Oh this has gotta be the good life

Few months ago driving to the office I saw an add for OneRepublic.

I was surprised they are coming to Kiev. Bought tickets immediately.

The concert was on April 13th. The concert venue "Crystal Hall" - the best club venue in Kiev.

                 On the evening of the concert it was cold and rainy. Hundreds of meters before the entrance  a very long queue of teenagers started (or ended - do not know which verb to chose). My friend - vaguely familiar with the band - lamented what two of us are doing among such young girls. But once the concert started the girlish feeling came over us. Two of us danced, screamed and sang together with teenagers. For me - the best concert in Kiev so far.

They started with "Everybody Loves Me". Continued with "Stop and Stare". The third one was "Good Life" which is my favourite song. Well - all their songs are my favourites but this one I play in my car most often.

 

 

Oh this has gotta be the good life

This has gotta be the good life

This could really be a good life, good life-

Still Winter

It's April 10. Spring is officialy in its third week. But I still wear fur hat and gloves. It's 3 degrees. With cold wind blowing. It also snowed today. Not happy. Igor as well. 

I dream of bright sunshine, blue sky, warm breeze. Since end October last year I had enough of grey sky, cold wind and snow. Winter go away. 

  

Chick Corea & Gary Burton

Thanks to my nice colleagues Olga and Liliya I went to this great jazz concert. That evening the traffic was terrible and I was about 20 min late but great music swep stress away.  And they played for two and the half hours. After the concert I was wonderfully re-energized.

Subbotnik

Subbotnik is a typical soviet tradition. Allegedly introduced by Lenin this is a volutray public work deployment on Saturday (saturday in russian is subbota).

Orlando Figges in his "A People's Tragedy" has following comment on subbotniki:
"Equally ineffective were the subbotniki, Saturday's labour campanigs, when workers and students were dragooned as "volunteers" into such noble socialist duties as cleaning rubbish from the streets and squares. During May day week of 1920 over a million Moscow residents were involved in this "festival of labour". From then on it became a permanent feature of the Soviet way of life. But economically it achieved very little."

In theory subbotnik is volutary. But this volutary public work deployment was strictly observed. Its attendance carefully recorded. Not participating in it might be suspicious and even considered contra-revolutionary.

Today the term Subbotnik refers to annual spring cleaning in the cities to collect garbage and make streets, parks and other public spaces - cleaner.
Last Saturday I was on such a subbotnik organized by Bjorn - a German gentelman. Bjorn is in Ukraine since 1995. Bjorn also managed to merry the tradition of subbotnik with impecable German organization, generosity and excellent party spirit. Apparently his subbotnik is an annual tradition.
We collected a garbage in his neighbourhood. There was a lot of it but about 50 people - of which six my colleagues - diligently collected it all. There was a garbage truck into which bags were immediately deposited. A fire truck was always close by in case some one decides to burn the garbage instead of collecting it (have not happened).

After more than two hours of grabage collectine we started to party. There was a army field kitchen which provided a pea soup and sausages. Shashlik and cutlets were on the menu too. With a lot of beer and vodtka. There was a fire to keep us warm. In short - a lot of fun.

Ukraine-Italy

Thanks to my friend Necko I got a ticket for a friendly Ukraine-Italy football match. Regretfully Ukraine lost.
I was amazed how many people were smoking.  Nowadays the air is better in any cafe in Europe than on an open air football stadium in Ukraine.

Koncha Zaspa

The office arranged a management offsite. It took place in Koncha Zaspa, allegedly an elite village 20 km south of Kiev.

Once upon a time the place was a natural reserve. Now it is a residential playground for local rich and famous. The feeling that one enters the special place is very visual - the road is fenced by high iron fences. It creates a creepy feeling in the beginning. But after I saw some houses with not such a high fence - I concluded it's perhaps for overall good that some constructions are well hidden behind a thick iron.

"De gustibus non est disputandum" or as in Chekhov "de gustibus aut bene, aut nihil".

Taste aside - I was taken aback with the status of the road and only a small shop. But after I took a walk along the road in the evening I figured no one lives in these houses. Nevertheless each house has a guard who sits in a small room next to the entrance and watches TV. The guard is most likely not paid much. But still to build an expensive house only for a guard to watch TV seems as an expensive way of a job creation.

The rich and famous in Koncha Zaspa either do not care about decent living conditions or have to figure out what it means. For example organized garbage disposal is not in place yet. Currently garbage is dumped along the road (photo 36) and at the end of the village (photo 45). There is a pile of construction rubble next to few yachts (photo 41).

None of the houses has a nice garden. No trees or flowers for KZ residents. However one resident has gas pipes in front of his entrance (photo 32 and 33). Seems his budget have not included grounding gas pipes in front of his house on which he most likely spent hundreds of thousands of dollars (Ukraine is dollarized economy). Or gas pipes are conceptual art piece?

All in all - a strange concept of an elite residential place.

Snow on March 19th

Winters here are long. This year the winter was exceptionally long. While it's not so unusal to have a snow storm in March, the one on March 19th was quite heavy.

 

March snow storm

Thank you

I would like to thank to all who have sent condolences on the passing of my father.
I greatly appreciate your emails and kind things you wrote to me.
Some of you regretfully have experience of losing a parent and shared those experiences with me. That made me less alone.

Because my father was sick for few years I thought I am emotionally prepared for his passing.
Either I prepared poorly or one cannot prepare.
Last few weeks I grieved. I looked for my personal ways to honor him.
In my grief what helped me was certainty my dad is no longer suffering.

Last weekend I was in Zagreb with my family and friends. It was good to be together.