Since I don’t expect that any of you frequent Russian language sites, I expropriated some pictures for your viewing pleasure. If you were invited to a typical soviet apartment in the late 70s – early 80s, chances are it would look something like this. My living room looked pretty similar and so did many other living rooms I visited. The only thing was that many of these only served as living rooms during the day. At night they were converted to bedrooms, where sometimes kids and parents slept and I am not limiting kids to any age here. Some people spent most of their lives sharing a room or two but in the morning you wouldn’t be able to tell. In my own case we had several rooms but we shared the apartment with 4 other families. And by “shared” I mean we had one toilet, one cold water faucet in the bathroom and one corner of the kitchen with a stove and later our own sink. But that’s a different story.
So consider yourself invited:

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In 1986 the Iron Curtain was starting to lift and the Soviet and American people got their first glimpses of each other. That year Katya Lycheva traveled to the United States with the mission of peace and even met with the President Reagan.
Few days ago I saw this article from some Russian publication of that time and translated it for the blog. It’s funny how even as late as 1986 the article had to include a mandatory “evil Americans” paragraph (highlighted).

Katya’s Doves:

This photograph shows Katya Lycheva. She is talking about the trip to the USA she took last spring with the delegation of the Soviet Committee for Peace.

Katya was welcomed with warmth and hospitality. Children and teachers were waiting for her in schools. They decorated their classrooms, painted greeting banners and made souvenirs for her.

From city to city a welcoming wave of warmth and hospitality was rolling with an increasing power. Chicago, New York, Washington D.C…. Children wanted to find out what Katya likes, learn her favorite songs.

When during the first days of the trip in one of the schools in Brooklyn Katya started singing “Solnechny Krug” (Sun Circle) no one knew the song and could not join in. But days later in Los Angeles the whole audience was singing with Katya “May there always be sunshine”!

However, today’s America showed Katya its hostile, slanderous, malicious underside. The enemies of peace and disarmament tried their best to harm Katya’s mission. They asked sneaky questions at press-conferences. They tried to catch her off-guard to take embarrassing pictures. They threatened her over the phone and tried to intimidate her.

Despite all these efforts, she showed up at all scheduled meeting happy, smiling and calm like the day before and again the children tried to reach out to her together with those adults, who want peaceful, wonderful life for everyone on this planet.

Katya came home, but in the hearts of hundreds of American children remained the feeling of gratitude to her, for the first time they got to learn the truth about our country. They also cherished white paper doves with the addresses of the Soviet boys and girls written on their wings – addresses of friendship.

Katya Lycheva honorably carried out the mission started by her little American counterpart Samantha Smith.

The sky’s bright blue.
The sun is up high—
This is the little boy’s picture
He drew it for you
and then wrote there for you.
Just to make clear what he drew.
Chorus:
May there always be sunshine,
May there always be blue skies,
May there always be my mama,
May there always be me!

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr6gLQ6CmYY

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Your wife who was just hot last year, now comes back improved with skills.

Using the same gimmick twice is pretty lame.

Speaking of lame: if you are tired of your puny kids, go get yourself some giant ones.

The sign seems to be missing an apostrophe or something, but what do I know, check your grammar with a pro.

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I do…

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Every time I visit my friends and relatives on the East Coast the question I am being asked the most is “when will you finally move here”. I have to admit that it’s a pretty tempting idea that ocasionally visits me since I moved to Kansas City almost 16 years ago.

After all they have things like:

Broadway

Nathan’s Hot Dogs and PotatoE Balls:

Skyline, Empire State Building and The Statue of Liberty

Astroland at Coney Island

Ocean with $2,000,000 condos facing it.

Mermaids

Russian Stores and Restaurants

People who mastered parallel parking

So why do I come home every time to the city that doesn’t have any of it? Maybe that’s the reason – it doesn’t have any of it.

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