A helping hand

As Moscow is a pretty friendly place people often "help" each other on and off the metro. By help I mean compact people into the metro or expend them out like a balloon releasing air. So the other day I did my duty and "helped" a young man onto the train (it wasn't completely my idea to help him as someone was helping me as well). Upon my helping I was met with protest which if I understood correctly was something like "what's with you" and a dirty look. He continued to stare at me and push around a little in protest but it was pretty easy to ignore him as I found the whole thing a little comical besides not really having anything to say to him as I'm still not too quick on my Russian feet.

In other news I celebrated the feast of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker at his church in Pizhakh where there is a Myrrh streaming icon of Tsar martyr Nicholas which you can read about here.

Miyazaki on the metro

So I've been seeing a lot of fur (or otherwise similar) coats lately...the other day when I entered the metro I came upon a rather large woman in a long fur coat bending over to do something for a child or something...well all of the sudden I realized that she looked just like one of Miyazaki's bumbling bears...so now every time that I see such a coat I think of bumbling bears...

In other news I spotted either 4 or 6 deaf people this week...it seems that deaf sightings only come every few months as it was probably October or even September the last time I spotted this rare species. It made me think about how amazing it is that they can communicate so much with just gestures.

Zvenigorod

As my Saturday class was cancelled I went on a little trip to Zvenigorod which is about an hour and a half from Moscow. Outside the town is the monastery of St. Savva Storozhevskii who was a disciple of St. Sergei of Radonezh. On the way to the monastery there is a spring and a little church with mosaics which Andrei Rubloff painted but unfortunately only a few indistinct outlines remain. This is also where his icon of the Saviour which is now in the Tretyakov Gallery was found.

The spring:





View of the monastery from sometime in the late 1800's:

St. Savva:



















Even in Russia they like to park old cars in their yards:







One of the houses at the local Sanitarium:

Singing a new song

So I started some singing lessons yesterday...I found out that I have a "low bass" - maybe one day I can record my very own basso profundo cd...

A Patriarchal Приглашение

I attended recently the annual celebration (this time celebrating 15 years) of St. Tikhon's Orthodox University where various speeches were made, gifts were given and choirs sung. Patriarch Aleksey was present and spoke about the university and various other topics about which you can read here. You can see the official pictures here and view my very own below.







Fr. Vladimir Vorobyov the rector of St. Tikhon's (about whom you can read here) presents Patriarch Aleksey with some gifts.


A few "interesting" pictures:






I believe you will remember this Dostoevsky statue in front of the Lenin Library...

...well now Dostoevsky not only has Lenin to keep him company but wonderful American materialism in the form of a garmongous "Christmas tree" or "New Years tree" as it's called here.


And Lenin himself with his proletariat rushes to greet the New Year's tree...

The latest news

So since the last update I have officially resigned from my position as teacher-intern. My last day of teaching will be the 22 of December after which I'm not quite sure what will happen. I'm looking for a flat and new job at present.

Speaking of Old Believers...a girl in one of the English classes I visited, for whom it was hard to believe that I wasn't Russian, thought that I look like a "raskol" (schism)-the informal name for Old Believers-also where the name Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment comes from.

At present I can't remember all the exciting things I had planned on saying...