пух - Say it with me now...poo-kh

I can’t possibly put it any better than the reporter at RIA Novosti so I won’t even try.  The weblink to his article is : http://en.rian.ru/david_burghardt_blog/20110525/164219353.html

The text is copied and pasted below.  All I can say is that I can corroborate every word he says!  The photos below, taken by me two days ago, back up his claims.  I feel his pain.  I found some pukh floating in the apartment yesterday and I have no idea how it got indoors.  This stuff is more invasive than zebra mussels or purple loosestrife!


What the Pukh?! Not again!

Moscow seems to have two seasons: winter and pukh (pronounced poo-kh). Both of them are white, one is cold and the other is just pukh.

The winter season is pretty much clear to everyone if you know anything about Russia or Moscow, but the pukh season is a mystery to people who have never been to Moscow in the summer. Come to Moscow and I’ll show you some good pukh! Actually, I don’t have to show it to you. You’ll have pukh down your throat, pukh in your nose and eyes, pukh stuck on your clothes and in your hair. In other words, you’ll be completely pukhed if you come to Moscow in summer. Pukh is so important in Moscow that even a Russian pop group, Ivanushki International, sang a song about it a few years ago. The pukh song is still famous and you can hear people singing “Pukh” around the city when it’s pukh season.

So your question now is probably: What the pukh is pukh?

Pukh is the result of a Soviet-era experiment gone totally wrong. In efforts to make Moscow greener and create more oxygen for a healthier life, linseed trees were planted throughout Russia’s capital. The result is that these trees begin producing and releasing into the air a fluffy substance similar to cotton but much lighter, referred to as pukh in Russian. The air becomes thick with this fluffy white stuff and it looks like there’s a blizzard outside in the middle of summer. Or someone up above is having one heck of a pillow fight. Pukh gathers in drifts up against curbs and buildings and the wind will carry it and swirl it around in your face long enough for you to go mad.

The pukh is irritating and causes many people suffering from allergies to just want to curl up and die somewhere. Pukh is not only outside on the streets, it floats into your house, into restaurants and cafes, pukhing your cappuccino, summer salads, and cold beer. Nothing makes me angrier than having my beer pukhed when I’m out with friends.

There is no pukh relief. Not even when you’re sleeping as it gets sucked into your mouth and nose as you sleep at night, and you wake up and wildly hack pukh up and rub your eyes from pukh irritation.

The only slight relief from the pukhing problem are summer rains, which usually don’t last long and once the pavement dries, you’re up to your neck in pukh again. The annual pukh season usually ends somewhere at the end of September, so we’ve got a long pukhing time until we finally swap pukh for the cold fluffy stuff commonly known as snow.

What the pukh?!!

this stuff is everywhere

there is truly no avoiding it...

People are so frustrated that someone has even taken to sending a graffiti message to the pukh!

"I don't love you :P"

Передeлкино

Пастерна́к's дача

What to do on a beautiful, sunny, Spring Sunday in the city? (Hey, did you notice what I did there with the alliteration?)  Why, head out to tour a дача complex southwest of Moscow, of course!  Передeлкино (Peredelkino) is well known for being a Soviet writer’s colony and was featured in John le Carré’s spy novel “Russia House”.  Today it serves as a дача colony still, but it now serves as summer homes to many wealthy and notable Muscovite families.

Of the many famous writers who lived in the complex during the Soviet era, the dacha belonging to Nobel Prize-winning writer Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к (Boris Pasternak -author of Dr. Zhivago) has been preserved as a museum.  Our tour guide Светлана (of course, her name was Svetlana!) provided us with a comprehensive and detailed history of Бори́с’s life while taking us from room to room, explaining the significance of many of the pieces contained within (his дача being preserved in the manner in which he lived until his death in 1960).

the photo from the 1940s shows how nothing has been changed/removed from this room

early television -they would fill the front glass with water to magnify the tiny screen

main dining room looking out upon the gardens planted by Пастерна́к

Пастерна́к's father was an accomplished artist -his sketches depicting life in Soviet Russia

Серге́й Васи́льевич Рахма́нинов (Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff) once played this piano

Soviet décor just as I envisioned -a single, bare, incandescent lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

boots and a wardrobe

Пастерна́к's writing desk and table

multiple translations of Dr. Zhivago; first published in Italy in 1957

Пастерна́к's deathbed -flowers are routinely laid on his bed in memoriam

Пастерна́к's death mask -it is said that he smiled ever so slightly after his death

A stroll across the street and through tree-lined paths brought us to a monumental sanatorium complex that is home to a banquet hall that once housed writers’ residences.  The weather was stunning -the sun providing just the right amount of warmth and the leaves just the right amount of shade to keep us comfortable.

Down the lane a piece is the residence of Корне́й Ива́нович Чуко́вский (Kornei Chukovsky), the Russian Dr. Seuss best known for his children’s rhymes and tales.  Apparently every Russian child is familiar with his tale “The Cockroach”...

http://www.scribd.com/doc/57112894/The-Cockroach-by-Kornei-Chukovsky

children's library established by Чуко́вский

Чуко́вский was a writer, not an illustrator so his artist friends decorated the pillars and posts around the village with images from his tales and poems.

Ummm...I think I’m going to stick with Fox in Sox, if that is ok with you. 

