Sunday, August 9, 2009

I was ready to practice again. But the weather was not cooperating.So my friend Andrei offered to go indoors.
We walked to a near by sport complex that was build in 1960's and still had Soviet feel to it, and I found out that the courts were wood! I haven't played on wood since 1993! I didn't even know wood courts still existed!
If you want to imagine how it feels to play on wood, go on basketball court, put a net across and
hit some tennis balls. It's very very fast but a lot of fun!



When we came out of the sports complex it was sunny and hot again and people started to come out to the lake to swim. We watched them swim and jump in the lake but had no courage to do it ourselves. The lake has a nice sandy beach and on very hot days it's as full of people like the beaches in South of France.

Walking back to the house we saw Russian car called "Ziguli." You can only see these cars in Russia. I call them "antique metal." They are pure metal without air-condition or airbags but they run for a long, long time.
My brother's first car was "Ziguli" and back then it was the best car to have. No matter if it was loosing parts while driving! You had a car and that's what was important. Because back in Soviet Union not many people could afford one.

My father for example, had an old 2nd World War German motorcycle with a passenger seat attached to it. The motorcycle was painted black to cover any war damages and was the coolest thing to ride. I remember me and my best friend Lena were begging for hours for a ride around the block. And when we were aloud we looked like two "Matreshka's" (Russian stacking doll) covered from top to bottom. Nobody could see our happy smiles underneath heavy wool blankets but our souls were singing!

Those were good old times...The motorcycle is long gone.It was sold for 2.000 rubles (less then $100) and the passenger seat is serving as a flower bed at the summer house.





1 comment:

  1. you must show the passenger seat as a flower bed! take some pics! how interesting:)

    ReplyDelete