On the morning of April 22nd, my family and I arrived in Varna, returning from a short “vacation” during the holiday period, as weekends are called in Bulgaria. The weather was wonderful. It wasn’t hot, around 20 degrees Celsius. The sea hadn’t warmed up yet, so even at the end of April, it’s usually not hot in Varna. “Comfortable e,” as the Bulgarians would say, pronouncing the last “e” as our “э”.

Continue reading Sri Lanka – 2010 →

In April 2008, my wife and I decided to fly to Vancouver, Canada, at the invitation of our friends. We waited for one month to obtain a visitor visa. We left our children in the care of their grandparents and nannies, and at the end of March, we flew to British Columbia, via Frankfurt with Lufthansa.

Continue reading Canada. 2008 →

On September 10, 1988, while being second-year students, we entered into lawful marriage. The wedding was modest. We deliberately refused a long list of potential guests, around 150 people, who were acquaintances and friends of our parents but not our close ones. Instead of a lavish wedding “like everyone else,” on the second day after the wedding, we departed in the evening by bus to Almaty and then by plane to Sochi. On the third day after our wedding, early in the morning, we landed at the airport in the city of Sochi (Adler), on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus.

Nearly three weeks in Abkhazia, in the town of Gantiadi, located near Adler, were simply unforgettable.

It’s been 25 years… Continue reading Silver Wedding – 2013 year →

Everyone in our family knew how to shoot, including my mother and sister. My father, who was an active officer in the KGB of the USSR, believed that everyone in our family should know how to handle firearms, just in case.

Due to certain internal requirements of his organization, my father and his colleagues were required to undergo regular training and periodically pass shooting exams. As a result, my father would accumulate a considerable supply of ammunition every three months, and we would organize trips to secluded yet picturesque locations, where we would practice shooting with his standard-issue “Makarov” pistol.

Sometimes we would venture into mountain gorges, while other times we would choose the banks of a river or a clearing in the woods. We often combined shooting practice with hunting. Despite that, my father never took the life of any animal or bird, but he enjoyed the process itself.

Continue reading Pistol shooting →