this is me :)

Look, they divided us into 2 groups. I am Khaletskaya, so I was supposed to go in the second part, which starts at 12.00. So, I decided to come a bit earlier, to 11. Woke up at 8, slowly dressed up and went to the university. It was 10.40, when my dean called me screaming: "Katya, where are you? State exam is getting over, you are the only one who left!" Can you imagine?

I am running to the classroom, taking a card and uff... Meanwhile my groupmates can't help smiling - "Katya, you are so funny, as usual". They still remember me coming to exams with a huge bag, because in several hours I am flying to Almaty.. :)

So, excellent mark and it's really over now :)

***

On my way back home I was thinking about my 5 years of studies.
I came up with the idea that during these years I've been following 3 main principles:

- Not to use cribes.

- Love what you study.

- Take much more care for what you really learned, and not for which mark you got. Well, I will put it differently. Of course, I wanted to get excellent, but only for the subjects I liked.

I realized that professors like when a student shows that he/she adores the subject.

I remember one case when I was passing exam and was asked a question about taxation for medium enterprises. While answering, I said something like: "Yes, I was also interested, why it is so..." I saw my professor smiling when I said "interested". I can imagine how rarely they hear these words from students..

This is the thing that often made me upset during my university years. Why do the people study? Just to get diploma?...

One more case. Once I was taking exam on economic analysis. It was my favorite subject of that semestr and I was so excited to study and learn! However professor said he's going to give me "4".

It was the last exam of the session, I could be deprived of stipend if I didn't pass. Yet I told that I was not going to have "4" on my favorite subject and I would re-take the exam. I did it! Although being refused of stipend 6 following months, I was happy to have "excellent" mark for the subject I liked.

Another case. During my 2 months in Siberia this year I was supposed to do 3 university projects for 3 different subjects. I spent a month for the first one - "Investments in regional economy", however (I am almost sure!) professor even didn't read it. I spent 1 week for the second one - "Taxation for medium and small enterprises". Those 2 ones I really loved. And I spent 2 nights for "Finance of the firm" despite it is the main subject on my faculty...

Not sensible enough? OR Choosing what makes me happy?

One-year Flight

There is a saying: where you meet a New Year, you will spend your year in this place. Quite an old saying, almost a joke nowadays.

I met 2007 at the airport.

Did I intend to meet anyone there in the night? - No.

Did I plan to fly far away from Moscow? - No.

Did I forget about the-most-important-celebration-of-the-year? Not at all :)

It was my mother who was so anxious to find out - WHAT is happening at the airport during the New Year night.

And it was me who was away from parents' house for more than half a year, and so much willing to be with them during this magic night, therefore didn't care about the place.

***

We came to Domodedovo (international airport, the closest one to my home town) half an hour before midnight.

Almost no one there :)

A sudden announcement: "Dear passengers, aircraft XX with flight number XXX from Egypt has just landed in international airport Domodedovo..."

"If someone asks us who we are and where we are going, lets tell them that we are meeting our lovely relatives coming from Egypt" - my idea seems to be sensible :)

Yet people here don't care much about crazy Podolsk citizens.

Everyone has its own deals and thoughts:

- waitress in a cafe, regretting for a misfortune to work in a new year night... probably she has a boyfriend who has to be alone or with friends, but not with her... because she is here at the cafe serving visitors...

- poor passengers waiting for a flight to Ashkhabad (Turkmen airlines), which is delayed for 4 hours...

- a group of sleeping people spending night in the airport before their 6am flight to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (in some hours they will start a cross over 1/6 part of the world...)

... And near all these scenes... my family and me drinking coffee with cheesecake, taking pictures and laughing as we are aliens from Mars :)

***
Meanwhile it's getting to 23.59. The most important moment, the culmination of a trip, the beginning of the year!!!

What will they (=airport personnel) wish to their guests?!

"Dear guests, we congratulate You with a New Year of 2007! ... We wish you happiness, cosiness and nice flights with Domodedovo company" (actually in Russian it was even funnier: "уюта и приятных полетов с компанией Домодедово")

I wonder how these two things could go together :))) look, guys, your clients are waiting for 4 hours to get a flight which is delayed and you are wishing us cosiness with your company?!

I am just kidding - you can't imagine how much I was grateful to these greetings of a nice woman on the airport radio :)

... The passengers who had been sleeping suddenly woke up ...

... Clients of Turkmen airlines switched on a TV (yes, they a mini-TV set with them!!) listening to New Year speeches of a President (Which country? :)

... Male young waiter from another cafe opened a bottle of champagne and, screaming and rushing around, friendly embraced the waitress from our cafe ...

... We clinked glasses of filter-coffee, ate up the desserts and went home :)

***

While going to the exit my brother and me took some pictures...

Parents couldn't help asking: "Why are there so few people in the airport??"

My brother: "Mom, why for a normal person to go here in the NEW YEAR?"

I am smiling and thinking - WHY not? :)

Paris, je t`aime

Movie pretends to be a masterpiece. Many people told it’s gonna be WOW.
Yes, it’s not a premiere any more, and I had too many expectations.

9.00 performance, the cheapest price ever, my favorite cinema near Moscow zoo. All these lead to an exciting morning.

***

2 hours passed and I can say. I liked it. 16 love stories made by different directors in the city of love, what is more romantic?

However there was something that irritated me. Today I realized what it was.

The message of the movie is obvious. Paris is the city of love, and everyone will find his/her love here, whoever you are: girl, guy, old woman, ugly man or even vampire!

Everyone goes to Paris and finds love! So simple. A good hope for someone who is looking for a love affair. The same thing like to believe in power of astrology, lets say Cancer and Sagittarius are not suitable for each other. What a naivety!

So, what do a movie suggest to the lonely person? Go and sit in the café waiting for a handsome guy or beautiful girl for 2 days until waiter stares at you? :)
OK, even if you meet him/her, nice news. Yet everyone can find his/her love in Paris, it’s easy, but try to do this in Moscow!
Look, these things don’t work with me. I would not go to Paris to find my love, and not because of the fact that I already found it 3 years ago.

It’s just too fondly :)

Another point I was thinking about is the duration of this easy love.
If you don’t put much efforts into the searching process (and the movie proves this fact!) you may loose it with the same speed as you found it! And, of course, in the same city :)

So, good luck!

It’s said “Paris, I love you!” Probably, people love Paris because it helped them to find their love. And now they love their city, and they made a nice movie about it.

…Meanwhile I am sleeping in the elbow-chair in the cinema. Luckily, vampires fall in love and start shouting – I am waking up. What’s the next story?

Coming back to important: WHY did they make this movie? To invite more people to the 'beautiful city'? To prove the stereotype about Paris? To bring some hope to a lonely person?

...At least I enjoyed French language :)