Is there life on "Mars"?

“Brrrrr” has been the only sound you could notice people to produce on the European territory of Russia for the past week. Well, provided you could find at least a single human being walking in the street. Most of people here thank God for giving them a place to live and warm up.
It’s been exceptional coldness in the European part for the past 20 years at least. Well, I don’t myself remember such a cold winter for the whole time I’ve lived here, which has been my whole life actually. From the phone conversation with my uncle I learnt that last time the temperature went down to negative 43 was in 1985, the year I was born. He also told me that the day it was -43 he went hunting!
The weather forecasts don’t seem optimistic at all. They say, it’s going to stay this cold for the next week too! To be specific, on Monday it was “warm” – about negative 25, but I could stand it and even got to the town centre almost alive, though my nose was going to leave me halfway. A note: negative 25 in the European part where I live is the maximum coldness I personally can bear, when I can intermediately go out to a store or to walk the dogs.
On Wednesday the temperature went down to negative 30-32, and severely blowing wind appeared. Humph. Fine. On Thursday night it was negative 40 and today it was 35-37 plus the wind.
Well, if you think that I’m complaining about the weather, you may be right, because it's ruined all the plans about going out to meet with some of my friends, have my trainings at the sport centre located in another part of town, or simply going shopping, which I’ve been dreaming about for the whole month! Plus my poor nephew’s still waiting for me to come and “sit” (he wont let me sit anyway ;) ) with him, as for these two frosty weeks I have my winter holidays!
Yesterday, I learnt from the news that there were 3 people without a specified place of living who got frozen in houses’ basements, which are their most favorite places to spend nights. As far as I understood, different social organizations are now working on accommodating such people in specially organized buildings. Bad news on the whole, but hopefully this people wont have to wait for the help to come as long as they had freezing in the Atlantic ocean after the Titanic shipwreck.
The Russian Government seems to be full of either comedians or fools; I haven’t worked that out yet. So, obviously none of them expected temperatures to fall down “dramatically” on practically the entire territory of Russia. Well, they actually meant especially cold times in the European part, but taking in consideration the fact thar the rest of Russia are Siberia and Yakutiya, where winter temperatures are always “dramatically” low (negative 40-50 is all right for them), it's now wonder our heating and electric systems work on their maximum. There have been a few accidents with heating in Siberia, if I’m not mistaken. So, our desperate government has not been prepared for such a "blow". There’re two main questions we always try to solve: “Whose fault is it?” and “What to do?” Well, I don’t want to sound sarcastic, but the way they solve heating problems expresses the whole idiocy and incapability to rule the coldest/biggest country in the world. I’m talking about our governor, who swam in the ice hole with a bottle of cognac yesterday. That was all because of his bet with another governor who did that the day before but without a bottle of something heating his blood. It all seemed so stupid to me. What did they try to prove? They probably think they’re supermen now having the whole country watch them in their swimwear running to and jumping right in the ice holes! Do they hope to awake a common sense of inspiration, or do they simply try to attract people’s attention to their ugly freezing lard and share their “optimism” instead of having the heating system work and share their loot money with the rest of the country crying and moaning with their breast children sleeping in temperatures slightly above zero?
If you go out you wont notice any cars around, there’s only public transport and a few taxies. My father and brothers had quite a problem with starting their cars, so nowadays there’s only one possible way to get somewhere – public transport, which is a rare thing now just like passengers in that public transport. Ordering a taxi beforehand is also a way out but it doesn’t work that well, as there’s a problem with starting an engine. For example, today in the morning my brother was late for a meeting because he was waiting for his taxi ordered beforehand for an hour!
The whole cold winter thing drives me crazy! I’m an active “out”-like person and staying at home 24/7 is too much! I feel like I’m in a prison, and the only possible way of communication with the outside world is the telephone. Thanks Alexander Bell, now my days are not so alike and savourless, and I have something to talk about.
Well, spending the whole two weeks of winter vacation in sitting at home like way is not the dream of my university life, but being an optimist, I get the most of it: reading Dostoevsky’s “Brothers Karamazov”, writing my course paper, doing all kinds of cleaning/washing, learning to cook from what I have in the fridge, which is quite a problem, as going to the store doesn’t seem to be that exciting;) and finally preparing parents, especially mom, for going to all kinds of birthday parties.
Besides, I’ll definitely have something to tell my grandchildren about in “It was long time ago when you granny was a young girl, just like you’re now…” way.
Have someone to make you warm and stay warm inside whatever the weather is like outside.

мои стихи - моим друзьям

Друзья, специально для тех, кто периодически ил пожизненно sprechaet по-русски, я решили написать/посвятить свои стихи, и вы, безусловно, знаете, кого именно я имею в виду:)

Здесь я попыталась собрать мои самые любимые стихи для самых любимых друзей и подружек:
В пепельно-белых кроссовках
В старой потертой избе
Жизнь меня вновь заключила
Ключ снова вверив тебе.
Холод, железо оковы
в мою впивается плоть.
Ты, как безумный сторож,
их крепко и туго зажмешь.
Блеск твоего острого взгляда
как пуля сквозь сердце пройдет.
Мне холод и вечную сладость
оставит навеи твой лед.

