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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If you are still using pathetic-looking jalapeños like these, do yourself a favor and pitch them or at least give them to someone you don’t like. Do not donate them to Harvesters – poor people have dignity too. Instead spend two bucks and 15 minutes to pickle your own delicious crunchy jalapeños. The recipe I am using is in Russian and translated version reads like gibberish, so with the credit to original creator of this recipe I will translate it and use my own pictures.

1. Buy 10-20 nice-looking jalapeños. I usually pick the mixed colored ones, they just look good.

2. Slice thinly the jalapeños, some shallots or onions and 5 cloves of garlic.

3. In the meantime heat up two cups of white vinegar (5%) with 2 tablespoons of salt, two tablespoons of sugar, less than a teaspoon of oregano ( I don’t put too much at all) and few bay leaves. When sugar and salt dissolve turn the heat off and let cool.

4. Place your jalapeños, onions and garlic in a container.

5. Pour cooled liquid over the peppers.

6. Cover the container and place in the refrigerator for 24 hours until vinegary smell dissipates. Because the seeds were left in, these peppers may only get hotter with time.

Disclaimer:This recipe was safely tested on my co-workers. I cannot be held responsible for the damage to your internal organs.

Warning: During the preparation of this recipe resist the urge to rub your eyes and any other sensitive parts of your body. Wash your hands before touching yourself. Women and girly-men are allowed to wear gloves.

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For thousands of years alcoholic beverages drastically improved countless holiday parties on every continent in every political and social system. Here is an appropriate illustration from the Life Magazine Archives taken in Leningrad in 1956.

Before:

After:

Caption reads:A party at the home of a so-called “typical Soviet worker”, the Dmitriev family. The father, a skilled metal worker, is actually a member of the Communist Party & does much side work for it, so they live far above working class average. (the line about side work for the Communist Party doesn’t make any sense to me, not sure what it means).

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You mean to say that going to a Korean Festival is not on your bucket list? Then my bucket list (if I had one) definitely kicks your bucket list’s ass.
The best thing about going to a Korean Festival is a lot of Koreans, they are nice and friendly people who don’t mind a freeloader who showed up as a friend of a friend of a guest.

Any self-respecting Korean Festival starts off by singing Korean National Anthem followed the US National Anthem.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXIJKyuU1d4

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdki1LhKT5k

Korean War Veterans get a lot of respect at the event.

You’d think that reading Korean is hard…

…but you’d be wrong, I immediately knew what the 3rd prize was.

Another great thing about Korean Festivals is a combination of soccer, tennis and volleyball they play there.

For the entertainment Koreans enjoy making fun of the non-Koreans pretending to do martial arts.

I thought something was strange when whatever the martial arts people were screaming sounded a lot like “Jesus First” but then they proceeded to create cross formation and re-enact the Passion of the Christ.

This is the part after they crucified their instructor a.k.a. Jesus…

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxnZAqZ97BI

…so he can return from the dead.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5aAhsfRSl0

Of course no one leaves hungry.

To recap: nice people, a show about Jesus and martial arts, good food and lots and lots of soap.

Now on to the next item on my list….

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Just like this summer, my sunflower patch slowly died down.

Once strong and hopeful plants shriveled up and hunched over, leaning towards the ground overloaded with multitude of empty seeds.

It was time for them to go.


And just like that the garbage lid of life closed in on another summer. Hopes, dreams, plans will start over again next year.

And now we dance:

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