On my way to the office I witnessed a hilarious scene – a russian girl dressed in a sexy suite walks by the street, one of her hands is casted in plaster, nevertheless the manicure on her injured hand looks so good, and… OMG!!! her plaster cast is decorated with bows! )))))))))
Well, last Saturday (30th May) I had a chance to visit city day fireworks with some of my friends. Basically I didn’t use to visit this type of street festivities as the common sense says me that it always has regrettable results in Samara. But… Ok… I’ve gone as there are some folks I want to hang out with.
So, the beginning was quite inspirational: nice dinner in a sushi place, walk to embankment and even beautiful firework. We were on embankment near Polevaya and people there were relatively calm (except for one drunk freak who were constantly yelling: “Hooray! Samara-Samara! Glory to Russia! CSKA(??????!) champion!”). Also we didn’t see the laser show, but it might be our fault as it promoted to be near Ladya, so we might stay to far away.
But real comedy started after we caught a tram to back home. So, we have a really mucky tram with a unconscious guy with bleeding broken head accompanied by his stupid girlfriend (she just stroked his shoulder, kissed him instead of getting him to the hospital which is just opposite the tram stop!) as a background. Me and Katie fortunately took our seats, Tom was standing… sorry Tom.
What’s next? In the next 20 minutes I fully realized who made Russian revolution – the masses. So the masses – the crowd of drank freaks (who were totally drunk long before the fireworks – thanks to the soccer match 
)) quickly filled the entire car. With the fabulous aroma of beer and urine they also bring total chaos in the tram: they block the exits, constantly press the emergency brake button, knock at the door… windows… roof, yelling, etc.
All this situation seems to be pathetic and funny but only until the moment when they turned off electricity and engine, saying that the tram is broken because of frequent emergency brake button usage… well, my travel companion seems not to be very happy… but in a few minutes the engine started work fine! It was just a psychological trick to make that clowns in the car more calm! After that point things went much better – “the masses” start leaving the tram, it goes without the accidents. We safely came to our homes.
But, I have a few conclusion:
1) crowded events are evil;
2) crowded events in Russia are doubly evil as a lot of drunk idiots want to show their boldness;
3) crowded events in Russia on the day of soccer match and two days after the frontier guard forces day are triple evil;
4) using municipal transport in such situation is an awful idea;
5) and the last thing – never believe tram drivers, they always ready for kidding!!!
And as a soundtrack for that event:
Well, now we have such a strange season in Samara – it’s 15C bellow zero, but there are practically no snow on the streets… Basically you can’t find many evidences or signs of upcoming Holidays (a few garlands and x-mas trees in foreign-owned firms doesn’t count), except so called “New Year corporative parties”, so the only difference between “New Year party” and ordinary party is that name – “New Year” …and may be that drunk guy with extremely strange sense of humor called Dedushka Moroz ) I don’t want to say that they do absolutely nothing about decorating the streets, they place quite nice nylon stars on the pillars, but in comparison with western countries it’s too little.
Ok, I understand that majority in Russia don’t want to celebrate “western” Christmas, but why the hell they think that creating festive mood means to buy and decorate a tree a few hours before New Year and to dump it next morning?! The the pleasure should be prolonged )
Anyway, if they don’t want to cheer us up, we will do it ourself ))))
That funny X-mas/Chanukah movie I’ve found this morning:))))
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II, who presided over a vast post-Soviet revival of faith but was accused of making the church a force for nationalism, died Friday at age 79, the church headquarters said.
The Moscow Patriarchate said he died at his residence outside Moscow but did not specify a cause of death. Alexy had long suffered from a heart ailment.
Alexy became leader of the church in 1990, as the officially atheist Soviet Union was loosening its restrictions on religion.
After the Soviet Union collapsed the following year, the church’s popularity surged.
Church domes that had been stripped of their gold under the Soviets were regilded. Churches that had been converted into warehouses or left to rot in neglect were painstakingly restored, and hours-long masses on major religious holidays were broadcast live on national television.
By the time of Alexy’s death, the church’s flock was thought to include about two-thirds of Russia’s 142 million people, making it the world’s largest Orthodox church.
But Alexy often complained that Russia’s new religious freedom put the church under severe pressure, and he bitterly resented what he said were attempts by other Christian churches to poach adherents among people who should have belonged to the Orthodox church.
These complaints focused on the Roman Catholic Church, and Alexy refused to agree to a papal visit to Russia unless the proselytization issue was resolved.
However, Alexy lived long enough to see another major religious dispute resolved. In 2007, he signed a pact with Metropolitan Laurus, the leader of the breakaway Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, to bring the churches closer together.
The U.S.-based ROCOR had split off in 1927, after the Moscow church’s leader declared loyalty to the Communist government.
Alexy successfully lobbied for the 1997 passage of a religion law that places restrictions on the activities of religions other than Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. Under his leadership, the church also vehemently opposed schismatic Orthodox churches in neighboring Ukraine, claiming the Ukrainian church should remain under Moscow’s control.
