minats_zone

Hi there, It took me a while to get down to writing this post. So first, we had to oversleep our long (17 hours) flight from Moscow to SF. Second, the power supply here is different from that of Russia and we had to buy special adaptor to recharge our laptop and start using it as Olia has a Mac computer. Now we are more or less settled down and feel more comfortable, but still failed to rent a car for ourselves as Olia and Andy are mostly at work and there is nobody to drive us around. Hopefully, we'll be able to rent a car tomorrow. Well, the weather here is foggy and windy, which is typical of July in this very spot of California. But there are some sunny spells and we even managed to go to the parks next to Olia's neighbourhood. It's absolutely fabulous there and the view from Olia's balcony is amazing, too. We had Michael and Kelly (his girlfriend reziding in SF) visiting us on Sunday. Michael has become very mature and handsome. The girl is slim and pretty. She...

Hi there, It was July 18 that all of us gathered at the Elokhovsky Cathedral (just in the center of Moscow, next to Baumanskaya metro station) at 15-00 to be the guests at the Blessing Procedure. It was really solemn and amazing. There were 2 babies (Stepka and another boy) and a guy aged over 30 standing for blessing. The priest was a man in his forties, Othets Boris, and none of the babies cried when they were immersed into blessing water in a big brass and silver bowl. But the quietest of all was our Stepka, he seemed to be smiling and sleeping!!! I hope that's a good sign...God bless him!!!

Dear all, Now, that one months has already passed since Stephan was born, I can share with you some of my current news. First of all, the day after tomorrow we're going to bless Stephan in God's name Stephan (Yarushevich). This Saint (Stephar Yarushevich) was a martyr at the Soviet Gulag Camp System which destroyed millions of innocent people, including priests and other noble and good Russians. He was shot in Kazakhstan in 1937 and was announced the Saint in 2000 at the Christ the Saivor's Cathedrial. I hope this very Saint will support our Stephan throughout his life. The God's Mother is going to be Lena (Pugovkina), my cousin, and the God's Father is going to be Michael, Konstantyn's firend. Both of them are religious and this is the point. Secondly, we're flying Delta to SF USA on July 24th. We got our visas and that's it!!! Bye for now and looking forward to seeing some of you. Have a look at me at the Kadashevskaya embankment where I've had cl...

Hi there, Dima sent me a link which inspired me to learn more about those amazing people who don't seem to be from our planet Earth. They want to change the world by further computerizing not only all objects but even six human senses. What do you think? Do you agree with me that they are sort of aliens?

Hey there, Today we've received some funny photos of the Big Day of Marina's leaving the maternity house (20 June 2009). It was funny because their friends - a couple - Sergei and Alena, and Stas, Marina's 18-year old son, were collecting the Mom and the baby-boy from there. Have a look at all the faces. These pigs are a real history!!!

On June 23 we treated ourselves with going to the Central Concert Hall for Chamber Music named after P.Chaikovsky. There was a big outing with organ music and Moscow Capella performing classical songs with guitar and piano accompanying them. The whole evening was really great and I'm very grateful to Slava who booked the tickets...   This is my post

  This is my post

Hi there, It's 5 days already since our Stepan was born! My i-phone helped me get some shots of him Marina made at the maternity house during feeding time. They are really funny. How can creatures like this develop into mature people? It's beyond my grasp... Love to all of you and take care...

Wonderful!!! Marina has had a baby boy on June 15 at 17pm. She even called me and said that this time it was more difficult than when she had her first son-Stasik. Kostya, her husband, is on cloud nine!!! Me too...

This week I've spent far away from Moscow. It was Krasnodar (2 - 4 June) then Saratov, 6-8 June. In both cities I examined BEC/KET/PET/FCE. The weather was fine and warm during my stay there. I liked Krasnodar very much as it was my first good look at the city centre.It's nice and cosy. It's a really lovely city, I must say. Since it's much further to the south of Moscow, there are many cheap fruits there such as big strawberry, white cherry and other good things. The place is very warm and sunny. Saratov was also nice but we stayed in a small hotel on the bank of the Volga river and there were awfully many mosquitos. So I was bitten heavily. I returned home with my legs scratched and swelling. The rest of my trip in Saratov was fine. It's a beautiful Russian city with many churches and monuments. Have a look at some photos I made there. Bye for now...

Hi there, I was examining this weekend (BEC/KET)and also went to Kolomna (Moscow region) for one day to take part in an annual conference on Linguistics. The weather was so unusually hot that it was hard to sit indoors and listen to Ter-Minasova speak about Globalisation and languages... I got up at 5.30am to reach the place by 9am, so it was rather difficult to follow people speaking. Well, the bushes and plants were blooming and I managed to come across several ex-colleagues who I worked with me at RSSU in 2002-2008. The University is on the decline now and I have no regrets about leaving it whatsoever... Anyway, I listened to some interesting reports and met like-minded people. That's great...

Wordle - My thoughts on May 19_09 : " "

Wordle - My Wiki site : " "

Hi there, These days I've been busy trying to catch up with all my subscriptions on ICT in ELT. Nick Peachy is so productive giving us some tips on using some widgets in ELT. Today I've attempted one which is called "Wordle" and it's real fun. You can select any text (e.g my last blog post on May 19) and represent it in a form of a picture showing the most frequent words you used in it. So have a look, if I managed to do everything accurately. Marina is going to set her wedding day today with her would be husband. So life is going on...Love and hugs.

Hi there, After my relaxing time in Vietnam, I've been very busy these days doing so many things - examining, classes, criss -crossing Moscow etc. I don't mind but the worst thing about it is that my car is out of order as a result of a minor accident (its left side is dented) but I can't start it as the alarm system has been affected and the engine is blocked. So I go on foot or by public transport. The insurance company promised to fix my car only within 1,5 months!!! It's rediculous as I paid a lot of money for nothing...Well, the good news is that Marina is feeling good, though she's going to have a baby in the early June, but still drives a car to work (school, where she's a teacher) and back to our dacha, where they live with Kostya for the time being. You can see her in a photo, in a church yard. She seems to be slim, but a big belly is not visible as she didn't want to show it. Meanwhile, the spring is in its prime. We can see threes blooming everywh...

Hey, Here I am in Moscow again. It's surprisingly bright, warm and sunny here in contrast to Vietnam, with very humid weather and pretty rainy days in Hanoi. First day of our arrival we stayed in Moscow to sort out our things then drove to the dacha, where Marina and her boyfriend (Kostya) now live in the old house. We were very curious about how they had settled down there as they moved in from a rented flat and arranged everything for themselves in this house. You know that Marina is due to give birth to a child in the early June so not so much time is left ahead. But the biggest surprise for me and Stanislav was their cat Dory, who is a 7 month old bred of bare skinned cats from St Petersburg. This kind of cats was started from the Egyptian sfinks cats brought to Russia some 10 years ago. He is somewhat ugly and extremely unusual. But Marina loves him very much as she has always loved exotic and bizzare creatures... All other people around (including Kostya nad Stanislav) don...