Snow at long last

Moscow has finally had a good snow after what seems like at least a month of cold with no consolation of snow; hopefully it will last through the rest of winter. I bought ice skates yesterday after contemplating on the subject for a while. Last weekend I had gone to a mall and skated on their little rink with the poor skates they rent and decided that I want to skate more as it is an excellent workout. In several parks around town the sidewalks are iced over and made into a type of skating rink so last night I was invited to a birthday party for which we first skated at one of the said parks.

In other news I quit my teaching job about a month ago. As that was the case I had to move again since the company I worked for was renting my apartment. After searching with no luck I have been able to stay with a neighbour of a friend of a friend. She has been kind enough to allow me to stay until I find another place.

In that regard I had found an advert at St. Tikhon's University for a room which I decided to check out. So a friend and I set up a time to visit and set out... When we arrived we rang the flat as normal people do but no one answered. There was someone else entering the building so we went in with him and decided to call using the telephone. So we eventually got through and went up. When we made it to the flat we also rang like normal people do. Answering the door was a middle aged woman who had about the same appearance as Gollum from lack of light. When we came into the flat there was one light on in the hallway which was probably about 20 watts. She invited us to look at the room which was a very nice spacious room with a balcony (this room actually had about 2 or 3 lights on). We then returned to the hallway and my friend and I noticed in the bathroom a sign over the sink reminding everyone to turn off the lights and water. My friend starting asking the woman what it meant and who controls the light and water. In short the flat belongs to the woman's parents who live most of the year in some village. Said parents only wanted their children staying at the flat and evidently check the bills to see what's going on (the phone is completely off limits...). The parents come to town in turn - one in the summer, one in the fall - for a few days or a few weeks so at that point the unauthorized occupants have to vacate. (If I wanted to live there I was only to bring the most necessary items for ease of vacating.) So this woman's brother also lived there, evidently, but she would not let us meet him even though he was in the neighbouring room. Upon my agreement to live there I could have met the brother (I have a feeling he was probably something like Sloth). On top of hiding the fact that I would be living there from the parents the neighbours also shouldn't know that I would be living there. When asked how this was possible we were told that I would have to leave after the neighbours had left and arrive after they had arrived. The woman was even nervous and perturbed at the possibility of the neighbours knowing that someone had even visited the flat. So considering my lifelong fear of being chopped up into tiny pieces and fed to homeless dogs I declined the flat...

Here is Christ the Saviour under snow:






And a good reminder for all:

(On the streets of the capital live about 30000 homeless dogs. "We are to answer for those we have domesticated." Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

You didn't think it possible but the horrible truth is true: Moscow has become completely Westernized:



Some more random pictures:

It's hip to write graffiti in English - even if it makes no sense (it's also hip on clothes).














A type of chapel to mark the spot where a man died in a plane crash: (There is a full size chapel down the road a few hundred feet)