Это, как некоторые знают, одно из моих самых любимых стихотворений, в частности и потому. что написано оно было в поезде, направляющемся в Лондон. Лондон - одно из самых потрясающих мест, где я когда-либо была, и я хочу посвятить эти строки Лондону за его сдержанную красоту.

Возвращаясь к английской тематике, хотела бы добавить, что существуют потрясающая поэтесса Carol Ann Duffy, чьим творчеством я восхищаюсь. Я даже взяла на себя смелость перевести одно из моих самых любимых стихотворений Valentine. Вот что получилось:

Валентинка

не красную розу, не сердце из шелка,

а лук я дарю -
Луну в облачении жесткой бумаги,
тот свет, ускользающий снова во тьму.

Бери.

И лук ослепит тебя слезами счастья,
раскроет тебя...

Так? Ведь я же правду говорю?

Не милой открытки ванильные ноты -
Я дарю тебе Лук.

Его поцелуй обжигающе-страстный
есть отпечаток того, что в сердце храним
сейчас и навеки.

Возьми его.

И желтые кольца его мы
с радостью детской в обручальные превратим.

Лук, рассекающий души,
разрезаешь ножом.

Счастья вам и любви!
Надеюсь, эти стихи вам пришлись по душе и вы захотите вновь прочесть нечто подобное.

about a lonely lion and his grey beard

It's a story about a lonely lion with a grey beard.
It's a story about the lion that performed in a circus and was imprisoned there by the circus director, who simply "used" him as people often do with those who "belong" to them.
It's necessary to mention that the circus director treated him quite well and was a very generous, but it does not make any difference since he has a "property", because owning means being selfish in one's wishes. And that's the way he was.
When the lion was still young and energetic he dreamt about freedom and fighting for it. He dreamt about a pretty female-lion and their little lions playing on the meadows in Freedom.
But as it usually happens the dream is just a dream. And as it always happens the external circumstances do not let us make our dreams come true.
Years passed and the lion was still imprisoned in the circus remembering about his vague dream while producing all those impossible acrobatic feats he didnt fit for anymore and travelling with the circus cast thrown in a jail. He was very unhappy. He lead the life that he didnt want to lead. It was not his "model" of living. It was someone else's. Why did he have to surrender?
Why didn't he run away from the circus? Maybe he was too devoted to the director? Maybe he simply did not know HOW to make his dream come true and was afraid of staying ALONE?
At least he had his meals and his own cage where he spent rainy/snowy nights in a company of severe winds and bare trees with their foliage falling down in the cage.
One day, when the lion's beard went grey and his energy went down, the circus went bankrupt, the director let out the lion. He left him all ALONE. ALONE. ALONE... with his dreams... that came true too late.

Or, maybe, it's never late to have your dreams come true even if it's too late, even if you have no more time left to enjoy them, if you're no longer young and cannot run and jump and have a young female-lion with little lions around you?

(inspired by Tonino Guerra's script of an animated film shot by a RUSSIAN film director)

who said "Romans" cannot create?

In the course of my Ancient Greek/Roman Culture lessons my professor said once, that the Romans are mostly famous for conquering, i.e. stealing, what the Greeks had created. "That's quite true", I thought at that moment. My professor added: "What's the point in creating something of your own, if it's so easy to steal that something that has already been created?" At that I chuckled feeling a surge of pride for my ancestors.
Today is the day that changed my judgements about the modern "Roman" culture influence on the modern world in general and on Russia in particular.
What struck me most was that to make myself change my mind I didn't have to go either to Italy or to Moscow. It was here right in the centre of the place where I live.
I'm talking about the exhibition of Tonino Guerra's art. He's quite a famous person, especially famous for his skilfully written scripts for Federiko Fellini's films and for his friendship with one of the most outstanding Russian screen-writers and film directors Andrei Tarkovskii (he became extremely popular after his "Solaris"). What I liked most of all was my discovery about his immense love for Russia, for Russian people and for our culture, even for our weather, which is quite surprising for me! His wife is Russian and in the interview he mentioned the story of their acquaintance describing how white and gentle the snow falling on her face was. He's quite concerned about the fact of Russian uniqueness in every branch of culture and science. I fully agree.
The first thing that attracted my attention was his ability to make simple things seem complicated, as he believed, every simple thing in life, that we don't pay much attention on, is worth analysing and thinking over and over again until we can find the right place for it in the system. His photographs and films are full of twisted philosophy that is not that easy to understand and draw your own conclusions of. However, while viewing his works (including illustrations for Kama Sutra) and his projects (including the one of building and decorating a hotel with a restaurant "Tzargrad" in the historic centre of Yaroslavl which is said to be Italian)watching his films, one of which is dedicated to two young men playing tennis without either a racket or a ball, simply imitating it, and a crowd watching their play very attentively. And here's the question: who are you personally - a tennis player or a crowd indifferent member? Are you in or out of this game, called Life? Are you active or passive in it? Are you a puppet-theatre plaything?
Or maybe you're neither. Then who are you and what is your role in this puppet-theatre or maybe you're left out of it, forgotten?
I still have all questions rushing in my head. I only hope you can also think about them, because, no matter if you like such kind of art or not, it offers you a compelling proof for its right to exist.
You can find some pictures of "Tzargrad" decorations at http://www.cih.ru/tg/index.html