20 random facts about me

It was written for a game in a group vkontakte which we played with other moms obsessed with early English. Each of us took turns writing this kind of staff.

When I started writing I thought 20 facts was pretty too much. I could do with just four :) But as I took more time and got my mind set on it I could not stop new ideas coming to my mind. I worried a little bit, because you might find the whole story to be too long. I could not put it in a nutshell, sorry. However I do not want to be my own worst critic.

May be I am the only mom who decided to save her story in a blog, to share futher on. And this fact probably makes me the most childish member of our group. :)

So fact number 0: I am the most childish mom I among us :)

1. I was born in Irkutsk exactly 32 years ago. Yes, fact number one: it is my Birthday today :) I do miss sunny November days and siberian winter which is sunny and frosty. European winter is grey and depressive to me. Sun means energy!
And I would like to write two more facts about Siberia: a) it is the place where the cars have steering wheels at their right sides; b) if you hear a person saying 'I am from Vladik' be sure he means Vladivostok, not Vladikavkaz :)

2. I remember my grandpas, both came back from the Great War. One of them (mom's line) was an artist. And he lost his right arm at war. After the war he got married and fathered two daughters. He did not like to be treated as one handed, he had pride and mastered everything with his left hand. He could use matches and changed his razor. And he did not quit painting with his left hand! I found his copybooks with reversed tilt of his handwriting.
The other grandpa (father's line) had long life and lived through epoches. In his childhood he was an assistant at church service (candle stick holder and carrier, I'm not quite sure of the terms). Later he became an atheist and communist, wrote articles about Lenin. And in his late years (at 2000's) he came back to religion again. He had strong memory, at the age of 90 he could sing all songs, psalms and prayers he had learned in his childhood. He died when he was 99.

3. Ten years ago I was very religious. I never missed a Sunday service. And I took part at painting frescos in a churh in Irkutsk. Ornaments were my part of job. Now I am absolutely not religious. Well, my mom and my sister are still icon painters in Irkutsk. They do a great job.

4. I swam in the deepest lake in the world: Baikal!

5. I moved to Moscow in Y2006 to work as a stewardess for S7 airlines. I had domestic and international flights but did not care much as mostly we were not allowed to leave the plane. And here comes a funny story. We had a flight to Baku. And my function was to read announcements into the microphone. I read out: ladies and gentlemen, we are approaching the airport of Barnaul (I did not care where, I remembered the city started with B and had stressed U sound :) I am sure some passengers were shoked to be sent to Siberia instead of warm Baku :) since then I know I should look at the map more often and learn geography.

6. I met my husband-to-be in the underpass at Pushkinskaya station. And those who have been there know: there is the big Pushkin statue. Thus when asked where we met I say: under Pushkin.

7. Being in love I wrote poems, not more than ten, I think. And hundreds of small rhymes to fit in sms size. I inspired my husband-to-be to rhyme his messages too. We could not delete those messages until our phones run out of memory limits. And then he made me retype all of them into a Word document. All rhymes are stored somewhere in old laptop which makes it uneasy to share.

8. I love drawing and painting. Actually I find my graphics better than paintings. I really like pencil scketching. In Tretyakov gallerry my favourite hall is Vrubel's hall. And I like standing there watching not only his paintings but pencil drawings too. I love Pushkin Art  museum, the impressionists. I keep discovering new names in my list of favorites when attend exibitions. I was not fond of Dali's art before I saw it with my eyes. The same I can say about Toulouse-Lautrec, I was very imprseesd and wanted to copy his art. Go to the exibitions! :)

9. I absolutely illiterate in music. It seems a miracle to me when I see a person playing music at xylophone :) or even more simple things like glasses of water.

10. I became obsessed with sports and yoga only after giving birth to my daughter. I had been slim, no - flat - before getting pregnant and had hardly ever made any crunches at that time. And now I have turned into a gym addict. And my biggest callenge is to make a hand stand.

