Storm warning

    The first heavy showers and storms smashed blooming lilacs and chestnuts. Pink, white and light green petals dance in puddles, curl near street gutters. Umbrellas became almost useless.

    Two little kids a girl and a boy were playing with pigeons near Alexander Garden, very close to Kremlin. They flapped, birds soared up many-many times. That is the place with hundreds of pigeons, anyone can feed them from hands. Kids made dozens of circles enjoying themselves not leaving birds a chance to rest.

    Metal Dostoevsky, a statue in front of Russian State Library, enjoyed the weekend sun. Tourists make pictures of a gigantic Soviet period building of the Library. Moscow experience the first bicycle improvements – we've got free bike parkings and a city bike rent! Bike communities organize group tours, using light-traffic weekends to show the city in the most friendly way. The capital inhabitants are luxuriating, moving from one park to another, eating package-free old-fashioned ice-cream.

evening in Belgrade

    This post is going to bring to justice those tourists, who wrote several complaining comments about the smallest room called '207 Skadarlija' in a Belgrade hotel 'Le petit Piaf'! I'm serious :)

    Well, I still don't know why did we ask to show us this room. It was really the tinniest on an attic floor of a renewed hotel building. Its only window is the roof window. Its toilet seems absolutely comfortable for Frodo. Its sole air conditioner is portable. Those facts are the most frequent sources of displeasure.

    The picture above shows the view from a desecrated room '207 Skadarlija'. Look at those golden shadows on a chestnut tree. Note a collared dove warbling. Imagine Belgraders dining downstairs in street restaurants, singing songs all night long. Touch a warm and rough ruff. Feel the breeze scent from Danube. Count the first stars while lying on the bed. Notice a light pigeon's claws cracks over your head. Observe the sky after the rain, when a marvelous sky of Belgrade with grandiose clouds is the most unforgettable.

    Name please the loo problems from unhappy visitors once more. Could you?

'Whiskers, paws and a tail! That's my ID!'

    No one knows when it all started. ID and other documents are everything in Russia, from birth to death you are nothing without it. One can not exchange money, buy a train ticket or send a parcel without an ID check.

    Man on a picture is a scrutineer, sitting in the middle of an expert commission corridor. The commission allows an artist to bring his painting abroad. There is no way one can freely take a pic to the post or on a plane ignoring the commission. But before you do so be sure this man allows you to get inside the commission building! 

    He takes your ID, writes down your name, ID number and the exact minute you went in. He sits for days, wearing a dark suit and chevron on a shoulder, demanding documents from artists. Probably he is a retired KGB clerk or a military man. Don't worry, they will ask your papers one more time, during the expertise! Two times in an hour. 

barefoot

    A man in 'ushanka'  (Russian fur cap with ear flaps) standing barefoot in the middle of Moscow snowdrift. Slipper nearby. What could it be? 

    Conditioning to the cold  was very popular in Soviet Union. Cold water plunges in a common backyard were often. A man, wearing swimming trunks and slippers with a tin-pan full of ice-cold water in the middle of winter was not a non-sense. Naked toddlers, jumping into ice-hole together with their young parents seemed normal. All of those facts were parts of a big conditioning to the cold movement.

   Pediatrics believed that kids, grown with some short therapeutic periods of an extremely cold temperatures of water and air become stronger. They even used to organize winter plunges for 4-5 year olds in kindergaden. Nowadays Russians are less obsessed with those theories. Still  we jump to snowdrifts (as our Finnish neighbors) and ice-holes after the sauna and gave a second life to a traditional Epiphany ice-hole swimming. 

crow's housekeeping

    First day of a spring those too (male and female of Corvus Cornix) came to check their old nest. The next day was for a closer inspection, they checked little branches and removed some snow. Our couple is very accurate and farsighted, normally crows do prepare their nests at the end of March. 

    The nest is not too far from our windows, it's on a fork of an old rowan tree close to a new playground. I'm a bit worried about it, since this spring would be the first one for crow's nest over the kid's heads. Won't they worry about nestlings safety? However the nest is not exactly over the kids area and there is a chance it'll all go well. 

    Can't wait to see little chicks :) 

More about a Hooded Crow in Wikipedia

tour to the drawing attic

    view from our kitchen

    

    We rent a little Khrushchovka flat near Dinamo metro station (Moscow), in 27 minutes from Kremlin by feet&metro. This city area is known for a great number of artists, who live and paint here. I can see several studios right from our window. 

Most of the time I work from this room, draw passers by and paint an opposite roof. 

Our place is situated in the middle of local bird's 'community center'. 11 types of them sing, talk and fly almost 24/7.

Sometimes I move an easel to the kitchen, from where some backyard corners viewed better. Oils damage curtains, floor and cat's eating mat. Kettle's close vicinity makes it less sad ;)

The best time here is spring, when the huge willow blooms, hiding rooks in love, recently returned from far-away lands.

Summer moves us all to the balcony. Honey bees and butterflies together with some hungry sparrows accompany our Elsie the cat during her windowsill walks. 

This table is for graphical works, Botanicals and sketching. 





Little video - our balcony view, the beginning of autumn.  

High poplar tree is our crow's Speaker's Corner :) 

I'll finish our excursion with the first snow shot taken from a kitchen window. We are expecting those tiny trees to get well from last year replantation and even bloom this spring. Stay tuned! :)

    Hello! :)
    My name is Masha, I'm a beginning artist from Russia. Sometimes I also grow plants, travel, cook, practice yoga and study French.

   This blog is for sharing my everyday life in pictures, showing Russia, it's nature, people and their habits.