International Christmas

Yesterday was the eve of the Russian Orthodox Christmas. Usually I am in a festive mood on this day, and we celebrate it as a big family holiday. But this time I was feeling sad and depressed, my family in Russia, me in the UK, thousands of kilometers separating us and everybody I know has celebrated Christmas on 25 December.

But my forecast of a lonely evening in front of my laptop proved to be completely wrong! I started getting Facebook messages from my UK friends inquiring when we are meeting for the Christmas dinner. Feeling pleasantly surprised that people remember about it, I decided to give it a try. I gave the basic guidelines such as how many dishes we should have for Christmas dinner and what we can or can't have... And I must admit the result surpassed even my most optimistic expectations!

We were a mixed group representing Dominican Republic, Brasil, USA and Russia. So I tried to be flexible and suggested bending some rules to make our menu more democratic and suitable for everyone at the Christmas table. According to the traditions of Russian Orthodox Christmas, the festive dinner should be not even vegetarian but actually vegan. Meat is a no-no but so is cheese, eggs, milk - in a word, all dairy products and all dishes containing them.

So without realising it I presented a real challenge to my guests and offered that we shouldn't give up on cheese or eggs. However, my friends stood up to the challenge and prepared such a great variety of vegan dishes that we don't normally have even back home. Honestly, in theory there should be twelve dishes. In practice we usually have five or six "real dishes" like potatoes, fish etc. And other "dishes" include tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, olives (all counted separately) just put around the table to make it look nice, no-brainer!

I felt a pang of guilt of giving my friends so much work to do especially considering the fact that as a dreadful cook I didn't risk cooking anything on my own and mostly volunteered in peeling potatoes, washing fruit or doing anything else that fell within my "cooking" capacities. But watching the enthusiasm and energy everyone put into the preparation process (albeit making a few jokes and complaints on the rigidity of the rules and absence of the traditional turkey or chicken), I felt we had taken the correct path by choosing to stick to the traditions.

Finally, we had a luxurious Christmas (vegan but still luxurious!) menu consisting of such delicious food as garlics and carrots heated in the oven in an olive oil, pasta, mashed potatoes, different kinds of fish, rice and of course tempting, burning your tongue and awakening all your senses - pickle!

Having eaten until we could hardly stand up from the table and having enjoyed the ambience of a real family dinner, we promised each other to stick to our new tradition and celebrate the forthcoming (or if there are none maybe invent) holidays in a proper fulfilling way like this!

Customer is always... wrong!

This customer-friendly slogan coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge often is miles away from the harsh reality. Today I've had one more chance to prove it.

This morning my younger sister had to send some documents by the regular mail. Like the majority of young people nowadays (including myself) she does not actually visit the post-office every day which appears to be a pretty logical thing to do with e-mails, faxes, scanners and other great achievements of humanity.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvJ3Z6GYy1xr8cTbGqo_3eWc2-tzCdBNFU5YMu3AG8Se7WWDAc0EYKbODdXr6lz-TXjr8CnnDfoR7vBBGDzo6rsITiMFKzJXbr9vc3o_ejfbhRPrpzruStvdygEwellwvHsjyTacYhQ6rh/s1600-h/260px-PostRus.jpg

Knowing the particularities of the Russian postal system, it's even more understandable why people would use its services as seldom as possible. Letters delivered a month later than expected or not delivered at all, packages lost somewhere on the way between the cities, postal workers whose behaviour with customers I would euphemistically prefer to call not so amiable... All this scares potential clients away from the Russian postal service in a much more efficient way than any Royal Mail strikes would ever do.

So my sibling was unlucky enough not to have any alternative to visiting the grim and unfriendly post-office. While she was filling in the blanc she realised that there were new requirements. Being a not so frequent post-office visitor she politely asked a postal worker to help her. Since it was not a New Year postcard but important papers it was crucial that she do everything very accurately.

There were several postal workers: one of them just shrugged away her request and all the others explained the requirements in a different way. Finally the senior worker who she addressed as the last resort displayed open hostility to her. She said that people who have no idea how the postal system works shouldn't be using its services, and that her colleagues had already wasted their time explaining to her the simplest things several times.