11. I have no make up. The only one thing I need is face cream. Oh, and the second thing is cotton swabs. So my morning procedures are short :)
To be true it is my husband who hates make up, not me. He finds it silly and this is the best phrase to picture his attitude: women powder to disguise blue areas under their eyes just to put some blue areas above. He makes me laugh :D

12. I have never thought of piercing ears (or other parts) and my husband seemed to be happy about it. He emphasised it at our third date, putting my hair behind my ear he wondered that I had ho holes for earrings. Splendid, he said, it is a very rare fact nowadays.

13. I love Russian culture too. I like Chekhov,  Dovlatov. I love films, (but I may interpret the titles wrong) "Hallo, I am your Aunt!" "That very Munchausen", "Town Zero" and others... My favourite actors are: Kalyagin, Yankovsky, Churikova, Filatov, Yevstigneev... Sorry to say that only two names are alive in this list :( It is a shame to say that living in Moscow I do not go to theatres much. I have been only four times in different theatres here. I really enjoyed two plays in these theatres: Sphera and Et Cetera. Kalyagin is awesome!

14. I am 14 and a half years younger than my husband. We registered our marriage in Mozhaysk, (the closest ZAGS office  to the place where our datcha is). Tasya was two years already. In my imagination I pictured our wedding on a hot summer day. We could gather all kids from datcha and decorate the car and have a great picnic. However we postponed till everyone was gone from their dachas for the school year. No guests, no parents, no one at all. No dress, no rings, no wine. Plenty of apples and mushrooms. It was a cold foggy morning in September. I was wearing a white turtle neck pullover :)

15. In the year 2012 we rented out our flat in the centre of Moscow to skip cold winter and to stay in warmer zones of this planet. So from October till May we rented flats on Cyprus and Canarias and came back to Russia to spend summer at datcha. We liked this lifestyle and skipped two winters this way. Until last December the currency rates made us come back to Moscow. It came as a shock, the rent income was no longer equal to our travel expenditures.

16. I do not like flowers.
My mother-in-law seems to mention about it at the very first chance anywhere. And in her interpretation "Tonya does not like flowers" sounds as weird as "Tonya never changes socks" (which I do).
She spends hours in our garden taking care of the flowers. I had 6 months year old baby when I arrived to datcha the first time. Did she expect me to pay attention to her flowers then? I don't know. And I was pretty happy to have some time to harvest berries and fruits. But she labelled me for ever. I did not like flowers. Because it was true.  And I would like to tell you how I discovered it myself. I remember reproaching my husband with these words: I can not remember the last time you brought me flowers. It was so long ago!
My hubby answered like this: may be you remember what kind of flowers they were? - And here I found out that 'nope' and did not even care about them. Since then I never ask him to bring me flowers. I would forget to change water anyway. And it is my hubby who waters the flowers if there are any.

17. I like reading books in English. I will name two of my favourites: 1) The Hippopotamus by Stephen Fry 2) A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka. And I want to share my discovery with you: There are always English books in the resorts and hotels. Some allow takeaway if you have a book to swap it with. And my last discovery is a group Audiobooks vkontakte. I may listen to them during sleepless nights, no need to switch the ligt on :)

18. In contrast to Dasha I can say that I am rather clumsy. I have squashed four phones I had plus one of my beloved husband. No wonder I am using the one with a web of cracks at the moment :).

19. Oh no! I have just recalled one more crazy fact about me. I am absentminded: Clearing off the table I threw away the car keys together with the disposable table cloth. It happened long ago in our early relationships and my husband could cope without a big stress about it, just lots of laughing and joking about it.

20. I have no high heels. My husband would feel uncomfortable if I had any. Because heels eliminate that 5 sm gap between him and me and I may look taller.

I wanted to make a hilarious reading staff (good enough for the next book of Helen Fielding :). But speaking of my grandparents is not hilarious at all, thinking of that generation puts me into a different mood.  Hope you enjoyed reading.