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.

My Dad

My dad passed away on Feb 18th. For some time he has not been well. Since Jan 5th he was in various hospitals.

To me he was the most amazing hard-working man of integrity who loved life and adventure.

 

Whiff of spring

One could almost feel a whiff of spring in the air this afternoon:

Dripping water

 

This afternoon while sipping tea and watching news I hear "splash" coming from my coffee table. I look at the table. See it's wet. I look at the ceiling. See the water is dripping from with lights studded ceiling.

What concerned most was water around electricity wires. Checked other rooms. Besides dripping in the living room, the water was dripping in the guestroom too.

Went down to the security guard and explained the problem. He immediately called the senior security guard. The senior guy at once called the owners. The owners mostly live outside the city. But they responded quickly and within two hours were in the flat to close their water supply.

Now after few hours water stopped dripping.

I called my landlord. He made arrangements to check the ceilings next week. The neighbours are also making arrangements to check their installations.

As I suspect the ceilings are still wet, I will not switch ceiling lights for a while.

While seeing water dripping from the ceilings lights was a bit alarming - it was great to have this experience of responsiveness, cooperation and efficiency.