“When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles......they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle.” -Dr. Seuss

Next on the agenda was lunch consisting of pineapple juice, salad, borsch and a (pork?) cutlet with pasta and dill -everything comes with dill here- served banquet-style in a tent at a local restaurant/hotel.  There were 18 of us on the tour and lunch was a nice break from all the walking, listening and hiking around the complex.

hotel gardens and property

dining tent

Our afternoon дача museum tour took us to the former residence of Булат Шалвович Окуджава (Bulat Okudzhava), Russian poet, writer, musician, novelist, and singer-songwriter.  He is considered by many to be Russia’s answer to Bob Dylan.

A devoted fan created this clay portrait of Окуджава

interior of Окуджава's дача

Окуджава once received a bell as a gift from a fellow writer and others simply followed suit -bells just became a tradition.

Окуджава's sleeping quarters

дача exterior

plant life

Our last stop was the grounds of the 19th-century Church of the Transfiguration of the Saviour.  St. Phillip is the patron saint of the church.  Phillip was apparently chosen by Ivan the Terrible to be the Metropolitan of Moscow, as he displayed seemingly indefatigable stamina in building his community both spiritually and physically.  Many of his public works survive to this day.  St. Phillip was the only open critic of Ivan the Terrible and agreed to serve as Metropolitan on the condition that Ivan put a stop to the опри́чнина (oprichinia -domestic policy of secret police, mass repressions, public executions, and confiscation of land from Russian aristocrats).  The killings were stopped over a period of two years but soon started again.  When the Tzar was refused communion and publicly rebuked by Phillip for the re-institution of the practice of опри́чнина, Phillip became a marked man -Ivan the Terrible had him deposed and a year later, put to death.

 

As the Church of the Transfiguration of the Saviour remains a working church, women are expected to cover their heads and as one of our tour members discovered, shorts are not appropriate attire for a house of worship.  It was quite astounding to witness a tiny, little бабушка turn from her quiet task of brushing aside wax from the candelabra and exclaim “shorts!” and with a series of rapid gestures, not unlike the switching of a broom, shoo out a man twice her size in height and girth.  The clucking and disapproving looks he received from the wizened old lady made me thankful to not be the object of her wrath -and believe me, wrath it was.

Just across from the church is what can only be described as St. Basil’s baby sister.  It seems that the church is no longer large enough and will be moved across the way to the new structure currently under construction.  I'm assuming the parish has raised funds for the construction.  I am also assuming that the parish is crazy wealthy.

Onion domes to rival St. Basil's

construction on the facade and exterior is almost complete

Down the path is located the church cemetery that is home to a number of notable residents of the Moscow area, including both Пастерна́к and Чуко́вский.

Communist Party members' graves

beautiful monument

I wonder what adventures next Sunday will bring?  The possibilities are endless.  As our tour guide mentioned, Moscow is at her best in late May.  I would have to agree with her.

I sometimes shake my head in wonder

So here's the thing...I'm learning a great deal about the world and the many possibilities and ways that things can get accomplished.

Apparently to protect one tree you have to chop down another and use the milled boards to build a fence around the first one.

I just don't get it.

С Днем Победы!

Но́вый Арба́т bridge decorations

May 9 Victory Day celebrations in Russia mark the capitulation of Nazi Germany, signaling the end of Вели́кая Оте́чественная Bойна́ (or BOB) -The Great Patriotic War.  The surrender documents were signed late in the evening on the 8th of May in Berlin which was the 9th of May in Moscow -hence the split from V-E Day, celebrated on the 8th in the rest of Europe. 

This momentous and auspicious occasion is marked by a ceremony in Red Square to commemorate the estimated 28 million lives that were lost in the Soviet Union during The Great Patriotic War.  It is an official "no work" day with people making up the lost day by working on Saturday instead.  This ensures that everyone can attend the celebrations.  Rousing speeches by military and political leaders coupled with military processions and parades marching through the square with practiced precision inspire feelings of both confidence and national pride.  Viewers can't help but be awestruck by the sheer number of soldiers marching in perfect columns with military precision -the phrase had to have been coined after observing the Russian (Red) Army march in step, I'm sure.

For two weeks prior to the Victory Day celebrations there were almost daily rehearsals, closing off major streets and arteries unapologetically at various times of day and night to ensure that the troops were in perfect form for the 9th of May. 

We spend a few hours walking around the parade path the Saturday prior to the celebrations but were only able to catch a fleeting glimpse of a helicopter fly-past.

The streets were closed off and guarded by armed military personnel for a few blocks on either side of the parade route, barring access to casual and curious observers alike.

 

As Russian pride was depending on it, the parade participants had to put on a flawless performance.  I shudder the think what the consequences of a misstep would be.

On the day of the celebrations I was fortunate enough to be able to watch the events in Red Square through the modern miracle of live streaming.  With the surrounding metro stations closed, there was no chance that 'mere mortals' could gain access anywhere near to the Kremlin let alone penetrate its walls.  We didn't even bother to go downtown on the 9th.  What I was able to witness with my own eyes, however, was the procession of military vehicles that followed a 10km route through the city.

   

I just had to cross the Но́вый Арба́т bridge and found myself with a clear view of the best of what the military had to offer from service vehicles to tanks to trucks carrying rockets and nuclear missiles (the nukes were NOT attached TYVM).

**Mr. U made me add the 2nd video.  Apparently it's not Victory Day without a tank.  Who knew?!!

It made you feel very small and insignificant but at the same time it was strangely comforting to see the tools that were (potentially) being used to keep "us" safe from the evils and horrors of "the West".

С Днем Победы!  Happy Victory Day!