My chil­dren actu­al­ly bought me a bicy­cle. On Fri­day, they went to the store for jeans (maybe that was an excuse), and they came back with­out jeans but with a bicy­cle. Now, in the evenings when Mark doesn’t have prac­tice, they’re tor­tur­ing him with a healthy lifestyle 🙂

Some peo­ple believe that mod­ern chil­dren are not inter­est­ed in the books we grew up with, our old car­toons. Yes, there are many books and films that are ide­o­log­i­cal­ly out­dat­ed, but there are also clas­sic old, good films and cartoons.

Pen­sions are guar­an­teed here only for gov­ern­ment employ­ees and mil­i­tary per­son­nel; oth­ers must take care of their own retirement.

We were in the Muse­um of Fine Arts (it is called the Art Muse­um), so there the chil­dren were giv­en a pen­cil and a sheet on which frag­ments of paint­ings or instal­la­tions are depict­ed, and the child must find these frag­ments in the halls of the museum.

This week­end we were invit­ed to a sil­ver wed­ding cel­e­bra­tion. It hap­pened that the major­i­ty of guests were peo­ple from the south of Rus­sia and Ukraine. Both south­ern­ers and Ukraini­ans can cook well and tasty.