To make this long story shorter, my sister had to rely solely on her idea of how the things should be done in this ever changing bureaucratic system, and filled in the form according to her understanding. Now the best thing to do would be to hope for the best! Logically, she did everything in a proper way but in some matters logic is just not applicable...

Moscow metro prices

When I come back home I always find some unpleasant surprises. And this time wasn’t different. I was going to my friend and thought that it’s easier to go by underground. Everything seemed the same: crowds, beggars, dogs and rude cashier. I wanted to buy a two-ways ticket and as I was in Moscow last time in September I remembered that this ticket was 44 roubles, but now angry lady shouted that it became more than 50 now.

When I met my friend she listened to my angry speech about increase of prices and fall of salaries. She smiled and said that it’s Russian New Year tradition to change prices in underground. “Soon it will be cheaper to buy a car”.

It was very true I just forgot that when I was a student we were joking on how they changed prices in winter. My sister, who is now a last year student in Russia, thinks that it’s easy to check inflation with help of student underground ticket. “Just look, five years ago student ticket was 75 roubles and now it’s 350! So it became 5 times higher! Same with prices”.

I know that it’s Russian tradition to find advantages in bad situations, but I prefer to check inflation with Bloomberg help. And what’s about underground, I wish it would stay with its main duty – be the cheapest transport for citizens.

Increasing speed of life

"There's more to life than increasing its speed", Makhatma Gandi said once. And I can't agree with him more.

What is our life now other than a caleidoscope of events that are changing one another with speed rival to speed of light? We are moving faster, eating faster, even speaking so fast that we can't understand each other?
http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=articles&sub=Speed%20of%20Life%20-%20Part%20One

Are you afraid of being alone?

I have so often felt a sudden and strong urge to spend some time alone that I've almost got used to this feeling. It happened not only when I was feeling miserable. It could happen also when I felt happy with myself and those around me. I just needed to get away.

These situations were usually not beneficial for my relationships. My friends felt abandoned and offended, and complained of my lack of interest in them. I felt guilty and scared about this strange desire to have more space but I just couldn't help it. And everytime the most irritating thing was that I could find no plausible excuse for it.

One day when I was feeling particularly unhappy about it I decided to investigate this phenomenon. I had always been intrigued by the fact that there are two words in English frequently used for describing the state of being alone: loneliness and solitude. In Russian we have only one word for this notion, and its connotation is negative. I was pleased to discover that psychologically there can be two different states of being alone. Aloneness by itself is not necessarily a negative thing. It is all about our emotions about it that can turn it into either loneliness or solitude.

Loneliness and solitude - two words for the same thing?
Generally speaking, loneliness is unhappiness about being alone whereas solitude is happiness about being alone http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200308/what-is-solitude

If we go into details we can add that solitude is a voluntary seclusion and loneliness is a state of having to be alone. Solitude often enriches us spiritually and can help us to keep our creative juices flowing. It can be a refuge from daily pressures, a way of relaxation and even a source of inspiration. Solitude often helps to restore peace of mind and harmony after a troublesome or simply too eventful period.

Loneliness is a state in which one prefer to be given a choice. In contrast to solitude it is not pleasant and refreshing, it's disagreeable and depressing. Loneliness takes its toll on people who are prone to it. It lowers one's self-esteem and gives one a feeling of being unwanted, of not fitting in.

This classification helped me if not to explain to others but at least to understand the undercurrent reasons for needing space and to realise that it's not a vice but sometimes a vital necessity.

Most expensive cities in the world

http://www.overseaspropertymall.com/buying-property/10-most-expensive-cities-to-own-a-home/

Eternal Flame to burn elsewhere

The Eternal Flame at the Tob of the Unknown Soldier near the Kremlin Wall, in the Alexander Garden, is a symbol of Moscow and Russia to the same degree that the Saint Basil's Cathedral or the Spaskaya Tower at Red Square. Which is more, it is a symbol of strength of spirit, belief and patriotism that helped the Soviet soldiers fight the Nazi Germany. It reminds us of the suffering they had to go through, and it's impossible to imagine the heart of our capital wihtout it. But we'll have to do sofor the next two m=months during which time due to repair works the Eternal Fire will be relocated to the Poklonnaya Gora.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90853/6853298.html