August 24th — September 5th
Text by Layla; photos by Layla, Ljuba, and Sasha
Upon moving to Quebec in June 2000, we decided that before we settle down in one place to first travel and see Eastern Canada. I longed for the serene horizons, gentle flowers, and abysmal waves of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and so, on the 1st of September that year, we set off on an almost 3 months journey around Quebec planning to venture as far as the eastern provinces and possibly even visit the dreamlike island. But it got too cold, too snowy, and too windy too soon; so, we focused on Ontario and Quebec postponing our plan for, what turned out to be, 9 years.
Finally, early morning of the 24th of August 2009, we headed east.
View Maritimes 09 in a larger map
We took Champlain Bridge off the island of Montreal and drove through the scattered suburbs of the Southern Shore, following route 20 past the city of Quebec to Sainte Flavie along the southern shore of St. Laurent river and to the Gaspesie driving through the Quebec landscape of suburbs, refineries, and the forever hazy grasslands.
Continue reading Maritimes 2009 – part 1
My cousin Misha remains as vivacious and spontaneous as I remember him from childhood. One evening, he walked through the door and announced that first thing in the morning he was driving a car to Ulianovsk, the former Simbirsk, the birthplace of Vladimir Ilich Lenin, 950 km towards the Ural mountains, that famous range that separates Europe from Asia. We couldn’t resist such an opportunity and so, the next dawn Sasha, Liouba and I headed towards sunrise.
Through Kolomna:
The river Voblia miltsov.org/travel/photosрека Вобля), border of Moscow and Riazan’ regions: Continue reading Lenin’s cradle part 1
After visiting aunt Lida and cousin’s Lena’s family in Moscow, we headed to my eldest aunt Zina,where she lives in a house with her youngest daughter, Tania in Malino. Malino is where my grandmother had finally agreed to move to from Nikolo Titeli and where she died. Although Nikolo is my beloved ideal, a time of pure happiness, where I used to hide in sunflower fields in the summer or watched the earth hidden in a deep comforter of snow to its horizon in winter – my secret moomin winter past – I have fond memories of Malino too. My cousin Misha would drive me on his motorcycle over the picturesque river and the surrounding flowering grass and lush forests. This year, we made a pilgrimage to both places.
Continue reading Malino
Funny how the use of language can influence our experience of reality. If people are told repeatedly that green is black and that yellow is green, that’s what they begin to see. In fact, there are numerous experiments in the study of psychology of language, where it’s been observed that when different shades of the colour blue, as an example, have been flashed to native speakers of languages that had different names for these colours and to those who didn’t, the native speakers of the more shades of blue perceived them as different and separate colours, whereas those whose native language had only one term, saw them as basically one colour.
Continue reading Moscow spring
Something fun always happens in Russia. Historically, it’s been a place with much more action than any hollywood film. O.k. This doesn’t compare with 1917, but it still was full of passion and contradictions, and all that is so wrong and wonderful with the human soul.
Sasha dropped by the celebration of Red Easter by Alexandre Dugin and his sheep. Russians are not worse than anybody else and so fetishism and gadgets have an appeal with the young and dreaming (of a bright future filled with shiny gadgets) and when a youth has his armpits bandaged with Dugin’s arrows, well that helps contort that intelligent, concentrated look, the one that is dressed in school, when the teacher’s pet looks at her wide eyed and big mouthed, ready to gobble anything that would give a chance to a cakeful life.
But not all of them are vamps:
Continue reading Celebration of the vampires
Ah, Russia, forever acontrast with everything and with itself!
When Sasha and Liouba left the States at the end of March 2005, from crocuses in full bloom and the beginning of the second harvest of grass they plunged into this:
Continue reading Moscow winter
A year later, we returned to Babje, whose population has grown, once again:
The horse Senelga had room-mates in her barn: a goat with her kid.
May has grown into a beautiful Collie.
And little Afanasij, who was born the previous summer, joined the 3 older knights.
Continue reading Return to Babje part 1
